La la land

Arriving in Los Angeles, we decided to check the bags into a left luggage service then hitch a cab up to Santa Monica. This was Gary and Ty's first experience of Los Angeles freeways, and both were a little intimidated at first by 12 lanes of traffic all traveling at 120km/hr.

We walked the pier, and enjoyed a coffee at a sidewalk cafe. Ty elected for an 'iced' coffee, which ended up being a normal long black with a heap of ice blocks in it. He said that it tasted about as inviting as it looked, but he gamely stuck with it until the end.

After the beach, we wandered up to the 3rd street mall and watched some of the street entertainment before enjoying crepes for dinner.

With only a short layover, we didn't have time to do much more than take in some of the local ambience before heading back to LAX for the next flight. The checkin process took a comedic turn when the TSA took an extra special interest in Gary and his luggage. The young guy manning the screening process was super officious and insisted that Gary was smuggling something in his tank bag. The bag was unloaded, reloaded, and then unloaded again. They finally realized that it was the magnets in the bottom of the bag that were causing the red flag, and the guy had he good grace to apologize before releasing Gary.

Waiting now for the flight to Panama (only two hops to go).

Location:Los Angeles