L.A. Trip - Day 1: Travel

Just got back from 8 days in Los Angeles/Anaheim for vacation.  We had a great time.

Day 1

Very tired this morning - long week at work and at home just to get ready to go.  Our flight is at 7:50am and we're flying Virgin America for the first time, which departs out of Love Field.

First have to say that everyone at Love Field, from the Virgin staff to the TSA agents, are all super nice this morning.  Everyone is cheerful, friendly and talkative; not at all like American Airlines and DFW Airport staff.  It's a good way to start the trip.  Plus the Virgin America plane is pretty groovy:

The only way to trip, I mean fly

We left Dallas at 7:50 and through the magic of time travel we landed in Los Angeles at 8:50.  We shuttled to Avis to pick up our rental car for the week (which turned out to be a red Hyundai Elantra GT - compact and comfortable), then we were on our way.

Good morning LAX

Our first stop after getting out of the airport was a nearby CVS for sunscreen, water, and snacks.  We picked up freeze-dried banana chips, apple/blueberry clusters, and the best sunscreen I've ever used.

I hate putting on sunscreen - it's usually like putting on a messy, uncomfortable hairspray-like shellac.  However, I like some of the other Neutrogena brand products, so we tried their sunscreen lotion (face and neck) and spray (arms and legs).  The lotion was not greasy or smelly, and the spray was like putting on nothing at all.  Both allowed the skin to breathe and didn't stain clothes.  Most important of all, both did their job extremely well and offered all day sun protection - you're supposed to re-apply every so often, but we spent almost all day every day in the sun with just one application and didn't burn or have any issues.  Note we didn't go swimming, so I'm not sure how it holds up underwater, but we did get soaked a couple of times and were still protected for the rest of the day.  I can't recommend this product enough (and no, I'm not endorsed for anything I put on this blog - it's my own unsolicited opinion).

Thank you Neutrogena

Back to the trip.
We had plenty of time to kill before check-in at the hotel, so we drove along the coast from Playa del Rey down to Manhattan Beach.

Hello Pacific Ocean.  I wish you were my backyard.

At 11:30am we stopped for lunch at Truxton's.  Todd was hoping to catch brunch, but no luck on a Friday.  We split an appetizer of monkey bread, and I had the Candied Jalepeno Chicken Burger, which was a "Fresh ground chicken patty with candied jalepenos, provolone cheese, applewood smoked bacon, arugula & mayo on a toasted brioche bun", with a side of garlic fries.  Pretty good, but the garlic fries were really strong (and I love garlic).  I also grabbed a couple cups of coffee to wake up a little.

Yum

We next killed some time by going to what I'm calling "ghetto-Easter-Island-Fry's", because it in no way resembled the Fry's Electronics we're used to around here.  It was more like an old Radio Shack got a power-up and gained the power of a tiki bar.  I didn't take pictures inside, but you can search for Fry's Manhattan Beach to get an idea of what it looked like.

Oh good, a Fry's - this should be fun.

Yuck

After our short but depressing tour of Fry's, we drove a couple of blocks to the Manhattan Village Shopping Center, which I'm calling the "Hospital Mall".  We came in through a side door and down a long hall with a light green checkerboard floor and various office doors.  It looked just like a hospital corridor.  Once inside the mall proper it was nice and modern, but I couldn't help but wonder which store now occupied the space where the morgue once went.

We poked around there for a little bit then drove to Hollywood for our hotel, which was 17 miles away and took an hour to get to - that's just normal everyday traffic.

I can see the Hollywood sign.  If we stay on this road we should reach it in 3 days.