City of Angels

Before last week, the furthest west I'd ever been was San Antonio, and that was when I was 9. I've obviously seen lots of pictures, but it's very different seeing a totally different region of the country for myself.

We flew from Charlotte to Atlanta and then to Los Angeles, and when the clouds broke somewhere over southern Arizona or Utah, I was amazed. It was so brown. And there was no civilization. Not a glimmer from a house or car, not a single track through the dust. Of course, from 30,000 feet, dimensions are skewed, but it all looked so flat and dry, broken only by the carved edges of mesas. But even from above, I could see the striations of the rocks. A bit further on, rocky mountains jutted up from the desert floor -- no snow line, so scrub line, just rock and dust. I could even see the swirls of huge dust clouds kicking up over the valleys. I really need to go to the desert in person.

I really didn't see much in the way of people until we got near Palm Springs, Calif. Suddenly, there were perfectly straight lines of roads carved through the dust, complete with little glints of passing cars or isolated houses. Slowly the vegetation started to come back, but it was so different from the lush green of the Southeast. So scrubby, such a dry green. We approached what I'm guessing were the Santa Ana mountains (there was insipid TV on the inflight screens, not much more interesting directions), I saw snow dusting the tops of the mountains, as well as a blanket of clouds curling slowly over the peaks, as if it really were a solid fabric.

Then we crested the mountains, and there was L.A. I have never seen so much development. It was a quilt of gridded streets, houses packed together, and it went on for miles and miles and miles and miles until it ran out of room at the mountains. We flew over it for something like 45 minutes. I was overwhelmed. Sure, I lived in Chicago, but this was nuts. I have enough trouble finding my place in a little town like mine, I can't imagine how lost I'd be in that many millions.

The next day was our planned event. I don't want to risk talking about it, so if you want to know more, e-mail me. I will say it was fun overall, lots of nice people and an interesting thing to watch in production.

That evening, we went out to Santa Monica for the sunset, some wandering and some food. It was, obviously, gorgeous. And wild watching the sun set into the ocean in less than two minutes. (See that itty bitty tip of light in this picture? The last edge of the sun.) Even after the sun disappeared, the color was beautiful on the clouds and San Gabriel Mountains, especially seen through silhouetted palm trees.

I was fascinated by the flora: gnarled trees with little bark; droopy, fuzzy plants arcing a good three feet in the air; 10-foot tall shoots jutting up from some kind of succulent. And of course, there were the dinosaur topiary fountains in Third Street Promenade, but they weren't quite as impressive. Nor was the upscale shopping that I could have found at malls here in Charlotte. Nor was the grill we wound up eating appetizers at, but that wasn't too bad since we were so screwed up with time that we weren't hungry.

Thursday was wide open, and we decided to go to The Getty Center. Wow. Not the biggest or most impressive collection of art I've ever seen, but the building itself and its view of L.A. were amazing. As one of my many architects first pointed out, the entire complex is designed on a grid, and you can follow any gap in the limestone squares throughout the complex -- floors, windows, walls, stairs. Incredible attention to detail. And beautiful gardens and a wonderful walkway cutting across a man-made creek that was designed to have a different sound at each crossing.

I did have some favorite paintings: Jeanne Kefer by Fernand Khnopff and Houses near Orleans by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. We didn't make it to the vast photography collection, but hey, a reason to go back, right?

We finished off the day by yet again going to Santa Monica. We had talked about going to see the freak show at Venice Beach, but we were tired and just wanted to relax. We grabbed a beer at a pub, window shopped, caught another sunset, and shivered through the gale-force winds. We wound up the night at Lula Cocina Mexicana, which had great margaritas, awesome salsa verde, and decent food. Interestingly, they served cooked carrots marinated in vinegar with the chips and salsa, and this is apparently typically Mexican. Wonder why I've never seen it on the East Coast.

To get back to the hotel, we took yet another cab. We spent more money on cabs than food, though it was probably worth not having to drive on the freeways. Our cabbies were from Guatemala, New Jersey, somewhere Arab, Ethiopia, Eastern Europe and Morocco. You literally saw all kinds of people in L.A.

And voila, the next day we flew home. We were stuck on the plane for an hour at the gate in L.A., stuck another 45 minutes waiting for passengers in Atlanta, and didn't get home until 1 a.m. But it could have been worse: our flight from LAX was going on to Tel Aviv, another 11 hours after Atlanta!

So there you go, more than you ever wanted to know about my trip, except perhaps for the part I can't talk about. I definitely recommend a trip out there, even if, like us, you don't care about celebrities. And we definitely want to go back, though perhaps more like the central coast and wine country. Ahhhh, vacation.