Shangri-L.A.

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Started the day with retcon and I finally getting the fast-food breakfast we'd been hoping for the day before. (Apparently, it's harder to find a Jack in the Box in rural Oregon than we'd expected. Who knew?)

The weather cleared up as we headed south, just as I'd hoped it would. We saw all kinds of raptors and ravens along the way, and rolling foothills formed by some very different geological processes than those that ruled my home state.

We started seeing signs for fast-food that treebyleaf was familiar with; Carl's Jr. and Del Taco. She told us she definitely wanted to stop at a Del Taco if we found one when she was hungry; and that as much as she'd enjoyed Carl's Jr. as a child, she disagreed with their politics enough to avoid them now.

We stopped for lunch -- nothing exotic, just a JitB -- and then headed up over one last set of hills, a pastel-soft landscape that looked like a matte painting or a model railway even when we were close to it.

Then we descended down into the huge, sprawling, incomprehensible mess that is the Los Angeles freeway system. It wasn't as bad as I remembered it from childhood; that is to say, the other drivers actually signalled occasionally, and even let us change lanes a time or two.

We tried to figure out where to head next. Our basic game plan, at this point, was to stop somewhere roughly near Universal Studios, and then go there first thing in the morning. But right this moment, we were looking for "Los Angeles" -- which we were perfectly aware doesn't really exist. Los Angeles is several smaller burroughs in search of a city, and there wasn't really a downtown to head to.

We drove down roads that were familiar to me only from songs and movies. "All the vampires walking through the valley / Move west down Ventura Boulevard .... " Even though I'd known in my mind that these were all real places, my heart couldn't have been any more surprised if I'd suddenly found myself in Narnia.

I turned on the radio for once, wanting to immerse myself in the local mediascape. Lots of radio stations; more than half of them seemed to be in Spanish.

treebyleaf directed us to Santa Monica, and we parked by the water and headed out to the beach and the pier. I set foot on the soft, still-balmy beach and watched what little there was of a sunset, turned to treebyleaf, smiled and told her, "Please write my folks and throw away my keys." Why, I wondered in that moment, did I live in gray Seattle? Why had I spent so long there?

The pier was gaudy and delightful -- we thought from a distance it had a rollercoaster, but when we got closer, we found it was only a miniature track meant to suggest a rollercoaster. It wasn't a disappointment, only something to laugh about; part of the magic and trickery I expected from L.A.

From there we headed to Hollywood, and found a TraveLodge. The room was fairly small and modestly appointed, and Riff and treebyleaf were both pretty unimpressed by it. I wasn't bothered; I don't expect as much from a hotel as they seem to, just somewhere to lay my head. Although I have to admit that the "Sleepy Bear" cartoon icon motif in their signage, their framed art, and on their bedding creeped the hell out of me.

treebyleaf made us a lovely dinner, chili and salad, and then we set out to explore a little.

We'd seen a great looking record store, Amoeba Music, and we definitely wanted to go check that out, but first, Riff wanted to go to Grauman's Chinese Theatre, which was apparently just a couple of blocks away. I whole-heartedly agreed, especially when I found out treebyleaf had never heard of it. We wandered around it, delighted and bouncy and touristy, looking at all the foot- and hand-prints of famous actors, and at the stars embedded in the sidewalk along the street.

Amoeba Music was gorgeous and huge and overwhelming; if my first steps onto the beach at Santa Monica made me want to move to L.A., my first sights of Amoeba made me want to move right into the store. We got there something like fifteen minutes before they closed, so we didn't have much chance to explore the cavernous interior, but it was still great. I bought myself a decent used copy of Placebo's Black Market Music, which I've been wanting to get for months.

We finally headed back to our hotel room and boggled over the brochure we'd found for Universal Studios. We'd been planning on going anyway, but now we were really excited about it -- they had Terminator 2 3-D and the Back to the Future ride, attractions that we thought could only be found at Universal Florida.

We went to sleep happy and excited. We were really here; we were really doing this.

Next: Universal