Twenty Four Hours in La La Land
Our last trip in 2018 was a very quick trip to Los Angeles. Back before Right Buddy (RB) had decided to quit her job, we booked a flight to LA to check out the Recon Camper during their Open Van Day in November. As the trip rolled around we debated if we should continue with the trip or stay home. Since it was a non-refundable ticket, we decided to splurge one last weekend before tightening our belts. We were only in LA for about twenty four hours and several hours was spent at the Recon Camper factory; however, we made the most of the little time we had.
We landed in LA on Friday evening but managed to get to the beach just before sunset. To save a little money, but mainly because we had no desire to drive in LA, we decided to try out Uber instead of renting a car. Uber was so convenient. We don’t know why we had not used them before. Guess it just takes us old folks a little while to catch up with the latest trends. It was a short ride from the LA airport to the Hilton Garden Inn in Marina Del Rey. Our hotel was walking distance to everywhere we needed to go. It was a mile from the beach in one direction and a mile or two from the Recon Camper Van factory in the other direction. After checking into the hotel, we walked down to Venice Beach to find a place for dinner and watch the sunset. The colors from the sunset were a nice back drop to our outdoor table at Casa Ado. The Italian food was good, but the high price we paid was more for the view than the food.
Before walking to the Recon factory in the morning, we had breakfast at the Killer Cafe on the marina, just across the street from our hotel. That was probably the most we’ve ever paid for breakfast, but, if we were concerned about price more than the setting and convenience, we should have gotten up and left. Our justification was that this was our last big splurge for a while. Having just left Colorado in November, the warm weather, bright colors and wonderful views of California had put a spell over us. RB’s shutter finger was not worn out yet from taking pictures of the sunset the night before, so she kept it busy on our walk to the factory.
After checking out the van, we had lunch at an In-N-Out Burger nearby to make up for our expensive dinner and breakfast. We had eaten at an In-N-Out Burger once before and were not that impressed. However, so many of our friends rave about In-N-Out Burger that we had to give it another try. Still not impressed, but it was cheap! Our lunch conversation revealed that we had not changed our opinions much about the Recon Camper. RB was still impressed with the build quality and the efficient use of space while LB still thought it was just a little too small for our needs.
To kill the time before our flight back, we walked the beach from Venice Fishing Pier, past Muscle Beach, all the way up to Santa Monica Pier. Along the beach there is a sidewalk for pedestrians and a sidewalk for bicycles. It seemed like all the people using the hundreds of electric rental scooters didn’t know which sidewalk was for them and so they were on both. The scooters seem a little slow to compete with the bicycles, but they are also a dangerous mix with pedestrians. RB was almost taken out by a scooter that snuck up on us from behind. We don’t get to the beach very often, so it was hard for us to take our eyes off the beach and the ocean, but we did manage to catch glimpses of the interesting shops and interesting people along the way.
Because we didn’t have a rental car and we were carrying all of our belongings on our backs, we were able to take another Uber from Santa Monica Pier back to the airport. If we had rented a car, we would have only made it halfway to Santa Monica Pier before needing to turn around to go back for the car. Using Uber allowed us to see more of the beach in the same amount of time. Not having much time before our flight to have dinner, we opted for pizza from California Pizza Kitchen at the airport. Normally California Pizza Kitchen’s food is pretty good, but the pizzas we got were like dried out cardboard. Then we looked at the time written on the boxes. Those pizzas had been sitting under heating lamps for over an hour! There was no time to buy something else, or take them back for fresh pizzas, so we ate them anyway. However, considering the high airport prices and what we got for our money, that was probably the most over-priced meal of the trip!
(RB)