CaliTuesday

The trip so far has been really good. After a little goading of Rodd about his blog, and narrowly avoiding a herd of one horned bucktoothed elk, we stayed last night at his in law's house near Carter Lake, with an awesome view of the foothills. The sunrise from their back deck would have been awesome, but we took off before the sun came up!

Things went pretty smoothly at DIA, except when I neglected to take my computer OUT of my bag at the appropriate stage of security - but no one has any scars, so we're all good. I guess it was a little disconcerting for Rodd, as well, when I told him we'd just find George on Bus 17 when we get back on Saturday in order to find the car at the airport parking. There's a rumor they put up numbers on signs now to help you find the items you park in their giant lots. Who knew? He's concerted now. The flight went fast, we landed early - then waited.

Apparently Hertz has never seen the Seinfeld where he makes a reservation, but doesn't really reserve anything. They had way more customers than cars (which was odd because every other rental place there had no line whatsoever). If I had thought what I'd paid already would have been refunded I would have just canceled the 'reservation'. We waited about an hour, since there were only 2 people working the counter. (Strangely, many of the customer-less rental counters had 3 or 4.) The upshot is that I get to drive around a BRAND SPANKING NEW wine red Mustang for the week! Sorry Jimmy, no Toyota this time.

Once we got the car we went to find a place to eat - which ended up being a mall food court. Kind of dumb to go to the L.A. area and eat at a mall food court, but we were hungry. After lunch we walked around the mall a little bit. I need some shoes, but did not find any.

We drove out to Huntington and down the Pacific Coast Highway (the oil rig portion, though, not the cool cliff coastline part). We stopped at Newport Beach and went in the water a little bit. The surf was very enticing, but my surfing connection was hard at work and unaware of my desperate need for his tutelage (and a board). In the absence of surfing, Jimmy started a seashell collection. I think he's planning on making a mobile, but he may be secretly hoarding them to use later in attacking a certain Mustang he's loathing.

We drove around way too long after leaving the beach, heading for Mariners Church, where Catalyst will be this week. This was not good for the morale of the Mustang riders, but all was better in the universe when the bright bent arrow was located (after passing within a couple blocks an hour earlier).

After the burgers, Jimmy's childhood exuberance returned in full force when he found the most magnificent pair of high-tops that have been manufactured since the early 90's. I couldn't pull it off, but Jimmy - you rock those Nike's, man.

When the shop like a bunch of girls fest was over we drove around a bit more and came back to the land of La Quinta. It's bed time. Good night...eh, morning. Dang.