Heading west was all that was left…..

This past weekend I took a trip out to Los Angeles. Once again, I loaded up the car rather than fly. Luckily, like the trip to Phoenix, this was a relatively short drive. A friend of mine came in to town and we decided it would be fun to go ride roller coasters for the day. We headed out to Six Flags Magic Mountain and proceeded to do just that.

For those of you that have never been to the park, this is a great place for roller coasters. In fact, it often ranks as THE coaster park in the US, although it seems to trade titles every so often with Cedar Point in Ohio. Currently, I think Cedar Point holds the title. Still, I’m not about to take a “quick” trip to Sandusky any time soon, so LA was it.

I realize this may sound a bit whiny, but it was so HOT at the park. The Southwest is breaking some temperature records right now for this time of year, so although I wasn’t melting at home under triple digits, the upper 90’s in LA was still pretty uncomfortable. The good news was that since we hit the park on a Friday, the lines were relatively short. The other whiny description of the park is that they call it “Mountain” for a reason. At many points during the day it felt like all we were doing was walking uphill. It was quite a workout.

So after collapsing in exhaustion Friday night, we decided to do something a bit more low key on Saturday. First, we headed out to Universal City and walked around City Walk. This is a funky little shopping area located right outside the Universal Studios park. After that we decided that since we had come so far, it only seems right to head to the beach. We decided on Santa Monica. It is a cute little town with lots of shopping, restaurants, and of course, the pier. After finding parking we headed out to the pier and then down to the beach. The water was ice cold and felt great since even on the beach the temps were still in the 90’s. We walked out to the end of the pier and watched the boats sail by. There were also a number of people fishing off the pier. I am really hoping they were doing it for fun and not hoping to snag dinner, although I can’t be sure. I just can’t imagine eating anything that came out of the water so close to shore. I realize it’s the Pacific Ocean, but it just doesn’t seem very um…clean, I guess. Whatever.

We drove back here on Sunday and chilled out until it was time to take her to the airport. We went to dinner at Firefly (of course) and a good time was had by all. Seriously, come visit me so I can eat there again. I love it. My next big event coming up is a visit from my sister in June. We are going to go see George Michael in concert and I am sooooo excited I can hardly wait.

With this last trip I have now headed out in all 4 directions from here in the last 5 months. Ohio for Christmas, Reno in April, and Phoenix a couple of weeks ago. Heading west was all that was left. Now what??? Apparently, it’s time to start over again. I have a trip to the East coast coming up in June. It’s a work trip, but I have a feeling I’ll still be able to sneak in a visit to ThreeL. Get ready! I am already trying to figure out how I can make it out to Virgil’s for dinner.