California Dreaming

Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles

It's too bad really, that having fun can be exhausting.  A few months ago we learned that my husband's college roommate, our best man from our wedding, was soon to be the father of a bride.  His oldest girl was getting married in Los Angeles.  We were invited.  Our first reaction pleasure at the event and our invitation, and our second was that Los Angles is pretty far to go for a wedding.  Los Angeles traffic is famous, and not for good reasons.  But then we thought more about it.  We have been friends with the family since about 1970.  He was our best man.  I wanted to see Disneyland. We really should visit my husband's brother who has been asking us to visit since about 1975.  In short, we booked our plane tickets, and I bought a little black dress.

It all worked out well.  We rented a a car, found our way to the downtown hotel, and started seeing how much we could see in four days.  We breakfasted at the central market, walked to the Walt Disney Concert Hall, then on impulse bought matinee tickets in the lobby to see the L.A. Philharmonic.  We went to the Museum of Contemporary Art, and we went to the wedding.  The wedding was outdoors at Cafe Pinot, near the Central Library.  I didn't understand that all festivities were to be al fresco, and my dress was sleeveless.  While the denim jacket I threw on for the walk made an interesting statement, I was glad when the mother of the bride loaned me a spare shawl.

The next day we left our hotel and headed south for my brother-in-law's house in Seal Beach.  I'll never forget the first time I saw him, when my husband and I were still dating.  We cut our college classes to sit in front of the television to see his brother as a contestant on The Dating Game.  Today he is a retired policeman, real estate salesman, and food writer.  He knows great places to eat.

 spotted at Tomorrowland, Disneyland

Tom Every's Forevertron, North Freedom, WI

I think my brother-in-law wanted to be our tour guide to the area, but I really really wanted to visit Disneyland once.  Call it an item on my "bucket list."  Like lots of Baby Boomers, I lived and breathed Disney movies and television shows as a child, and wanted desperately to ride the Tea Cups.  I was startled by some of the wonderful sculptures in Tomorrowland, and was reminded of a huge and fanciful scrap metal sculpture here in Wisconsin, the Forevertron, assembled by Dr. Evermor, aka Tom Every. Don't you see a similarity?

Anyway, we rode the Monorail, watched Steamboat Willie, rode the bobsled at the Matterhorn, visited the Pirates of the Caribbean, all sorts of things I should have done as a person without bifocals and silver hair. 

It was great fun