I’m back from a thoroughly enjoyable trip to LA.  I ate so much tremendous food that it’s hard to categorize what ranks highest on the deliciousness scale.  Hell, it’s hard to remember everything I ate.  But apparently the eat-and-drink-whatever-you-like diet is working wonders.  At dinner last night a good friend claimed I looked like I lost 20 pounds.  I think I might be on to something.  Here’s a breakdown of food and experience on the trip.

- This is a #19 at Langer’s.  Sam and I went there Friday morning.  The concept of ingesting more food afterward was sickening.  We wandered around the eclectic neighborhood surrounding MacArthur Park.  My embarrassment about not knowing Spanish has never been more pronounced.  It’s on my to-do list, folks.

- Venice Beach has canals.  That’s one of those “ah-ha moments.”

- I was in LA on a weekend when the temperature didn’t hit 80 and the smog was so minimal you could see the mountains every day.  Makes a Northwestern want to move there.  Almost.  The world’s most powerful Brita water filter can’t transform LA water into my tap water in PDX.

- I sat next to what I can only describe as the black Abe Simpson on the 30 hour ride home.  I mean that in the finest sense of the word.  Don is a hilarious gentleman, quick to tell a tale (although never quick to finish said tale) and even quicker to finish it with a “yeah, veeeeeeery interesting.”  Don grew up on a farm.  Don wasn’t a “jock type” because Don’s school in the farmland surrounding Philadelphia didn’t have sports programs.   Don joined the Coast Guard out of high school.  He considered going to college to learn to blow glass.  Don retired from the Coast Guard in 1982.  He’s been riding the rails and traveling the world ever since.  I know a lot about Don and Don’s life.  I like Don.

- Don on marriage: “Marriage, what’s that, a new language?  A new dance move?  I was married once for five years.  I think I broke some sort of record.”  Don has a couple kids across the country who he drops in on every year or so.  After that last comment, Rosie a delightful Filipino grandma in front of us injected.  “I was married for 62 years Don.”  Raucous laughter ensued.  Rosie, you win.

- I didn’t sleep much.  That allowed me to be up for the sunrise.  I’ve done that before, and it’s not as great as it sounds.  But I snapped some great pictures of Mt. Shasta.  I didn’t bring enough books on my trip, so Sam supplied me with a classic Hemingway novel.  The Sun Also Rises inspired my facebook status on a groggy morning “Andrew Theen is riding the rails as the sun rises, butted up against mt shasta and watching the shadows lurch across the valley.”  Lack of sleep makes me verbose.