California Dreamin' on such a winter's day.

So the Packers just won the super bowl (on a 100" projector screen), and the football players and glee club tried to make nice by becoming zombies together. I am supposed to be working on a rough draft for my fictional story for writing. Instead I feel compelled to write about my weekend trip. I found a cheap plane ticket last month and after a quick phone call to make sure the weekend was a good one to visit, I decided to go. I boarded the plane just as it started to rain in Portland for the first time in a couple of weeks, and I felt like a lucky girl to be heading to the California sun.

David rolled up to terminal 7 and we headed straight to a place that I love to visit every time I'm here in LA - IN-N-OUT!!!!! Animal style fries, a cheeseburger and strawberry shake! LOVE IT!
Next stop: Santa Monica Pier.

Ferris Wheel!

Intense funnel cake with frozen yogurt and strawberries!

STARS!


We went up the road to the 3rd street promenade. I like it here too! We heard live music, and wandered through stores.




Saturday was a big day full of fun. Our first stop, as always, was Porto's Bakery. Here's a photo of the pina colada yumminess...


When David suggested going to Huntington Library, I pictured us wandering through rooms full of books and artwork. This place was unbelievable! There is a library, several buildings of art collections & botanical gardens!
I saw the Gutenberg Bible and an illustrated Canterbury Tales.




There was a festival going on to celebrate the Year of the Rabbit! Here are some photos from the Chinese Gardens...







We wandered a couple of hours longer than planned, but made it to the Griffith Observatory in time for sunset!






Our last adventure took us to the Catalina Bar and Grill in Hollywood. Great food, THE BEST company and killer jazz. We listened to the Kenny Garrett Quartet. We loved it so much, we stayed for the 2nd show. The musicians were phenomenal!


Today we took it easy. I slept in and then headed to church. Then wings and super bowl. David is passed out on the couch. I am hoping to get one more trip to In-n-Out before I leave early tomorrow morning. Better wake him up...

Weekend Trip

I love road trips! I especially love them when they take me to visit friends. So on Jan 21st (after attending all my classes), I loaded up Yoshi with my furry purple blanket, a pillow, pretzels, red vines and string cheese and I was off to drive about 900 miles in all to spend the weekend in Boise.



The Boise Philharmonic presented "The Magic of Mozart" and I have to say I was impressed! The conductor, Robert Franz was great to watch. I found some conducting gestures that I need to rip off. He was very much into the music and entertaining for the audience. This season, they want the audience to get to know some of the musicians, so they had one of the cello players introduce the program and share a personal story. It was a great addition to the evening. And the concert was a highlight of the trip.

It was sunny and freezing. The Basque pub where we had lunch, put this sign in the window. I thought it was funny. We also saw some baskets that were made by using recycled VHS tape. All in all, a low key weekend with a good friend, good music and good times.