Road Trip Part 2

Read part one here: http://rweber.blogspot.com/2006/01/megan-and-reids-road-trip.html

Pictures from our trip are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/55067109@N00/sets/72057594051745926/

1/11/06

After lounging around all morning at Graham’s house, we headed to Santa Monica for lunch. We found this cool place called Real Food Daily (RFD for short, www.realfood.com). They don’t use any animal products in any of their dishes or drinks. They also use only organic ingredients. It’s really cool to go into a restaurant and be able to order anything on the menu without having to worry about whether or not the have cheese or milk or other weird ingredients I don’t want. I had the special, which was pesto pasta, salad and a tofu fritter. The tofu fritter was awesome. It tastes kinda like fried cream cheese. Megan a Portobello mushroom sandwich, the Ciao Bella, even though she meant to order the Club sandwich. She had decided on the Club but when the waiter came she was so enamored with him that she accidentally ordered the wrong sandwich. Or maybe it had something to do with all the interesting people we saw in the restaurant. Like the girl that took her shoes off and tied them to her backpack after she left or the lady with the dust mask that pulled up on her bike, tossed it against someone’s car and came running in to order. Anyway, Megan didn’t care much for her sandwich but was excited at the idea of this kind of restaurant. It was pretty pricy, so instead of coming back we just bought the cookbook.

We still had a few hours to kill before meeting Kelly after her dentist appt. so we parked at her apartment and walked down to the beach. It was a little chilly and not nearly as pretty as some of the other beaches we’ve been to on the trip, but it was still nice to relax. I think I’d be at the beach a lot if I lived down here, at least to relieve all the stress from sitting in traffic.

Once Kelly got back we headed up to her apartment where we did some more sitting around and then decided to make a recipe from the RFD cookbook. We made Supreme burritos. They were awesome. The cooking was a lot of fun, too. Kelly has all sorts of cool cooking utensils. I think the fake cheddar cheese that we made scared Kelly a little bit but it ended up tasting really good. Sabrina and Molly also joined us for dinner before we watched Lost.

1/12/06

After another lazy morning Kelly took us to Hollywood where we got to see the Hollywood sign, Guiness book of records museum and the wax museum. We also walked over to the Chinese theatre where we saw footprints and handprints of the stars.
We also got suckered into a tour of the lobby of the theatre for $2 each. I guess that is what we get for thinking that we might be seeing something exclusive in Hollywood.

We met Graham and a few of his other friends, Mike and Alexa at Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). They had an exhibit of comics from the 60s - 80s and the some other comic art. One cool exhibit was 6 white spheres hanging or sitting on the ground with video of an eye blinking or looking around projected on each one.
We went to Barcelona in old town Pasadena for dinner. We had tapas and sangria. After hanging out at a bar behind Barcelona we went to a coffee shop for dessert and then headed back to Kelly’s for the night after they kicked us out when they were closing.

1/13/06


Friday the 13th.

Yes. Another lazy day. We went to a restaurant like IHOP or Denny’s except they had a good selection of Vegetarian and Vegan food. Megan spotted a star sitting in the booth right next to us. It was Kyle from Real World Chicago. We also went to the famous ZJ’s board shop in Santa Monica. Megan tried on every snowboard boot in her size while Kelly found some gloves and a helmet.

Later we met Graham at the Getty Museum. We were only there for an hour but we got to see some really cool stuff. There was a news photography exhibit that had some amazing photographs from wars and other times of crisis.

We meant to go to Burbank for dinner but Graham missed the exit so we ended up going to his favorite Thai restaurant in Pasadena. Megan and Graham were really disappointed when they were out of mangoes, forcing us to go to Cheesecake factory for cheesecake. To finish off the night, we went to a place with the best Mojitos. They even have a machine that juices the sugar cane.

1/14/06

Graham and I had planned a mountain bike ride but it was raining when we got up so he and I went to the Rose Bowl aquatic center to swim. I wish we had a pool like that in Reno. There were actually 2 50M pools that were each 25M wide. I really enjoyed swimming outside in a pool so long. It is nice not having to turn around every 45 or 50 seconds.

For lunch we went to Akbar, Graham’s favorite Indian restaurant. We didn’t think this place was nearly as good as the first Indian place we went to. We started watching the Broncos vs. Patriots game at Graham’s before we left for the House of Blues, Sunset Strip to see Slightly Stoopid. The opening band was from Long Beach, CA and sounded quite a bit like Sublime. They were really good. It was really hard to hear the lyrics when Slightly Stoopid came on but they were still pretty good. Graham got bored so we ended up leaving early and going to a little pizza joint before heading back to Graham’s.

1/15/06

Megan has had enough of L.A. so we decided to leave for Mammoth today. We almost reserved an unheated tent in Yosemite, thinking that we would go to Yosemite on our way to Mammoth. Luckily we did a little more research and found out that the road between Yosemite and Mammoth is closed in the winter. So we just headed up toward Mammoth and finally decided to go all the way to the village at Mammoth. We found a room at the Sierra Lodge and found the local Thai restaurant for dinner. They didn’t serve alcohol but were totally fine with you going next door to the liquor store and bringing drinks over, which is what everybody was doing.

Our lodge had a spa outside so we checked that out but we didn’t stay too long because it wasn’t very hot. Megan was really excited when we got back to our room and found out that we could watch Grey’s Anatomy.

1/16/06

Today was a shopping day. We wanted to go snowboarding since we were already up here but not enough to pay $73 each for tickets. So we went shopping. Megan finally found boots that fit her and I found a helmet with speakers in the ear. And the best part was that it was all on sale. We ate at the Base Camp Café and then wandered around some more until we could check into our cabin at the tamarack lodge. Now we are sitting here in the Tamarack lodge in front of the fire. Megan is trying to get warm and I’m sick of typing now.

1/17/06

Went snowboarding. Mammoth is awesome. It was sunny and windy all day but the snow was surprisingly good. Megan did more runs than she ever has in one day and I got to the top of the mountain twice. The gondola is pretty scary in calm conditions because it is so high off the ground in some spots, but I almost peed my pants when I was on it in high winds. Not long after that they closed it because of the wind.

Megan met a lot of cool people sitting by the fireplace warming up. She also managed to lose her cell phone (again. The first time she left it in her sleeping bag) on the mountain. After she searched around the lodge and I retraced all our tracks on the mountain we finally found it at the lost and found at the main lodge. Thankfully someone had found it and turned it in. Megan has vowed to write down all her contacts so if she really does lose it, she'll still have everyone's numbers.

For dinner we went to Side Door, at wine bar we found last night that makes great crepes. Megan wanted to come back for the cheese. I don't think she ever had really good cheese before giving it up when she went vegan. Now that she has had a taste of good cheese, she's rethinking the giving up cheese part. She has been really good about not drinking soda or eating chocolate, two of her new year's resolutions.
Anyway, when we got to Side Door, the place was empty but started to fill up quick. We met a mixture of locals and visitors. The owner was there hanging out. The CEO of Mammoth even showed up. We got to try a whole bunch of good wines and champagne thanks to Tony, a generous local.

1/18/06

We woke up this morning to a foot of snow at our door. Unfortunately it was so windy that only a few lifts were open at mammoth. So we got vouchers for our tickets and headed home a little early. It was nice to get back in the daytime to unpack and go pick up Baby. We both missed her a lot. I'm really glad we put this trip together and did it. It was exciting to plan something together but not plan too much so that we were stressed out. We had lots of time to relax and enjoy the company of each other and our friends. Thanks, Megan. I love you!