Los Angeles

We made the five hour drive to Los Angeles for a long weekend to see Les Miserables at the Ahmanson.

We checked into the Omni Hotel which is just down the street from the Music Center.  We've stayed here many times and enjoy its proximity to the Disney Concert Hall.  After a short walk around the neighborhood, we changed clothes and headed out for dinner.

We met John, Fran and Carolyn at Roy's for a delicious meal.  John had ordered two giant appetizer platters called "canoes" to complement our interesting cocktails.  Mine was a jalapeno martini (mucho caliente - my lips were on fire.)  I had an excellent piece of butterfish.  It was a treat to catch up with everyone as we had not been together for over a year.

The next day we drove over to The Grove to do a little shopping.  The Grove is an outdoor mall that was built on one of the parking lots of Farmers Market next to CBS's Television City.  Yesterday, Carolyn had talked about a great hamburger place called The Counter.  As we were driving up Wilshire Blvd, we saw The Counter and decided to stop.  The burger was as good as Carolyn said it would be.  Next door was the La Brea Tar Pits, so we took an enjoyable stroll through the park.  Haven't done that in a least 20 years.

That night, we met up with Barbara, Rick and a friend of Barbara's at the Water Grill.  Rick had brought his laptop to show us pictures of their granddaughter.  Katlin is growing and growing.  After an incredible dinner, we caught the complimentary shuttle to take us up the hill to the Music Center.  Rick doesn't like musicals, so he headed to our hotel while we attended one of my favorites, Les Miserables.  When we had moved away from Los Angeles in 1996, we had given our season seats to the Center Theatre Group to Rick and Barbara.  They kept up the subscription all these years, so our seats were incredible.

Since today was Father's Day, we checked out of our hotel and drove to the westside to visit Jeff's Dad.  He is buried at Hillside Cemetery.  We had bought flowers at Whole Foods, so we made three bouquets, one for Jeff's dad and the other two for Jeff's grandparents.  We then caught the freeway for the long drive home.