Sunday in LA

 Okay.  Before telling about our day, I have to give some background.

I said in Day 1 that we were here for our anniversary.  But the big focus was seeing a game at Dodgers Stadium, #27 in our quest to see a game at all 30 MLB parks.  The Dodger game is Monday night (they were in NYC for the weekend). 

So, everything after was “filler.”  RR contacted our nephew, who lives in Huntington Beach, and that “filled” Sunday.  Wine country one day and…eventually, Dwight Yokum tickets Friday.

So, Saturday night at dinner we asked what we were doing before our dinner in HB and we saw that Angels tickets were only $6! So, we went to the Angels game. 

On our second visit to the old park (1965) I decided it was okay.  I even kind of liked the faux rocks and waterfall in centerfield. It helped that we had good tickets (though in the blazing, 90’ sun) and it was good game, won 3-1 by the Angels. 

Then to HB.  

It is what you’d expect of a beachy place.  Acc to NB (our nephew), it claims to be the first place they surfed on the continental US.  I’m always attracted to tee shirt shops with all the pithy sayings.  I will go with this one as one I took a picture of:

But here’s a couple of shots of the pier and the beach, so you get the vibe.  Very what one might think of SoCal. 

We had dinner at a place a block from the beach.  I award them zero food porn shots.  It was the worst service I had had in a long time…I had to chase someone down TWiCE to get my great nephew ketchup (he’s a California kid — rolled up on his scooter :)).  And then had to chase someone for the bill.  The food wasn’t bad, just okay, but getting ignored, or whatever was going on, wasn’t a winner. 

And that was all I’m saying about our anniversary.  Oh, yeah, there was a bottle of “sparkling wine” bought in Los Olivos, which we opened when we got back to the hotel and toasted and celebrated. The memorial picture.

We discussed all the years, how happy we’d been, and how fast they had gone.  and drank faux champagne out of (as you can see) reused plastic cups.  😂

Now, to back up, bc RR can’t believe I didn’t tell this story, which has been the source of some amusement for two days.

Saturday on the way north, having eaten one donut (my hands were free) we were sailing down I-405 when there suddenly was a complete halt — slam on the breaks!  And everyone is jockeying around, at fairly high speed, and I’m trying to figure out what to do and where to go with five lanes of chaos. 

RR gives a blood curtling scream! I told her later I wondered if I was going to survive the crash that was clearly coming.  She said “didn’t you think about me” and I said that in the next nanosecond I realized —

It was a bug!!!

Took five years off my life and deafened me temporarily in my right ear.  

There was another, slightly less blood curtling scream later, for which I was sort of prepared. :)

FYI I did not see this infamous bug until two hours later when we got out in Santa Barbara and a large green beetle fell out of the car onto the ground.  Dead.  

five years of my life.  I’m not kidding. 

Later…