July 19 - 21, 2024 - Lafe and Faith's Odyssey

The LA Experience

In the morning, I got up early to get some work done before we all got ready and hit the road to LA. Our first stop was at the Getty, an art museum in the northwest part of the city that we reached after the usual slog through traffic. The museum is comprised of a set of beautiful white buildings on a hill holding a variety of exhibitions along with some lovely gardens outside. We wandered through a set of carvings from a little-known French artist, many 1600-1800s paintings, some Dutch paintings of “winter scenes”, and all sorts of other odds and ends. There was a lot on our itinerary, so we made a quick stop in the gardens before heading to the California Science Center, a more hands-on museum with exhibits about aerospace and earth science. On the way there, we stopped to get Starbucks as we had some coupons for cheap drinks. LA is not a nice place, and neither was the Starbucks. There were a lot of people on the streets, many of whom clearly lived there. While waiting for our drinks, a homeless lady sitting with her things on a bench at the bus stop stood up, turned around, dropped her pants, and urinated on the sidewalk in full view of the traffic. This was followed up with her laying her blanket on that same ground under the bench to lay down. The sight was simultaneously appalling and pitiful. It’s so disheartening to see how awful the streets are in California, one of the richest places in the world. We quickly left and made our way to the Science Center. We didn’t have much time there, but we were able to see, touch, and smell some interesting exhibits on different biomes and their denizens. As the center closed, we headed up to the Santa Monica pier to wander around and poke through the various shops and watch the carnival rides perched atop the glorified wooden dock. We eventually made our way back to the car and hopped in for another long drive through LA traffic back to the beach house. We got back late and immediately crashed into bed to get some sleep.

The next day offered little respite as we had to get to the nearby swap meet/flea market to see what deals we could find. Joel and I are not nearly as interested in shopping as the rest of the party, so we made quick work of the dozens of vendors before grabbing some mangoes and finding the others snacking on fresh Rainier cherries. We joined in and helped consume decidedly too many as they slowly made their way through the stalls, making sure to not overlook any possibly perfect purchase. Everyone but Joel found something(s) to their fancy, be it a hat, shoes, clothes, or fruit. Eventually, we finished seeing the market and made our way to Huntington Beach for some fun in the sun. It was a warm and sunny day, and we weren’t the only ones there. The beach was packed, the roads were packed, the town was packed, and seemingly every square foot of the beach was filled with people and their things. Fortunately, we got decent parking and a good spot at the beach from where we could watch some college boys dig a 5-foot deep pit towards China. The surf was cold (surprise, surprise), so we didn’t stay in long before ditching waves for rays and a kite in the consistent beach breeze. We got strips for a traditional Huntington snack, which are a basket of corn chips with shredded cheese brought together by an excellent red salsa. As evening arrived, we packed up our beach equipment and did some more shopping since we hadn’t done much yet that day. With the shops searched and our legs tired, we headed back down the coast to Dana Point for another evening at the house.

The next day was different as we were not going to be back that night: we would be at an Airbnb in San Diego for a few day mini-trip. So, we packed up things for a couple nights away, crammed ourselves into the car, and headed down the coast. We began with a stop at the La Jolla Cove beach to (briefly) snorkel in chilly waters alongside the local, vocal sea lions and catch some rays. We got to the Airbnb soon after it opened and took a while to swim in the pool and relax before putting on some nice clothes for a dinner at Olive Garden. Jon and Stefawn’s first date and engagement were at an Olive Garden (not the same day), so they took us all out to one in celebration of their anniversary. In the typical OG fashion, we consumed copious amounts of salad and breadsticks before our entrees arrived, which we could only eat a bite of before calling it quits and saving the rest for the next day. Yet, we still had some room for a few bites of dessert graciously provided by our server for celebrating the day. After dinner, we snagged some groceries from across the street and headed back to the Airbnb to hang out and get a few hours of rest before the next day’s activities.