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time to plan Due to some poor planning on my part, I was without a car when I arrived in Los Angeles. What I mean is that I didn't arrange for a rental at the airport. My fear was that I would lose Dan as I followed him from the airport to his house. Maybe I was being overly worried, but it seemed easier to just ride with him to his place. I had never been there before and I didn't want to get lost on my first day. Besides Dan and I figured that we could work out getting a car from a rental place closer to his house when I got there. So most of my first day in California was spent at his place making some phone calls. Dan handed me a phone book before he left and told me what rental places I should call first. Getting a car for me to drive was essential to my trip, because Dan was working the whole time that I would be there. If I didn't get some form of transportation soon I would be seeing California through the windows of his apartment until he got home from work. I would have the company of his cats during the day, but I certainly wanted more from my trip than spending half of it inside his apartment. Dan had left me his keys, so that I could walk around his neighborhood while he was gone if I wanted. This sounded nice, but his neighborhood didn't seem like a good place to take a stroll. There didn't seem to be much of value around his place that I wanted to see. Of course located just a few blocks from his place was something called the Le Discount Sex Shoppe. The name sounds funny enough with its conflicting high and low brow image, but I think that is something best seen from a car as you drive by. Once I had a car lined up for the week, I started calling some of the people that I wanted to see in California. My cousin, Rick, lives in Laguna Niguel and was a natural choice for me. I had called him before I had left, but only got his machine. Then Dan told me at the airport that Rick had called Sunday afternoon asking for me. Luckily I got a hold of him on the first try and found out that he had Monday through Wednesday off this week. So I said that I would go to his place on Tuesday asfter I got my car. After I hung up the phone with Rick, I called Trish to make sure that we were still on for Wednesday. She had told me before I left Milwaukee that she had Wednesday off, but the rest of our plans were still in the air. When I called I just got her machine, which wasn't that surprising since it was the middle of the day. I left a message and went back to playing Tomb Raider until Dan got home. Once Dan got home, we went out on the town. We wove through the streets with Phil Hendrie on the radio. One of our first destinations was the Griffith Observatory, which later became a home base for me. After the observatory, we continued to wind through the streets past various landmarks such as the Mann's Chinese Theatre, Paramount Studios and Capitol Records. Then we ended up at one of the Hard Rock Cafes in Los Angeles.
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