First Annual SMARTS Reunion

We moved away from LA twelve years ago, and I hadn't been back at all until last year. And then I went again in April! My best high school friends decided to have a reunion weekend to celebrate our 40th birthday year, and picked LA as the location. 

I took an Uber from the airport to Hollywood and he drove me through downtown. Look! That's where I used to work! Downtown LA has changed so, so much in twelve years. Tons of new skyscrapers and development.

We stayed at the W Hollywood, where we got a good rate thanks to one of my internet friends. The location was perfect, right at Hollywood & Vine, fairly central and walkable to lots of stuff. The first thing we did, after hugging and crying, was get lunch at Shake Shack and then manicures & pedicures. Fancying up for the weekend! It is always so freaking good to see Erin, one of my top people in life since we played Mastermind together in the 3rd grade.

We had a drink on the hotel patio, and then quickly decided to never have a drink there again as the cheapest thing was $17. OH, Hollywood.

The first day we went to the La Brea Tar Pits, which somehow in over four years of living there I had never visited. It was cool! Right there in the middle of town!

The LA County Museum of Art is right nearby, so we popped in there for a while as well. One thing about traveling with girlfriends as opposed to Ben is that everyone is on board with asking strangers to take your picture.

We spent an extensive amount of time trying to choose cheap tourist t-shirts so we could all match. For some reason, 90% of the t-shirts on Hollywood Boulevard are sized for tiny people. I had this experience in New York, too - I don't know what's up with that. Surely tourists in general are not smaller than the average person. Unfortunately even the largest of this hot number did not fit us.

We went to dinner at Musso & Frank, an old Hollywood landmark. We had a very outgoing waiter who told us all about how Frank Sinatra used to sit in our booth.

The next day we took a star homes tour, which left from a very weird little office in a seedy strip mall but turned out to be super fun. This is Richard Simmons' house. Poor Richard Simmons!

And this is the view from Leonard DiCaprio's estate. I took a bunch of pictures of other houses but now cannot recall who any of them belong to.

REG BEV WIL

At the end he drove us up to Mulholland for views of the city and the Hollywood sign. I miss LA! Too bad it's completely unaffordable and the traffic is insane and it never rains.

We then took an Uber to Santa Monica, to walk from the pier down to Venice. Erin wrote SMARTS on the beach.

Here we are in our matching shirts! I don't know what I thought life was going to be like at 40 back when we were all cruising the Belt in St. Joe at 16, but I know I never pictured us in matching t-shirts at Hollywood & Vine.

We decided to make the SMARTS reunion an annual event, and already picked the dates for 2018 so everyone would block the time on their calendars. It was a perfect weekend - there is nothing like spending time with people who've known you literally your whole life. We need more of that in this world.