Far Far Away

I went to Ojai (or as my GPS says: Ojay) a lovely little town 

where I stayed in a much more bucolic park nearby.

Amanda flew out to LA to visit her friend Jessica, her new baby, 

Carter, and husband, Montrel. They live in Beverly Hills. So I went there. 

Here's Irv among all the other fancy rides on Rodeo Drive. There are a 

BMW, two Benzes and, almost hidden, a Bugatti. I like to 

think I brought a little class to the grim little lives of the Beverly Hillsians.

Here's a pregnant Rodeo Drive palm about to give birth.

I met Amanda and her friend in Santa Monica for lunch 

and then took a walk to the Santa Monica Pier.

They were filming a scene for something there.

And some pretty good busking going on. The sax player 

here is Carl Catron and these guys rocked!

Venice Beach is a short drive from Santa Monica so we went there too. 

This is the second time I've been to Venice and the second time I've 

been approached by a medical canabis card hawker. 

I'm not sure if I even qualify since I'm not a California 

resident. I think it was $50 for the card and then they'll dispense 

medicine right there too. One-stop existential pain management.

I'm pretty sure this guy was here the last time too.

There's always stuff going on in Venice. 

These guys were filming using a video drone.

The skateboard park is pretty amazing. Huge too.

Driving in LA is the worst! DC has bad traffic - some 

of the worst in the country - but LA is worse. DC is basically 

just a big bottleneck. LA has that but the drivers are nuts! 

Motorcyclists take advantage of the jam ups by driving between the cars. 

And when traffic does get up to speed, people are weaving in 

and out of lanes at high speeds, nobody wants to let you merge and 

road rage is rampant. I couldn't wait to get out. 

From there I went to Las Vegas to visit my friends, 

Joel and Deann. Again, Vegas is beautiful once you get out of Vegas.