It’s more than ok. There are a lot of excellent things about it.

It’s difficult to choose the highlights. We are back now and the memory lingers on! Traffic moving like a road of metal, some excellent architecture, blue skies, friendly people, multi cultural uber drivers, signs, baseball, big food ( onions as big as small footballs ), big appetites, poor people, rich people, flowers, gardens, polite driving, Norman Rockwell ladies 

We came back with Virgin, I’m not sure what to expect really but could have guessed that it would be similar to the trip out. It was, so uneventful, apart from England winning on a  penalty shoot out!

The food was even worse than on the way there.

“Why did I take that to California?”

Three jumpers and long sleeved shirts! Some very wooly socks and a raincoat. They’ve done over ten thousand miles for no reason. Is there a collective noun for “stuff you’ve taken on a long trip for no apparent reason and stays in a suitcase for the entire trip”, there were also 4 muesli bars still in their packet. How about: Homelanders. So when you get home you tell people ” We had 5 homelanders on this trip” and everyone will understand.

I wasn’t the only person interested in my homelanders either. Unpacking my case, there tucked away in the clean washing, close the the unused muesli bars, was a printed note from Homeland Security, telling me they’d been rifling through my pants. The case had been locked with a secure code, but they’d worked out the code, not difficult as it was the default 000,so they had not damaged anything. In fact the only evidence that it had been opened was the printed note. So I’d been to California and won the Homeland Security Lottery! I wonder what they made of my raincoat and jumpers, my homelanders?  I’ve fixed the code now so that next time I go they can damage my suitcase.

So here are a few images that will stay with me from the trip. It’s back to the drawing board now and I’ll be publishing drawings again soon, when jet lag wears off. Thanks for visiting.

This is a cinema in Korea Town, just a short walk from where we stayed. Yes a walk!

This piece of artwork was in the Broad. It was not featured in my piece about the place but we loved it, here’s what it’s made from: labels

This is the Broad Museum on Grand Avenue, and next door is this place, which is an auditorium, concert hall.

Pink train in a train museum, lovely place to visit. Sits right next to the freeway in LA which is rather apt. Do I see a face in everything?

High noon at the Train Museum, reason for visit. Men’s day out. Whistle the theme from ” A Fistful of Dollars” when viewing this image.

Baseball, the dodgers legend.

Iconic Chevy in a carpark in Ojai

Signs

Food, liquor and Thai Friendly Massage, is there such a thing as unfriendly massage? Thai Friendly or thigh? Move on! Get yourself a Char-Broiled Burger and calm down. Char-boiled is grilled to you and me over here, and another example of using two words when one will do. I know, I’m being picky!

Original stagecoach in the Wells Fargo Museum, near to the Broad. Small but interesting Museum and worth a visit. This thing carried 9 people with no aircon apart from the window being open and certainly no rest room. REST ROOM!!!! Aaaargh!!! for crying out loud they’ve done it again! It’s a lavatory. You don’t go there to rest.

This was the Virgin Atlantic of its day, where the stewardess, or flight attendant ( DONE IT YET AGAIN!!! ) would sit next to the pilot on the front. Legroom is similar to Virgin flight, I can’t report on the food, there’s no feedback there, though it is reported that they suffered some turbulence. ” Doors to manual”

Big thanks to all those folks over there who made us so welcome. We’ll be back.