On Our Way To Crazy

Well, since it’s been almost three weeks now, I guess it’s time to tell y’all about our trip to LA.

Thanks to my job, we get to go to some cool events every now and then. They’re usually local things, but this time we got to hit the west coast. I’d never been west of Colorado, so I was pretty excited. We flew to LA at the end of October to see the live taping of CMT Giants, honoring Reba McEntire. It was at the Kodak Theatre, which also hosts the Oscars. That was pretty awesome.

(Set your Tivos! We were on the fourth row and I am convinced we’ll be on TV.)

The show was incredible. Even Aaron, who doesn’t work in country and doesn’t know many Reba songs, thought it was great. My favorite performances were Kelly Clarkson and Martina McBride singing “Does He Love You” and Megan Mullaly singing “You Can’t Get A Man With A Gun” from Annie Get Your Gun. She was fantastic.

We got to attend the after party, which was cool for two reasons: we got to eat food by Wolfgang Puck, and we met Kelly Clarkson and Tiffany.

That’s right. Tiffany. If you were a girl in the 80s, you know what I’m talking about. You probably had a dance to “I Think We’re Alone Now” that you did all the time and totally wore out the cassette tape, too, right? Right? Was that just me?

It was really fun to get all dressed up and go to a fancy event. We felt very cool.

Because the event was on a Thursday night, we decided to stay in California through the weekend and take a little mini-vacation. On Friday, we slept waaaaaaay in, then headed to Rodeo Drive for lunch, shopping and people watching. And it did not disappoint.

I’m kind of a girly girl when it comes to that stuff, so I was pretty thrilled just to be there. We didn’t go into many stores (didn’t want to reenact that scene from Pretty Woman), but it was fun just to walk the streets and see all the cool shops and storefronts. My favorite was Prada – it didn’t have windows or a door, just a staircase that went up from the street. The sidewalk out front had these tunnels covered by plastic, and when you looked down into them there were mannequins holding Prada bags and wearing Prada coats. Very cool.

We spent the rest of Friday just driving around LA and taking pictures. We walked Melrose Avenue, which is totally where I would shop if I lived there. Lots of funky shops and secondhand stores and cool little restaurants.

Saturday we got up and went to The Grove, which we were told was really cool but is actually just an outdoor mall. It’s right next to the Farmer’s Market, though, so we headed over there for lunch. They had food stalls for every kind of food from every country you can imagine. I’ve never seen anything like it. Aaron (shockingly) went for tacos, and though I had intended to branch out a bit, once I saw the women in that stall I had to eat there. There were four of them – one making the tortillas, one shredding this amazing smelling meat, one chopping avocados and one making hibiscus tea. Holy moly, y’all. They were the best tacos I have ever eaten in my life. Seriously. I want to fly to LA right now and get some more.

After lunch we drove through LA on Santa Monica Boulevard all the way to Santa Monica, on the coast. I hadn’t been to a beach since our honeymoon, so I was thrilled to be there. We walked along the water for a while, marveling at the fact that people can still go to the beach and lay out and swim at the end of October. It was wonderful. We went to the pier for ice cream and more people watching, and to let our jeans dry after the waves that smacked us when we were trying to take pictures. SNEAKY OCEAN!

The Pier

From Santa Monica we drove up the coast a bit to get on Mulholland Drive, which took us all the way back to Hollywood through some really cool canyons and hills and some fat daddy homes. We were told the best views of the Hollywood sign were from Mulholland, but this was as close as we were able to get:

Looking down from Mulholland

Saturday night we went back to Hollywood and Highland, where the Kodak is. Graumman’s Chinese Theatre is also there, as well as the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a few other things. We had dinner and just walked around a bit, being tourists.

We had to get up crazy early Sunday morning to catch our flight. The alarm went off at 3:45, and we were just about to leave when it hit me – we forgot to fall back. It was daylight savings weekend (or whatever it’s called in the fall), which meant we’d actually gotten up at 2:45. In the morning. Oh my word. We made it to the airport (with plenty of time to spare) and our flights home were relatively uneventful.

Overall it was a pretty great trip. Thanks to jury duty, I didn’t have time to research and plan the way I would have liked, but I think we did a good job of seeing the cool stuff without being too touristy. (You can see the rest of the photos here.) I would really love to go back now that I kind of have a feel for the place. And also to get more of those tacos.