Welcome to Paradise!

LA/XC-3 DAYS EIGHT, NINE, TEN, AND ELEVEN:  BRYCE CANYON, UTAH; HOOVER DAM, NEVADA-ARIZONA; L.A. AND SANTA MONICA

Day Eight mileage:  337.4 

Day Nine mileage:  326.2 

Total LA/XC-3 mileage (to Loews Santa Monica): 3,251.0 

Road music:  ESPN Radio — and because it’s California, and Friday, the Beach Boys (The Greatest Hits, Vol. 1; Today!);  the Zac Brown Band (The Foundation; You Get What You Give)

Weather leaving Bryce Canyon City Thursday morning: 62 and overcast

Weather arriving USC (L.A.) Friday night:  74 degrees — nice!

Four-day state tally: 4 (Utah, Nevada, Arizona, California)

Gas money to date:  $652.45

I love Santa Monica.  Especially the promenade along the beach.  Most especially running on the promenade along the beach.  I often tell guests at our beach house in Montauk that’s the one place where I’m perfectly happy and not suffering from fomo — fear of missiing out. Well, the promenade along the beach in Santa Monica is another.  You can’t not be happy here.  It’s a 1000-ring circus!  Fitness-freak couples balancing gymnastically, preposterously, and exhibitionistically atop

one another.  Beach volleyball pros tanned to a high gloss.  Michael Jackson impersonators.  Surfer dudes and dude-ettes.  “Tarzan-ers.”  (This is a term I coined last year; see photo and description.)  Happy little kids.  Happy little dogs.  Romantic couples.  Runners.  People on bikes.  And trikes  And scooters.  And skate boards.  And roller blades.  And StreetStriders.  All with the eye-catching Santa Monica Pier as backdrop.  And everywhere: really gorgeous, fit women wearing not a whole lot in the way of clothing.  You can fall in love deeply and repeatedly running on the beach promenade, either north to Pacific Palisades, or south to Venice Beach.

So needless to say, Ricky and I are having just a good ol’ time in sunny SoCal.  The scene on arrival Friday evening ran exactly as scripted:  I’d texted Robby with a two-minute warning as we approached Fraternity Row, and had rolled down the passenger side window in preparation.  Robby and friends were waiting at the curb as we approached, and Robby scooped Ricky out of the open window for hugs and kisses.  My glamorous role in all this was to park the car and let the boy and his dog smooch.  That’s okay.  As I’ve

previously admitted, while the whole month-long road trip has become Beagle Man’s Great Adventure, this particular moment is all about Robby and Ricky.

Took Robby and his friends for a quick dinner at The Lab, on Figueroa, right across from campus; then headed west

on the 10 to the Loews Santa Monica.  Our arrival, fortunately, was a little less “eventful” than last year’s 🙂  (Some of you might recall the frightful episode of Ricky’s paw getting caught in the revolving door — an incident that has left the Beagle Man scarred for life.) 

Saturday was a glorious, sunny cardinal-and-gold game day on the USC campus for Carol and me.  (Carol had flown in on Friday night, arriving at Loews Santa Monica at pretty much the same time the Beagle Man Tour rolled up.)  Ricky happily stayed back at the hotel with Kiko (now tell me:  How many east coast beagles have their own regular Santa Monica dog sitter??)  The Trojans might have saved Coach Kiffen’s job for another few weeks by trouncing Boston

College 35-7, but the crowd at the Coliseum was the smallest in 12 years, and it remains to be seen how USC will do against stiffer competition.  Sad to say that Robby and his friends and most other hard-core college football fans weren’t even at the SC game; they were in front of their TVs watching Johnny Football try to knock off top-ranked Alabama.  (Almost . . . but not quite.)  For dinner, we took Robby & Friends to Boa, their favorite steak place on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica, for a delicious meal that

easily rivaled what my car rental will cost for the entire drive from Cali to Stamford, CT.

Sunday, of course, was all-NFL, all the time, at sports bars, frat houses, and hotel lobbies.  Since the J-E-T-S had already played Thursday night (I watched the game from a B-Dubs in Henderson, Nevada; with 20-20 hindsight, I probably should have stuck to listening via Sirius in Ozarkland.  I guess Gang Green will now have to settle for 15-and-1), I didn’t have to stay glued to the TV, so Ricky and I had time to stroll — you guessed it — the beach promenade.  One negative note cannot be overlooked here:  Stopped for brunch at Big Dean’s, which I’d anointed last year as my go-to beach sidewalk cafe in Santa Monica.  I’d leashed Ricky to a pole out front, with a bowl of water at his feet, and he was behaving quite nicely, though, of course, was looking longingly at all the food being served and consumed on the patio.  Then some self-important dude — might easily have been Big Dean himself — said, loud and rude, “That dog can’t sit at the entrance.  That’s a deal breaker.”  And as I’m sure you can guess, I said, “No beagle, no Beagle Man.”  I’m pleased to say Big Dean’s loss was the Carousel Cafe’s gain.

Always hard to go back and recap the natural wonders of a few days earlier after you’ve become socked in at a paradise like L.A./Santa Monica, but that’s why I get paid the big bucks . . . so here goes.  When we last spoke Thursday morning, my

faithful (sleeping) companion and I were about to venture into Bryce Canyon National Park.  Which, as it turned out, was amazing!  (Props to Greg’s friend Maggie, who steered me there.)  Here’s what I realized in Bryce:  I can look at those natural, lunar-looking, red-hued, spectacular rock formations you see in the Southwest and the West forever.  I seem to be more impressed by natural attractions than by man-made attractions (more about that momentarily).  And though Bryce wasn’t quite as grand in scale as the Grand Canyon, some of the hoodoos (fantastically shaped pillars of rock, formed by erosion) were even more mind-boggling.  But listen to this:  I was about to plunk down my $25 entrance fee, when I remembered  seeing a plastic card in my wallet with two bright red

flowers on it.  I had some dim recollection of buying it last year at about this time.  I showed it to the attendant, saying I didn’t remember where I’d gotten it, or what it’s good for — but would it help me?  Turns out it’s my Senior Pass — aptly named, since I didn’t even remember I’d bought it! — for all National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands, for as long as I live!  Which makes me think I’m destined to become a professional National Parks-goer, since I love all these places so much.  No thinking.  No reading.  Just seeing pretty things, with the “View Points” all laid out for you.  Now that’s my kind of sight-seeing.

Friday, Hoover Dam.  Now here’s what I’m talking about with natural attractions vs. man-made ones:  To any engineer, or, more broadly, to anyone who can build or fix anything (not including duct tape repairs), I’m sure Hoover Dam would be absolutely riveting.  But for me, who just blindly accepts that other people know how to build things, I look at Hoover Dam and say, yeah, there’s gigundous Lake Mead on one side, and no water at all on the other side.  It works!  And that’s about it.  I mean it’s huge, and awesome-looking, and the architecture is impressive, but . . . it’s a dam.  What kind of surprised me more was that Hoover Dam forms the border

between Nevada and Arizona.  Frankly, I didn’t realize Arizona was anywhere in the vicinity.  And that’s the second time Arizona took me by surprise like that:  When I was tearing down from Bryce Canyon, Utah, to Henderson, Nevada, to catch that Jets game at the sports bar, this tiny unexpected slice of Arizona got in the way, for just a few miles.  So though to most people, Arizona is the Grand Canyon state, to me it’s the Where-The-Hell-Did-You-Come-From? state.

RANDOM ROAD NOTES:

•  It’s very possible I noted this in previous years, but I believe all of Germany clears out in September and vacations together in the U.S. National Parks

•  My on-the-road meals routine has pretty much settled into 2 hard-boiled eggs at my budget motel du jour; apple & energy bar for lunch; and for dinner, whatever I can manage to stuff into my face.  Not sure why it took me two-and-a-half cross-country drives to figure this out

•  Hoover Dam security officer:  “What’s in the car?”  Beagle Man:  “Pretty much everything.  I’m traveling from Connecticut to L.A.  You’re welcome to have a look.”  Officer:  Takes a look at the mess the Pathfinder has become after eight days on the road, shakes his head, and waves me on

Tomorrow:  Laguna Beach!

I PLAN TO POST AS CLOSE TO DAILY AS POSSIBLE WHILE RICKY AND I ARE ON THE ROAD.  BUT YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY:  MAN PLANS, GOD LAUGHS.   OH, AND BTW, YOU CAN ALSO FOLLOW ME ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER