Los Angeles, commonly known as LA, was our least favorite part of our trip. It’s a necessary evil that we’ve tried to make the best of. We did the VIP tour of Paramount Studios. We also decided to go to Disneyland. Mr. L hadn’t been there since 1959, and I passed on the opportunity, wanting to go with my husband instead of co-workers when I last had the chance in 1982. (I was young and foolish then. Well, more foolish.)

We had a bit of drama getting to the Paramount tour. We planned to pick up our rental car at 8 am and drive to the studio in time to be there by nine (for a nine-thirty tour start time). We walked to the next hotel over and finally found the Hertz office buried on the second floor. There were at least four people in front of us, and things were not moving. Mr. L waited about ten minutes then came out and said, “We’re getting a cab.” The cab got us to the studio on time (the cabbie seemed to think we were producers or something — I was careful not to laugh too loud). Mr. L called Hertz and told them we’d be in later in the afternoon to pick up our car. When we returned from the studio tour, he informed the Hertz attendant he was not happy about the situation in the morning, since the delay had cost us an extra $50 in carfare to get to our appointment (and back to pick up the car). She apologized and offered a $25 credit or we could cancel the car completely. We still needed the car, so he accepted that offer and proceeded with the rental. She offered us a Honda Civic or a Mustang Convertible. I pointed out we’d reserved a full size car, and I didn’t think a Honda Civic met that criteria. She agreed, and she pointed out the Mustang was a premium rental she was offering to us at our agreed upon rate. We took the Mustang. We didn’t get a chance to pop the hood to check, but it performed like a 6 cylinder. It was a nice car, anyway.

Mr. L decided to buy one day park hopper tickets for both Disney theme parks (they are right next to one another). For those who don’t know, I am scheduled for a total knee replacement later this month, and I use offloader braces when I have to do extensive walking. We should have rented a scooter when we went into the park, but we didn’t notice the rental kiosk, and we didn’t think about it until we were halfway through the first park looking at the only ride that really interested both of us. It had a 45 minute wait time, and I didn’t want to wait and then still have to walk the park. We skipped that ride. Mr. L doesn’t ride roller coasters or ferris wheels, and I didn’t feel like riding them alone. After we found our way through the first park, we rented a scooter before going into main Disneyland, but we didn’t see any rides we wanted to ride there either. So, yes. You guessed it. We went through two Disney parks in one day and didn’t ride a single ride. We’ve been to Disneyland. The best part was riding the tram into and out of the park.

As for LA, we stayed at the Westin Bonaventure. It’s an expensive hotel, but it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience (except maybe for one of the restaurants, which will remain unnamed). The lobby bar is quite good, and the lobby restaurant has a lovely buffet breakfast and a professional wait staff (as opposed to a wait staff merely there for the job). The room was comfortable. LA was an NCAA March Madness city, and I think we had mostly Arizona fans in our hotel. Wisconsin beat Arizona to advance to the Final Four while we were there, and I think some of the Arizona fans may have been celebrating the loss with some kind of orgy upstairs from us on our last night there. The hotel was quiet except for that night. We had a nice view from our 25th floor room.

Thank you for visiting for the April A-Z Blogging Challenge. Today’s entry is “Grand Tour”-themed, about our Amtrak trip we took last month. I’d love to hear your thoughts or questions in comments. If you don’t want to miss an entry, please enter your email address below, press sign-up, then check your inbox to click the validation link to get these blog posts in your inbox.