Wednesday and Thursday, 26 & 27 September

We're still in LA. We didn't realize how many friends and relatives we had living in the LA/Santa Barbara area. We have been in visiting (rather than sight-seeing) mode for the past week.

Wednesday we drove from Santa Barbara to Westminster in the south of the greater metropolitan Los Angeles area. (Metropolitan Los Angeles consists of about 85 smaller, contiguous municipalities.) To simplify things, we did the trip (about 133 miles) on freeways. One supposes it is the most efficient way to move around the large, urban area. But it doesn't seem to be the fastest. We were not traveling in what one would suppose was the "rush hour" (why do they call creeping traffic "rush"?), but we still ran into lots of slow-downs and traffic jams.

In Winchester we visited with Lavonne, an old friend of Gene's, and her husband. Later on, Gene's nephew, Kevin, joined us for dinner. The night was spent in pleasant conversation, and later they  played back the new season openers of NCIS and NCIS-LA which we had missed the night before. A most enjoyable evening.

Next morning we went to the Westminster Mall to do some shopping, and then headed for Chino to see Jean's cousin, Bill. We programmed his address into the GPS and it took us via city streets, no freeways. We don't know why, but it turned out to be an interesting trip, with not much traffic. We went through Carbon Canyon, a twisty country road. Not as bad as some we've been on, with only two hairpin turns (stacked together).

We had a long, pleasant visit with Bill, mostly him and Jean reminiscintg about the old days in Forest, and catching up with what has happened with people since. Of course, we went out for a delicious dinner. The time spent in LA has been marked, with other things, by lots of heavy eating. We may have to diet on the whole trip back.

Speaking of the trip back, tomorrow we bid adieu to Southern California and head east. Time to head back to the barn.

We will be following Interstate 40 most of the way back. We have no one to visit before Tennessee, and we don't know of as many sights to catch on the way,  so the trip home may not take as long as the trip out. As Gene's cousin Harold said about the TWA pilots, "When they're homeward bound they bend the throttles." So I guess we will be bending the throttles soon.