Southern California Vacation - Day 2 June 11

Saturday, our first full day in California was very eventful. I had made arrangements to meet with Rich Jacoby who was my classmate at PS 139 Queens about 50 years ago. We had reconnected through e-mail and Facebook and had spoken several times over the phone. We drove up to his home in Beverly Hills which is about a one hour drive from Long Beach. Rich gave us the grand tour of the Los Angeles area. I certainly observed that Southern California is a collection of suburbs in search of a city. People in this region are certainly very much dependant on the automobile. Things are just so spread out. In many places the traffic was absolutely horrendous. Rich drove us through communities such as Westwood, Brentwood, Santa Monica, and Hollywood. As we passed near the location of the OJ Simpson “incident” in 1994 Rich asked me if I wanted to stop. I politely said no.

After the tour we went to a shopping mall called The Grove We ate at the Cheesecake Factory and from there walked around the original Farmers Market. We concluded the evening by seeing the movie Super 8.