City of Lost Angels

We made it to L.A. Tuesday eve around dinner time. Dave and Jan had supper ready and of course some local Cali brew for yours truly! We took a nice long walk after wards to a park that strangely enough had a gazillion people there but no restrooms open?

Wednesday morn we hopped on the subway and headed downtown to the Grammy museum! We stopped off first at The Pantry for brunch and Dave showed me the joys of Four Square on my smart phone. The museum was AWESOME and I could have spent the rest of the day plus some perusing all the very cool interactive exhibits. After, we headed over to the ESPN building and loitered around the ESPY awards for awhile, then had a very surreal experience at the arcade with a group of hassidic young women and ended up at Trader Vics for some drinks with naked tribal men that were on fire in them...he he


We headed back on the subway after a short shopping spree at Macy's (the gman busted his flip flops and was limping around like a deranged vagrant person). A short TA at the Sloan residence and we were off to see Emma in "Neverland".

Dave was kind enough after the show to take the kids to In and Out and Jan and I headed to Umamis. Now I would like to take a short moment here to try and share what kind of experience I had at Umamis. First off, I cried when I bit into my burger. That's right, real tears! I was instantly transported back 30 years to my childhood and I was in my Mother's kitchen eating a burger she had lovingly prepared for me. This burger at Umami tasted like real meat. Yeah I know, what do I call the meat I eat right now? I am not sure what I call it aftre this burger! The Umami burger is ground steak that is hand formed and cooked medium. It was as close to perfect as any food I have ever had. That's all I can say about it without starting to tear up again :)
In my quest for the Clunker badge on four square Jan took me to several more stops that night and I earned my new badges.

The next morn we packed up and hit the Buttermilk Truck on our way out of town. L.A.'s newest food rage are all these mobile food trucks fashioned after the trucks that hit the construction sites. We had crazy good red velvet pancakes, french toast sticks and chicken and waffles. We said goodbye to our bestest westest coastest friends and took off for northern California. We stayed at a KOA near Mount Shasta last night and had a yummy breakfast this morn at a BBQ joint. A not too terribly long drive got us to Eugene by 1 today. We did laundry, took showers and had a yummy birthday dinner for the Gman at a local hangout followed by an even yummier desert stop. Now we are going to watch a movie and hit the hay. The Gman starts his 4 week program tomorrow with the Northwest Youth Corps and I head out for my own adventure.

until later gater, rob