St Louis is Fair (to Purdue)

So, Faithful Readers, 

Our time in the Arch City is over.

Those of you who half follow "ball" will know that Purdue won Sunday morning/afternoon by ten over Miami.  Here is a picture from out seats -- not too bad. 

It was not the easiest game on K, as Purdue decided to play blase for the first half, trailing at halftime by 2.  They took the lead at the 18:30 mark and never relinquished it, building to athe 10-point finish.

ICYMI they advance to San Jose for a game at 4:10 California time Thursday.  It gave us little chance to get home and get on a plane to Cali, so we forewent the opportunity.  ):   (not that the airfare would have put us off AT ALL!!!) 

We ended up Sunday night at a local place called Grace's, where the only meal that was photographed was RR's fried catfish -- 

Grace is a down home fried place -- I had chicken fried chicken (I didn't actually seeing a chicken frying it), K had their shrimp dish, and EH had ??? (I've slept since then). 

We were up and out the airbnb, which we liked, although it failed in two of my main criteria (towels and shower -- I think it's the longest I've ever had to stand and wait for hot water to appear!).  Still, it was good. 

Then we ate a second time at Chris's, although EH had another place selected but didn't say anything till we were sitting at the table. 🤷

Then RR drove his back to Indy; the highlight was a stop at the Indiana Welcome Center, which looked like an Indy 500 museum.  It even had an Indy car in a case in the middle of the building! And had a starter's pole out front.  We suggested they should spend more money on the pavement and less on that, but who are we to say?

Back in Indy, RR left us to dinner on our own, so we hit HC Tavern in Fishers, which is run by the same people as the famed St. Elmo's.  They even had the famed shrimp cocktail, which EH and I split.  EH had never had it and you should have seen her face when she took her next bite -- she wasn't ready for how hot the horseradish made the sauce.  It's nostril clearing! 

EH and I had the opened-face steak sandwhich.

K had the shrimp and pasta (see a pattern?)

EH had this drink; I know that's a fig and there's a special ice cube.

And then we came home today.  No problem. 

We have tentative plans to go back to Indy next week --  🤞🤞🤞

If not then, our next trip is to Houston in three week's.  Until then....

 

St. Louie #2 (with food porn)

 Hey everybody -- 

It was our nth day in St. Louis (was that first day really a day?) and we took it easy between basketball games. 

An editorial comment: some whiney readers have acted confused by the initials that I use.  To remind you, K is my life partner, EH is my daughter, and RR is my college friend from Indy (he's had to explain the RR to his kids...or thought he might have to 🤣).  I doubt there will be any others today.

Today's big adventure was the St. Louis Aquarium.  After brunch, RR said "let's just go down to Union Station and park and see what we can do."   That was the plan.

Union Station was a big deal back when as a railroad (I won't use RR because SOMEONE will get confused :) )depot -- they had the World's Fair and Olympics here not long after the railroad opened in the late 1890s.  There's an aquarium in the old train shed, along with a bunch of other businesses, including a hotel, eateries, and then there's a Ferris wheel nearby.  And a large koi pond (trivia: did you know koi can live up to 200 years? seems fishy, but that's what the sign said). 

So we did the aquarium.  We all agreed we like aquariums. 

But first...they said there was a train to the aquarium.  We got "on" and found we were in a room that was meant to look like an old train car and it had screens for windows.  We were told to not look if you got motion sick.  And then the screens raised and it showed the station in XXX and we rolled out and eventually, no, I'm not making this up, took flight over St. Louis.  Yes, I understood the instruction about looking away.  Then we ended up IN the Mississippi River, which seems a negative thing to do if you are a train.  Anyway, it was not for my age group (as RR attested :) ) and we went in.

It was a good aquarium.  I liked this picture --

of the pretty coral.   Or here's one of the glass fronted clock (you can see all the fish inside) in the waiting room for the train. 

After walking around a bit, we decided we were okay with going back to the AirBnB, turning on the basketball (there really wasn't a good game) and hunting down ice cream. 

Brunch (to swing back) was found by EH, who deserves credit, in a neighborhood near Washington of St. Louis campus.   It was in a garden center.  

The food was outstanding.  As RR said, a cut above yesterday's and twice as expensive.  Let's start with the appetizer K and EH got -- a pistachio tea cake. 

EH had a breakfast burrito. 

I had the churro waffle -- it has la dulce sauce on it. 

And RR had the crab cake bennie. 

All was good. A+. The place's name is Bowood. 

After some short naps and the end of a game, EH and I made the hot walk (it was 85 again today) to the local ice cream shop -- Serendipity.  

That's mine.  I had not had ice cream in four days, so I was going through withdrawal.  Not kidding. The top flavor is Take Me Out to the Park, which is flavored like Cracker Jacks (get it? :)) and the bottom was Gold Coast, a dark, dark chocolate that wasn't quite sweet enough, but strong cocoa to the point of slight bitterness.  EH had the mundane mint chip.  I finished my two scoops faster than she ate her one (there was a long explanation as to why) :) 

[period of time elapses, in case you think we went straight from ice cream to dinner]

EH made dinner reservations in The Hill neighborhood; they have road signs with their name on Italian flag colors.  She chose Italian.  We even got lucky and found a spot in their too small parking lot (somewhere here I am supposed to say what a good job RR has been doing of driving, so here it is.  No irony here.  No, none. :)) 

It was as genuine an Italian restaurant as McGurk's was an Irish pub.  White table cloths, Italian music, and so on.  So we went big on Italian food.

RR had the lobster bisque to start (K and I had a Caesar -- it was the week of the Ides of March).

EH had the seafood risotto.  

RR had the veal marsala, with its side of angelhair. 

The pictures of my lasagana and K's branzino didn't come thro (operator error).

We were stuffed; RR failed his much repeated goal of being in the clean plate club.  WE brought boxes (and dessert) home.

Worth noting is that the townhouse next to us is the home of a motorcycle club.  This morning they had a gigantic smoker rolling; about 20 bikes showed up in the afternoon.  They had a full pig on the smoker -- it has smelled good all day (laced with marijuana smoke).  I saw the town security car come by this afternoon and stop and give them a long look, then roll on.  They've been pretty quiet, so, NBD, but it's been interesting. 

The Purdue game is at 11 in the morning.  WE're going to grab a breakfast and hit the arena.  #BoilerUp

Purdue-y in St. Louie (& food porn)

 Hi everyone!

We're in St. Louis with my college friend and wedding best man, RR (he wanted his own initials)!  😁 

Why? You ask (or know already)...to see Purdue play in the NCAA tournament.  It's the 3rd year in a row we've gone to see them in the tournament.  Rah rah. 

Briefly, for those who don't care about basketball, Purdue won tonight, by a score of 104-71.  The game was never really in doubt as they got ahead early and were even up at halftime by 12.  Rah effin' rah. 

Where to backtrack?

We stopped in Indianapolis Wednesday (we drove, obv) and had pizza with GB and her bestie boo (a term I learned that evening :)) at a place called King Dough, right downtown.  I don't think there were pics. EH and I shared one of their pizzas called "Stinky Pete."  I will let you ponder what that might have had on it. :)

Then we had brunch at First Watch.  If you don't know it, it's a chain brunch place.  I had lemon ricotta pancakes.

Then we stopped on the way at our alma mater, which RR and I agreed hadn't really changed that much: the quad has pretty much the same buildings, a couple with new facades in parts.  One part of this that tortures me is all the red -- I am NOT a fan -- and everything there is red, including the banisters on staircases, the seats in the gym, you name it. Yucky.  Bad vibe. I wonder if it was like that when we went there if I could have ignored it and gone there. 🤷

Then to St. Louis.  

I had a recommendation of McGurk's for tendies.  Acc to Josh, they were the best he's ever eaten.  Three of us had them, and they understood his sentiment.  Here they are:

That's their buffalo sauce on the side. 

I had the Guinness stew and we took home the Bailey's Irish Cream cheese cake and the Jameson's bread pudding. 

But about McGurk's: it's an Irish pub. Having been in Ireland multiple times, it is the real McCoy.  The stained glass in various windows and doors, all the wood, and the menu, with fish and chips, soda bread, and shepherd's pie. Great atmosphere.  Two vans full of oldies came while we were there, so you know it is a good place. (the staff person recommended a bar nearby, too)

But it was the guy who seated us and started waiting on us who was amusing.  He talked with this heavy Irish brogue and I asked where he was from and he said "here in St. Louis."  🤔  I said something to the other person and he said "he wasn't faking an Irish accent again, was he?"  We weren't sure who was having us on. 🤣

We came back tot he airbnb, which is 2 miles from the arena where the games are played, and watched games till the end of the night.  I could tell you about the ubiquitous struggle to get the Airbnb TV to give you the anything you want -- eventually it gave me Google TV with YouTubeTV.  

This morning we ate at Chris's Pancakes, which is in The Hill district (we're gong back for dinner tomorrow night), which various sources said was the best breakfast place in town.  It might be. 

I had the special: C&C biscuit.  Chicken and canadian bacon and I got hollandaise on it. 

RR had the country fried steak and pancakes:

EH had the benedict.

Mrs Narrator had something I didn't take a picture of. 

Then we went out east to Cahokia mounds.  These are ca. 12th century mounds, built over hundreds of years, that were the something for the natives there at the time.  It's not real clear what -- most aren't burial mounds.  There was also a sundial thing a la Stonehenge, except with wood poles.  Cool.  

The largest mound had 150 cement steps (EH counted).  It took an hour before my heart went back to normal.  It definitely wondered what I was thinking. 

Then back to town for the pre-game Purdue party at a place called The Midwestern.  It was right across the street from Busch baseball stadium.  Not a lot of blocks from the arena.

It was full of Purdue fans, with lots of black and gold!  They gave us beads and rubber bracelets (Boiler Up!) and stickers, which you see here on RR's face. 🤣

The guy behind us was so excited that he photobombed us!!! SMH...

There were a lot of people to watch, most in Purdue gear, but there was some Mizzou, some Miami, and other oddities. 

Funny final story: RR and I were at the bar getting drinks and I sent the other two to get seats and I looked and they were sitting at the end of an 8-10 person high top with a bunch of girls.  When we came with the drinks, they were standing and I asked...and they said a woman came over and said they were her underage something team and she didn't want other grownups sitting next to them!!! Well, why are they in a bar??!!?!?

Oh, well, that's our first days on this trip.  Having won, we now stay till Sunday sometime (we have the airbnb till Monday).  We have reservations for brunch and dinner tomorrow.  FYI it was 86 here today and is supposed to be similar tomorrow.  Rah rah.  Fini#

WCT 2.2: final two days

 Hey, Readers!

Been busy, but here’s your catchup (not mustard) on our last two days; KG is waiting at his gate to fly back to Houston. 🥲

Remember, this was a golf trip.  So, this will be golf or golf adjacent heavy. Read at your risk. And, yes, we had a couple good meals, but didn’t win food porn awards (this is such a thing) for this trip.

We ate breakfast yday morning again at Roy’s in the Inn at Spanish Bay.  We never saw Roy in 3 meals there.  He had the chorizo breakfast burrito again, so no need for picture. I had the basic breakfast.  They HAD white bread for toast!!!

Then to golf.  We were paired with two guys named Chi, Jay and Cho; the foursome behind us was their wives and other family members.  They didn’t chatter much, except at one point to ask if KG was a pro or something.  He birdied the first hole, birdied the last hole, and in between, in surely the shot of the week, holed out from 110 yards at 11 for an eagle.  Ironically (my English prof friends can discuss whether this is accurate use) he AND his caddie stopped watching the ball as it rolled off the slope and I was the only one to see it go in! 🤣 It disappeared and I yelled “it went in” because it so rarely happens.  Close, yes, but in, almost never. 

Golfing with strangers and a caddie is almost always a “blog worthy” as there’s always something.  KG’s caddy, Crawford, started the day by saying to me “I guess you root for Notre Dame and IU” — I was wearing a Purdue hat (and have a P for Purdue club head cover).  Grrrr.  Then he turns to me on number 16 and says “what’s under the Purdue cover” and I tell him and he says “you haven’t hit it all day and it’s saying it wants to feel the sunshine at Spanish Bay and hit some shots.”  So I hit it.  He was that kind of guy. 

Then there were Jay and Cho.  They weren’t terrible, but they struggled, particularly as they almost every hole had one of their balls lost or in a shrub, etc.  

But the highlight was the par 5 14th which is straight down to the ocean.  Here’s the visual: 

We hit down the middle and are standing there some distance out, all five of us waiting on the group in front of us to clear the green and all of the sudden Crawford says “what’s he doing?!?!!?” I thought Cho, who was first in line to play, had hit to the green too early. 

NO!  Cho had hit off to a 90 degree angle.  Crawford said “he’s hit at 18!”  “Wrong hole” Crawford yells.  I almost die laughing because there’s an old golf joke with that as the punch line.  Cho is like, what, isn’t that the right way? We point to the four on the green, you’d think right in front of us…and he’s embarrassed and ends up hitting again.  ACC to KG, he asked “should I go get that ball” and KG said “sometimes if they don’t notice it’s best to just leave it.”  🤣

We really enjoyed the course — here’s my money shot — and KG played even better than the first day, which was fun to watch (if you’re asking, I just suck 🥲)

We were done about 245 and wanted to have dinner at Spanish Bay.  But we found out they didn’t open till 530.  What to do?  This is the eternal dilemma.  We ended up ordering chicken nachos (no pic) to go with our post-round drinks ‘to tie us over.”  We killed the two hours, then I wasn’t hungry.  Neither was KG.  So we shot off through the dark to Santa Cruz.

Okay, now for the travel section of this blog :)  Initially, we booked the two days and two nights at Spanish Bay and Pebble Beach because they had a 2-night minimum opening (most of the time it’s a 3-night minimum).  Then, as Steve-the-travel-agent made flight arrangements, we talked about what else to do.  San Fran, yes.  KG wanted to play Pasatiempo, which is in Santa Cruz, about halfway between Spanish Bay and San Fran.  But it was a bit pricey (not that that has slowed us much), and they didn’t have tee times that quite fit.  KG didn’t really want to fly in Monday morning, race down there, play, etc.  He got up a 4 Monday, anyway, and you never count on planes being on time these days.  So we gave up that idea.  Also, he didn’t want to be off work any longer. 

Well, Tuesday night after dinner, or at dinner, he’s got the fever.  😃 He’s been off two days, played golf well on one of the world’s great courses, the weather is unbelievable and…so we agree to ask if we could play one of their 3 courses Thursday morning.   This would be one of those embarrassing sit coms if there was tape, as we went to the concierge desk and KG opened with”I’m going to be that guy” 🤣. But they don’t have a tee times early enough so he can make his 410 flight home. 

His shoulders slump and we go back to the room.  I’m working on the blog and he says “hey!”  Suddenly there’s an 8 am tee time For TWO (not 4), Thursday morning.  We do the math.  We ignore the cost.  🤣

We figure out that I can change where my clubs are getting shipped from.  K tells us to eat our prepaid hotel room in San Fran for Wednesday night (and hour and 15 minute drive BACK) and get another room. 

We book the tee time. 

And we’re back at the concierge desk asking to print out my ship sticks label — not from their place.  Madyson, then Krysten, were very helpful.  Because then nothing worked.  How don’t know how many people handled my phone trying to get a copy of the mailing label from my phone to them.  Email?  Not working.  Uploading files?  The WiFi kept going crunchy (it was KG’s one complaint about the place) and…finally, Krysten pulled out the concierge desk’s iPhone and we were able to airdrop it from me to it.  And it printed it off!!! It took 20 minutes, the whole time with KG “chatting” to the 3 people there in various combos. K’s kid 😂

We had dinner in Santa Cruz last night, a place called Laila, Mediterranean, which might have been the worst meal of the week (it’s a high bar) —

It’s arugula pesto pasta with chicken.  We both had the same thing.  I had heartburn and nightmares from the garlic on garlic :)

So, here we were today, up at 6 AM to get to Pasa and eat, warmup, shop (I love their logo

We played today with two members - Len, who was older than dirt, and Austin, who was (don’t let this hurt) 14.  Len said he’d been playing there since 1955.  Austin has been playing golf just two years.  Both could play some — Austin with the smoothness of youth.  He was almost my height and might have weighed 120.  And lived off the 3rd tee.  KG was saying “I used to roll out at 730 for 8 o’clock with no warmup”…KG was feeling the first two days today. 😂

I lost every golf ball I had on  the front nine, but no one else did anything as funny as hitting to the wrong hole 😂 

We played faster than either of the first two days and I birdied the last hole (after 3 days of sucking), so I go home feeling good about golf :). It was a magnificent golf course, but not my preferred cup of tea — there was no ocean except from AFAR at the top of the property.   Supposedly, we could see Spanish Bay from 40 miles away. 

And then off to SFO.  About an hour ride.  KG got there almost exactly 2 hours before his flight, Pasa took my clubs like they knew what to do with them, and all has worked out.  

I go home tomorrow morning via Charlotte to Wilkes/Barre Scranton airport. 

We are all sad (I think including K) — it was so great and now we have to go back to work or to snow and cold 😡

And we’re not sure about our next trip.  There’ve been several suggestions….but we’ll see whether K prefers beach or basketball 😂

Till next time, hope you’ve enjoyed it — and shout out to James. :)

WCT 2.1: first two days

 [reminder: wCt is West Coast Trip]

We’re done with 2 days of 4 in NoCal.

KG arrived “early” Monday morning and we spent the day doing SF and environs.  More on that later. 

But this is a golf trip, so we’ll start with today. 

We played Pebble Beach, which is my retirement “gift” (what it has been designated has been a moving target — birthday present? Waste of money? 😁)

We were told it might be the best weather day of the year.  It was sunny, not windy and got to 75. It was actually hot.  The locals were complaining about the heat. ROFL. 

One of the famous holes there is #7, which this picture shows you the day and the awesome setting for the little hole. 

We had a great time.  Our partners, Lea and Kevin, from Mammoth, were congenital and good players.  Our caddie, Tito, was good, too.  He was quite a character, having surf bummed for 17 years in Maui and generally been around.  He also had a recent knee replacement.  Said he sat around and ate ice cream.  A man after my heart. :)

Here we are on the 18th tee. 

Going back (and this is a quick run-through, John): I picked KG up at 10 and he was hungry.  He found a place and directed me to — the produce terminal for San Bruno. 🤣 we found another place not far away that was much better.  But the line of the day was “what kind of toast do you want” and KG said “white” and the guy said “we don’t have white toast.”  What??!?!!?!?  California.  They did have sour dough, which I guess isn’t what they consider white bread.  Huh. 

Then he wanted to see the redwoods, so we shot across (okay, the rental is a Toyota Corolla so “shot” is a lie”) the Golden Gate Bridge, grabbed pictures at the vista point there (hence) and saw the redwoods.  They were open despite the shutdown because they are a special designation (I was told).

Then in to San Fran. We had a Ghirardelli Sundae for “lunch”, then took the cable car up to Lombard St.  In an heroic effort, I walked about 2/3 of the way down Lombard St AND back up!!! My heart rate did not go down for about an hour. :)

Cable car down to turnaround and walked over to the sea lions

Then we drove up to Coit Tower (yes, we hit a lot of the city’s greatest hits in a day) and he went up in in (I do neither heights nor steps at this point).

Requisite pic from there:

Then down to the Embarcadero and dinner. 

Food porn coming. 

We had tiger prawns from prelim

And he had the locally caught spring trout:

I had the chowder, but, in a long and involved story, I ended up getting it comped because…well, the wait person said “we had an error of communications.”

Then we drove to Monterey, where we are staying at the Inn at Spanish Bay.  It might be the nicest room I’ve ever had — they have free snacks!!! And robes.  And both a tub and shower.  And turn down service. 

The food here is great too. 

We had breakfast burritos for breakfast.  

We had dinner reservations here in the INN, too.  It’s called Roy’s.  It’s won James Beard awards.  It’s Hawaiian fusion cuisine (so says the promos). 

We had the tiger prawns (a theme of the trip) and beef spring rolls 

I had the roasted chicken with red curry. 

KG had the surf and turf which was swordfish with spare ribs. (Hawaiian fusion, right?)

And he had to have the mango cheesecake for dessert.  That’s a mango gel layer.  He loves cheesecake and he said it was great. 

Worth noting is part of the charm of the place is they knew it was our birthday.  There were birthday cards in the room when we checked in and the desk people have all said happy birthday “to both of you”, including today as we checked in at the golf course.  

Been a good trip so far.  Here’s our SOP shot on 18th tee box — this was facing away from the the lodge and 18th green.  You can see the scenery and how lovely the day was. 

Also, part of the charm, there’s a deck to watch golf facing west to the ocean (which is right there) and each evening a bag piper pipes the sun down.  We have video…Okay, I’ll put it here. 

WCT 1.4: A loss on our last day

 It was our last day in LA.  The high was “only” 78 — just like back in PA 😂

For thumbnail purposes I’ll got to mid-day, which we spent at Griffith Observatory.  Its white facade and green metal domes are iconic and have appeared in numerous movies — the most recent I remember it being prominent was LaLa Land.   Here’s shot of the city of Los Angeles from there. 

For a brief educational moment, for those of you not familiar with LA geography, this is looking left (southeast ) from the observatory — to the right you can see the high rises of Century City, and on a clearer day than today the Pacific.  Straight east are mountains and we could just see a couple snow caps there. 

When I got up, K had found a breakfast place on the way — it was called Alcove.  It was “cute.”  By which it means you can eat outside under umbrellas and the building was covered onto the roof by some California vine.  

I had the lemon ricotta pancake meal.

K had their eggs Benedict, which had Meyer lemon hollandaise sauce. 

Got a double thumbs up.  We recommend and would return again.  They had good looking baked goods, too — a chocolate chip bread pudding, for one — that we didn’t get to try.

In terms of our little slices of life, today was again game day. I was wearing my Purdue hat again (it’s the only one I brought, for obvious reasons).  Well, both times in line to see the shows in the planetarium (we saw 2 of their 3), there was someone else in Purdue gear next to us and we ended up talking.  The first were 3 women originally from Indiana, 2 live in SF and one in Atlanta and they decided to meet and go to the basketball.  The next…well, I didn’t really talk much to him. 

The planetarium was pretty neat. 

On the way back to the apartment we stopped for ice cream.  This was lunch.  We shared, as you can see from the two spoons.  It is buckeye, coffee chip, apple pie and monkey business from lower left clockwise. 

But this was the best part.  You have to know the Geico “don’t become your parents” ads to fully appreciate this one —

He did this for like ten minutes!  No one took him aside and said “there are people who work here that do this”…😂

It was a long jog (45 minutes) to the parking garage at the game and we walked in with an old guy (and, yes, I’m saying this) who had coached there forever.  Saw Rick Mount play against Lew Alcindor in the sixties. 

The game was exciting.  Not particularly well played, including back-to-back turnovers up 3 in the last 2 minutes.  We lost by 2 as they made a 3 with 8 seconds left.  And we missed two shots at the end. 😪

The ride back, the long way and the highway, took 20 minutes.  We got home “early” and are packed and ready to go.

It’s been fun.  I hope you enjoyed it.  Till next time — again from Cali :)

WCT 1.3: WB

 Today was our “down day” as we had no plans as the day started.  We filled the time.  It is LA.

K wants me to put in here how funny we think it is that we have “friends” who we told we were coming here and they went like “ew…why?”  We both love it here. First, there’s the weather (~80 again today, in mid-January); then there’s some of the scenery; and finally there’s all the things to do, whether basketball games, museums, beach, or, like today a movie studio.  What’s not to like? 

Yes, we went to Warner Bros.  We never discussed the other options.  Who knows the difference (ok, someone more nerdy about where things are filmed than either of us)? 

I’ll go with the money shot for the thumbnail —

We started the day with the worst (though not bad) breakfast.  K had the NOHO — we don’t know what it stands for: 

I had the American, which is what you’d think it’d be. 

Then off to WB, eight minutes away. 

You may not believe it, but they have a lot of people doing studio tours there.  Like a cart of 14  five minutes.  Sometimes the street sets looked like traffic jams.  

The “highlight” of the experience was our tour guide.  No, she wasn’t good.  You’d think you have made the circuit multiple times a day for awhile you’d have th script memorized, but she kept saying “where was I?”  She stood little chance of answering impromptu questions.  Multiple times she confused places.  We’re not sure we know the real deal, but not sure it matters.

Since you probably don’t know any more than I did before we started, Warner’s did Friends, Big Bang Theory, Young Sheldon, George & Mandy, and Abbott Elementary on this lot.  The Abbott external street was good.  

Their two stock streets — Hennessey and Midwest — are familiar.  Outside scenes from Friends were shot in the first and the externals for Music Man at the latter.  To name a few.  A certain amount of “this from Gilmore Girls was shot here”.  We both commented how ratty all the buildings looked and wondered how they showed up on screen.  Or if they repainted them before shooting in front of them. 

We were taken into one soundstage (no pics allowed)— the one where they now shoot George & Mandy.  It used to be Big Bang’s stage.  As we entered she said “dad with the Purdue hat” (that’s me) and asked me to be the last one in. 

The end of the tour you go through a soundstage that holds the old Friends, Big Bang and Lord of Rings sets — giving you the opportunity to have your picture taken in each of them.  If you desired.   

And finally there was a Harry Potter exhibit (though it was shot at WB London, not here) and K did the sorting hat thing and was put in Slitherin house.  As we all suspected about her 😂

After a post-tour Starbucks run that involved both elaborate turns and driving, and a brief, painful question about how important Starbucks was (duh!), we went back to the apartment and rested for dinner. 

We listened to the end of the first half of the national championship game on the way to dinner; had them turn it on the TV during dinner, and listened to the late third quarter on the way back. 

Dinner, which was 4 miles and 20 minutes away, was basic pasta.  A step or two above Olive Garden.  Neither of us was particularly hungry.  We’ll go with K’s chicken parm as the food porn.

We tried an “ice cream place” down the street for dessert, but they had two flavors — plain or vanilla — and cookies, but no ice cream sandwiches.  We’ll do better next time. 

It was a blah day.  K said on the way back from the studio that she was glad she didn’t haven’t to be charming again today (her?!?!!?) and no one on the tour did or said anything very noteworthy, other than the inept guide. 

Tomorrow is the UCLA game.  Famed gym and a hard place for road teams to win.  It’s a late game, so not sure when and if a blog will appear.  

Manana…