The Ritz: now that’s a hotel!
I used the video checkout to make a hasty exit from the Monte Carlo (75¢ local calls) and met Jeffrey and Teresa down in the lobby. We cabbed over to the airport and dropped Teresa over at Alaska then proceeded to America West where we used the curbside checkin. We went up to the America West club and asked for upgrades. The agent there, Virginia, was among the nicest airline employees I’ve ever met. Jeffrey had Gold status on Continental due to his AmEx Centurion card but the status didn’t show in the system. Amazingly, a quick call to Centurion resulted in Gold status immediately showing up on the America West computer system. We got upgraded to seats 4C and D on the 757 to LAX.
The America West club had some Baby Bel cheese, bagels, and muffins, but no decaf coffee. After a bit we headed toward the gate and stopped at Burger King for an overpriced Whopper. The flight was delayed a half-hour or so but then we had nice drink service from a beautiful young stewardess named Kelly. We landed in LAX about half an hour late and took a cab to the Ritz-Carlton, across the street from Hunnybear’s and my apartment. Like all Ritz-Carltons, this was a first-class hotel. No rooms were available for Jeffrey on the concierge floor so he took a room on a low floor with club access programmed into his key. We spent the rest of the day camped out in the concierge lounge, eating fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookies and drinking complimentary wine.
The concierge lounge at Ritz-Carlton is truly amazing. They have five different spreads a day: breakfast, light lunch salads with giant fresh-baked cookies, afternoon tea with the famous fresh-baked scones, cocktail hors d’ouvres, and desserts and chocolates with a fine liqueur selection. This is all complimentary for a club-level room.
After Jeffrey got settled I took him for his first-ever walk up the Strand of Venice beach. If anybody wanted evidence that Southern California is full of nuts, they should just come here. Grizzled hippies mixed with Baywatch models and tourists from all over the world passed by speaking strange unknown languages as the sun set over the Pacific. We ended up in Santa Monica and headed for the Third St. Promenade, another of my favorite scenes down here. The Santa Monica Place mall was full of teenage girls awaiting the start of a free concert by a pop band. We passed through and sat down outdoors at Matisse, a French restaurant on the Promenade, watching the people walk by and listening to a street musician play some phenomenal lead guitar at low volume while we waited for Hunnybear.
When she showed up we retrieved my Pontiac then returned to the Ritz for some free drinks before dinner. Jeffrey loves the local chain Jerry’s Deli, so we went there and had some mile-high sandwiches. After dinner I was ready to crash, mostly from all the carbos I’d been eating. Oh, and I did get my haircut, at my favorite place in Vegas, Studio 15 at Bally’s. Ask for Mark.
The end.