Day 4: In-N-Out and Hollywood

Ten o'clock this morning: tour at In-N-Out, I had no idea a humble restaurant chain could have such a rich history, and immense attention to detail...you should go to in-n-out.com and see what you can learn, but there is no way to understand the railings, wallpaper, hand polished delivery trucks, and upbeat employees unless you see it for yourself.  And get this, the "butchers" hand-bone fed and cow chucks and are paid a bonus on top of their base pay based on the number of occipital or "count" bones they produce in a day's shift.  As they bone each chuck, the drop each vertebra in the "magic bucket," and then turn them in at the end of the day.

After the tour, we ate at Store #1, the burger and the shake were both DELICIOUS.  Then, a trip to the company store where we each got a shirt.  I chose this one:

After In-N-Out, we ventured off to the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the infamous Chinese Theater, and Rodeo Drive - OMG.

I knew this place was ridiculous for a lot of reasons, for instance: driving - I've learned to merge and honk like a Californian; people - we still gawk; gas prices - high; Rodeo Drive - UNREAL.  Please, let me provide a few small examples: Versace tank top $725, small Tiffany & Co. diamond ear rings $24k, "cheap" Porsche brand t-shirt, well, look for yourself...and Versace shoes, HA, try $2k minimum...

Then dinner at Mastro's, and to think, we managed to eat for less than $100 per person, ha - take that Los Angeles!

On to tomorrow....and the Tower of Terror....maybe we should skip sore and go for total loss of voice...

Day 3: Sessions and the Beach

Sunday began with some of the Committee Meeting sessions, in which the use of social media avenues was a hot topic for disseminating timely and accurate food safety information.

We also had a student luncheon, where my pre-assigned seating arrangements placed me with a vegan and a vegetarian all at the same table - interesting.

Then, we drove to downtown LA to pick up David, who served as our Santa Monica tour guide.  We were able to stick our feet in the pacific, walk the famous Santa Monica pier, watch street performers, eat at Yankee Doodle's, and shop on the Santa Monica Strip (I bought a shirt!)....

Wow for all of the people and their highly ridiculous clothing - OMG.  You would never believe some of the things we saw.  

I will have to say, the sunset was beautiful over the beach, and the shopping on the 3rd Street Promenade was pretty impressive.

On to tomorrow....

Day 2: Disneyland and BASEBALL!

We left the hotel for Disneyland at 7 AM, and fared quite well against the lines until lunch time or so.  We managed to ride nearly everything on the Classic Disney side of the park, with the exception of Indiana Jones...and we rode Space Mountain twice, Thunder Mountain twice, the Finding Nemo Submarine, and Splash Mountain - which didn't treat us very well.  We were all soaked except the kids....Jered and Jessika made it out dry.  Oh, and by the way - FastPasses are AMAZING.  Unfortunately - we did have a Small World experience, and the Tea Cups almost made me hurl - but it's all good.

At 6:05pm, first pitch at the Rangers v. Angels game was thrown, and the Rangers went on to win in a small margin, low-scoring game.  The park was gorgeous, and who knew you could get full-service Panda Express at a ball park?!

Moving on - after the game, we returned to Disney where we went to the California Adventure park, only to encounter Glow Fest.  Now, I have never been to a rave - but this is how I would imagine one, neon clothes, lights, cars, sticks, drinks, jewelry, crazy music, and dancing - it was intense but, highly entertaining.  Then, Brittany, Joe, Jacob, Jered and I (yes, me too) rode the Tower of Terror, where Brittany and I screamed until our throats were sore - my sides hurt the next morning...but we are going to do it again on Tuesday.

On to tomorrow...

Day 1: Dinner at the Cube and our search for the Hollywood Sign

After a lovely 3 hour flight of which we nearly missed thanks to a late connection out of the grossly busy and over booked Easterwood airport (which led to running in designer flip flops and huge blisters through IAH), we made it to the largest Enterprise rental center of all time. It was here that we selected our ultra chromed-out Ford Edge with dual, I said DUAL sun roofs - we were on our way - kind of.

Being from Houston, taking 30-60 minutes to cross town is a concept I am used to.  However, this is different.  45 minutes to go 5 miles is a little obscene.  Despite the fact that it is legal for motorcycles to pass on the white line between lanes, and the lanes are 30% smaller seeing as how Mercedes and BMW's aren't wide vehicles like the trucks from Texas.  

No matter how we got there, we ate at Dr. Harris's nephew's (David) place of employment: Cube.  This restaurant is a very modern, sophisticated, Italian, wine and cheese bistro.  The food was interesting but good and there were 200 cheeses and 20 salamis to create your ideal cheese plate.  This would be the same place that a few of the cast from Mad Men chose to dine on the same night.  However, the mean joke I played on a few is the exact opposite of the truth:  Laura and Julianne - Demi and Ashton were not there! GOTCHA.

Following dinner, we embarked on a indescribable adventure through an old, upscale neighborhood (on a VERY windy road) to find the elusive Hollywood sign.  Lets put it this way - Kayla, if you read this - you would not have made it through the entrance to the neighborhood without puking.

Nonetheless, we were able to watch the sun set over the Hollywood sign.

On to tomorrow.....