Other Half and I are a couple who take separate vacations. Even before we were 24/7 in a small space. When I say separate vacations, what I mean is I take girl trips and he takes golf trips. It works for us.
In the spirit of any excuse will do, when my girlfriend Kathy called with a plan for how we could hang out for a couple days – I was all in. Kathy is currently living in Portland, Oregon. She was planning to attend a one day seminar at UCLA. The plan was she would fly in a couple days early if I could make it up to LA from San Diego. Of course I could make it!
The bonus for me was a couple days with daughter in North Hollywood before heading to meet Kathy. The variable for me was one last doc appointment the morning I was leaving. The appointment went great. Final stitches out and a celebratory breakfast with Other Half and off I went. This trip was also my first solo road trip – of more than 13 miles – since my clod incident.
Daughter and I did a modified version of our usual stuff, cleaning, shopping and eating out. I’m still dealing with ankle swelling which slowed me down some. Daughter kept me in ice packs and her goofy pup Beesly kept me in laughs.
I left North Hollywood Sunday morning and headed to meet Kathy at the Westin LAX. FYI, the Westin LAX is home to the $50 breakfast. It was good, but really?
Kathy and I decided to spend our girlfriend day in Santa Monica. Google maps showed Santa Monica 11.7 miles from the hotel. In LA 11.7 miles took just under an hour.
The center point of Santa Monica is the pier. The pier is fun and lively with a giant ferris wheel, restaurants, palm readers, musicians, skateboarders and artists.
Also an adorable seal entertaining the tourists.
Neither of us had ever been to Santa Monica. We were surprised to find the pier is the official end of Route 66.
Other Half and I have traveled various stretches of Route 66, including a closed section after we missed a giant Road Closed sign. When the road actually ended – lucky for us there was a huge parking lot we could use to turn the Big Rig around.
Kathy and I ended our time together with laughs and happy hour drinks back at the Westin. She left early the next morning for her conference. I lounged around and waited for traffic to let up. My first solo road trip was a whopping success.