Who’s dumb enough to drive 11 hours round trip to spend just five hours in a place? We are. It’s Sunday, Jay’s only day off, so we take advantage of it and speed off to southern California. Our first stop is at Olvera Street which is part of the El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument that is considered to be the birthplace of Los Angeles. The narrow passages, old buildings, colorful goods, and tastes of the Mexican heritage that permeates this corner of L.A. should be visited by everyone at least once, preferably a few times.

Our brief excursion out of the desert continues with a drive across L.A. with a stop at the La Brea Tar Pits for Jay to get a smell and a look at this gooey tourist attraction.

Off to Oki Dog with Jay, trying a vegetarian burrito that he shares with Caroline while I opt for the real deal and get a pastrami burrito that I attempt to finish by myself, but it doesn’t work.

On to Hollywood Boulevard so he could visit the Walk of Fame and get a sense of the role, the film industry plays in this part of America.

On a quiet day at the beach because although it is beautiful out here, nobody who lives here other than the surfers and very young kids want to go to the beach and get in the water. The only thing that stops Caroline from getting in is if the ice is too thick to step through; otherwise, I don’t believe she’ll ever pass up the opportunity to feel the cool water on her feet and the sand running through her toes.

Jay came to America to learn how to fly. Next year, he’ll be leaving the United States, but before he departs, Caroline and I are doing our best to make sure he leaves with some memories that were had on the ground across America other than those related to flight school and the greater Phoenix area. Jay toyed with the surf for nearly a half-hour before mustering the fortitude to allow himself to brag that he was, in fact, “in” the Pacific Ocean.

When we left Arizona this morning before dawn, there was no plan. No plan to visit the ocean or exactly what we’d do; we were just going to California because we could. Now Jay is drenched head to toe with nothing to change into nor a towel in sight to sit on, so it goes.

It will be nearly 5:00 p.m. when we leave and midnight when we get home (time zone change at the Arizona / California border), but that’s a small price to pay for building lasting crazy memories.