VACATION IN CALIFORNIA 4/2007

I spent 6 days in California visiting my son who lives in Manhattan Beach. What a beautiful area it is. I met up with my sister there who had come to visit her daughter also living near L.A. It was a lovely visit with lots of surprises. We rode beach cruisers (bikes) along the ocean for awhile. We would stop along the way to "splash and go" (getting a drink and leaving). My son is working in lighting in LA so he was able to get us tickets for Dancing With the Stars which he was working on. That was so much fun - lots of hooting and hollaring. After that show, we were asked if the three of us would like to go to a special taping of Celine Dion singing with a hologram of Elvis next door on the American Idol stage. We did go and were very glad we did. The tape was just shown on "American Idol Gives Back" which was a very moving fundraiser for kids in poverty in the US and Africa. My son also took me up to the Greek Theater to look around. He will be working there this summer and early fall. They call it "summer camp" because it is an outdoor theater and most of them like working outdoors. My niece took us out to dinner at her workplace ("Mastro's") in Beverly Hills. It was a very fancy meal. Hugh Heffner showed up with a table full of women. There were two delicious barbeque's at my son's apartment with a view of the sunset over the pacific. WOW! Hollywood was fun. We took pictures of some of the stars on the sidewalk and the hand and foot prints in the cement. We had shots taken with a Johnny Depp lookalike and some characters from Star Wars. I have to admit, we bought a tour map from an old guy who said he knew all the stars (drove their kids in a school bus). We ended up following a tour bus and then looking it up on the map! All in all, it was a wonderful, relaxing visit. When can I go back?