Pancakes, Beaches, and Freeways

Greetings from the Miyako Inn and Spa in the Little Tokyo area of Los Angeles. We are currently resting up before we head out to Dodger Stadium. It's felt like a long day, even though our itinerary wasn't as packed as the previous two days. We started with a fine breakfast at Richard Walker's Pancake House in San Diego. Somehow (and I'm still not entirely sure how), I avoided ordering the flapjacks with bacon INSIDE. Ditto for the Belgian waffles WITH BACON INSIDE. My curiosity was held in check and I do regret it slightly. Nonetheless, I did enjoy an omelette about as big as my head and a side of "ordinary" buttermilk pancakes. I say they were "ordinary" not because they were mediocre (they were good), but because I (again, somewhat inexplicably) managed to resist the prodding of the waiter to upgrade to the blueberry pancakes, which he said "were the bomb." For the record, Ed did partake of the blueberry pancakes, to go with a similar head-sized omelette. And he said it was good. Generally, we agreed that it's wise to accept a waiter's recommendation of any food item that is "the bomb."

After stuffing ourselves, we headed north out of San Diego. We visited San Juan Capistrano and walked around the Mission there for quite some time. It was neat, and I took many photos. Perhaps that stop will get its own entry. After that, we headed up the coast on Hwy 1 (aka PCH). We drove through Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, Sunset Beach, and countless other beaches. We stopped for lunch at a very small Mexican grill for some good tacos. (I finally got to use my "Urban Spoon" iPhone app to find that one! Never seems to help much in Iowa...) We then proceeded to downtown L.A. and saw a preview of the famed traffic in the outbound lanes. We may get to experience it yet. That's all for now. Time to head to the game!