Baseball Road Trip 2011: Day 9 (Los Angeles)

June 13^th

Day 9

Peter and I got up and left the house around 8:30 to go pick up a bouquet of flowers for Linda and her family to thank them for our stay, and the rest of the crew packed up and left around 10:30 for our next adventure…my cousin James’s. James and his girlfriend Destiny live in warehouse/recording studio/ party house in downtown Los Angeles, in an industrial/ghetto neighborhood. We had heard so many great stories about James while staying with the Emrichs, that we couldn’t resist staying a night with him in LA. After dropping off or bags at the house, meeting Destiny, and testing out the cargo netting that hangs in a hammock formation from the ceiling, we took off to go meet family friend, Dave Hunsaker for lunch in Venice Beach. Dave and his wife Annie are dear friends of my family in Juneau. Dave writes screenplays and spends a lot of his time in Los Angeles, and agreed to take us out for lunch while we were in the city. We had a lovely lunch, where we chatted mostly about Dave’s line of work, movies, but also covered other interesting subjects as well. After lunch, we walked the Venice Beach boardwalk, past all of the shops that line what is a very interesting part of Los Angeles. We walked past a street-side break dancing show that pulled Peter in from the crowd for some audience participation. They were kind of cool but never ended up using Peter in their act. After seeing all Venice Beach had to offer, we headed over to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills to check out the scene. In Beverly Hills, we were surrounded by upscale Armani and Louis Vuitton stores and I at least felt pretty uncomfortable and out of place. At one point we saw a crowd of maybe 50 people huddled outside a store hoping to catch a glimpse of celebrity Kim Kardasian, who was inside shopping by herself, after they had shut the store down for her. After getting our fill of Rodeo Drive, we drove through Beverly Hills, gawking at all the multi-million dollar mansions that people live in. There is no doubt, there is a lot of money in the movie industry. We came back to James’s place for a quick visit, and spent some quality time on the roof. James and Destiny have created a fun, quirky, free-spirited, almost bizarre home for themselves in their warehouse, in a cozy industrial area, comfortably nestled between two ghettos. It was a great stop for us on this trip. Around 6:15, we drove the 3 miles over to Dodger Stadium where we saw yet another tight ball game, with the Reds coming out on top 6-4. Joey Votto’s 7^th inning three-run homer pretty much put the game out of reach and even a late inning Dodger rally couldn’t bring them back. It was a fun stadium with an older feel to it than most of the parks we’ve visited. After the game, we headed back to James’s for a fun night of board games, throwing surprisingly loud fire crackers that we’d bought in China Town, late night, thought provoking conversations on the roof, and just getting to spend some time with the colorful character that is my cousin James. Riley, Alex, and Micah are all sleeping in the cargo netting, while Peter and I took a safer spots on couches. Tomorrow we plan to leave LA in the morning and drive to Phoenix in one day to reach the Matt and Kim concert in Tempe, by 7 PM.