santa monica beach on the 4th, originally uploaded by lynnith.

On Sunday, I met up with my friend Joyce, who I worked with back in the day at Cannes Lions in London.  I can always count on her for an interesting collection of LA sights & food, and Sunday was no exception.  We started the day with brunch, and then headed over to the Museum of Jurassic Technology.  I heartily recommend the museum for anybody who enjoys the extremely weird – it’s devoted to the fringe and features such exhibits as Garden of Eden on Wheels: Collections from Los Angeles mobile home and trailer parks.  We also learned that eating two mice on toast, fur and all, will cure incontinence.  After we conquered the museum, we walked up one of LA’s foothills for a view of the city and lots of off-leash dogs.  None of them were in the same class as Seattle dogs though!  Shameful.  We finished off the day with shaved ices from Milk & some excellent Thai food.

Then it was Monday, and time for Steffi and I to take our classiest roadtrip ever – a pilgrimmage to the Salton Sea and more importantly, Salvation Mountain.  The mountain is built around a hill about 3 miles outside of Niland, a dusty little town with delicious Mexican food.  It’s actually still a work in progress – Leonard Knight, its creator, works and lives there and has done so for the past 25+ years.  Here he is at the mountain:

the man & his mountain, originally uploaded by lynnith.

The whole thing was pretty surreal, and after our little tour we both decided we’d been saved.  And what better way to celebrate being saved than to head up to Palm Springs and gamble for Jesus?  Turns out, Steffi’s in much better spiritual shape than me – she netted out $150 while I only won $25…

Later today I’m headed to the airport – hopefully my pilot isn’t one of the Michael Jackson funeral lottery winners and I’ll be Australia-bound at 9:30 tonight.  I land at 9:30 in the AM on Thursday; the next time I blog, I shall be in the FUTURE!

My final couple weeks in Seattle were pretty fun – had lots of great food, met up with tons of folks, and got my party on.  I did time my departure so as to be present for our house’s annual birthday/pride/etc extravaganza, and this year’s was certainly quite excellent.  Pre-party, a bunch of my friends came over & we held a powerpoint competition; everybody had 5 minutes and an assigned topic.  It sounds really nerdy (& probably is) but it was actually quite entertaining.  Enough alcohol was eventually consumed that the morning after the party, my brother woke up to find his stationery out and a stamp missing…

I also managed to see David Byrne again, this time at the Paramount – he clearly was informed about my trip and scheduled his latest Seattle tour stop for June 26th!  The show was great, and he even brought the Extra Action Marching Band up with him, which almost made up for the lack of encore-tutus.

DB and the Extra Action Marching Band, originally uploaded by lynnith.

I didn’t much enjoy packing & saying goodbye to everyone, not that those things are ever fun.  Goodbyes are not my strong suit – though I’m great at leaving!  It was particularly sad saying goodbye to Devo, who had been my unwitting funemployment BFF all month.  I have to say, though, it is an amazing feeling to look down and see all of your belongings for the next three years packed neatly into one rolling luggage, one backpack (not even half full), and one daypack.  It makes me never want to buy anything again – a feeling which will last as long as it takes me to find a camera shop and pick up a new circular polarizer!

Things I have done so far in LA: ordered food at a restaurant from a touch-screen, seen Public Enemies at a tiki-themed drive-in, gone swimming, shot hoops with a bouncy kickball, shopped at an American Tesco

This weekend it’s off to LA proper, where Leah is taking me to a stranger’s BBQ for the 4th, and then being awesome and letting me crash on her floor.  Sunday I’m gonna tool around the city with Joyce, where we will relive our London glory days and probably eat some awesome food in the process.  Monday, Steffi and I are taking an epic all-American roadtrip to celebrate my last day in the country.  We’re heading east, stopping in Palm Springs and at the Salton Sea but most importantly ending up at Salvation Mountain, a crazy technicolor man-made Jesus mountain in the middle of the desert.  I will report back on all that – certainly can’t imagine a better way to spend my last few days in the US!!

Before I sign off for the evening, I’d just like to point out that this post is about 1/5 the length of Sarah Palin’s resignation speech also.  Wink!