Day 14

Today is Monday. This morning, Jennifer and I walked down the Venice beach walk. I skateboarded in a small park, and we ate breakfast in a place called Benice Totoos. It was actually really good. We got traditional breakfasts: pancakes and french toast. After checking out of the hotel, we started driving to some of the LA sites. Our first stop was of a building Frank Gehry designed that had giant binoculars out front.

We then went and looked at a house Frank Gehry lived in back in the 70's. He experimented on that house, putting corrugated sheets of steel and chain link fence pieces all over it. It's a bit of an architectural landmark now, but the neighborhood was all uptight about it when he did it. when I post pictures, you'll see why.

While we were looking for Frank Gehry's house, my check engine light came on. The truck seemed to be running fine, but I was still concerned because you never really know exactly what that light means. So, we were lucky enough to be near a dealership, and we took it in. Leaving the truck there, we proceeded to walk down Santa Monica Boulevard to the Santa Monica Pier. We then sat on the beach for 45 minutes or so. I was frustrated about the truck, so I didn't enjoy it as much as I should have. This is the Santa Monica pier. We sat on the beach next to it (this is where Michael Douglas got killed in "Falling Down". It's been in a bunch of movies):

After a bit, we started to make our way back. We stopped at a Mexican place that was similar to a Moe's (if you know what Moe's is). While there, I got in touch with the dealership who told me it was the throttle position sensor. Evidently, if you let that go uncorrected, over time it will foul up the engine, because the computer won't know how much fuel to give to the engine because it can't tell where the throttle is (how hard or easy you are hitting the gas). So I had them fix it. They also wanted to fix the brakes. I've been aware that the brakes are wearing thin, but I decided to wait until I got back to address that.
I guess a 6000 mile trip on a truck with 141,000 miles on it can be hard on parts. I've put some long miles on that truck in the last two weeks.
So here we sit at the dealer waiting on the "johnson rod" repair. As soon as that is fixed, I think we may stop by a retro clothing store to look for anything we can't live without. After that, it is out to the Malibu Creek State Park to camp out for the night. Malibu Creek State Park is where they filmed "MASH" and "Planet of the Apes".
Tomorrow night we stay aboard the Queen Mary, an vintage ocean liner.

The above picture was of me as I was typing some of what is above on Monday.
After the repair, we went on to Lady Jo's. It's a retro clothing store. I got a cool crushable felt hat and an art print for the garage, and Jennifer got a belt and a parasol. Fuly accessorized, we headed for the mountains. That is where the next post picks up (although the days are now disorganized).