Los Angeles (105) to San Diego & San Diego (106-112)

Our drive to San Diego, whilst frustrating due to the spray from other traffic and constant rain, was an easy day. It should have been a 2 hour trip but due to the rain and traffic, we drove slowly and it took us almost 2½ hours.

The campground in San Diego is in a great location, very close to their own beach, launching ramp, small marina and had many amenities such as a children’s games room, grocery store, coffee shop and snack bar. But it came with a price, the most we’ve paid for our entire trip at $500/week. As such, we just booked for the week and scheduled ourselves to leave on the 27th.

The calm after 4 days of storm-note the
lack of palm fronds in the distance &
the rubbish washed up on the beach

We didn’t realise then, but San Diego was about to set a record for rain fall. It rained, and rained and rained for the first 4 days and they broke an 80 year old record, receiving more rain in those 4 days than they’d normally expect in 6 months. Along with the rain was wind. It always seemed to blow harder at night when everything was dark and made it all the more foreboding.

I had parked the Sierra beside some trees that would break the wind coming from the bay, but lay there thinking of how silly that decision might have been if the rain also weakened the root ball underneath the tree. I had pictures of the trees toppling over us and that fear kept me up for a number of hours, going outside at constant intervals to check the trees. The worst we ended up with was a number of small branches and a huge amount of leaves.

Eventually on the 23rd the rain started to ease and I’m sure we caught a glimpse of blue sky – time at last for us to play tourists and head in to look at San Diego and in particular, the Hotel Del Coronado. My sister Kaye had told us about this place and we’re very happy she did.

The history of this completely wooden structure is one worth re-telling. In the mid-1880s, the San Diego region was in the midst of one of its first real estate booms. At that time, it was common for a developer to build a grand hotel as a draw for what would otherwise be a barren landscape. The Hollywood Hotel in Hollywood, California, the Del Monte in Monterey, and the Hotel Redondo in Redondo Beach California were similar grand hotels built as development enticements during this era.

On December 19, 1885, Elisha Babcock, a retired railroad executive from Indiana, Hampton Story, of the Story and Clark Piano Company of Chicago and Jacob Gruendike, president of the First National Bank of San Diego bought all of Coronado and North Island for $110,000. The men hired architect James Reid, a native of New Brunswick, Canada, his younger brother Merritt Reid, and his brother Watson Reid who helped supervise the 2,000 laborers. Labor was provided largely by Chinese immigrants from San Francisco and Oakland.

Construction of the hotel began in March 1887 "on a sand spit populated by jack rabbits and coyotes". Among numerous problems to overcome if the hotel were ever to be built, was the absence of lumber and labor in the San Diego area. The lumber problem was solved with contracts for exclusive rights to all raw lumber production of the Dolbeer & Carson Lumber Company of Eureka, California, which was one of the west's largest. Planing mills were built on site to finish raw lumber shipped directly from the Dolbeer & Carson lumber yards, located on the shores of Humboldt Bay.

 

Reid's plans were being revised constantly and added to. To deal with fire hazards, a freshwater pipeline was run under San Diego Bay. Water tanks and gravity flow sprinklers were installed. Reid installed the world's first oil furnace in the new hotel. Electric lighting in a hotel was also a world first. The electric wires were installed inside the gas lines, so if the "new-fangled" electricity didn't work, they could always pipe illuminating gas into the rooms. Thomas Edison inspected the final electrical installation and returned in 1904 to oversee the nation's first illuminated outdoor Christmas tree, which was placed on the hotel's lawn. 



An ice skating rink

The Crown Room was Reid's masterpiece. Its wooden ceiling was installed with pegs and glue. Not a single nail was used.


When the hotel opened for business in February 1888, 1,440 San Diegans traveled across the bay. News reports of the new grand hotel were wired across the county, but just as the hotel was nearing completion, the Southern California land boom had turned bust. Babcock and Story needed additional funds at a time when many people were deserting San Diego. Babcock turned to sugar magnate John D. Spreckels who loaned them $100,000 to finish the hotel. By 1890 Spreckels bought out both Babcock and Story. The Spreckels family retained ownership of the hotel until 1948.

The original grounds had many amenities, including an Olympic-sized salt water pool, tennis courts, and a yacht club with architecture resembling the hotel's grand tower. A Japanese tea garden, an ostrich farm, billiards, bowling alleys, hunting expeditions, and deep sea fishing were some of the many features offered to its guests.


On April 7, 1920 Edward, Prince of Wales, was honored with a grand banquet in the Crown Room. There has been speculation that it was at this event that he first met his future wife Wallis Spencer, later known as Wallis Simpson, who lived in Coronado at the time. However, most historians believe they did not meet at that time, and both Edward and Wallis wrote in their memoirs that they met much later.

The popularity of the hotel was established before the 1920s. It already had hosted Presidents Harrison, McKinley, Taft, and Wilson. By the 1920s Hollywood's stars and starlets discovered that "the Del" was the "in place" to stay. Many celebrities made their way south to party during the era of Prohibition and used the Hotel Del as their personal playground. Tom Mix, Rudolph Valentino, Charlie Chaplin and Ramon Navarro were a few of the many actors who stayed at the hotel during weekend getaways.

During World War II, many West Coast resorts and hotels were taken over by the U.S. government for use as housing and hospitals. The Hotel Del Coronado housed many pilots who were being trained at nearby North Island Naval Air Station on a contract basis, but it was never commandeered. Then-general manager Steven Royce convinced the Navy to abstain from taking over the hotel because most of the additional rooms were being used to house the families of officers. He pointed out that "the fathers, mothers and wives were given priority to the rooms because it may be the last time they will see their sons and husbands." Ultimately the Navy agreed, and the hotel never was appropriated.

The hotel was designated as a "wartime casualty station". It began a victory garden program, planting vegetables on all spare grounds around the hotel.

Barney Goodman purchased the hotel from the Spreckels in 1948. From the end of World War II until 1960, the hotel began to age. While still outwardly beautiful, neglect was evident. In 1960, local millionaire John Alessio purchased the hotel and spent $2 million on refurbishment and redecorating. Alessio sold the hotel to M. Larry Lawrence in 1963.



Lawrence's initial plan was to develop the land around the hotel and ultimately, to demolish it. Lawrence later changed his mind. During his tenure, Lawrence invested $150 million to refurbish and expand much of the hotel. He doubled its capacity to 700 rooms. He added the Grande Hall Convention Center and two seven-story Ocean Towers just south of the hotel. The Lawrence family sold the hotel to the Travelers Group in 1996 after the death of Lawrence. The Travelers Group completed a $55 million upgrade of the hotel in 2001.

While retaining its classic Victorian looks, the hotel continues to upgrade its facilities. In 2003, Travelers sold the property to current owners CNL Hospitality Properties Inc. and KSL Recreation Corp (CNL/KSL). The current ownership group completed a $10 million upgrade of 381 rooms in June, 2005. In July 2005, the hotel obtained approval to construct up to 37 limited-term occupancy cottages and villas on the property. They also received approval to add up to 205 additional rooms.

A rather long-winded and detailed history but one I found very interesting, particularly with the experiment of that new fangled stuff called electricity and having Thomas Edison carry out the final electrical inspection. And haven’t the owners spent some money in restoration!



Following our visit to The Del, we drove into the city and I walked around a shopping centre with the girls while Grace had a relaxing time in a health Spa as part of her Christmas present. San Diego CBD is not all that big, and despite the large number of cars and people about doing last-minute Christmas shopping, it was easy to find our way around as the city blocks are in rectangles.

We met Grace at the Spa when she finished and headed off to a vintage car museum. Perhaps a peculiar choice of venue, but the girls said they’d like to see the old vehicles as well. There were quite a few wonderful old cars and carriages on display and the man who owned the museum said he doesn’t like to renovate anything at all unless it was absolutely necessary. That made the vehicles all the more fascinating as most were in very, very good condition.



As we walked to the museum, we noticed a barber shop about 2 doors down and as my photos show, I was in desperate need of a haircut. Once we finished at the museum, we went to the barber shop door and tried to open it. It felt locked so we started to walk away only to be called back to say they were still open and he asked if I’d like a haircut. I said yes, so walked back into this very large shop full of gay, African Americans and I felt most out of place as I was the only person with fair skin...and straight.

Having already committed myself for the cut, I followed this lovely, large chap to his chair and sat down. He asked me what sort or cut I’d like and I thought a trim would be good, not too much off, just take the long curls. He started chatting with his neighbour and I was ignored for almost 15 minutes – I wasn’t game to say a word. After remembering I was there, he asked me again and snip, snip, cut he went. I’ve never had a haircut before where I sat with my back to the mirror, and thus was unable to see how my falling locks were progressing.

Shortly after, he produced a mirror so that I could see that I now looked like an American marine with short back and sides, very short back and sides and sort of clumpy layers of hair as well. The sign outside said the haircuts were $10, he asked for $15 and I gave him $20 and disappeared into the night, rapidly. Oh well, there’s only a week difference between a good haircut and a bad one – or so I used to think. At the time of writing this blog (about 3 weeks later), my hair is still short on the sides and back and the clumpy layers are becoming larger, clumpy layers. 

Early Christmas morning



Christmas Eve found us wrapping a few presents and doing last minute chores. Due to the time difference, we made quite a number of calls to Australia to wish Nona, Colin & Quinn, Kieran and Brenda (Nona’s parents who were with them) Lisa, Gordon & Mitch, Kaye and Anne (my sisters) and families, Kath & Arthur and family, Dianne & Bob (my apologies if we spoke to someone else as well, please remind me and I’ll add you to the list) a Merry Xmas and called Viktoria and family in Sweden for Christmas Eve as is now our annual custom.



And then, Christmas Day and perhaps the less I dwell and say about that, the better. It started off well and we spoke to all our family in Canada to wish Kristy and David, Lauren, Dave & Seth, Peter & Cindy (Lauren’s parents) a Merry Xmas, followed by a small amount (limited to one present due to the room constraints) of gift giving and receiving; then the day went downhill from there. I think the pent-up frustration of being cooped inside the Sierra for days and days on end finally took its toll, just a pity it was on Christmas Day. By very late evening everyone was almost better and a little conversation began, so we planned to go to Legoland on Boxing Day, about 30 minutes north of San Diego.



Legoland was lots of fun and was certainly the remedy we needed to recover from yesterday. We spent the entire day there and left well after sunset. This was our last day in San Diego and the surrounding area and because of the rain, we hadn’t seen much at all. We would love to re-visit, explore further and take time to relax outdoors as the city is small enough to be very personal, yet it doesn’t have the hustle and bustle feel of a large city and is only a couple of hours south of LA.

Tomorrow we leave for Temecula, only a short distance north east, to meet with a couple of authors.

Solvang (99) to Los Angeles & LA (100-105)

Due to a number of horrible stories I’d been told of tangling with overpasses, underpasses and LA traffic with a large rig, the thought of driving through Los Angeles had caused me some apprehension. Nevertheless, our day had finally come to tackle this hurdle, so we left Solvang with a little nervousness of what’s to come. We chose a campground to the south east of LA in the hope we could stay quite clear of traffic, in and around the CBD and our route, if we could follow it correctly shouldn’t be too bad.



Highway 1 to the right

The drive from Solvang to our campground was only about 280kms so slow traffic wouldn’t cause us to arrive late at the campground. We followed the 101 south along the coast and noticed for quite some distance, we were parallel to Highway 1 that was literally beside the water. Someone had very kindly made Highway 1 wide enough to allow many, many RVs to camp alongside the road and enjoy a beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean. The only drawback would be if the prevailing westerly winds became too strong.

I can’t remember if I mentioned the occasional eucalyptus trees we saw between San Francisco and here. Quite an unexpected site and we were almost tempted to stop and take some photos....of gum trees? Oh dear, perhaps we’re more homesick than I thought!

Picking strawberries

The highway also took us through the city of San Buenaventura, commonly called Ventura that brought memories back of the song sung in the ‘70s (that’s 1970s thanks girls, not the 19th century!) by the group America, Ventura Highway; here’s a link if you’d like to reminisce: Ventura Highway

It’s great how music from MY ancient era can help pass away hours of driving. Unfortunately for the girls, the Chev radio is almost always tuned to XM 5, a 24/7 radio station playing music from the 50s, the early years of rock and roll and latter years of the crooners and groups that sang in “harmony”, something that seems to be missing today with rap, hip-hop, funk and ooncy-ooncy stuff – guess I’m showing my age again. How I wish we could get XM radio in Australia, but alas, it’s not broadcast there.

Now where was I?....oh yes, heading for LA. We passed quite a number of fruit orchards, but as we approached to about 80 kms north of LA, the roads started to widen, the traffic became heavier and all signs of the countryside vanished. “Homer” was doing a good job but was being very carefully watched by Grace who was studying our atlas with an intense gaze. The roads widened to 6, then 7, then 8 lanes each way and we really needed to make sure we planned ahead in the selection of lanes to prevent us shooting off one of the many overpasses.

The traffic wasn’t too heavy and was moving at a fast pace requiring us to drive at about 55mph, just so we wouldn’t become a mobile chicane. The courteous nature of other drivers we had experienced in the rest of the US seemed to have evaporated, and with a few exceptions it was self-interest first. Through very skilful navigation (thanks Grace and Homer) we made it, unscathed but a little mentally weary, to our campsite in San Dimas, a suburb about 45 minutes drive (in light traffic) to Hollywood and LA’s CBD.



Rowena with Grace & Rochelle

Our intention while we were in LA was to omit seeing places such as Disneyland until we arrived in Florida where we will see Disneyworld. If we saw everything exciting here and left a limited selection of exciting places to visit while we were on the eastern side of the USA, the girls would have nothing to look forward to. We also became aware of upcoming bad weather that was expected mid-way through our 10-night stay.

Before we had completed setting up the Sierra we had our first visitor, Charlie, who was staying alone in a caravan nearby our site. Charlie, who has a Filipina fiancé, came over to say hello and see if he could help. He befriended us immediately and offered to organise firewood for the open fireplace beside our site.

Our view of the LA skyscrapers in
the distance - to the left of centre

Grace had organised us all to have dinner with Rowena & her husband Tommy – Rowena is a former high school friend whom I’ve met but haven’t seen for a number of years. Rowena and Tommy were married 18 months ago and as we’d never met Tommy, the dinner was a good opportunity to chat. Accordingly, we all (Charlie included) headed down to a lovely restaurant for dinner. It was a great night and as we still had much to chat about, we suggested having a BBQ at our place the following Monday.

Schoolwork was again to take preference as it was now Dec 10th and the school year in Australia was almost at an end. We still had time to complete what we could and post it back to their teachers, hopefully in time to be marked and assessed. Charlie came over a couple of times through the day and kindly lit the fire outside that evening – one of his children, Erika came over and we all sat around toasting marshmallows. He also took the opportunity to call his fiancé and let Grace and her talk.

With Jessica at her place

Saturday was also set aside to catch up with Jessica, someone we’d never met but had spoken to by phone a few times. Jessica’s sister Dinia lives in Sydney and Dinia, her husband John and kids are friends of ours. Jessica lives in Hollywood and we organised to meet at her place late morning, have lunch and a local look about. Thanks again to Homer, we arrived without a problem and parked in their driveway beside Jessica’s house. There wasn’t a lot of room to spare and seemed to exacerbate the size of the Chev.

Outside Grauman's Theatre

It was a delight to finally meet Jessica face-to-face and chat about things in common. We also met Kevin, a very good friend of Jessica’s and after chatting, found out we’d both experienced a “life-changing” moment when Kevin’s heart stopped beating (not conducive to great health) and was hospitalised for quite some time. Just as my stroke 5 years ago had caused me to reflect on what’s important in life, Kevin had done the same and had placed all his expensive business suits to the back of the wardrobe, as if putting the material things of life into perspective.

We walked to a local Thai restaurant and I’m sure Jessica ordered so much food it would have severely impinged upon the available food for the rest of the patrons! From there we followed their car to Hollywood Boulevard, parked and sauntered up the Walk of Fame looking at names of many well-known and some totally unfamiliar names along the way. We stopped to watch many of the street performers and locals dressed in movie character costumes of all sorts, noting there was more than one Michael Jackson impersonator....they didn’t appear to be pleased about that and I wondered if there was a roster or schedule of who does what?



We weren't alone!

The large number of tourists was all bundled onto one side of the road as the other was closed and being prepared for the premiere showing of Tron that night. We had fun trying to see how hand and foot prints fitted into the actor’s impressions made outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, and then realised time was getting away from us.

Jessica and Kevin had been invited to a friend’s birthday celebration that was to commence at 3 and they’d requested we come along as well. Ping was turning 29 (ahem, not what the candle on the cake said) and as it was almost 4 o’clock it was way past time to leave - still, on the way to Ping’s they led us to a street for a photo opportunity to see the Hollywood sign on the hill. There’s something called “Filipino time” that allows you to arrive well after the scheduled start time without noting your tardiness; however, we were even late for Filipino time! As Ping is also a Filipina, perhaps......oh shute, we were to be very late indeed!

We were made feel very welcome at Ping’s party and the Filipino family who owned the house had planted many fruit trees native to the Philippines; calamansi (small lemon/limes) and guava as well as grapefruit etc. Rochelle made a new friend there, MJ was a bit younger than her and they had a great time together running around playing all types of games. MJ has an older sister Rio who is a little younger than Meryla and as all the children “hit it off” that night, the parents, Sally and Mario agreed to join us with Jessica and Kevin for a BBQ tomorrow (Sunday) at our site.

The weather stayed fine for both our planned BBQs and the girls also enjoyed playing with MJ’s younger brother, Coco. During our BBQ with Rowena and Tommy the following day, Sally picked up Chantelle and Meryla and took them out with Rio to watch a movie.

Each night prior to the rain, we sat outside at the campfire and watched a number of skunks wandering about the campground. They seemed quite friendly although I wasn’t going to get anywhere as near to them as Charlie tried. He’d place small pieces of bread on the ground enticing them closer and closer. The nearest any one of the got would have been about 3~4 metres, however, when they turned to walk away, I noted Charlie was also keen to put distance between himself and the skunk as well.

Charlie with one of our visitors

One night he apparently saw a racoon under the Chev and waited till after midnight to see whether one of our internal lights came on prior to knocking. As we didn’t waken, he told us the following day. I also met another Lowther at the registration office. Eula Lowther’s family are all from Ohio and I was the first Lowther that Eula had met at the campground.

The rain arrived half way through our stay and continued till we left. There was to be a little break on Wednesday 15th so we headed off for the day to see Universal studios which was an interesting, but expensive exercise. Meryla decided not to come which reduced the cost from enormously expensive to very expensive – our entrance fees and selected food for the 4 of us was over $585!

Tommy listening to me waffling

Rain then precluded any further trips out and I needed to break out the gumboots as the grass around the Sierra was sodden. The nearby lake seemed to have risen in level by more than 1 metre and although schoolwork was still required, after days of rain the gloomy weather started to grate on everyone’s nerves. There was no wifi in the campground and anyone who needed internet connection was required to do so at the reception area. Rowena had a day off on Thursday and picked up Grace for the two of them to spend some valuable “girl” time together. Jessica and Kevin came over for dinner on Saturday; we had another lovely evening and bade our farewells at the end of the night.

The houses behind the campground
amongst the mist and rain

It was good to meet everyone while we were in LA, but touristy things we’d like to have seen such as Venice Beach and the pier at Santa Monica, to name just a couple would have to wait for another day. It was also interesting to note that we were warned by quite a few people not to go to downtown LA as the gangs in that area made it far too dangerous. As that’s only a stone’s throw from Hollywood, we took heed of their warnings and will remember that for our next trip to LA.

We decided to spend Christmas in San Diego in the hope of finding better weather and left on Mon 20th in.....constant rain.

Paso Robles to Solvang & surrounds (93 – 99)

The drive to Solvang took us only 2 hours and was very straight-forward. Upon arrival at the beautiful Solvang campground, we were told of a few “must see” places and because we had children with us, they suggested we might enjoy seeing where Michael Jackson used to live at the Neverland ranch.

As we still had plenty daylight left and the weather was great, we headed off to find the ranch. There was no sign posting at all and although the trip from the campground to the ranch was only 25 kms, about 15 kms was on quite a narrow bitumen road, causing us to wonder whether or not we were still on the correct route. We drove through a very rural area and straight past what turned out to be the Neverland gate, only stopping once the road narrowed to a point where a single car would fit on the bitumen surface.

We did a U turn and headed back past all the farms, to where we previously saw a large gate with a stone wall on either side. A taxi was parked in the street beside it and that initially was the only sign of life. We hopped out of the car and saw a young Chinese lady very excitedly running about using her taxi driver as her camera man. These indeed were the gates to the Neverland ranch and she had flown all the way from China to see them, but you cannot pass them.

Lots of notes, ribbons and messages had been written on every part of the stone walls, even the trees had carved inscriptions from adoring fans. Despite no-one any longer living there, security was present both inside the gate with a man glancing at us from inside his car, to the many cameras positioned outside the gate located in trees, at ground level and on the fence. The irony about the beautiful gate and stone wall entrance is that, in total it was about 20 metres long. At each side of this structure was a wooden fence with three horizontal lengths of timber you could step over.

After taking quite a few photos we headed back towards Solvang and passed a miniature pony stud farm. We arrived almost at their posted closing time, but the gate was still open so we drove in parked, alone in a large car park. Apart from a couple of people in the distance using very noisy engine-driven blowers to make fallen leaves into piles, we were alone. We felt like we were trespassing on a private farm.

"Feather" a fully grown miniature
pony who had been sold and
was awaiting her new owner

Nearby we noticed a lady leading one of these tiny ponies walking into an enclosed shelter, so we went to find her to ask if it was OK to look about. She confirmed it was fine and explained a little about these ponies. Fully grown the height to their withers is not to exceed 32” or 81cm and being so small, they cannot support a rider. However, they can and do pull carts that can support the weight of an adult. She told us their price had almost halved since the downturn here in the USA and that their most expensive pony now sells for about $4,500.

Solvang is quite a small place and as we were heading back to the campground, drove through the heart of town. It is certainly had the appearance of being a unique township, unlike anything we had seen in the USA. We stopped briefly in town at a visitor’s centre, got some ideas and brochures and planned our day for tomorrow.

Again, the weather Gods were smiling and we drove back into town the next morning in glorious sunshine. Solvang, founded in 1911 as a Danish-American colony on a portion of the sprawling Rancho San Carlos de Jonata, has developed into a well-known tourist attraction. The village has a population of just over 5000 and has been designed to represent a page from a Hans Christian Anderson story, although, for the entire day we were there we didn’t hear anything resembling a Danish accent.

Solvang, meaning “Sunny Field” was founded by a group of Danish educators from the Midwest in search of a site for a Danish-type folk school. They liked what they saw and envisioned the location of the potential town, nestled between the Santa Ynez and San Rafael Mountain Ranges, as an ideal place to launch their school and where settlers could earn a living tilling the rich soil.

Included among the first arrivals were not only farmers, but carpenters and other artisans as well who set about constructing the first buildings, homes, a hotel and the original two-story folk school, Atterdag College built in 1914 on a hill on the north side of town.

Many Danish customs have been adopted and are actively still in use today. That includes the rejsegilde, a celebration at the raising of the highest rafter on a new building. This tradition has now spread throughout the non-Danish population on the Santa Ynez Valley. Daily tours are provided all year round (except winter where tours are offered only on weekends) via Honen “The Hen”, a replica of a Copenhagen street car of the early 1900s. Unfortunately, we missed out on that experience as despite looking, we couldn’t find The Hen.

We decided to rent a pedal car that had room for 4 and the largest seated 6. However, Meryla didn’t want to be seen riding that in public (a teenage thing) so opted out, leaving us the option of hiring a 4-seater. We pedalled about the town laughing and having a great time until Rochelle somehow started to slide forward off her seat (she had a seat belt fitted?) and her feet started dragging underneath the frame.

The brakes worked very well thankfully, so we brushed her off and put her in the front seat so we could all keep an eye on her. The hour’s rental passed very quickly and we worked our way back to the rental place just in time. We wandered about the quaint township and noticed many places had a stork on their roof. Apparently, an old Danish belief is that having a stork on the roof will bring them good luck.

We came across the Red Viking restaurant that offered a smorgåsbord as at it was time for lunch, in we went. And a very nice Scandinavian smorgasbord it was with different types of herring, Swedish meatballs (smaller than our standard size but very nice with their gravy), hot and cold meats and salads.

Every Wednesday afternoon was a designated Market Day and a small section in the centre of town was closed off to allow local farmers and artisans to display and sell their wares. And being near Christmas, there were a lovely couple who looked awfully familiar. 

We purchased a few groceries and a bottle of walnut oil which we look forward to using in a salad. By the time we’d finished lunch, had our photos taken in one of those old-fashioned family photo outfits and purchased our items at the market, it was time to head home and prepare for tomorrow’s drive to Los Angeles.