Always great to be home!

Arrived home to this fabulous sunshine and weather..wow! And our plane from San Francisco was a half an hour early. And even more importantly our plane from LA was early by about 20min. We kind of needed that since I realized we only had half an our to make our connection. How lucky can you get. A pretty easy travelling day after all. You just never know what you might face these days flying but things went smoothly.

Santa Monica

A view scenes from Santa Monica and the pier...dogs, parrots, and pelicans.

A few scenes in Westwood, LA

I'm having trouble uploading the photos so more later. Westwood Village is such a perfect place to be in LA. I love the buildings and atmosphere and of course all the restaurants. This vintage FOX theatre is probably the most iconic of them all. We went and saw Shutter Island there last night. Pretty good movie. I see there's a big Trader Joe's in the Village since we were last here. And of course Whole Foods is a great place to browse.

Off to Santa Monica today.

Yamato Restaurant

Yamato Restaurant

For dinner last night we went to this very cool Japanese Restaurant. We began with various sushi like tempura salmon, baked lobster (fabulous) , spicy tuna (too spicy for me and although the tuna was wonderful Jim had to eat most of it), and then I saw tempura calamari on the menu so we had to try that. It was great and was served with two dipping sauces. Then we split a combo dinner (good thing because the portions were large) of teriyaki chicken and sukiyaki beef...excellent. As is typical Jim commented that he couldn't really finish all the rice since he "wasn't really that hungry"...not surprising at this point! All washed down with lots of great saki. They had loads of different varieties.






Baked lobster sushi in front.

Goodbye Palm Springs...Hello LA

We left PS yesterday for LA and are settled in now until Friday when we leave for home.
We filled up the car with gas at our faithful ACRO gas station (cheapest always...somehow the US manages to avoid price fixing with their gas) and said goodbye to our Mazda 5 that we have really enjoyed driving.

We had dropped off our luggage at the hotel before dropping off the car so had the taxi driver drop us off in Westwood Village so we could have a late lunch. There was a movie being shot right where we were and that began the big city buzz which felt kind of good after laid back PS. We went into the California Pizza Kitchen since it was right there and we know it. We started with Buffalo wings then shared a fabulous pear and gorgonzola pizza...really garlicky taste and the salad on top was great too.

P.S. If my blog goes dark you'll know it's because I'm having some weird blank out thing going on. Glad I have Applecare...

P.P.S. Now blogger isn't uploading so have to wait on the rest of the photos...hope it posts what I have.

Movie Colony Hotel

We had fun looking at this funky hotel.

Congratulations Canada!

Wow...olympic gold for hockey!



I can imagine the scene in Vancouver right now. Richard is downtown in a pub somewhere. Enjoy the moment (are you wearing the red mittens we put in your stocking?)!

Fans in Robson Square, Vancouver.



From the Washington Post later on:

"And the Canadians? They celebrated into the night and the morning that followed, content in the knowledge that they beat the United States in gold medals, hockey and top eight finishes. Oh, and health care. Well done, Canada. Now turn out the light."

Right on!

The Movie Colony Neighborhood Organization - History & Description

The Movie Colony is a neighbourhood in Palm Springs named after the many famous movie stars who owned homes between the 1930's and 1960's. Some movie stars who had a home in TMC are Cary Grant, Dinah Shore, Jack Benny, Marilyn Monroe and Al Jolson.


The Movie Colony Neighborhood Organization - History & Description

We went wandering around and I took some photos...of course!










I love the cactus mailbox.

Our first Red Robin experience

We had a fun evening and a good meal at Red Robin last night with Erna and Marvin. Excellent tortilla soup and great burgers!

Last golf at Tahquitz

Jim played his last round at Tahquitz yesterday and we started with the two free beer. It's really been great to be on this course and we've enjoyed watching the golfers while sipping a drink. Jim bought a used Calloway driver...one of the big headed ones for $20. He's really liking it.

Seranata Mexican Bar and Grill

We had an excellent dinner at this restaurant last night with Tom and Claire (except for the tortilla soup which was disappointing). Great ambiance and decor and very festive with the mariachi band but a little difficult to talk!

Why do the British hate the Winter Olympics so much? | Andy Bull | Sport | guardian.co.uk

It seems some of the British newspapers especially The Guardian are really trashing the Olympics in Vancouver. Down here, we are getting incredibly positive coverage from NBC. Over the past year their Mary Carillo travelled around Canada doing special reports on Canadian life and culture and it's been great to watch her enthusiastic participation in logging, dog mushing, and observing polar bears. Those are the ones we've caught so far.


Why do the British hate the Winter Olympics so much? | Andy Bull | Sport | guardian.co.uk

Trader Joe's

A few photos from our favourite food and wine shopping place. I had been rather disappointed with the peanut butter selection up to now but it seems they just got a big shipment in and I found a new one for Don.

Roses

Jim got me these great roses. All the roses we saw around Valentines didn't seem very good quality.

"Storm" predicted...

Well, we spent most of the day at the pool even though a "storm" was predicted. Clouds did come round but we still were in the sunshine on our patio while we enjoyed our Calvados to "warm up".

Then off to the Hilton Terrace Restaurant to join Claire and Tom. An absolutely fabulous steak and lobster dinner. Wow!

Vintage Airstream Trailers

This was a very cool exhibit at the Ace Hotel and Swim Club. Very neat to see the trailers but also the hotel. Lots of interesting rooms as well as outdoor fireplaces in the private patios and also public areas. Neat bikes and motos to rent as well.





View from the hotel.