More time in Los Angeles (12-17-13)

I was pretty happy to move a little further south, where the weather forecast called for temps in the 80s, but of course part of my happiness had to do with the fact that we’d be spending more time with Jess.
Originally we were only going to be here for two days, but she ended up with vacation time, so we stayed a few days longer and delayed our arrival in San Diego.


 
The first order of business was to decorate for Christmas.











Jess was a great help, when she wasn’t hamming it up for the camera!

I think Dozer likes the tree because it gives him a new corner to hide in.

Every year we add a few more Christmas decorations, but I think we are getting close to being done buying.

  When we had the  house, we had 27 bins of decorations.  In the RV we have at least two. That’s a lot when you consider how small our basement is!

Once the chores were taken care of, Jess couldn’t wait to take a spin on Paul’s newest toy. It only took her about 2 minutes to get the hang of it and ride around with the throttle pinned.













The last time we were here, we had great plans to do a bunch of hiking.  Well, that never happened so this time we made more of an effort to get out there.  

Our first day in L.A., Jess was working so although not quite a hike, we walked with her and the baby she nannies for to the local mall- The Grove.  He loved watching the dancing fountain!

Just in case we ran out of time (or ambition) again, we started our hiking adventures with one of the hikes unique to Los Angeles.  We hiked to the Hollywood sign!

The trail is well traveled, of course.  Its very wide, more like walking up a street than a trail, but its almost two miles in each direction, with great views of the city along the way.











Here’s the view from behind the sign:





 
Although that was the only hike we had a chance to do, we did go for a fairly long bike ride.  I think the head wind made it feel even longer, plus I discovered halfway through that my rear brake was stuck “on” so I got a better work out than the other two!

The bike trail runs along the beach for much of the time, making the trip much more enjoyable. Our destination was Venice Beach.

Lunch at the Venice Ale House

Venice is one of many beaches in the area that cater to the tourists.  With the weather in L.A. being picture perfect so much of the time, you see some unique things on the beaches. Of course there are the many open air restaurants, and the usual vendors along the boardwalk.

There are also some unusual sights, including a piano player serenading all of the shoppers, and a full outdoor gym, typical of what you would find indoors.








Jess warned us that although Venice Beach is “ok” during the day, it is definitely not someplace you want to be come sunset, so after a short visit, we took off for home. With all the warm weather, we tend to forget that the sun sets at about 4:30 in the afternoon.

The trip back was made more interesting by the views of the setting sun along the way.  All in all it was a great day.

Dozer also enjoyed his visit to L.A.   He loves finding new places to sleep and was very pleased to find the empty shopping bag that was left in the living room.

Apparently the pigeons in L.A. are not familiar with cats.  This one wandered around in front of our rig for quite a while.  Dozer probably would have enjoyed  himself a lot more if he hadn’t wrapped himself around the post, and was actually able to reach the bird.

L.A. Living (11-09-13)

I think living in L.A. is not for the faint of heart.  I might think that partly because driving a dually around the city of Angels is not exactly fun, but the amount of people that live here is overwhelming anyway! Traffic, of course, is a nightmare,  Everyone parks on the street, because they have converted their garages to living space.

The RV park we were staying in is right on the ocean.  There were some positives to that- obviously the beach was great, but we were on the flight path for LAX and the planes flew right over the RV park at times.  Not so much fun.

 
In the winter, they build up a large berm to protect the RV park from ocean storms.  Unfortunately the berm was up, and blocked our view of the water- but the kids enjoyed sledding, L.A. style!









The sunset view from the top of the berm was unbeatable!









We had a whirlwind visit with Jess.  It started with her cooking dinner for Paul and I at her apartment.

The following day we headed to brunch at BLD’s, a popular L.A. restaurant. We needed fortification for the full day of shopping ahead of us!  Jess’s Christmas present is some new clothes, so we were off to the mall to see what we could find.

The mall was so big we used Paul’s GPS to find our way to the next store on our list.  Finally, after hours of  shopping, we had everything we needed!

Sunday, Paul’s brother and sister-in-law drove up for lunch.  Tom showed Jess his stacking can trick before we all went for a walk on the beach to walk off our quesadillas.

We finally got the bikes off the back of the trailer and took advantage of the bike trail that runs more than 20 miles, from just outside our trailer to Marina Del Rey.  So beautiful to ride along the shoreline.








   Marina del Rey is home to quite a few seals, and several of them were swimming nearby as we rode along.











Only in L.A:  On the bike ride back, the trail was about to be closed because a TV show was filming nearby.  One of the stars loved Paul’s mustache and stopped me to show me pictures of his dad, who also sports a handlebar mustache and looks a lot like Paul!



Of course, our visit was too short and way too soon it was time to move on to our next destination.