Jet Lag

Sorry, no pics yet. I just haven't had a chance to download from the camera, but I can still tell my tale. I'll add the pics later.

This past Sunday I set out an adventure to the West Coast. This was to be my first time in California and my first time to see the Pacific Ocean, so it was a little exciting. I was travelling alone, though, so it was also a little disappointing. I think this trip could've been much more fun with a spouse or friend. As it was, I know no one in California and I didn't meet anyone that I wanted to know. I was looking for some of those "California Girls" mentioned in a few of The Beach Boys' songs, but I think they've all moved to Texas. Looks don't pay the rent in Cali, and if you try to go down that road the you're a whole different kind of girl.

Sorry, I got off track a little. Back to the story. So, I got on the plane at DFW on Sunday afternoon. After being seated for about 10 minutes, the plane was nearly completely boarded and the pilot's voice came over the intercom, "Uh...I just got here, so I've got to do my pre-flight check before we can pull away from the gate. It'll be at least twenty minutes."

So, where was he for the last 30 minutes? I just thought, "I remember this episode of 'LAX' [the short-lived TV series]," and I hoped that I was not living that out because where that pilot had been was not in the best interest of the passengers. Can anyone say breathalyzer??

It was more like 40 minutes until we pulled away, and after waiting for a while on the tarmac we were able to takeoff. The pilot was obviously innocent of any negative charges as he provided a quick, smooth flight to LAX while I watched Gladiator again. I love that movie.

I went straight to the hotel that night, ate dinner there, and stayed in until I left for my class the next morning. Here's where things really got interesting. After my class was over on Monday, I decided that I didn't want to eat at the hotel. "Surely there's a Chili's, Applebees, Outback, something familiar somewhere in this city," I thought, "and after living in a big city for a while, surely I can find it fairly easily."

WRONG!!

I was about a block over from the freeway, so I figured I'd get on there and head into the main part of town. The only problem is that I couldn't find an entrance ramp for the freeway. I drove all the way to downtown on city streets trying to figure out how to get on the freeway. No kidding! It was a 2 hour drive, and I'm not exaggerating.

Along the way I saw lots of interesting things: gun store, liquor store, gun store, liquor store, bail bondsman, liquor store, gun store, and lot's of guys wearing blue. Thankfully I had on a blue shirt that day, so I just leaned back my seat, cranked up some bass and drove on like I knew what was going on. Okay, so I didn't really crank up the bass. I didn't want to draw attention, but the rest is true, and all of these stores had metal bars over the windows and doors. Never a good sign! It reminded me of Dave Chapelle's comedy when talked about being taken to the ghetto without being warned. The only thing missing was the baby selling crack, but I might have just not noticed.

Once I got to downtown, I saw an entrance ramp for the freeway, but then I had a new problem. There are no exits from the freeway either. Either way, I never saw any place to eat that I recognized, and I was afraid that if I got off the freeway, I wouldn't be able to get back on, so I just went back to the hotel and ate there again.

The next afternoon, after my class was over, I had a plan. I had located a Chili's off of Sunset Blvd, near UCLA. I figured that I could drive that way and if I saw another more interesting place along the way, great, if not at least I could eat at Chili's. I had a little trouble again getting on the freeway, but I managed to get on a little sooner and was soon cruising off to Sunset Blvd.

I started on the east end of this famous road and headed west. What an interesting drive. The first part is a really run down looking part of town like most of what I had driven through the day before, and then suddenly it becomes a more modern, more hip area with just a lot of questionable businesses. I mean questionable like tattoo parlors, piercing parlors, and tons of XXX live nude girls bars.

Now one thing that I was really surprised by was the number of XXX bars, adult bookstores, adult movie stores, etc in this town. They were all over. When driving through town I saw at least one every quarter of a mile or so at least. Given that, it makes a little more sense to me now in an LAPD detective movie they always have to make at least one trip to a XXX bar in order to solve the case. Of course, I've still got the question of why they can't do it before they hand in their badge, but that's another post.

Back to the story, after the seedy and then sultry part of town, I came into Hollywood. While there was still plenty of seedy and sultry, the atmosphere was a little more like home with some recognizable stores. Just for fun, I actually jumped a couple of blocks north to see the famous Hollywood and Vine intersection.

This was not a place where I was comfortable getting out of the car. There were at least 6 XXX bars right there and all manner of other adult businesses. The only thing that kept me from getting back to Sunset faster was the old homeless woman trying to cross the street while holding her breath and making a slight swimming motion. Apparently she thought that we were under the ocean or something.

Continuing on down Sunset, I found an In-N-Out Burger joint. I had heard about this place from some of my friends that used to live in California, so I pulled in to have a bite. It was pretty good, and after I finished I headed west again.

Pretty soon I was in Beverly Hills. The shops here were really pretty interesting, but I nearly wrecked my car when I saw two things one right after the other. The first was a Guess billboard that would not have been out of place in France, but seemed a little odd in the USA. Regardless, I really want a pair of Guess jeans now. The second was the Hustler store. I didn't stop or go in, but this place was about the size of a Wal-Mart with many different mannequins in the windows in a variety of poses; none of which required clothing and some of which may be physically impossible to achieve.

Next up, Bel Air. I couldn't really see the houses because they were all hidden by high gates, shrubs, fences, guards, etc, but it was still kind of fun to drive through. Then I move on along to the ocean. There was really no one on the beach and the beach itself was not all that impressive, but I drove south along the coast for a while until I cut back around LAX to get to my hotel. All in all a much better experience than the day before.

Finally, I was ready to go back to DFW. Our flight left LAX on time, and landed at DFW a little early. Backups in the gate, though, prevented us from being able to get off the tarmac, and poor Leah had to wait out front for an hour or so while we sat on our plane waiting to taxi to our gate, get connected to the jetway, and de-board.

I'm glad to be back in the Central Time Zone now, and I will try to get some pics added here soon. In the meantime, enjoy my story!