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We walked down the block to the beach, waiting for the
sun to set. I was hoping that this shot would be much more dramatic, but we’ll have to be satisfied with what you see. (Bigger version.) |
Our trip starts with visits
with Los Angeles friends,
2 — 5
November
As with our trip to Indochina two years earlier, Mark set up the travel so that we would pass through Los Angeles on the way out, with plenty of time taken to get together with old friends. We left Friday, and got in fairly late, but not so late that we couldn’t have dinner with our dear friend Clarli, who would be putting us up in her downstairs guest room for the duration of our stay in the LA area. The three of us went to the Stoney Point Bar and Grill, a high-end but unpretentious Italian place not far from Clarli’s house.
I seem to have taken no pictures at all in the first couple of days, but at the right you see a nice snapshot of Clarli and Julie that I made before the first service at church on Sunday.
Saturday morning, we had brunch with Jeff and Amelia at Julienne in San Marino, a very nice meal, what with catching up on old friends, one of them a highly respected colleague of Mark’s.
Saturday evening, we had dinner with Ghassan and Kathryn at The Raymond, a restaurant that Mark and I went to only infrequently when we were in Pasadena, and a place where K & G seemed to be well acquainted with the staff. But the food and drinks were excellent, and the conversation loads of fun.
Julie and Mark catch up, and share a laugh or two
(left: big image, small; right:
big image, small).
Sunday, we had breakfast courtesy of Clarli, and all of us went to Neighborhood Church, our old congregation in Pasadena. We had sent e-mails to loads of our friends there, telling them that we planned to stay around for both the 9:00 and the 11:00 services, so we could get to say hello to as many people as possible. Again, I took too few pictures, but the two shots of Mark and Julie at the left were fun.
A hop skip and jump from their house,
Dar and Sue wait with
us for the sun to set
(left: big image, small; right:
big image, small).
Lunch was at Green Street, our dependable restaurant in Pasadena, just for old times’ sake. They were our caterers for the August Parties when we were living there, and we have not come close to matching their level in Saint Paul.
Immediately after lunch, we drove out to Ventura, to spend the rest of the day with Dar and Sue. Dar was a colleague of Mark’s in both his last California job and his new job in Minnesota; Sue is also a biotech type, and between them they have a consulting firm. Since Mark is planning to do consulting starting January 2019, he wanted to pick their brains about all sorts of details.
We got there in the late afternoon, and our hosts suggested we might go to the end of the block, to the beach, to watch the sunset. There was just a little haze, and the color was muted. No green flash as we watched the sun disappear beyond the horizon.
That night, we got onto a plane for Melbourne, for a long long long flight. I had a book to read, though, and between dozes, I entertained myself well enough. Read about what happened after we got there on the next page.