City Heights Coffee House

Sometime during the Thanksgiving break, TC and I headed out to City Heights...

It was a tiny bit past 8 am and parking was easy to find on Fairmount near El Cajon Blvd.

Behind this thrift store was our coffee destination...

Anti-Black Friday: Checking out the restored and redesigned "Peace on Earth" mural in City Heights

From this...

(northeast corner of Home Ave and Fairmont Ave, circa Sept 2014)

to something completely different!

RIP Florence Henderson

I was really bummed when I found out the news...

I grew up watching reruns of "The Brady Bunch" in the 70's...

Thanksgiving 2016

One of these days, I'll actually make a turkey...

(stuffing, jicama pineapple slaw, cranberry sauce, sauteed corn with bacon, gravy, baked mussels and pancit palabok)

but until then...my parents' version is just so much better than mine ever could be...

Butler's Coffee House

Last weekend while TC was at sports practice, Bert and I headed east...

over to Casa de Oro, which straddles part of La Mesa, El Cajon and Spring Valley...

Once you see this welcome sign right off the 94 and Kenwood, make a left...

North Pole Snow Cream

A few hours of vegging out, napping or whatever you want to call it...

and we were ready to go out again, this time at a local mall for dessert...

George Izay Park

Just oooone more thing...

before heading to the hotel, we had to see THIS...

Scenes from Chinatown, Glendale and Burbank

With lunch from Nick's Cafe behind us...

We made our way over to our hotel by way of Chinatown...

Nick's Cafe

On the edge of LA's Chinatown is an eatery we'd seen during prior road trips...

I remembered the super old signage and the pig in the front...

"Eruptions" at the Broad + free pastry from Corner Bakery

Before heading over to Lunch Part 2, we wanted to walk by the Broad Museum, pronounced "Brode", which rhymes with "Toad", not "Braaaahd".

You may have seen this building before in a recent car commercial...

Salads from Lemonade at the MoCA, LA

We had a few places in mind for lunch but out of sheer convenience...

went to the Lemonade at the MoCA...

The eatery itself is pretty small...

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MoCA Grand)

TC's choice of venue for the day was the MoCA LA (Museum of Contemporary Art)....

To the left of the MoCA is the Broad, which has long ass lines to get in. Tickets are hard to come by (you have to obtain them a month in advance and only if the dates aren't blocked off) and rather than wait hours (literally) to get in, opted ahead of time to check out the MoCA...

Caffeine galore at G & B Coffee, Grand Central Market + Angel's Flight

Located at the lower floors of the Homer McLaughlin building...

also known as Los Angeles' first steel-reinforced and fireproof building is the nearly one century old grand Central Market, our first destination of the day...

A first look at the new Aldi in Chula Vista (formerly the old Target)

A fews days ago, I got this coupon in the mail...

The back side indicates $10 off a purchase of $40 (really only 25% but still!)...

And since I was in the area...

decided to stop by for their "preview"/tour day....

Return to DTLA

Although we've never been to this shopping outlet, The Citadel, it never fails to amaze me how oddly anachronistic in looks and placement this is...

It looks like something out of ancient Assyria instead of being right next to the 5 freeway in LA.

Traffic was pretty light that whole morning (thank you holiday weekend) but as we approached downtown, the traffic got a little more congested...

Day 1 - LA Road Trip 2016: The Little Tree Church, Tustin

Normally when we do roadtrips, we make our usual stop at the Starbucks in Tustin (Bert has to have his macchiato from there) as well as Cream Pan and THH Sandwiches.

This time, we skipped out on Cream Pan but instead, went north one block of Cream Pan at this strip mall, Jamestown Village...

LA Road Trip Day 3 Highlights

When faced with the prospect of eating at a nearby "hot and new" breakfast place in Highland Park versus one that had been there for 40+ years...

we chose the latter where we enjoyed a hearty breakfast that didn't break the bank...

LA Road Trip Day 2 Highlights

Bright and early on this slightly cooler day...

We drove by Griffith Park into Los Feliz for breakfast...

LA Road Trip Day 1 Highlights

I'd been waiting to take another mini road trip and since we had a three day weekend for Veterans Day...well, off we went. Our first stop was off of Red Hill Ave in Tustin. Coffee and pee break. Yes, TMI.

I picked up the latest post-election issue of the OC Weekly, depicting Pepe the Frog as Trump.

We would see more anti-Trump imagery via graffiti and street art in DTLA...

Achilles Coffee Roasters

It's another episode of TC's Driving Adventures...well at least that 's what I call it.

The outer edges of downtown was our destination that morning...

in the shadow of the historic El Cortez Hotel...

The return of Albondigas soup at Los Primos

This past Friday I ventured here with the colleagues...

over in the San Miguel shopping center with a defunct and empty Vons...

Mysterious Galaxy

A month or so ago, Bert and I were exploring Balboa Interntional Market (you MUST try their vast selection of Turkish Delight, no lie)..

and wanted to stop by one of San Diego's premier independent bookstores, Mysterious Galaxy...

Astronaut Ice Cream

If it's good enough for the astronauts...

then it's good enough for us, freeze dried ice cream that is...

The changing of the Pez - November 2016

October has come and gone...

So long to these characters!

It was time to take these down and choose the next batch for November...

(unceremoniously dumped on my kitchen table)

And yes those are pasta storage containers and old Belgian chocolate tins that I use for my Pez...

Kaffee Meister @ Local Mercantile & The Barn

Once again, TC was game to drive to the next location.

I'm kind of liking it, in between fearing that she'll hit a car and also feeling a sense of "wow, the teen is driving"...