We've got California in our eyes come on and catch us if you can

Has it really been a week since I last posted? Don't worry, I didn't drop off the face of the earth. Almost, but not quite. I went to California for the long holiday weekend.

Here's a little bit of what I've been up to since I last posted:

Thursday 7/1
Drove to California from Vegas - Saw Sloan perform at House of Blues in Los Angeles.

Friday 7/2
Hit the beach in Malibu - saw my first dolphins in the wild. Perhaps more importantly, saw many babes in bikinis. Spent the evening walking around a shopping area near my friend's apartment, bought some cool fish mugs, and tried some of the best Indian food I've had in quite some time.

Saturday 7/3
Visited the La Brea tar pits and the L.A. County Museum of Art. While there, my friend painted a picture of my "essence", and I did the same for her husband. I'll scan those later. I'm not going to lie, they're pretty amazing pieces of art. Also saw an Andy Warhol exhibit, and a lot of other cool things. Had dinner at an amazing Italian restaurant (apparently ranked top 10 for L.A., but we didn't know that until we were already seated), and even proposed to a piece of chocolate cake with a diamond ring and all. The cake said no. Still we had an amazing night together, but in the morning she was gone. Later we walked back down to the beach at Santa Monica, and saw a pretty cool fireworks display that was going on near Malibu. I'm now convinced that nothing beats sitting alone on a beach watching fireworks. It turned out to be much more enjoyable than the fireworks display we "saw" on Independence Day.

Sunday 7/4
Walked along Venice Beach and saw all of the associated madness. I wanted to get my picture taken with the "Kush Doctor" but didn't want to have to explain that I didn't actually want a prescription for medical marijuana. There was a muscleman competition going on at muscle beach, which I found hilarious for some reason. (Probably just jealousy.) Later we went back to the beach near my friend's apartment, then tried to go south to see a fireworks show at Marina Del Ray. It was a madhouse, and by the time we found a spot to sit, we quickly realized that we couldn't see any fireworks, so we just left before it was done. Luckily we'd seen a better fireworks display the night before so didn't feel too sorry for ourselves.

Monday 7/5
Toured Mission San Gabriel. It was pretty cool to see a little about the history of colonization of Southern California. I also saw a little bit of the UCLA campus and then drove home to Vegas.

In other words, it was not a bad way to spend a few days. I'll post pictures later. (I got some pretty cool ones.)