Day 129 – I’m afraid it’s time again for us to play catch up with the blog. It’s so much easier to keep up with it on a daily basis, but we just haven’t been able to do that. Today is January 24 and we are one week behind. Our apologies. We did not drop off the face of the earth. We’ve just had a very busy schedule. We haven’t even had time to take a bunch of pictures, therefore both Rob & I will keep it short until we get back on schedule with the blog.
This morning we took the Honda in for a check-up at 9 a.m. We were lucky enough to get an appointment at Long Beach Honda. They checked our alignment & it was fine; they rotated the tires, changed the oil & filter, did an overall “physical” on the car, and found and patched the hole in the right front tire. (The tires are new – we had to replace all 4 of them before this trip – but we’ve put a lot of mileage on both vehicles in a relatively short period of time. Evidently, we ran over something with the car and punctured the tire. The loss of air caused the car to pull to the right. Rob found the leak yesterday and added air for a temporary fix. The service at Long Beach Honda was excellent, and we’re glad they were able to repair the tire.)
We were due at Rob’s moms’ house at 1 p.m. but were running late by the time we’d finished with the Honda. We grabbed an extremely fast lunch, then picked up his mom & the caregiver, Sofia, for a trip to the “South Coast Botanic Garden”. His mom was able to get some exercise using her walker. We all had a good time and the weather wes perfect. Lots of hummingbirds & beautiful gardens. (South Coast Botanic Garden: 26300 Crenshaw Blvd., Palos Verdes Peninsula, CA, (310) 544-1948.)
Allen’s Hummingbird, South Coast Botanic Garden, Palos Verdes Peninsula, CA
To see a whole lot more pictures of the Botanic Garden,
Click Here
After spending the afternoon at the Gardens & visiting with his mom, we drove back to Long Beach, changed clothes, said “Hi” and “Bye” to the girls, and went to an older, revitalized area of Long Beach to meet some friends, Mark & Mark, for dinner.The restaurant was “Papalucci’s” on 2nd Street; Mark T. & Mark L. are friends from way back when we used to live in southern CA. We had a wonderful time. Both Mark’s are retired now, and boy, does it show! They looked fantastic – all the stress lines released from their faces. (To anyone considering whether to retire now or later? Just do it!) The food was really, really good – some of the best Italian food we’d ever had. And the company was even better. Thanks, guys for coming all the way from Studio City to Long Beach. (Papalucci’s: 4611 E. 2nd Street, Long Beach, (562) 434-4454)