Wa-Hoo For Uncle Darren!

Yesterday was a fun day here in LA. We spent the morning taking a drive further up the coast to check out Malibu, but couldn't get out of the car for the lack of a parking spot. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about with these Cali. beaches. They are certainly beautiful (and some are very different, like La Jolla...my favorite so far), but they have their down sides (lack of parking being a big one). Must be my Jersey bias talking, but I think our beaches and shore towns have them beat....at least for us non-surfer, non-athletic types.

Collin is starting to voice his displeasure at being cooped up in the car so much, not that I can blame him. This may not bode well for the rest of thr trip, since the longer jaunts are still ahead of us. The traffic here is absolutely horrendous. It can be even more anxiety producing with a wailing baby in the car. Did I mention that it costs about 56 bucks to fill the tank of our Jeep Laredo? This comes as a bit of a shock for a family of Honda drivers.

We spent the afternoon and evening with CJ's long-time best friend, Darren. Darren has lived out here for the past 5 years working on his music career. What a relief to be with someone who knows where they are going! Darren suggested The Getty Center as an afternoon activity. It was fabulous! With a location up in the mountains, we were able to see incredible vistas of the city below. The gardens were beautiful and Collin was practically building a harem of women who stopped to ooh and aah over him by the time we left. As I said to Darren, it was our first taste of "culture" the whole trip so far. The evening was spent at a pizza place in Hermosa Beach where the noises of a little league baseball team drowned out Collin's screeches. Today will be another day spent with Uncle Darren touring around LA.