Hey Los Angeles

The last few visits to Los Angeles (LA) were made when I was barely of legal age to drink in this town. Those were purely outings to theme parks meshed with some rather torturous family trips, and quite a lot of meals at terrible Asian-American diners. Mexican food was awesome. But from what I remember of LA and well, what I've seen on tv aren't enough to entice me to return as a tourist. My favorite memories are of California's natural parks and mountains. You know those. I'd return again and again.

Between the man and I, over the years, we've somehow separately accumulated good friends who're now residing in LA. This trip is pretty focused- stopping by to say hello to the friends. Coming into town from the airport, fresh out of Seattle, LA is jarring. Between the airport baggage claim to the hotel room, to have five people cheerily tell us "Oh I'm an actor/in film school/going to be an actor", there was no doubt that we had indeed arrived at Hollywood stronghold.

[And TSA decided to lose two of my locks on a domestic flight. I knew it!]

It's also like we brought the rains. They kept saying SoCal doesn't storm. It did, with hurricane-force winds. But the flat desert city of LA and beyond aren't made for storms. Widespread power outages, mudslides, rockslides and floods hit SoCal. And schools were closed for the day. Lake Tahoe saw seven-foot waves and instead of skiers, the surfers caught those waves. Heh. It cleared up and is forecasted to rain for the rest of the week. Much needed to break this drought. California needs to replenish Lake Mead four times over and build up their groundwater reserves again. But the rains are comforting; reminds me of Seattle. I love that.

Overlooking Sunset Boulevard and far in the distance, Santa Monica beach.