5-18-10 -- Day off in LA with my sis

After yesterday’s ride I slept REALLY well. My sister Bethany and her lovely roommate Margo were nice enough to make room for me in their tiny UCLA dorm room. I found space to put my panniers under the bed, and shoehorned the bike into a corner. My sister has a super cool and VERY comfortable fold out futon bed. The girls claim that anyone who sits on it will fall under its spell and be fast asleep within minutes (even if you are trying to study). It proved to be very true.

I slept clean through until 9am before waking to find the girls all dressed and ready to go to class. I jumped out of bed and winced with pain – I guess the breakneck pace I’ve been setting is beginning to take its toll. My knees are almost out of commission! Last night on the way in I stopped briefly in Malibu to pick up a knee brace for my right leg, but apparently it didn’t help all that much. I decided to take the day off here in LA, as the weather has turned pretty unpleasant. I need some recuperation time.

I had a chuckle this morning when Beth, Margo and I were trying to figure out if we should bring an umbrella for the day. We all checked the weather on our various laptops and cell phones. Margo reported mostly sunny skies, my Google weather showed partly cloudy. We all trotted off downstairs without a second thought. Unfortunately we were so fixated on the computers that we forgot to look out the window and see that it was indeed pouring! Haha. Sometimes technology gets away with us…….

Bethany and Margo LOVE to eat! They take delight in running me around all of their favorite Westwood eateries. We started last night with the dorm’s cafeteria food, which Beth claims to be sick and tired of. I on the other hand found it to be DELIGHTFUL! It’s like a cheap version of Fresh Choice, every night, and only 15 steps from your room. Oh, and yes…. It’s all you can eat. This is the life. We later went to the new on-campus gelato and sorbet shop and had a very yummy white-chocolate and raspberry sorbet desert. Tonight we left campus for our evening feast. The girls introduced me to “BJ’s Restaurant,” which specializes in deep dish pizza and ‘Pizookies.’ The latter is a scrumptious, perfectly under-baked cookie, left in its individual cooking pan, and topped with vanilla ice cream. We ordered two for the three of us and found it to be PLENTY – to the tune of about 2500 calories. It’s a good thing we have a 25 minute uphill walk back to the dorms!

I spent the day working out the intricacies of the Los Angeles public transit system, which is actually quite modern and efficient. It puts SF MUNI to shame, with a fleet of modern busses and an entire series of ‘rapid express’ lines. I managed to blast over to Kaiser to pick up a proper knee brace and some better allergy medicine. I didn’t even get lost! :-)

Tomorrow I think I’ll hit the road again, but I’m torn as to my destination. I want to finish my trip to the Mexico border, as it gives a sense of completion to the trip. On the other hand, Tijuana and the whole border area is pretty undesirable. I was thinking that I might instead head east from LA, out into the desert to Joshua Tree. What do you all think?