4/16/2008

Day three alone saw me driving to the Long Beach Airport. There is a great pilot shop there and I needed a new check list for my plane and what ever other trinkets caught my eye. While I was there a young man came in and asked the proprietor if he knew where the so and so school was located. The owner did not. But as I was driving out of the airport I looked up and saw a large modern building, with 6 feet high lighted letters that proclaimed it to be the school. Not 50 yards from the airport entrance. How could this guy NOT see that every day? It is less than a quarter of a mile from his store on the ONLY road. Talk about being caught-up in your own world.

I had forgotten the Long Beach Grand Prix was that week. It’s an sports car race held on the city streets. As I headed towards town I noticed the signs closing many of the roads. After a couple detours I gave-up on downtown Long Beach for that day.

Long Beach is about 25 minutes from Anaheim so I went straight back. Pausing at the hotel for a bottle of water from the suite’s fridge, I then headed to Riverside where I spent my teen years. March Air Force base near Riverside is about 40 minutes away but because of my early start I arrived at their fantastic Air Museum just an hour after they opened.

I spent my third day in a row looking at old airplanes. For me this is a form of paradise.

Back in Anaheim I joined my bride and her A.U. class mates for a 7 pm dinner reservation at Morton’s steak house. That deserves a whole blog just by itself. But I won’t. I will say it was a massive steak and near perfect. I was not paying, we were guests of a vendor, but I saw the bill. My steak, baked potato, salad and water cost $ 117 just by itself. It was good. Not quiet the Kobe beef I ate in Japan, but compared to $19.99 at Sizzler back home,it was great, well not six times better. Anyway now I can say I ate a hundred dollar steak