We Are West

Well, folks, we have safely arrived in Los Angeles, and I have now seen the Pacific Ocean and gone as far west as I have ever been in my life. So far, we are off to a good start,

My dad stopped by my house around 5:10 Tuesday morning and picked me and my luggage up. We drove to Nashville, ate breakfast at the Waffle House, and then drove to the Holiday Inn by the airport where we paid to park our car for the next couple of weeks. We were then driven to the airport and soon after we checked in.

We made it through check-in okay, although it was a little concerning at first as my dad did not bring with him the card which he used to purchase our tickets; but I had our Delta Sky Miles numbers in a saved email and was able to get our boarding passes printed and our bags checked.
We then headed for the gates, but had to stand aside for a few minutes because my dad had lost his ID.

Well, he had not really lost it, but couldn't remember where he had put it after he showed it to the lady at the ticket counter. Finally he found it and then I took control of the IDs and the boarding passes for fear they may be lost again. We then headed towards the security area where you send your bags (and your body for that matter) through the scanners. My dad, however, did not empty his pockets or take off his belt. You would have thought it was his first ever time flying on a plane.

We finally made it through all the checkpoints and to the gate. The flight to Minneapolis was uneventful and we had about an hour and a half layover before the flight to LA. On the flight to LA we were treated to a viewing of "The Great and Powerful Oz" and can I just say I'm so glad that I did not spend money on it while it was in the theater. I thought it was terrible.

We arrived in LA about 3:30 Pacific time and easily got our luggage and our rental car. We had some issues with the Garmin but finally it began working and we made our way to Venice Beach where we walked the seashore for about an hour and just enjoyed the views.

As we were leaving Venice Beach, we once again could not get the Garmin to work (and as I type it is still failing us); we did, however, find a place to eat dinner which is always at the top of the agenda. We ate at a restaurant called Killer Shrimp and the food wasn't too shabby.

I ended up using the Google Maps Ap on my phone to direct us to the hotel and it looks like my phone is going to serve as our GPS as well. At least we won't be lost, or at least we hope we won't. We arrived at the hotel around 8:30p.m.  and it is now, as I type, 9:17p.m. , or 11:17 p.m. at home and I have been up since 3:30 a.m. and needless to say, I am worn slap out as I have been awake for almost 20 hours.

Tomorrow we will attend the taping of the Jay Leno show, and I'm sure we will do something else interesting before that. In the meantime, enjoy some photos from our Venice Beach outing this afternoon.