A Brief Vacation Recap

BaT is back in God's Country following a weeklong trip to the Los Angeles area. My impressions in two short phrases: beautiful weather, horrible traffic. We had a good time and especially enjoyed the Getty Museum (not the artwork but the architecture, the gardens (my personal favorite) and the view -- as well as our midday drive up the Pacific Coast Highway.

The highlight of the trip, of course, was the Tuesday night gathering at The Abbey -- even if there were no "Wonder Years" sightings. But there were other stars: both FB and Jay from Hot & Fresh (Almost) Daily, the Boi from Troy (complete with USC jersey, of course!) and Ceiting from Kinkyrhombus. Unfortunately, a few others were unable to make it due to travel and other complications.

Budding fashion maven FB was approached about designing costumes for porn movies. The rest of us were completely unaware that porn movies required costumes.

We had a good time at The Abbey, and later, most of us headed down the street to a club which featured a drag queen lipsynching standup comedy. It was a definite "WTF?!?" moment. I was a little tired after the morning at Universal Studios and my body was still adjusting to Pacific Time, but I managed to last as long as everyone else.

As a tourist, Wednesday was the best. We slept in a little, then headed to the Pacific Ocean. It was a gorgeous day, and we had a little picnic on one of the overlooks.

On Thursday, we did a lot of the touristy stuff, like Graunman's Chinese Theatre -- "to visit Los Angeles and not see the Chinese is like visiting China and not seeing the Great Wall," or so the Web site proclaims (although I have news for them ... I went to China and I didn't visit the Great Wall) -- and the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I resisted the urge to break out into The Kinks ("You can see all the stars as you walk down Hollywood Boulevard"), especially when I saw that Judge Judy has a star and Clint Eastwood doesn't. Thursday night ended with a Korean BBQ (thanks to Ceiting). Clever gimmick -- bring people a tray of meat and let them cook for themselves. Low labor costs and no one can send a plate back to the kitchen.

Friday morning plans for a leisurely breakfast were ruined by the breaking news out of London on Thursday. So breakfast turned into getting up early, returning the rental car and arriving at the Delta counter three (yes, three!) hours before takeoff. The return trip, however, was surprisingly smooth, as I routed my flight back through Cincinnati instead of Atlanta. (Travel tip: Always avoid Hartsfield on a Friday if you can.) I was back on the ground here at the scheduled time, although droopy from getting up three hours earlier than planned.

Some photos from the trip will be (or already are) posted above.