California Dreamin’– You have to understand that this trip, totally unexpected, had put me in what I thought was the center of what was happening now! Everything that was “cool” came from California or so I thought. So I was on the look out for anything that was “happening!” What I found out was other than it being sunny most of the time and that there was a lot of “smog,” California was pretty much just doing its thing. We went someplace every day but it was always by public transport. My uncle was working from an internal list of things he wanted to see and I tagged along. He also had his “bases” to touch, every day we stopped at the local Elks Club, usually after breakfast. He also had relations out in California and one of them lived up in the Pasadena Hills and had a swimming pool, where I had the opportunity to take part in a California swimming party and got to meet my first rattle snake! The other thing was we were out in Los Angeles during the construction of the Freeway system and the obvious was true, Los Angeles was 11 suburbs looking for a city center, none too successfully. When you moved about, you were never sure what part of the city you were in because back then Los Angeles looked pretty much the same.
Next on the agenda was a trip to the south, to San Diego ( St. James). We took the train, of course, this was before the advent of Caltran lite rail. Although there are no complete notes in the trip diary, there are pictures and vague recollections. I know we did all the tourist things. From what I can tell the real reason for the trip was to partake in the Elks Convention in San Diego. If the ragged edges of the memory are true we took in a night game of the San Diego baseball team. My uncle would never miss an opportunity to see a sporting event. Then there was the trip to Tijana, which was an adventure so that we could say we had been in Mexico. It was a trip in a “shell” as we took a “Greyline” tour down there and it was just a couple of hours. Mostly we walked around the Main Street, looked at the trinkets and touristy things took some pictures and returned across the border, no problems, no passport, or even ID. ( At this distance I don’t remember my uncle being hassled at the border, since he was a naturalized citizen born in Sweden.)
After seeing the sights, marching in the Elks parade, we took the train back to LA and continued our adventures.
(Off to San Francisco)
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