Leo in Los Angeles

My trip to Los Angeles is fresh in my mind, so I’ll recap our California adventure.

I returned from Japan on Tuesday, so I take it pretty easy on Wednesday. We pack, we meet with our guys’ groups, and we plan an itinerary for our trip.

On Thursday, we eat lunch, and head to the airport. We sleep on the plane, and wake up in sunny LA. We walk down the long corridor to the LAX baggage claim, and pick up a map from the information desk. It was strange, but even though this is the same airport I arrived at to meet up with An in 2005, it feels much different. Last time I was there, it felt like a strange, foreign place. This time, it feels like a place not far removed from Vancouver.

We claim our baggage, and take the complimentary shuttle to Budget rent-a-car. We sign the forms, and walk to the parking lot towards our Chevrolet HHR. It's not a bad car, but it smells like something indecipherable. The air inside the HHR is stifling, although it smells better after we drive down the highway for a few minutes.

I felt shell-shock while driving in LA. There are six lanes of traffic, and everyone drives erratically compared to BC drivers. The HHR handles like a go-kart, with quick response but shaky stability.

We eat dinner at the hotel restaurant, Hot Tomato. The food was decent, but we didn't return. We drove to Vons, Safeway's alter-ego in the states, and bought muffins and juice for breakfast, and water bottles for our trip.

On Friday, we drive to Valencia, home of Six Flags Magic Mountain. We enter the $15/day parking lot, and walk five minutes to get to the main entrance. We walk through several buildings until we reach the annual pass building. We are fitted with our passes, and we finally reach the X, the best ride in all of SFMM. The lines for the rides are short, so we managed to ride the X twice. It is a relatively short ride, but every second of it is exciting, as every second you feel like you might certainly die. We ride the other huge rides in the park, but they all pale in comparison to the X.

At night, we eat dinner at In'n'Out, which is known for their great burgers. On this night, they are average. We end the night sitting in the hot tub, soothing our muscles which have become tense from the excitement of the rides.

On Saturday, we return to Six Flags, but this time we walk toward Hurricane Harbor, the waterslides section of the theme park. We slid down two slides, the latter of which damaged our elbows and backs. The wind starts to pick up, and we wait out the young tornado, lying on the beach chairs, with our midsize towels shielding us from the gust. After 30 minutes, we had enough.

We eat lunch at the Mooseburger Lodge, and ride the log-rides and raft-rides that we didn't ride on Friday. We leave early, and drive to Hollywood. We find cheap parking at the shopping mall, and eat dinner at the famous Mel's Drive-in. Reuben sandwiches and yogurt shakes, meatloaf and root beer floats. We take pictures at Mann's Chinese Theatre and along Hollywood Boulevard, and spent the evening at Virgin Megastore.

On Sunday, we wake up late, and find our car battery dead. We spend one hour waiting for a jump, and after the jump fails, we wait two hours for a replacement car. When we finally get our Buick LaCrosse (which is a fantastic car) we drive to Santa Monica, and walked along the pier and Third Avenue. The wind almost knocked our hats into the water. After taking some fantastic sunset shots, we drove to Chili's for dinner, where we eat some of the BEST BABY BACK RIBS EVER.

On Monday’s drive to the airport, the highways are not as daunting as they were when we arrived. The frightening roads have been tamed; the immensity of the freeway has been shrunk. Sometimes it takes a second trip to become comfortable at a location, sometimes it takes mere days. I love the feeling you get when you realize that at the end of a trip, you leave as a different person than when you began.