Day 25: Rest Day - Los Angeles.
Nau mai
Yesterday we took our union mandated rest day in Los Angeles, California.
There is nothing so exciting as waking up next to one of the nation’s great megaplexes. The Burbank Empire Centre has an understated name for such a powerful retail experience with titans like Target, Walmart (you need both), Best Buy, Lowes, Staples, and REI gracing the shores of its blacktop.
I was too hungry for that level retail bliss so I passed it by, heading to my destination via a large, grade-separated road/highway/railroad intersection. The star of this intersection was the Empire Road-I5 Underpass, a wide, dark, and cacophonous tunnel that allowed me, a puny pedestrian, to safely traverse a dozen lanes of some of America’s toughest vehicle traffic. Just as I passed underneath the railway bridge I was lucky enough to catch Union Pacific 6784 thundering overhead hauling a couple of miles of double-stacked containers up towards one of the northern routes.
I arrived at Miracle Bakery, ready to enjoy the warmth of this beautiful LA day with an outdoor breakfast on this charming corner patio. The propietor told me what to order and I did it - Huevos Con Chorizo - three scrambled eggs and chorizo, cilantro, refried beans, cotija cheese, country potatoes, pico de gallo and a side of corn tortillas. He also provided me with a bonus grilled jalapeño which brought some of those desperately-needed middle wavelengths to the colour balance of the dish.
Not a hugely glamorous example of a carwash but a very creative use of off-the-shelf structural elements to create a humanoid figure.
Gabe and I braved temperatures in the high thirties for our afternoon tennis game. I was full of beans and potatoes and ready to put on a good sweat. The Burbank Tennis Centre had nice courts and good player support facilities. In between games we sat under the umbrella just like the pros and toweled down our brows, cooling ourselves with a drink from the courtside water cooler while our coaches fed us a precisely crafted intake of bespoke vitamins and stimulants.
Gabe wets down the court before we begin.
The courts were clay and demanded some maintenance at the end of our session. We neatly ploughed the surface removing all ball and footmarks from our game. Then we each took a tennis court line sweeper and made a pass along each of the field lines removing excess dust and leaving clean, defined markings.
There is no better way to recover from heat exhaustion than an evening at your local Tiki bar. Our local Tiki bar is operated by Apple Baggios, who by pure coincidence happens to be one of our band managers. Happily she is just as good at mixing colourful cocktails as she is at managing logistics and we had an extremely pleasant night recuperating and catching up in a cosy patio.
Just one point awarded today but a point well-earned.
