It turned out that workplace associate TN's wife was having a high school reunion in Orange County, CA, and I really had been wanting to return, after all the fun I had doing it solo on my 1996 Southern California trip. My frequent quip is that "Orange County is the Navel of the Universe". I finally got a Saver Award ticket from United on all those miles I had sitting there; IAD - LAX - IAD was in place. I'd had a disinclination towards travel for quite some time, enjoying life at home, but as the United ads said, "It's Time to Fly". Our hosts in Westminster provided a list of hotels, from which I chose the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach resort, for I do like a good hotel stay. They made me put up the entire price of 5 nights at $189.00 when I made the reservation, however. I'm sure that there are some swift dealers, making good money on the interest on these advance-payment escrow accounts. A Hertz car rental at LAX completed the package, and what was left was to sit around Northern Virginia until the actual departure became necessary. My plan was to goof around at the 4-star hotel, and maybe at the beach, too.
17 June 2004 -- Ready for more action
With the flight to LAX being in the evening, I built myself up during the day so as to be properly configured in my own household for making the trip (e.g., mowing the lawn, etc.). I carried sufficient composure to be out the door on time for the IAD departure, after having checked my dear Critter-cat Thomas into the kennel. I had stamina of the quality needed to get all the way from the Gold parking lot, Stop 25, to gate D3, where I was to wait for non-stop flight number 947 to LAX. The procedure for security at IAD had sure been beefed up, since I had last flown in November 2002 (what, indeed, hath Allâh wrought?). I cannot believe that we were required to doff our very shoes, a gesture that I recall has a meaning in Oriental culture. As one would expect, and perhaps even count on these days, the flight was delayed by "weather" in the middle section of the country--from a 5:55 PM departure to 7:20 PM. I was clearly getting on a red-eye again, so I did my best to promote a sense of economy-class oblivion, once I'd finally taken my aisle seat of the grand B-777. I chowed a bagful of McDonald's grub from the outlet at the terminal, then plastered myself in, to seat 34G and set my watch back 3 hours. It was a partial consolation, that seat 34F was not in use; a full economy flight of that length would have been most trying. They have used the idea I thought obvious on the LCD-panel seat-back screens on United domestic 777 flights--the display of a progress map and flight parameter readouts, which is rather like a long bar-code completion screen for a software installation interface.
When I arrived at LAX at 10:15 PM, I had just a smidgeon of that earlier strength remaining, but the task before me was still a daunting one, at that time of the night. I needed to hop on the yellow bus and ride over to Hertz, where I'd reserved a "premium"-grade vehicle, such as a Ford Crown Victoria. But instead, in that bleary-eyed sales terminal, I got the exact run-around that had been parodied by Jerry on the Seinfeld episode. They did not have a "premium" vehicle left, so I settled for a Ford Mustang instead. They're really good at taking the "reservation"; the problem is in keeping it. I had memories of the grand portrait of L.A. in Pulp Fiction, as I snaked my way out to "the 405", southbound, with those great lane-marking reflectors reminding me that I'd reached a somewhat-different form of America. I passed all the immense industry of Long Beach, noted the Orange County line marker, then attempted to find my way down to the beach. The destination was Beach Blvd. and the Pacific Coast Highway ("PCH"). I wasted a bit of time thinking I should get onto Westminster and drive towards the beach, before I stopped under a gas station light to read my Hertz L.A. map and the one available at the Hyatt's site. I was a bit irked, when I finally was told that valet parking was mandatory at the resort, a rather high pretense that the place had to live up to overall. The place actually had staff on hand to call me "sir" and hold the door for me when I came into the lobby. Thus, with the Mustang stowed beyond my immediate reach, I got my room at the front desk and began the journey across the property. It was very late; I was desperately tired.
18 June 2004 -- Building myself back
It was after midnight, when I carried my carry-on bag over the twisting paths of the darkened resort grounds, where scents of well-planted floral patches could not be denied. It seemed rather "ordinary" to me, like many a hotel in the sun-belt. It reminded me of the humble Quality Inn Suites I stayed at during my 1999 Orlando trip. I was for a moment particularly incensed by the arrangement for casually obtaining soda at the hotel; there was a vending machine that took $2.00 for a 20-ounce bottle. I was not cursing the price so much as my not having $1.00 bills to feed into the bill acceptor. Folks, they make ones now that take $5.00's and $10.00's. Every pair of dollar bills I had from thereon out was something I viewed as the ability to drink my pop. The morning's sleep after I finally settled in at 1:15 AM was not among my best; I woke in something of a stupor.
When I opened the curtains on room 1572, in the wing of the hotel most distant from the front desk and restaurants, I saw that, indeed, it faced directly, and without obstruction, across the PCH, out to the beach, and then to sea. This must be part of what the $189.00 was paying for each day. I eventually got myself going well enough to make it down to the Californian restaurant, where I had a truly good omelet breakfast. The $4.00 charge for a bottomless glass of Orange County orange juice is worth it, in the price category I was now living in. Looking around some more after I finished eating, I noted that the the resort has its very own, pseudo-Venetian-style bridge across the PCH, which I crossed to visit the actual water's edge at the high tide mark. I was waiting all this time, cell phone at the ready, for TN to contact me.
Looking inland from the beach towards the Hyatt Regency Huntington
Beach Resort
(I was on the far end from the restaurants and shops, which were
on the left side)
We ended up piling 5 people into that tiny Mustang, for the ride from the hotel into Westminster and Garden Grove, home to the ubiquitous Little Saigon ethnic community. As one typically sees on the broad avenues of Orange County, the Vietnamese storefronts tended to be congregated into malls and strip malls. Notable among these malls was the Asian Garden, which appears to have been built from some sort of utility building like an aircraft hangar. At a salon near the Mall, I got a haircut and a manicure, as is my style, then went shopping in the Mall proper for a gift for my parents with TN and his wife. We found what we were looking for, and more. By the end of this day of walking around and standing, I became exhausted for the most part. There was actual pain in my lower extremities below the knee. TN dropped me at the Hyatt's entrance and took the Mustang, so as to deny the hotel any more valet charges than was necessary. I walked as best I could through the many courtyards and congregation areas, the most memorable being the sheltered one having a circle of sofas and a gas-log fireplace. Being partially on my own, I was able to crash for awhile.
As sunset neared (I'd not yet witnessed an actual Southern California sunset over the beach as of that time), TN contacted me and came over as my "guest", to avail himself of the weight-training machines in the resort's fitness center. As we rode up the PCH towards the home of one of his wife's contacts, we saw the sunset from the car, only it was so close to the Solstice that the sun set over land instead of water. I enjoyed a heaping helping of Vietnamese hospitality, as I sat at the dinner table of the former school-master, from all those years back. I fed my face with a number of buttered and toasted sections of bánh mì, made from French-style baguette bread. On the way back to the hotel, I saw abundant examples of the bonfires that those charred-out concrete containers at the near side of the beach were intended to support. What gets me, besides there being fires in practically every ring, every night, is that there is a beach curfew at 10:00 pm, when campfires typically start to get good when camping in other parts of the US. I'm thinking they probably didn't light fires like that at Huntington Beach, during the Japanese invasion scare of 1942 - 1945.
19 June 2004 -- No particular places to go
It took me a long time in the room to wake up this morning, beginning at 9:45 AM. I was back into the sack quite a number of times, before I could make myself take a shower and be under way. I was able to be out and about the sprawling grounds of the resort, prior to my initial contact with TN. I went in active search of internet access, at least to read my e-mail, since I've not yet been yoked with a laptop computer like the one the room's data port would support. It turned out that the Business Services area, over by the Conference Center at the other end of the hotel, was not open on weekends. I was then reminded of the many dreary meetings and luncheons we've held on official business, in similar surroundings, at the hotels of Arlington, VA. Coming back to the little retail plaza enclosed within the Hyatt, I bought assorted sundries including a couple of single-use cameras. I walked out to the beach, where a lifeguard at the classic little station tower took my picture with the panoramic mode of the Kodak Advantix device. I had an informal lunch of grilled hot dogs and fairly-decent fries at the Beach Hut, which is along the bicycle path. It really wasn't much of a day; I stripped to my Patagonia Baggies shorts after I called to check in with TN one final time at 1:00 PM, then settled back into bed, with a visit, finally, by housekeeping after that. I rode some that evening with TN in the Mustang, around the Garden Grove area. Nothing much happened, rather like in real life.
20 June 2004 -- Attempts at leisure
I was able to see the larger context of this vacation by this point, which smoothed out some of the "funks" I'd landed in during the first couple of days, shortly after I was up at 5:10 AM. It was my supreme joy to locate the game room at the hotel, where they had a fully-functional, late-model Stern pinball machine--Believe it Or Not!, 2002, designed by Pat Lawlor. I bought a whole $20.00 in game tokens, and I decided they'd last a whole lot longer with pinball than the video games, since I've been practicing pinball on my games at home all along. Later in the day, I found myself inadvertently overcharged for lunch. I did not wish to wait in the long line at the Californian, for my first meal of the day, so I sought out some chow at Pete Mallory's Surf City Sunset Grille, the pub on the premises. The only eating there was the Sunday brunch, for $29.00, all you can eat (and pretty much drink, too, if you cared for that sort of thing). I never eat enough at an all-you-can eat setting; I only took one plate of the wonderful carne asada, Belgian waffles and made-to-order omelets. I was not going to make myself sick from overeating, just because I'd implicitly paid for the food. I returned to the room to nap out the mid-day.
Somewhat underexposed image of myself, hanging out in the room,
as taken by the housekeeper. Note the holstered cell phone,
the typical
equipment in use by the Hyatt guests.
I rode for some more sight-seeing in the Huntington Beach area with
TN for awhile, and we re-fueled the car at a "please pay first" gas station
in Garden Grove. The price, at $2.40, was not as high as I could
have imagined it, in such a place of vast spaces and inelastic demand.
I eventually found an internet terminal in a little storefront in Anaheim,
which provided 30 minutes for only a single dollar. Getting back
to the hotel, it was a comfort to know that I still had a full day to put
my affairs in order for the flight home, day after the next. I hung
around the room, watching TV in the guideless channel-surfing that is called
for in hotel rooms. Out the window, why, the bonfires were there
as before. It must get a little old, that custom. Is it a constant
flow of new people who go to the beach? Do they have a system of
some sort, in the kind of enforced egalitarianism that might appeal to
a CA resident? As the evening progressed and the TV generally looked
miserable, I ordered Something's Got to Give on the hotel pay-per-view,
purely on the strength of the lead actor and actress. While this
was playing, I dropped another bundle on ordering room service; a 1/2-pound
burger and fries. I wound up irrevocably sleepy by the end, and could
not quite understand why Jack Nicholson was suddenly sporting a baby.
21 June 2004 -- Back on my own
After rising at 7:00 am and lasting out a stretch of the morning that TN was to fly back, I went for some more play on Believe it Or Not!, whose strategy I had pretty well down. Pat Lawlor puts these incredible shot-possibilities into his games, as I've learned from my own Funhouse, 1990. I won my share of replays, as I pushed up the replay value of the machine for the next player to come along. The points had not been inflated to score in the billions, as in the days of Williams/Bally's collapse; Stern has recognized what works. I advanced to the Conference Center, where the internet access was now available--at $5.00 for 10 minutes, or the same price I paid for ship-to-shore broadband on the 2001 Voyager of the Seas cruise. After all of this, I went for my 1/2 day at the Pacific Waters Spa, one of the central selling points of the resort, though I doubt they sit on top of any geothermal features--just the oil that continues to be produced in the stately offshore platforms that taunt the Huntington Beach Pier. I was reminded of the time I got checked in to the spa at Caesars Las Vegas, 2001, with the donning of a robe and a destination of "treatments". I had the 50-minute "Lotus Flower" facial by a kindly Vietnamese woman named "Yén". I commented that "I bet my mother washed me just like that, when I was a baby". Immediately thereafter came my 80-minute "Asian Vital Force" massage, delivered at the hands of "Scott". It felt very authoritarian and purposeful, his many manipulations, and I do have to credit the man for straightening out the kinks in my lower legs, which did not hurt after that. Being given run of the Spa on account of my treatments, I used such things as the steam room, whirlpool bath and sauna, with intermediary trips to the hallway of 8 to 10 shower stalls. Each had its own fragrant theme; I tried the Grapefruit-Lavender and Ginger-Spice.
With the Spa securely under my belt, I was able to find enough to do by myself at the hotel, this including the full arrangement and packing of stuff to go to LAX the next morning, for an 8:45 flight. I made a return trip to Mallory's, to partake of their limited selection of bar food--another 1/2-pound hamburger. Guys were hanging out there, talking about things like the "private space flight" that had been made to the atmosphere's edge that morning. I discovered that I could buy sodas on hotel charge at the Surf City Grocer, thus freeing me from the scrip of $1.00 bills. At the adjacent Hula Scoops ice cream parlor, I got a single-scoop vanilla waffle cone for $4.75. Now this is a kid here who remembers 25-cent cones at Baskin Robbins, in the early 1970's. Well, it was harder in those days to get the quarter than it is the five bucks now. I went back to the room with all of this chow on board, to let it assimilate. Entering the evening, I was a little homesick for all of my activities around the house at the Xana'02 estate. There was not much left to do, besides more TV or a run at playing more pinball. I went back for one last $2.00 5-credit go at Believe it Or Not!, only a lot of kids were coming, and I wanted to leave it open for them (and the future of pinball). I played a bunch of credits of the 20th anniversary commemorative Galaga, which is irreverantly bundled with a similar re-issue of Pac Man.
22 June 2004 -- Back to where I still belong
The morning went fairly smooth, in getting up at 5:10 AM and going to LAX for the trip home on UA 194. I used the express checkout, then took to the long stretch up 405 (I mean, "the 405") in the Mustang, counting myself fortunate in having read the Hertz map carefully in advance. When I pulled into the rental car reception area, they asked if I'd had any difficulties, and I mentioned the "reservation" for which they'd not held the requested "premium" car. My handwritten note went to the manager, who called on the cell phone to say I was getting a $30.00 discount. I could have caused them a much broader world of hurt, I figure, but I didn't think I had time. I did not have to rush to get through the shoes-on security clearance at LAX, it turned out, for the flight had been delayed to 9:40. The actual LAX - IAD segment was pretty easy to handle, with the center seat 20E next to my window 20F unoccupied. After a better-than-usual croissant sandwich breakfast, I watched the magnificent, trackless terrain of the southern Great Basin of AZ and UT, then lapsed into a useful form of sleep that ended up lasting for all of the Rockies and most of the Great Plains. There was more "weather" (summer afternoon squalls, most likely) at IAD, so we parked for about 30 minutes in a holding pattern near Louisville, KY. I saw more of the needed strength to handle the adversities of hiking all of that terminal and passageway length to the bus curb at IAD arriving flights. The truck was right where I knew it would be, and all was well, my having paid the $54.00 parking fee at the bill-accepting terminal inside the baggage claim area. With the flight delayed, I barely made it to the kennel in time to get my Critter, before they closed at 7:00 PM.
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