Life in LA with Wife

Sheila Marie arrived in LA late in the evening of Thursday, August 13th. I dashed out of the theatre and headed to LAX to pick up my beloved. I arrived at the airport and surprised Wife by picking her up in a convertible! The little Yaris I had been driving around LA went back to Hertz that morning and I picked up a Solara to drive for the duration of Wife's visit. If she could only be in the California sunshine for a few days, I reasoned, there's no reason she shouldn't be able to enjoy every minute.

Shey came over to the bungalow on Friday morning and we set out for the de rigeur tourist activity when one is visiting Hollywood:

We braved the traffic on Beachwood Canyon Drive to snap some photos with the Hollywood Sign!

After a quick spin around Hollywood, with the top down - of course, I took the girls to visit a downtown Los Angeles institution: Clifton's Cafeteria. Opened in 1935, Clifton's claims to be the largest public cafeteria in the world with seating for 600 on 3 levels. The restaurant's founder, Clifford Clinton, spent time at the Brookdale Lodge in the Santa Monica Mountains as a youth and redesigned the cafeteria's interior to resemble the lodge and mountains. He hoped the surroundings would give Depression-weary patrons a respite from their ordinary lives. The decor includes towering redwoods, a mounted moose's head, animated raccoons and a waterfall cascading down into a stream that flows around the restaurant. The place is an amazing fantasy on the California wilderness.

While I spent the afternoon in rehearsal, Shey and SME visited the oldest portion of Los Angeles along Olvera Street. Founded in 1781 along the Los Angeles River, Los Angeles began its existence as a secular pueblo known as El Pueblo de Nuesta Senora Reina de los Angeles set apart from the nearby Mission San Gabriel Arcangel. After unpredictable flooding of the river forced the relocation of the pueblo in the early 1800's, the city centered itself along what is now Olvera street and the El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument. The girls wandered amongst the oldest buildings in Los Angeles (including the Avila Adobe dating from 1818) listening to music from the bandstand and browsing the many Mexican-inspired trinkets for sale. As Olvera street is just a few blocks east of the Music Center, I was able to join them for dinner!

Shey shaded by bouganvilla on Olvera Street

With two shows on Saturday, I didn't get to see much of my wife except at breakfast and lunch. Sheila Marie and Shey spent most of the day together at the Farmers Market and the Grove. On Sunday, however, Ken and Francesca covered the second show for me giving Sheila Marie and I an extra long weekend!

After the matinee, we put the top down and headed toward Venice Beach! Founded in 1905 as 'Venice of America', Venice was a real estate concern. Lying outside of the city of Los Angeles, the land was developed by Abbot Kinney. Kinney built a long pleasure pier, auditorium, dance hall and salt water plunge to attract visitors to the beautiful, white, sandy beach. He dug the series of canals that were to become the areas signature to drain the marshy land and offered gondola rides to tour the town (and sell housing plots). Today, the beautiful beach and its colorful boardwalk characters are still the main draw, but many of the canals replace conventional streets in the heart of the residential district.

Venice's "Grand Canal"

On a bridge over one of the side canals

All sorts of interesting, and apparently quite expensive, houses line the canals. Once known as the "slum by the sea", Venice has experienced quite a renaissance in the recent past.

After a lovely mexican dinner, Sheila Marie and I went for a sunset walk on the beach

As the sun sank into the ocean, we drove south along the Pacific Coast Highway to visit Don the Beachcomber. As the show was entering act II, SME and I were sipping tiki drinks and watching scenes from Endless Summer. Amazing.

Of course, Monday was my regularly scheduled day off and Sheila Marie and I had a perfect Southern California combo plate in mind: the beach and baseball. We picked up Shey en route to Will Rogers State Beach and spent the afternoon frolicking in the surf.

Monday night, the Dodgers played host to the Cardinals at the big ballpark in Chavez Ravine. As Matt Allen is the number one Cardinals fan, there was no chance we were going to miss that match up. A bunch of us turned out to sit along the first base foul line and cheer for the red birds. Pujols and the Cardinals proved too much for Manny and the Dodgers, the final score was 3-2 in favor of the boys from St. Louis.

SME, JV, Roy, Graham, Cara, Paula & Matt after the ballgame

Ken and Francesca continued their kindness and covered the show for me on Tuesday giving Wife and I another whole day together on Tuesday! We headed for the coast again - this time driving north on the Pacific coast Highway through Malibu. Though the marine layer never really burned off along the water, keeping it cloudy and a bit cool, we kept the top down and enjoyed the drive.

We paused at Zuma Beach on the north end of Malibu to watch the surfers and the sandpipers

We continued up the coast past Santa Barbara before we took a turn inland. Not far from the coast, the sun burst through the clouds and the temperature rose 10 degrees. Even as we drove into the mountains of the Los Padres National Forest, the mercury climbed. By the time we circled Lake Cachuma, it was a beautiful day!

Lake Cachuma is a big reservoir nestled in a valley of the Los Padres National Forest

As we descended the San Marcos Pass Road, Solvang came into view. We couldn't believe our eyes; rising above the California hills and the bell tower of Mission Santa Ines were several giant windmills! Solvang is the self-appointed Danish capital of America. Founded in 1911 by a band of Danish educators fleeing midwestern winters, Solvang has evolved from a seat of higher learning into a beautiful tourist destination full of bakeries, tchotchke shops, a professional theater and lots of Danish food.

One of 3 full sized windmills in Solvang

SME w/ a bust of Danish author Hans Christian Andersen

A similar bust graces the streets of Copenhagen

Me, being me, I was especially interested in the Danish food...

We had a HUGE meal at Bit o' Denmark - it ranged from a plate of Danish cheese and charcuterie to traditional meatballs and red cabbage.

Before it was "more Danish than Denmark", Solvang was a Spanish outpost and home to one of California's 21 missions. Mission Santa Inez was one of the last missions (founded in 1804) and was constructed to relieve the overcrowding at the missions in Santa Barbara, to the southeast, and Lompoc, to the northwest, as well as to serve the Native Americans on the east side of the Coast Range.

Sheila Marie outside Mission Santa Inez

Full of Danish food, we retraced our route back south. The cloud cover along the coast was a little less dense as evening approached and we caught some dazzling glimpses of the sunset through the clouds. We stopped off at Santa Monica to watch the sun sink into the ocean one more time:

and to play on Santa Monica Pier:

We rode the West Coaster and the Pacific Wheel:

and we played in the arcade. As the hour grew late, we were finally hungry (our Danish feast carried us through most of the day). We dropped into The Shack in Santa Monica for burgers and a beer. I'm pleased to report that Wife was as impressed with The Shack as I was!

And like that, Sheila Marie's final visit to the Spamalot tour came to an end. Wednesday morning, Sheila Marie was back on the plane headed home to NYC. Nine weeks stand between her visit to LA and my return home. In those nine weeks, though, there's no good time for a visit. So begins the long list of Spamalot lasts: my last visit with Wife. It was a wonderful visit with a wonderful woman, but I can't wait until our life together is no longer measured in such short visits.

JV