Memory Lane in Los Angeles

I sometimes quip that I am a product of the California public schools from 1st grade through college and then I escaped. It was lots of fun exploring old haunts and seeing a few friends in the Los Angeles area, but after nearly a week in Southern California I have never been so grateful not to live here anymore. Everyone checks traffic before they go anywhere because, well, because when one spends countless hours per week in traffic it’s important not to spend any extra time on the roads. 

My drive on Monday morning from Oceanside (San Diego area) to Marina del Rey (Los Angeles area) was fine. Admittedly I’m used to freeways that have 2 - 3 lanes each way, not 6+ lanes, so it seemed to require much more effort to drive. It was interesting to see street names I remember from driving between San Diego and Portland several times during and shortly after college. Not surprisingly, I stopped in Orange County — seems I did not have any cache finds there so I “fixed” that problem on Monday. My room wasn’t quite ready so I took a walk where I found 2 of 3 caches, then later picked up another couple of caches. 

One of the highlights of my trip to LA was having dinner Monday night with my college roommate. It had been way too long since we’d seen each other, but we had a lovely chat over pizza followed by cookies. Here’s hoping we find a way to connect in person again sooner rather than later. 

On Tuesday I bought a bagel and went to “The Point” which is a spot overlooking the Pacific Ocean quite near where I lived for ten years. It’s a spot I would ride my bike to so I could watch the sun set over the water. Breakfast there wasn’t quite the same thing, but it worked…..and I successfully found the nearby cache. 

After breakfast I went to the park where we’d played as kids. A few years ago the nearby canyon was filled in so I took a lovely walk, admired lots of plants in bloom (prickly pear cactus, daisies, and several others I didn’t recognize), and failed to find either of the caches that were there. Oh well, I got my steps in, had a nice walk, and returned before it got too hot….though not before I probably touched poison oak while searching. 

Hmm. I have tecnu somewhere in my suitcase, and that would require a bit of a drive and some searching. Or, there’s a nearby CVS. So now I’m traveling with two containers of tecnu, but confident that I removed the plant oil quickly. Oops. 

Wandered into Santa Monica where I found a few caches, ate leftover pizza and cookie for lunch at the park we used to play at when we lived there, and was surprised there wasn’t a cache in the park. Found enough of a series of puzzle caches to be able to deduce the location of the final — after a quick stop for some tasty chocolate sorbet (good but not as good as most of the European ones last spring) — which turned out to be at that park. 

Returned to my lodging to shower and remove the potentially poison-oaked clothes. Then headed back to Santa Monica to meet my “bed buddy” from college (think Secret Santa — my roommate turned out to be assigned to give him treats which I delivered. He felt bad as he hadn’t given his Bed Buddy anything though he was baking chocolate cookies. Maybe 15 minutes later fresh, hot, tasty chocolate chip cookies arrived for me). Reconnecting was a bit of a comedy of errors, as I arrived at our planned location but the restaurant was closed, so I called him to let him know. Glad I did, we hadn’t reconfirmed, and somehow he got his signals crossed and though we were meeting the next day. So we came up with plan B, and had a great time reminiscing in person (and I got to meet his wife who I really liked) before calling it a night. 

Today I had breakfast with a high school friend, someone I went to summer camp with back in the day. We hadn’t seen each other since shortly after graduation….here’s hoping we don’t wait so long until next time. We went breakfast, got caught up, and I was able to show her a (rather unimpressive) cache near where we ate….but at least I had a picture of the much better cache I took TheOtherMarla to last week. 

Now I’m back in San Diego, in the simple hotel room that June and I are sharing, and hoping I don’t have to do too much more driving before we get on what Roy calls the “floaty boat” on Friday. 

So glad I’ve had the chance to visit, see old haunts, and reconnect with some friends (regretting not having the time to reconnect with others)….but once again applauding myself for escaping Southern California. 

Update 2025: Who knew that my old neighborhood, and much of the suburb, would literally go up in flames in January. Lots of homes destroyed. A handful of classmates lost their current homes. A good number of classmates lots their parents’ current homes. And a lot of us, like me, lost our childhood homes that were no longer owned by our families. So much loss, so much cleanup to do.