Sunset Over Walmart.

I have been wanting, since our arrival, to take a dramatic sunset picture from our west-facing balcony. Well, it's our only balcony, but it happens to face west. Every night since we arrived we have made it back to the hotel too late to take the picture. The picture to the left is called Sunset Over Some Random Palm Tree in Redondo Beach. Because that's where we were at the time.

As is usual, we have had a fascinating day. All was going well until after breakfast, where we discovered a nugget of wisdom that all should heed:

A Blueberry Muffin is not strong enough to hold open an elevator door.

It's true. And the plastic plate wasn't much help either. I came out of the breakfast room to find Mum (Gran) firmly held by her muffin, unable to let it go, and with coffee in her other hand. I rescued her with a speedy push of the elevator button, and we headed back to the breakfast room to remake her breakfast.

When we got up to our room, we were locked out. Not the usual hotel problem where for some random reason the key stops working, but the far more interesting one of the little security bar thingy pushing itself over after we had left the room. It's not the sort of thing you would normally think about, since it's designed to only be opened and closed from inside the room.

Obviously it is a more common occurance than we thought, since they have a special tool to open the door with when this happens. Unfortunately the desk creature did not know how to use it, but eventually one of the cleaning staff came and did it for her.

Thank goodness the rest of the day was uneventful. We went to a Galleria Mall in Redondo beach, then went down to the pier for a walk. I stuck my feet in the ocean, we took some pictures, and we headed back to the hotel.

On the way back, we were mesmerized by the number of flights landing at the downtown LA airport. I managed to get a shot of something I had never seen before. Two planes landing at the same time. From our perspective (which was very good) these two touched down within a couple of seconds of each other. I didn't know they were allowed to do that! Scary.

Tomorrow we head for home. This has been a crazy trip. Drum Corps, like anything else that is primarily US based, is really big on recaps. So here is ours.

We have travelled by plane, van, bus, more bus, scary rickety old bus, rail, and Federal Express.

We have ridden end to end on all of the lines of the Metro Rail system in Los Angeles, with the exception of one small branch of the blue line. If we had the time, we would do that one too, just to complete the set.

We have seen many places that were familiar to us from movies and TV:
The San Fernando Valley (not what we expected); China Town (once from a bus, once from the Metro Rail); Redondo Beach (very nice); Pasadena (also very nice); Hollywood and Vine (granted, we only saw this one from the bottom - the metro rail is actually a subway here.) Sunset Boulevard (ditto).

We logged 16 hours of travel on transit in three days to see the kids for a total of 45 minutes, and watch two very exciting drum corps events.

We have met and conversed with dozens of friendly, helpful and interesting people (and the homeless world travelling genius).

We are sunburned, dehydrated, and exhausted.

We finally managed the Sunset over Walmart picture, but not by much, and the sun had already set.

We have had a wonderful time.

See you all when we get back.