Friday, February 26, 2021

Can You Go Home Again? A Trip Back to Southern California


(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first and also note that this trip took place about 8 months before lockdown hit. Most places here are still open but in outdoor or takeout mode only right now- Ed)  We're firmly Northern Californians now, but we still have family back in L.A. that we need to visit periodically. Mother's Day is one of those occasions so we've planned four nights back in our old neighborhood in the San Gabriel Valley to visit with family, take our moms out to lunch, and try to have a little time to have fun ourselves.

Los Angeles traffic is way more dense and hectic than the rural traffic that we've become accustomed to but it's not as bad as it can get when we arrive. I'm more unsettled by the amount of stop lights along the way than how many cars are on the road.

We arrive at our hotel, the Embassy Suites in Arcadia. I'd booked a room with a roll-in shower...a necessity with Tim having a knee injury...and they gave us a room with a tub on the fourth floor. A talk with the front desk got us moved to a room with a roll in shower just a few steps from Registration, right on the lobby, and next to an exit door to the parking lot.

The layout of the room was OK...a king size bed in a separate bedroom, a queen size sofabed in the living room, and the accessible bathroom with roll-in shower separating the two

What was not OK was the location...constant and unending guest noise from the atrium lobby right outside our window and the slamming of that door to the parking lot whenever anyone used it which was approximately once per minute at all hours of the day.

Rather frazzled from no sleep the night before, I went to the front desk to complain about the room and why wheelchair rooms were always the worst ones in the hotel in general. It didn't get me any traction except apologies and "we have no more roll-in shower rooms available."

Back in the room, I started to call other hotels in the area when the manager called on the room phone. My wife answered and said "he's on the phone with another hotel, I'll have him call you right back."

I went to the desk to see what they wanted and, lo and behold, another roll-in room became available up on the second floor. We moved that afternoon. It was a marginally better room but still too noisy for what is the city's most expensive hotel. I'll just leave it there so this story doesn't become all about our crappy hotel room.



We took our moms out to a wonderful lunch at the historic Derby restaurant, right next door to the hotel. Later, we met our friend Scott over a couple of beers at the Mt. Lowe Brewery, just a block from the hotel. The next day, we had a family get-together at Letty's mom's house.


On the last day, we took that for ourselves. The Arcadia station of the Gold Line light railway is two blocks from our hotel. Tim loves the Gold Line and didn't want to leave L.A. without taking a ride.


From Arcadia, we rode all the way to Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. We wandered around Olvera Street for a little bit before walking over to Chinatown.


We let Tim pick the lunch spot and he picked Philippe's on Alameda, between Chinatown and the old post office, Terminal Annex.


Not much changes in this 111 year old restaurant and that includes the delicious French dip sandwiches (they invented them here) accompanied by cheesecake and banana cream pie for dessert.

After lunch, it's back on the train to the more walkable confines of Pasadena.


Here, we find happy hour in full swing at the Blind Donkey bar on Union Street. Some beer and whiskey sours...at cheap happy hour prices...wet our whistle.

Just a few blocks away, the AMGEN Tour of California bike race has just come to a conclusion at the Rose Bowl. Soon, a group of black-Spandex clad men walk in and the bar erupts into applause.

Team Data Dimension...the South African team...has come in to celebrate the end of the race, give speeches, and drink themselves silly.


We join the party for a little bit before heading back to our hotel.

It's been fun but the lousy hotel room, traffic, and just knuckleheads in general weigh down on us and, with great delight, we head back home to our little town in the hills in Northern California.

Darryl Musick
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