California Dreaming

For Christmas my daughter Debbie and I flew down to Los Angeles to spend Christmas with my son. Flew down on the 23rd and got a car. Took an hour and a half to go 13 miles to Jeffrey's place because of traffic. Went to dinner at a Japanese place where you boil meat and vegetables in a pot.
The next day we went to Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles. It features fried chicken with waffles, sounds strange, but is a great combo. Although not very healthy, but good. After that we drove out to the Getty center. Paid $15 to park, but the museum itself was free. Good collection and layout, but the best part was the amazing city view from the balcony. They also had a great garden with paths and even though it was Christmas Eve, it was in the high 60's and sunny. Stopped in an Italian neighborhood of one of the suburbs and had a really good lunch, then shopping and a home cooked dinner.

Christmas day we drove to near downtown to see the house used to film the TV show Charmed, my favorite show. Then went to Santa Monica to see the ocean, but so did many other people. It was way too crowded, so ate lunch and headed out. Decided to run, so I parked in West Hollywood and ran down a dirt path through Beverly Hills. Turned down a road when the path ended and it went along side a golf course and had gigantic houses that looked like several millions. Turned around and went back the same way for 6 miles total. Then walked next door to Jeffrey's place to an Italian place that was pretty good and had wine bottles built into the booths.
Sunday morning we ate at a Pancake place that was just like Voodoo donuts in Portland. The Gridle as it was called had HUGE pancakes with anything you can think of in them. I was able to finish only half of my plate. Then we drove down to Long Beach and went through the Queen Mary. Very interesting, although costly. But they did give me a military discount for all three tickets. Ate lunch over in Long Beach and on the drive back Debbie saw a sign for Compton and wanted to see it since she'd heard of it. So I drove Compton Blvd all the way through Compton. What a different world. Lots of idle people and bars on all windows and lots of abandoned buildings. At one point I saw what looked like an abandoned old school and across the street all the houses looked empty and had no windows behind the bars. Back at Jeffrey's I used his apartment weight room and then we walked down Sunset Blvd to a healthy pizza place for dinner.
Monday Jeffrey had to work, so Debbie and I just hung out and I went running from the apartment up to Runyon Canyon and to two viewpoints and back for 4.5 miles and lots of climbing. Then the flight home.