Sightseeing in California…

We have to leave to pick up Julie in about 50 minutes, so I will be rushing through today’s post to be able to walk out the door on time. Once we pick her up, we’ll head to a famous deli in Los Alamitos restaurant for the reunion lunch with my cousins whom I haven’t seen in 60 years. There will be eight of us.

Tomorrow, I will report back, hopefully, with photos of the group, keeping in mind that some do not want their photo posted online. I always respect such a request.

After lunch, we’ll head back another 45 minutes to Julie’s place, where we’ll spend the evening. If we get hungry, we’ll order carry-out food to be delivered, have dinner, and do a load of laundry at Julie’s house. With that, we’ll be ready to embark on the next leg of our journey.

I spoke to Marylin and Gary this morning, and they are looking forward to seeing us in Salt Lake City on May 5 for dinner. We will drive toward their area and find a hotel near the restaurant so that on May 6, we can commence the balance and longest portion of our road trip. It’s odd, but we must return to Las Vegas to drive to Salt Lake City. There is no easier or quicker means of getting there. It feels funny that we’ll be heading back there but will only stay one night before we continue on to Utah the following day.

We had fun seeing the Santa Monica Pier, which I hadn’t seen since I lived in California 55 years ago. I was brought up in Long Beach, about an hour from Los Angeles, and I had no desire to return there when it was so long ago, and we don’t have any family or friends there.

We had no interest in embarking on the long walk on the pier since Julie has a severe ankle injury and my walking, well, as you know, isn’t that good. Instead, we took several photos, people watched and reveled in the exciting area. I had a vision of gorgeous people in skimpy clothes on skateboards, as shown in commercials for this area.

Ha! That is not the case. They were just like us, ordinary folks in casual well-covered clothing without skateboards; since many tourists were our age, it’s unlikely they’d be on skateboards in bikinis. Nonetheless, the people and the dog watching were exceptional, and I couldn’t help but squeal with delight over everything we saw.

After sightseeing ended, we returned to Brentwood for another fantastic dinner we all thoroughly enjoyed. We dropped Julie off at about 9:00 pm and returned to our nearby hotel. I awoke during the night and had trouble going back to sleep. I try not to think unpleasant thoughts at night, so I watch a few funny videos to pull me back to sleep an hour later.

I awoke this morning well-rested but later than I should have, and thus, I must rush to get today’s post uploaded before we need to leave. Our lunch is scheduled for 11:30, which will require driving in traffic. We’ll see how it goes.

Be well.

Photo from ten years ago today, May 3, 2014: