When we had planned this trip, we thought LA–70s, sunny–let’s book surfing! When we arrived in LA, we found–50s, sunny–let’s cancel surfing! We still wanted to at least see the beach, so Thursday morning, we packed our bag with some wishful thinking swimsuits and set our GPS for Santa Monica Pier with a side stop for breakfast.

These first two photos are under consideration for our first Riot House album cover.

Breakfast by Salt’s Cure promised delicious oat-y griddle cakes that could be prepared gf and it didn’t disappoint. Our griddle cakes were filled with apples, blueberries, chocolate chips, and yummy salty sweetness. The coffee was strong and oj squeezed while we watched. All served in a minimal cool setting that was completely full by the time we left.

As we navigated from breakfast to beach, Ned said, look, it’s a Jasper Johns foot (calling back the Johns works we saw earlier in the week that included sculptures of arms). Penn immediately sat up and said, That’s a Tyler the Creator Converse! saw the sign on the store and said, I think it’s a golf store. Perhaps I am not as hip as I think–turns out GOLF is Tyler the Creator’s fashion label and we had just driven past his only retail outlet–located on a “transitional” block of Fairfax.

It was closed–so I redeemed myself by discovering that it would open in just 15 min! GOLF has a lot of rules: no pics inside store, no opening if packages, earphoned and sunglassed security at the door. It also has hilarious and super friendly sales dudes who are very into Tyler. Ours was wearing GOLF green and yellow plaid jammies head to toe (slippers, included) and tried to get Ned to rock the look. Pass-adena. But we did walk out with green suede Tyler converse, a pink flower GOLF sweatshirt, and assorted pins and keychains. This despite a relative lack of items and sizes because NBA all-star weekend almost cleared them out. Score!

Later photo of Shoes.

Later photo of Shirt–edited for content.

Back to morning: Look at this beautiful day!

Onward to Santa Monica!

Don’t let the sun fool you–the wind was whipping and cold! Pretty much no one was in the water but the beach was simply lovely.

One of those feet is not like the others 🙂

Off the beach and onto the Boardwalk, Ned and I soaked up sun and made dinner plans while the kids hit the rides and Penn discovered that–at his old age of almost-15–his stomach just isn’t taking the roller coasters like it used to when he was young. Young!

Then, surprise!, we grabbed a late lunch at In-N-Out, this one by UCLA. This time, we even bought t-shirts, though they should have just given them to us for frequent shopper points. Where’s the ROC INO?

Our trip home took us through Beverly Hills …

… and got us back to the hotel with time to spare. We had picked Tatsu Ramen for dinner because it offered several gf ramen choices, as I noticed a couple nights back when I saw their neon sign that shouted “100% Lab Tested Gluten Free Ramen.”  Seriously, they paid to have that sign created, in neon, so it had to be real. And, Tatsu turned out to be quite the hot spot with a line out the door that let Harper eavesdrop on the Tinder date of the couple behind us. (Future cloudy.)  The food was super yummy and completely customizable. Harper doubled her noodles and I added a smoky pork bun. Ned got the Wagyu burger on noodle buns in addition to his ramen. We could have eaten all night (and Harper did: she finished her leftovers before bed).

We finished the evening at Amoeba records–an LA institution. When Harper was a round-cheeked blonde baby, a mohawked, tattooed, pierced Amoeba clerk was so taken with her, that she just gave baby Harper a way-too-big adult t-shirt. This time, we chatted so much with our check-out clerk–who was heading to NYC with his own band for some shows–that he gave us a discount and a bunch of free posters and stuff. See, that Upstate friendliness always wins the day. Yay, Amoeba!

Good night, LA–you fashion forward, hip city of gf goodies!