Monday in L.A.

When we woke up Monday morning we ordered a huge amount of room service for breakfast, then took our time getting ready.  Oh, the love of having no worries.  We went to the Galleria Mall for a little shopping fun, purchased a few things, had lunch there, then went to Venice Beach to see if we could catch any performers on the street.  Turned out that there were a few too many scary deserted spots… and did I mention scary?  We tried to blend in by zipping up our hoodies over our heads… plus we were cold.   

This was someones home!  We parked right across from it and walked a block to the beach.

Who wouldn’t want to run through this hill full of birds and scare them all away? 

The wind was blowing so hard, we were wondering if we should take that tsunami sign seriously… like now!  We sat here and chatted while taking in the gorgeous view.

But we were COLD!  What would you expect from two Arizonians in frigid 60 degree weather?

Then we got busted by the beach police. 

I guess the KEEP OFF sign was for us.

And then a piece of garbage flew into Heidi’s eye.  While I laughed uncontrollably at our perfect (scary) beach experience, Heidi worked on getting a huge black piece of string that would NOT come out.  Oh yeah, did I mention we were hanging by this ghetto bathroom where a homeless lady was sitting next to, with her clothes and bags and everything she owned, just rocking back and forth, staring at me and talking to herself, while I waited for Heidi.  Heidi had no clue.

Yeah.  Need $?

Well, I gotta say, Venice Beach was quite an experience.  We should have listened to the hotel guys when they kept saying how nice Santa Monica Beach was every time we’d ask for directions to Venice Beach.  Now we know why.  They probably thought we were crazy.

THIS though, was a GREAT ending to an adventurous child-free day.

Believe it or not, these were the two fortunes we got from our fortune cookies.

Oh, and our beds were absolutely delightful.  Down everything!  The night before and this night also, we talked ‘til about 1:30- 2ish in the morning. 

Good times.

WE MADE IT!!!

We arrived in L.A. at 6pm sharp.  And then it was time to venture the L.A. world all on our lonesome.

We got a little turned around and lost for a sec, looking for where we needed to go to get the rental car.  We were like two blind ladies without our seeing eye dogs.

 

But we got hooked up with a little nicer rental car for the same price as the basic basic.  We were riding in style in our leather Ford Fusion.  And we were right around the corner from our hotel.  We could see it from the rental car lot.  But to tell you the truth.  We drove around for about almost 45 minutes trying to figure out where the hotel parking was.  The man at the valet told us it was behind the hotel, so we went around the back and it was no where to be found.  We circled and circled the hotel following one way streets back to the beginning with no luck.  How were we missing it?  Well, the guy said parking would be $13 a day and so we pulled into a parking lot with a big sign for $13 parking, which was right behind our hotel.  We parked, to find it was the WRONG lot.  We searched for a parking attendant, convinced him of our stupidity and confusion and got him to let us out.  Not even this guy could tell us where this “imaginary” lot was.  He was no help.  We FINALLY  found it.  The sign was in small letters, “airport parking and hotel parking” and it was $10 a night, and it wasn’t directly behind the hotel, like the valet guy had said.  So a lot of time wasted, but most of it laughing. 

What were the guys thinking sending us helpless ladies packing in uncharted land? 

Then we had trouble getting into our room, which was on the 12th floor.  Both our keys wouldn’t work, so back down the elevator we went to get our key reswiped.  It was a long crazy confusing night, but we made it into our room and got settled in, texted our hubbies that all was well and we were safe, then gps-ed the closest theater and went out on the town.  Good times, good times, already.  GPS was our bestest friend.

I had to warn Heidi that I like to take pictures.  She said she’s not a picture person, so I had a lot of fun.  She soon got used to it and became very photogenic.  hee hee.