Beginning to wander
up the coastline
I had decided to hit the
road relatively early, and do route 1 into LA, which I’d never done before.
With Ivana, I was able to
stray off route 1 once in a while and meander off onto the best residential
areas of Del Mar and Carlsbad. While
diverting and yapping on the phone, it appears as though I diverted the attention
of a Del Mar motorcycle cop, whose blaring lights caught my attention in my
rear view mirror. This guy was all
business, and quickly asked me if I knew why he was stopping me. I had wanted to say “to guide us to the best
bagels in Del Mar?”, but thought better
of it and instead was informed that I had failed to stop COMPLETELY at a three
way intersection and please hand over my license, registration and insurance
card. He immediately took all three
(which I was happy to be able to find promptly), and left us for about ten
minutes, lights still flashing behind us.
We all took the moment in stride, the boys actually offering up timely
humor, Austin surprising me with the suggestion “Maybe we should offer him a
Krispy Kreme”, and Parker adding to that his idea that we could recreate the
hilarious scene from Albert Brooks’ Lost in American whereby we could engage
the cop in discussion about the movie EASY RIDER, and he would be so thrilled
with our interest in the movie that he’d rip up the ticket. Unfortunately we were 90 miles from Hollywood
and that just wasn’t going to happen. I
was amused as I watched in my rear-view mirror as I watched his head bob up and
down a few times, surmising that he was trying to get the spelling of “TOUAREG”
correct.
He wasted no time in
handing me the ticket and zipping off into the quiet streets of Del Mar,
leaving me to just sit and ponder what an outlaw I am. I mean, really, there was no one around at
all… it was 10 in the morning. But I
suppose he had his quota. I will decide
whether to contest it by mail. I did
that once and they just dropped the charges in Connecticut.
After a quick bagel and
coffee, we buzzed through the military town of Oceanside, a blip in the ritzy
lifestyle between the Carlsbads, Dana Points and what I discovered as one of my
favorite looking spots--Laguna Beach.
Beginning in the south end with the Ritz Carlton and gorgeous coastline
homes, along with a few art galleries and restaurants, after about five minutes
on route 1, the homogenous commercialism begins to intrude, with the usual
Bailey Banks and Biddles and Talbot’s, etc.
Still, while the northern side of town was more congested, it was still
attractive. Aside from the fact that it
was quite a hike through the clogged freeway arteries from Los Angeles itself,
I couldn’t imagine why someone wouldn’t prefer this locale to Beverly
Hills. While still sporting an attitude,
it just seemed more laid back and less pretentious. Of course, I could be very wrong, but
probably not.
I called my brother and we
agreed that I would probably have a better time visiting him in his infirmed
state and enjoying his pool rather than battling the crowds at any of the
Disney Parks. That didn’t take much
arm-twisting on my part. We navigated to
a gratifying In ‘n Out Burger lunch at one of its packed take-out only
locations in Santa Ana (see last year’s journal for more on this great little
fast food place I wish we had in the east).
Then we consulted Ivana for a ride to the hotel for a quick check-in. We took the Santa Ana Freeway to the Santa
Monica Freeway to our third car wash of the trip on LaCienega, and made it to
Angelus West at 3 on the nose.
As we relaxed in the pool,
Pete’s ex-wife Karen came over to spend some time. Karen looked fantastic, as usual, and it’s
always nice to be around her smiling, sparkly personality. Somehow it’s more casual to visit now that
they’re not married, it’s good to see that their relationship itself seems to
work better in its post-marital state than it did before. The boys pointed out later, given their
experience with relationships and divorce, how unusual this was. Anyway we all enjoyed a sushi dinner (well,
Pete’s broken ribs from his recent Mexican ATV fiesta and subsequent accident
thereof may have prevented full enjoyment), save for Parker, whose
dissapointment at the meal was melted away shortly thereafter by Baskin Robbins
Cookies N Cream cone.
We got back to the hotel
in Anaheim, which was chosen for its proximity to Edison Field, at about
midnight.
While we could have done
any one of a number of things in Anaheim, we chose to do not much. We opted for sleeping in, a buffet breakfast,
a nap, a return trip to a different In N Out as the precursor to our second
ballgame of the trip—the Angels versus the Kansas City Royals. The Royals happen to be a favorite of
Parker’s.
Edison Field greets you
with a big Disney-like smile. Two giant
Angels hats bookend the entrance, over which hang giant images of Angel stars
of last year’s unlikely championship year—Troy Glaus, David Eckstien, Troy Percival,
Garret Anderson. I mused to myself that
Mo Vaughn would have needed two of those panels, had he stayed with the
Angels. But then, no one could argue
that they never would have won that championship if the Angels hadn’t pawned
his bloated self and salary off on the Mets the previous winter. Perhaps that was an even bigger play than
their 7-run inning to cap off a magical year in game 7 of the World Series last
year.
Edison Field is clean and
easy to navigate. I had bought our seats
on the net, as was the case with all of this year’s seats. What the site didn’t tell me, and I will be
sure to point out to Angels’ management, is that Row K of our level was
completely submerged under an overhang.
To me, not to be able to see the scoreboard and all the information that
goes with it is missing so much of what’s fun about going to a
ballgame—especially for teams I am not as familiar with as I am when I go see a
Met game. Without being able to see the
lineup, a player’s stats, some of the trivial minutiae which appears on the
jumbotron that makes baseball wonderful, like “Desi was the third best hitter
on the Royals in June”, it’s not a baseball game. Add to that two other huge factors—one, that
you can’t see the sky, and the second, the volume of the echos under the
overhang, and these seats to me, are terrible.
Lastly, they were on the wrong side of the aisle, so we couldn’t see the
game 50% of the time with people coming and going to stuff their faces
throughout the first inning, and then to make matters even worse, we were too
far out in right field, but just above field level. I’ll take the perspective of the View Level
any day, which, of course, we did. By
the second inning, we found three great seats on the third base side of the
diamond. Austin’s big smile mirrored
mine, as we were now able to take everything in—the scoreboard, the fountains,
the freeways in the distance, the sky, and most importantly, THE GAME! And without fail, Austin was now able to give
his nightly dead pixel count. In case
you’re not aware (and are interested in sponsoring this report), this updates
us on exactly how many pixels are not working on the diamondvision board.
The Dogs at Edison were
the same Weinerschnitzel variety as at Qualcomm, so my theory about southern
California not being a haven for nitrites still holds true. Three ballparks, all three serve up hot dogs
that belong in the cellar.
It was interesting to note
how a championship affects a ballclub.
Most obvious was that this was a big crowd for a Tuesday evening game
vs. a team with no apparent superstars--only a few sections being empty in the
corners of the field. Most apparent,
however, is how dressed up in red all these fans were. Last year was the first year the Angels moved
to this new color and new logo, from a blue-pinstriped variety with Angels
wings flying from the A on their caps and the A in Angels. Now, this championship color was firmly
entrenched into the psyche of all Angels baseball fans… it was as though they’d
created a lifetime of baseball history in just one year. This red, unlike the Red in Boston, could
boast having a World Series trophy in its midst. And the marketing team of the Angels made
sure of that, because every single time the name Angels was uttered, it was
preceded by the words “World Champion”.
Edison fans had lots of
energy for concessions. They rivaled
Texas Ranger fans in their frequency of visits to the unnecessary variety of
concession stands. It appeared to me that
attending an Angels game was more about eating and less about watching the game
than those of us in New York are used to experiencing. New Yorkers manage to eat, of course, but
it’s simpler fare and it seems as though there is a lot less up and down. I wondered if those beyond the many fans sporting
Angels uniforms were simply tourists seeking a fun night out with no particular
allegiance to the Angels.
The quickly-played game (2
hours and 15 mins as we heard on the Angels radio network on the way back to
the hotel) itself featured a rather dramatic home run by a utility player off
John Lackey, as Darrin Erstad reached for the dropping bomb in the deepest end
of the ballpark, almost looking as if he’d snabbed it. He didn’t, and the Royals took and held a 4-0
score right through to the end of the ballgame.
Angels fans had a couple of double plays to cheer about and once great
defensive play by Tim Salmon to prevent what would have been the first run in
the second inning. They didn’t look like
world champions on this night, but then again, that’s just part of
baseball. The best a team can do is look
like champions 70% of the time. That’s
the best. And a great player only looks
like an all-star 35% of the time. Those
percentages are probably numbers we live with in real life, but they’re not documented
the way they are in baseball.
Departing Edison Field’s
parking lot was a cinch. It took about
three minutes to get back to the Sheraton.
Just as I’d sat down to catch up on my writing, there was some loud crackling
outside. We had a second door in the
room that led to a nice courtyard and garden, from which we found we were able
to see in pretty good view Disneyland’s closing fireworks show. It was a nice way to close out our Southern
California experience—just the way we started it—as we were to hit the road up
the Pacific Coast Highway heading north early the next morning.
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