Greener Pastures Dispatch

Today was our last day in San Diego. We visited the Mission, and Coronado Island. We have to get to bed as we depart early tomorrow, so I’m not going to try to look at our pictures at all. I will have time to check them on the train, but won’t be able to post until we are home. It’s been a great trip. I’ll finish up photos, captions, and some thoughts after we are back.

One note on weird coincidence. When we checked into this hotel, we heard that Art Linkletter died. There is a picture in the lobby from when this building housed a radio station, and it mentions this is where he got his start. Then today, we heard that Dennis Hopper died. We saw a house he owned in LA, and were discussing whether or not he had died while there (I think I had heard he was ill). So it’s been kind of weird to be crossing paths of these people at the same time they are passing on. Sadly, good people and talented people gotta go, too.

Hopefully, all those we know personally are doing well. Our best, R&R

So when I last wrote I was in the train station in LA headed for San Diego and Ensenada, Mexico. I have since posted pictures of the trip to Ensenada and the following day with more Ensenada shots, shots of Adam’s new business venture, and some from around our immediate area in San Diego. I followed that up by putting up pictures from Yesterday at a few sites in San Diego. None of them have been captioned yet. I’ll try to get around to that, But for now will post a note on our recent activities.

The trip to San Diego by train was quick and simple. We arrived and waited for Adam at the Warbux across from the Amtrak station. It wasn’t a long wait, and so soon we were being scooped up by Adam’s partner, Stan, and whisked off to Mexico. Crossing into Mexico was a breeze, except we had to navigate around by back street due to massive loads of PM traffic. Stan showed us around the beach house, and it is really of the charts sweeet. His family uses it for breaks away from San Diego, as well as using it for a place to take clients when trying to close the deal. I can see how it would help with that.

We went out to dinner at a nice restaurant down the road, and it is a shame to see how empty the places there are. All the tourist have been scared off by news horror stories about the drug violence. I’m not saying there isn’t a violence problem, but so far it’s only effect on tourist has been their own fear. After the meal, we went back for a late night stroll on the beach. The weather was perfect. It was a great visit, if all too brief.

The next morning we did another beach walk, and then went to find some breakfast before heading to Tijuana again to see the factory. We had to make a couple of stops to find one open, as many have gone to weekends only due to loss of business. Then it was time to see the plant. It’s quite the operation, and I’m rooting for them to make this fly as the economy ticks up again.

The crossing back was not as easy. Stan had a special pass, but that means the rest of us had to walk across. Quite the lines and several arrest we got to watch. then there were lots of cops from several agencies all around on the US side. Some sort of crackdown, we assumed. Other than taking a bit of time, we had no trouble at all getting ourselves through.

After that Adam had work to do so we left him alone for the afternoon, but hooked up again for dinner in the Gas Lamp District, which our hotel is just on the edge of. Adam took us to his favorite place where he recommended their steak. I have to say I have NEVER had a steak that good anywhere else. We also walked around the area checking out spendy old cars and spendy old wine. I’m glad neither of those are habits of mine, as I spend enough on travel and don’t need any more expensive hobbies.

Yesterday, Adam and Stan had a full day of work and we planned to meet him to repay him with a dinner of our choosing. Rita and I started our day by heading over to Old Town and checking out some of the old buildings in the park there. We didn’t end up exploring the rest of the neighborhood as I was not feeling very energetic. We came back and took a break, then decided to check out the USS Midway in the harbor, which is just a short walk from our hotel. After that we had plans change as Stan invited Adam, Rita, and I to go to dinner with him, his wife Mel (Imelda) his youngest son and one of his sons friends. We ended up back in Old Town, but in the restaurant area instead of the park. Lots of great eateries to choose from, but Stan’s first choice was gone, so we went instead to his favorite mexican restaurant. It was really nice, and it was nice to meet Mel as we had heard so many good things about her the day before, and had been disappointed not to get to meet her then. After that we returned to the Hotel, and said our goodbyes to Adam as he had to fly out early this morning.

We started today with a trip to the local Bikrams Yoga Studio. Today I got lucky and had my Goldie Locks class. Jim, the teacher was also the owner. While the room WAS brutally hot, it wasn’t over hot like San Francisco. It was just the proper brutal heat called for in Bikrams. It was a bit humid, but I think that was because we decided we couldn’t comfortably make the first class at 6:30 AM using transit. After people practice in a room the humidity always is a bit more. Jim is still a friend of Bikram, and runs his class “by the book”. He was so detailed I didn’t have time to think and just did what I was told. He asked Rita to do her second set of standing separate leg stretch while the class watched to see the correct form. She got a round of applause. He also managed to get me into the second two parts of Awkward by explaining what I had been missing, and then got me all the way into another post that I’ve never completed by talking me all the way through it. It was just right.

After class I really wanted to just take some time off, and Rita has been wanting to go see Balboa Park, which is a huge nature pard with lots of museums and the zoo in it. I decided to do computer stuff and let her go on her own, as my knees are NOT up for that kind of walking. We haven’t decided on what all to do tomorrow, but we will make it a full day as it it the last. Sunday we board the train to make our way back to Seattle and work. I’m hoping to get time to caption those pics before I get home, but I’m not sure that will happen. I had planned to do it on the train last time but the Wi-Fi was out. I can’t do it if I don’t have internet access. So, if I don’t get them done before departure, I will be at the mercy of what the train has to offer. So no promises, but I’m trying.

We hope everyone is OK. We are kind of waiting to hear about our grandson Nicholas as he was having some problems that sounded like it could be appendicitis.

Our best, R&R

Not EVERYONE in LA is a famous movie star! Try telling Rita that.

So yesterday was a bit of a mess but I think it all worked out in the end. At least it will have if Mike got the work he needed from his bid. We screwed up a bit in the communication department and didn’t manage to reconnect with Mike. We thought he was coming downtown and then calling but he was thinking we were calling… Well we talk a lot and it’s easy to loose details in the soup. We feel bad he made a trip in and didn’t connect, but then he needed to be focusing on work and I wouldn’t have wanted him to feel bad about not seeing us, so maybe it’s not really a bad thing we missed.

Rita and I started with “Bikram’s Luke Warm Room Speed Yoga” (that’s my name for what we got). I hate to admit it, but after the brutal heat and detailed corrections of the San Fran Session, I’m not too displeased. This one was really just warm and other than telling you when to change NO instruction. I almost yacked my neck as there was no direction on how to go into the posture. The bright side is I now know how great our local instructors are. REALLY. I am hoping for a session in San Diego, and maybe (like Goldie Locks) we will find one that’s “just right”.

After class we went back to the hotel to drop the car and clean up. Then we walked around downtown taking pics for a while. I apologize that none of them have captions yet. I barely got through them last night and uploading was all that got done again. I hope to actually take a break in San Diego and that would be a good time to relax, review, and caption the earlier part of the trip.

While we were waiting for Mike (before we realized our mistake) we went looking for some lunch. We stumbled into a place right by our hotel that turned out to be the oldest Mexican restaurant in LA. It’s in an historic old building, and it was FANTASTIC! We were so thrilled with the find. As we left we realized what looked like a hole in the wall from the street has a wonderful front onto a large enclosed street market setup in what was originally part of Los Angeles Mission. Lots of booths and small shops selling hand made goods. Really a great fun place.

Then after calling and realizing we weren’t going to work out a meeting with Mike we got back in the car for some exploration. First stop was Griffith Park Observatory for some great views and (for anyone near our age) some important movie history. (See “Rebel Without a Cause”)

Then we headed off on my quest. I didn’t think it was a quest, but it became one. I wanted to get to the back side of the Hollywood sign. Everyone said I’d be dissappointed because you are fenced out and can’t get to it. MY point was to get behind it, to see it the way you only do in movies. Everyone seemed to think that was weird and not worth the effort. Of course, once I discovered what effort it was, I can see that it would be a lot for most people just to see it from behind.

I THOUGHT you could drive fairly close. Boy was I wrong. The closest place is more than a mile and a half away, and it is in serious hills.

We found this out when we hit the “do not enter” sign at a horse ranch. But a nice lady told us how to get there from where we were, and of another place where most people walk in from. We opted to walk from where we were, and took off. All the way I’m thinking, “I’m going to regret this on the way down!” My knees get bad mostly on downhill. So I knew I’d make it UP, I just wasn’t sure if they’d need to medivac me out.

We then ran into a car driving down, and I freaked. But I was rudely told when I asked if you can drive up there, “No! YOU can’t.” I was so relived that I wasn’t walking for no reason that I didn’t care he was an asshole about it.

We were nearly at the top when we were passed by a runner, that of course, “must be a movie star who comes up here to run so no one will bother him.” (according to Rita) And then when a helicopter landed, the story evolved into “He just runs up and then they fly him back down to do it again. Maybe he’s a famous athelete.” You can’t convince Rita that everyone in LA isn’t famous. My theory was they were there to medivac me out!

At the top, I had some moral support that I’m NOT crazy, or at least, I’m not the ONLY crazy person, for wanting to reach the sign. We ran into a young guy there who came all the way from Northern England to get his picture taken there. Rita helped him get a shot of him and the back of the sign.

As we were idiots and brought no water, we did not stay too long. We were amazed by the views, Hollywood, Griffith Park, and downtown LA one way, and “the Valley” the other. But I was dreading the walk down.

As we were leaving, and the helicopter I spoke of started to take off, we were joined by two nice young guys. After Rita explained her theory of why the helicopter was there (and I’m surprised they kept talking to us after that) they explained THEIR theory. They said they had been behind the fence by the sign, and they thought the helicopter was looking for THEM. I found their theory far more plausable than Rita’s.

We walked down the hill with them and in the short amount of time that it took Rita found out they were from Pensylvania and had moved to LA for the movie buisness, one to act the other to write.

The actor, William Robertson, is just now doing his first feature, “the Percect House”, a gore for the sake of gore horror flick. He seemed thrilled for the break, but maybe a bit less thrilled for the kind of movie he landed a part in. I reminded him of how many GREAT actors got their start in Roger Corman flicks. Who can forget Bruce Dern with multiple heads?

We won Rita a T Shirt by posting the picture of her with Will on the movie’s facebook page. We told them we will definitely be following their careers now, and hope to be able to say, “We knew them when…”.

Unfortunately, we discovered we had talked our way down to the OTHER place to park and walk, and were far, far away from our car. These kids then offered to take us over to it in their vehicle, if we didn’t mind riding in a farm truck straight off the dairy farm in Pensylvania. Our South Dakota relatives will be glad to know it was a Ford.

They saved my life as my legs were already gone and there was no way round that was not back up and over the same hills or MILES around by roads (with nearly as bad a hill). SOOOO nice of them. I don’t usually watch those kinds of movies anymore, but I will be seeing “the Perfect House”!

After that we did a drive by on Hollywood proper. One quick stop at Hollywood and Vine to shoot the Capitol Records building, and then a drive through to see what a ZOO Hollywood is today. WOW. Things change.

We had to stop on the way to Hollywood for water (lots of water), and of course tea and coffee. Man, what a stream of low life and sleaze parading through and around. Not that there weren’t regular folks, too, but man… The area has NOT benifited from it’s past, except maybe in cash milked from tourist. The “moment” for me was thinking how the mom dragging her kids to see this stuff felt about the naked person on the porn poster. Then I spotted the star on the sidewalk below it and wondered what THEY would think. Really, I just can’t tell you how WOW!

So now We’re on the train to San Diego, looking forward to seeing Adam and learning more about his new endeavour. And a night at a beach house in Ensenada shouldn’t be bad either.

More later. Our best to all, R&R

OK… maybe I don’t LOVE LA, that’s Randy Newman’s thing, but it ain’t that bad. And Santa Monica and Venice Beach, and Topanga Canyon were great, so if THAT’S also LA, maybe I do.

Yesterday we rode the train down from Oakland to LA, checked into our hotel and crashed (well, I uploaded a bunch of San Fran Pictures because I finally have some good internet). Today we walked back to the train station to get our rental car. Did you know you can’t rent a car in LA at night except at the airport? So after getting the car we headed out to Santa monica to meet my cousin Mike Prock, another of the “lost” Kelley side relatives that I have reconnected thanks to Facebook. We spent the day catching up on what lives we each have lead between the nineteen seventies and now, and it was pretty interesting. While we visited we walked around Venice Beach, and went for a drive to check out Topanga Canyon, Mullholland Highway, and Malibu. I was really surprised not so much by how quiet and remote some of the area was, but how BIG the quiet backroad area was. We went for quite a while and it was amazing to think we were still really in the city.

We had diner at one of Mike’s favorite “greasy spoons” Teddy’s on Bundy Drive. I told Mike I wasn’t sure about eating a a place Called Teddy’s on Bundy Drive but I’d give it a try. It was a pretty good meal n a place with a lot of character. The day was great, and the weather was OK except it was very windy during the time we were on the beach. But I have to say, you could do some serious weird watching in a place like that. Quite the community. Of course Mike has been here for a long time and notices how the old scene has changed, but he did run into people he’s known since they were just kids. And even the people he didn’t know were talking to him like they knew him. It’s just has such a real neighborhood feel, it’s amazing to realize you’re in a modern city.

But I really don’t have a lot to say right now, so I’m just going to try to get some pictures up. I don’t think I’ll have time to do captions tonight, and don’t know if I will for a while. So those of you who can handle seeing them now and having them explained later feel free. Otherwise, I will post when I have the captions on them. I gotta go to bed soon as we plan EARLY yoga tomorrow. I think I yacked my back pulling the luggage around too much yesterday, so I don’t know about how it will work out for me, but I’m hoping it will actually help. I’m hoping for a mellower class than in San Francisco, but you just go and see what you get.

Our best to all, R&R

So, playing catch up. I’ve had little time and crappy internet so far. Hopefully this will improve. I managed to upload a bunch of pictures from Sacramento, but only by loading a bunch and letting it run all night. When I get better connections I’ll try to organize that mess into smaller groups and add captions. I couldn’t even do that in San Francisco, as the wi-fi kept logging me out regularly and killing the upload in the middle. Now We’re on the train to LA and I was hoping for at least a bit of wifi time for the writing, and to try and download a better uploader for the pictures, but I’ve been informed there is no wi-fi on this train (unlike the leg from Seattle to Sacramento). Here’s our impressions so far.

Sacramento was great. Small but lovely. We enjoyed the Old Sacramento area a lot, though I’m sure if we had hit there in the height of tourist season, it might not have been as pleasant. A lot of it could come off as kitsch, but the nice scenery and good eateries made up for that. The small size made it not be the kind of place for spending all your time, but the proximity to the capitol and the rest of downtown made for a great time. You simply walk under the underpass and you are right downtown.

The Capitol was incredibly beautiful. A large park around it with every kind of plant imaginable, and the most spectacular trees. If we had more time we are sure we would have enjoyed the Capitol tour, but as it was, we settled on seeing it from outdoors. All in all it was a great surprise, as had Jay not lived there and been able to visit, it was not on my list of cities to see.

Our time in San Francisco, was kind of a different story. We loved every minute there, but it was a matter of what to rule out and what we would have time to see (and the ability to get to). We had a list from some friends, and got some more great advice from the host at the restaurant the first night. We managed to do cable cars, Lombard Street (the famous twisty one), Golden Gate Park and the museum tower there, Golden gate Bridge and a bit of the Presidio, Alcatraz, Telegraph hill and Coit Tower, The Ferry Terminal Building, Dolores Mission and a bit of the Mission District, The Moscone Center, and Yerba Buena Park. And of course Yoga at Bikram’s first U.S. studio. However, you can see that leaves as many sights unseen as seen. But it wasn’t bad for 3 days on our own. We could have done a tour to see more, but less of it) but we are glad we saw fewer things, but more of them. Now we have an idea what’s there, we can come back and cover some of the stuff we missed.

We traveled by BART (light rail), Cable Cars (truly unique, but go EARLY if you want to enjoy them), Streetcars (a variety of antiques from many American and some foreign cities), Electric Trolley buses, Diesel Buses, and of course a lot of foot travel. We ate at some really nice places and some quickie places. We had great weather overall. It was a very pleasant stay. And we enjoyed a quick visit with one of our daughter Angela’s high school buddies that we don’t see much anymore. That was really fun, too.

But one thing… has anyone but me noticed that San Francisco is kind of gay? ;^] The two things that really surprised me were how many street people they have and how, unlike Seattle where you can sort of not notice the gay community when you’re away from the heart of it, in San Francisco it all sort of had that vibe. I’m guessing if we had made it into the heart of the Castro area it would have been easier to see the rest as “not so influenced” but we didn’t make it there, so that will be next time. I have to say, I’m not gay but I LOVED what they’ve done with the place. Just seemed like so much of what was around was done with a lot more flair and style than you’d find in most cities. I’m not sure, but I think maybe even some of the newer architecture has been influenced by it. All in all I think they have a better city for it, and I think all those opposed to the idea of “open” gayness should go see how much it has to offer the culture. But SF, please do more for your homeless population, it’s really getting out of hand.

We really weren’t in Oakland long enough to speak of it. We just got off the train there and came back to catch the train out. However, the “old town” part near Jack London Square seemed to be either being developed or collapsing. A lot of nice buildings, but not much in them. Could be it was in mid transition when the recession hit. But either way, it looks to have a lot of potential, and the part of the downtown we could see as we hiked from the train station to the Bart station was pretty nice as well. Though I thought they had a street people problem as well until I realize we were walking by the social services building and a halfway house. But they Police Station was right there as well, so I didn’t feel too nervous. It certainly doesn’t seem too bad in it’s downtown area. Of course, we only saw a small bit for a short while. And of course, it’s never going to compete with SanFrancisco as a tourist destination, but that can be a good thing at times. Like when the regular folk get passed by two or three streetcars in a row because ALL the tourist at Fisherman’s Wharf want to go back to their hotels at the same time.

The difference in riding a cable car early AM with commuters and families using it to get to work or drop the kids at school, and stuffing in like sardines after waiting for several cars to get a turn is night and day. I just imagine how really pleasant living downtown was before seeing a city became something tourist did. Or at least before MASS amounts of tourist did. So maybe being near a “sightseeing” city in a different nice city wouldn’t be a bad thing. And if you craved it, you could climb onto Bart for the commute and go be sardined in San Francisco any time you wanted.

So I will try to organize (and caption some) of the Sacramento pictures, and Post our San Francisco pictures, when we get into LA. Provided I have a turn of luck in the internet department. But if I have to trade the luck we’re having on the trip as a whole for the luck with the internet… no thank you. It’s been too great to complain.

Our best, R&R