Well, sort of. We went to Los Angeles for a couple of nights and I kept being astounded at how much it had changed since I lived there…..only 45 years ago:-) Our hotel was downtown, a place I worked for many years. I am pretty sure Cliff got tired of me pointing to places and telling him what “used to be there.” The hotel was built in the 1920s and was completely rennovated two years ago. The public areas are great. Books “flying” off the shelves in the coffee area, modern touches on the walls and bright colors everywhere. Cozy is one word for the renovation of the rooms — Cliff’s feet are resting on the bed which will give you an idea of the room’s dimensions. And instead (?) of a closet, there were two hooks in the entryway. Not my best choice on this trip.
But we were in L.A. and I had a lot of memories there. We drove by the house I used to live in on Orange Drive and Cliff was relieved that there were no tears as there had been for a re-visit soon after I moved to Chicago. Not a chance. I would definitely NOT want to live in L.A. again. I looked up the house on Zillow and found that it last sold for over $1.7 million!! I think the very long tree trunk you see on the right side is the one palm tree (out of about 7!) that I kept. At the time, its fronds shaded my upstairs bedroom window.
Besides there being ALOT more traffic, another on-the-road change in L.A. is the ubiquitousness (is that a word?) of Waymo self-driving cars. We saw them everywhere, often in groups of three or four heading down very busy streets. One of the things that caught our eyes was that the Waymo cars are of a variety of makes. The one I got a picture of was a Jaguar!
Another memory lane place was the location of Bekins’ headquarters on Figueroa Street. It’s been replaced with what was originally called The Staples Center (where the Lakers play) and is now called the Crypto.com Arena. Long, long ago when I first worked at Bekins, L.A. police SWAT team sometimes took over some floors in the warehouse to track gang members in the neighborhood! L.A. Live is an entertainment district that has consumed the entire area. It now includes a Regal Imax theater where we caught an afternoon showing of Odysseus.
The journey to the theater from our hotel should have taken us 10 minutes. BUT we were convinced we’d seen the Regal on Flower Street so we added about 30 minutes to the trip. If you are visiting L.A., the Regal is on Figueroa. Because it was a weekday, afternoon show we were not concerned about getting tickets. Hah! We ended up in the 2nd row (and not in the center) because anything better was taken. Nonetheless, we enjoyed the show and our extra-long walk kept us from buying too many snacks1
I also wanted to visit the Los Angeles County Museum of Art where the David Geffen galleries had recently been opened. My memory lane recollections of LACMA were of visits to the single building fairly near the much better known La Brea Tar Pits. Now it is a museum campus! We’d planned on spending two hours there and ended up spending four and still saw a fraction of it. The David Hockney Mullholland Drive artwork is one of my favorites. And Cliff loved the Studebaker Avanti!
Last, but definitely not least, we had the opportunity to repay a kindness shown to us on our recent Danube cruise. At our post-cruise tour of Prague we chose what was billed as a 2 hour, fairly easy walk through the large castle complex. We took a bus ride up to the castle, toured the area and headed down. What we didn’t know is that the “down” entailed hundreds of steps. Neither Cliff nor I “do” downward stairs all that well. And by the time we got near the end we were both near our end. To the rescue! Pablo Valadez and his wife Cathy saw our distress, found us a nearby bench and arranged for a cab to take us back to our hotel. They absolutely refused to let us pay them for the cab. BUT, we knew they lived in California and we knew we were taking a trip there and we promised to take them to dinner when we were there. And we did! They picked the Granville in West Hollywood which was spectacular (the best meal of the trip for me). We had a great time and were nearly the last people out the door. We’re hoping for many more opportunities to see them. Alas, too much fun, too much conversation (and maybe too much wine??), I didn’t get a single photo.
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