SoCal Road Trip 2006

Back at Joe's for breakfast, this morning we were the only ones there. What a difference! The whole town was much quieter now that the weekend was over. Our helicopter back to the mainland left at 9:50, and we were on the freeway heading north by 10:15. We drove through downtown L.A. on our way to Pasadena and the California Cactus Center (or "The Mother Ship" as Rick calls it). It's a large garden center that specializes in cactus and succulents. Rick led us around on a "scouting pass" before starting to pick out lots of plants to take home. This was really the reason that we had decided to rent an SUV and drive it home.

Once we had the back of the car filled up we drove a few miles to downtown Pasadena where we were staying at the Westin for the night. We walked over to a nearby shopping center where Randy bought some jeans. Back in the room we relaxed, did some reading and reviewed pictures. At 7pm we took the hotel shuttle to Roku Sushi where we had a very tasty meal in a very cozy space. We decided to walk back to the hotel through downtown Pasadena and found that it was fairly busy, especially for a monday night. We arrived back at the hotel just as it started raining a bit, then had a nightcap before heading upstairs to watch The Brothers Grimm before going to sleep.