Las Vegas to Los Angeles: July 6, 2009

I get up early and head to the pool with my book underarm, for one last swim in vegas. The building's gold windows are bouncing the sun down into the pool area and it's all aglow. I read a few chapters, then get in and float around for a while looking up at the tower and trying to count the floors to the 33rd where I'm sure sooner or later I'll see Fabri and his lens appear. A while after they do and a few chapters more I go off to buy some coffee and another bagel to bring up to the room.

We get ready, check out, and wait for the valet with the car. We head to Downtown Las Vegas because we didn't get to see it yet and we have visions of the ghosts of Frank Sinatra running around. We get there and park the car and wander around for 20 minutes. It's definately different from the strip, but still has the same sad undertones. Frankie's nowhere to be seen and it seems like the old Vegas days are gone. I wonder what they'd make of the new sections and all the theme hotels.

I read for most of the drive from Vegas to LA. It's a flat, desert road with nothing to look at and no place to stop. I finish my book. We drive through the creepiest town in America cause we get off the highway 1 exit too soon to go to Patty's 50's diner for lunch (but by now it's 3pm). Every window of every building has had a brick thrown through it. Most properties had fences around them, some even with barbed wire. The diner was nice and dinery, but weird that it was so much in the middle of nowhere.

We're tired when we get into LA and are actually on freeways in the city itself for over an hour before we arrive at the hotel. We're angry with the girl at the front desk cause she claims that we ahve to pay 22 dollars a night for valet parking and that there's no other option, but then Fabri finds a spot for free in a lot across the street. The hotel is artsy and designed nicely but we decide it's a failure because of the attitudes of the staff members.

I call my friend Jess from the room and we arrange to meet later.

We head off to Venice beach for the sunset because I promised myself 18 years ago (roughly) that I'd return there someday. I had even bought a silver ring there with 2 dolphins on it as a promise to myself. I must have worn that ring for 2 or 3 years. Anyways, it's much as I remembered it but I couldn't remember exactly why it was such a symbol for me the first time around. Maybe cause on that trip I was mostly listening to the Doors, or maybe cause I had never been anywhere so far from mainstream before that trip. We were approached by kids of about that same age all dressed up as pixies and giggling who wanted to know all about us. It was weird and fun.

We meet Jess and John at Moonshadows bad and restaurant in Malibu for a drink. The place is awsome, overhanging the pacific and is stewing in amurky, foggy mist tonight. Seagulls bob languidly up and down in the middleground and every 8 minutes or so a wave becomes violent and stirs us from our bottle of wine, crashing up against the wall at our shoulders. It's great to catch up. Sometimes time doesn't pass at all with certain people and things just continue on nicely. The conversation and wine flow freely and we all move outside on the overhanging patio before we realise it's already gotten late. We agree to try to meet tomorrow and head off in opposite directions along California highway 1.

I'm nausious in the car on the way back to the hotel and ask Fabri to pull over. It's clear i've drank too much. We get to the hotel and he drops me in front with my key as he goes to park the car. I go upstairs and try the door but it doesn't work. I try a few more times before doubting I'm at the right room. I go back downstairs and tell the front desk the situation, but they are not helpful at all. They tell me that because my name isn't on the registry they can't tell me if the room number is right or check if the key is working. Thank goodness Fabri came in just then cause it's a pretty silly policy, especially when it's not my fault the key got demagnitised. Had I come home without him they would have had me sit in the lobby all night.

TRAVEL
Las Vegas to Los Angeles

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295 mi – circa 4 ore 31 min