Sully Takes LA

Every time a grandkid turns 5, my mom takes them to LA for a few days for a special trip. This time, Sully is the new 5-year-old, and the trip fell over Labor Day weekend, so my sister and I invited ourselves along. I hadn't been back to LA since we moved away in 2005! Eleven years!

I arrived at LAX on a direct flight mid-morning and rented a car and then sat on the 405 trying to get to the Valley, just like old times. It is really odd going back to a place you used to live after an 11 year break, particularly someplace so distinctive as Los Angeles. I don't know what I expected, but I was surprised at how thoroughly LA is still LA. Smog, traffic, car chases, helicopters, etc. It kept being the same all this time!

The first thing I did was meet my friend Joanna at her house in North Hollywood, and we walked to Pitfire for pizza and sangria, which we used to do all the time when we lived there. Except now she has a five year old son, Kristofer, and I got to meet him too and it was awesome. 

Then I drove to our Cousin Marian's house in Sherman Oaks and got there just as everyone was arriving from their later flight into the Burbank Airport. Then everyone colored! (But not me.)

On Sunday we drove to Pasadena to go to a children's museum, but first we drove by to see my old apartment building, which is just as ugly today as it was in 2005. Good old Madison Luxury Apartments.

We went through the drive-through at In-n-Out and got cheeseburgers! Yay!

Sully, naturally, does not eat cheeseburgers, only french fries & milkshakes.

The Kidspace Museum in Pasadena turned out to be mostly outdoors and was perfect for providing all sorts of entertainment for a few hours.

Mom & Hillary got really into trying to build a roller coaster out of pipes.

Sully got halfway up this wall and then suddenly realized he was halfway up the wall and we had to get him down.

In the evening I went over to see my friend Natalie and her family. They live in Northridge near where I used to work, so there were a lot of hot spots to drive by and see, including Casey's Tavern, where we used to attend Saturday night potlucks with the otherwise elderly regulars, and the convenience store parking lot where Ben lost his keys on the Night of Tequila Shots with Jimmy & Lexie. 

For dinner we went to Follow Your Heart, a famous vegetarian cafe & market (inventors of Vegenaise!), which was my favorite lunch space when I worked at Luminent. It was exactly the same, wood paneling and all. 

I've been thinking about this burrito for eleven years. 

Natalie and I then went to a tiki bar and had some fruity drinks and awesome conversation. I miss my SMARTS friends! There's really nothing like spending time with somebody you've known since you were 9 years old.

On Monday we joined everyone else in LA at Santa Monica beach. Sully was absolutely fearless, running straight into the ocean over and over.

Our part of the beach was actually not that crowded. Amazingly, we scored a parking space right next to the pier.

After a couple hours on the beach, we headed up to the pier, which was unbelievably packed. Sully was uncooperative about posing for a photo.

There were sooooo many people on the beach nearest the pier. Walk down a little bit, dummies!

Sully wanted to play a game, which I felt certain was throwing money down the toilet, but incredibly he made a basket on the first try and won a stuffed animal, all by himself! Labor Day Miracle!

There were hundreds of people playing that Pokemon game on the pier, wandering around staring at their phones. I guess this is me being old, but I would pay a lot of extra money for a vacation where nobody was allowed to walk around staring at their phone.

On Tuesday I had to leave from LAX at 9:30, so I left Marian's house in Sherman Oaks at 5:50am. The 405 was already insane! 5:50am! But I made it in plenty of time.

It was great to see my friends and Sully and spend a little time in LA, but it was a whirlwind trip! Being there made me wish we had gone back before now; I'm not really sure why we haven't. Benjamin is on board with going for a longer trip at some point in the not-too-distant future, so hopefully we can work that out!