Bill and I had the opportunity to experience Southern California this past week when visiting Sarah in Redondo Beach. She recently moved from Hermosa Beach to a condo from which she can view the ocean from her rooftop deck – a jetty, a plethora of daily surfers, bikers, joggers, and walkers – with and without dogs! As usual, Sarah had a full schedule of activities planned, and we enjoyed every one!
On our first full day, we took Sarah’s dog, Sunny, for a long walk along the strand overlooking the beach. For a special treat we then drove to Rosie’s, a designated dog beach and let her loose! Again, another long run and romp, resting at Monty’s Beach Grill – “Where dogs are people too.” We had lunch and Sunny got a “pup cup.” We spent the evening relaxing, and with Sarah’s heart still in Philadelphia sports, throughout our visit we watched the Phillies, Flyers, and Sixers! Each night we were home we also watched the sun set which was beautiful.
Friday was a very full day with our first stop at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. They offer stadium tours only one Friday a month and we lucked out. What an iconic place, or as Keith Jackson, a very celebrated broadcaster at the Rose Bowl, referred to it – “a mansion at the end of the yellow brick road!” We enjoyed the surrounding statues prior to our guided tour and then visited the stadium, the press box, the locker room, the field itself and even stepped inside Mark Cuban’s personal suite. Talk about sports history! The Rose Bowl is where all of the UCLA home games are played in addition to special events and of course the annual Rose Bowl game on January first. Our guide was amazing and truly a font of Rose Bowl knowledge!
I particularly enjoyed the Jackie Robinson statue and exhibit outside of the Rose Bowl and left with these two quotes in my notes…”A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives,” and “Life is not a spectator sport. If you’re going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you’re wasting your life.” Truly, something to think about.
Before checking into the Pasadena Hotel, we stopped at the Rose Bowl offices, where a garden representing all of the different types of roses used in the creation of Rose Bowl floats, graces the property. I never realized there are so many varieties of roses. It must have been prom weekend because several couples were having professional photographs taken amid the amazing roses. and as you can imagine, Bill, Sarah and I stopped to smell the roses! You should try it!
On our way to the hotel, Sarah drove us past the original house where a large portion of the movie, “Father of the Bride,” was filmed on El Molino Avenue! It is still beautiful and occupied, but I guess if you buy such a home, you have to be willing to deal with the spectators.
Our hotel was perfectly located so we were able to walk to Nick’s for a delicious dinner after which we attended a comedy show at the Ice House, which was right across the street from our hotel. Sarah, who works for the USO, had taken the comedian Jimmy Shin on tour recently and he was headlining the show which included about six other comics as well. Jimmy was awesome, as were several of the others, but let’s face it – stand up is hard and several of them better not quit their day jobs! Overall, however, it was a great night!
We slept in on Saturday morning, grabbed coffee and a donut from Randy’s then headed back to Redondo Beach. We spent a relaxing day – Bill and Sarah completing some projects in the new house and then walking through what is known as “The Riviera” – or downtown Redondo. We also visited a great bookstore in Hermosa, where donated books, CD’s, films, and more are sold – 50 cents for paperbacks and $1 for hardbacks – with all monies going to the public library. What a great concept! Of course we didn’t leave without purchasing several books. We ended up having an early dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Redondo – muy bueno!
It wouldn’t be a trip to LA without attending a Dodgers game and that’s exactly what we did on Sunday afternoon. The weather was beautiful, the Chicago Cubs were in town, Shohei Ohtani hit a home run, the Dodgers won and the famous Dodger dogs were as tasty as ever! What made it even more fun was that we were surrounded by some of the 13,000 little leaguers who were recognized and honored at the game! Ah, to be young!!
Our last day in California was another relaxing one with a long walk, breakfast burritos sold in a convenience store by a father daughter team, preparing for our departure, and then a delicious dinner at Captain Kidd’s Seafood Restaurant followed by ice cream at Handel’s. After a wonderful 6 days on the West Coast, the alarm sounded way too early – 2:45 to be exact – and we took one last look at the moon over the Pacific before heading to the airport for our early flight home. As you can tell, we really enjoyed our time with Sarah, and as someone once said, “You don’t really leave California – you just carry it somewhere else.”
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