OK, let me see if I can clean this report up a bit. It was of course great to see the CatDude again. It was also great to see my drinking buddy MileCrazy again also. Ok, enough of that crap, on to the FOOD!

Babe's
Babe's has been around for 25 years now in Signal Hill, CA. 'The' Greasy Spoon! 3 large eggs, thick slice bacon or thick country sausage patty, large serving of fresh cut hash browns, sausage gravy on the pots, homemade toast cut 2 inches thick, dipped in butter, and fried on the grill, then you get Ona's homemade jams. She only makes around 10 different flavors each week. If your cholrestrol is too low, then you need to make a Babe's run! Jailer has his own place that he likes to go to but since he did not show for breakfast, he can write his own food report!

When we got to LAX, we parked at the Hilton and took the shuttle in. LAX is now letting cars pickup and drop of passengers so the cones have been picked up. Now the buses can take the shortcut between 6 & 7 without having to go all the way around. We get to see the infamous terminal 1 with it's mile long security line. Editor's note: they need to shoot the security people for putting 1 person at the stairway to check ID's and tickets instead of spending another $5.00 per hour for another person to help out get the paying customer's through. The line is way too long for this crap, but what can you expect, the Terminal serves WN, HP, & US.

Get dropped off at Terminal 7 (UA) and of course it is swamped with a long line up the escalator heading to security. I told the Cat to follow me and we headed for Terminal 6. The line took maybe 15 minutes and we were soon in the President's Club sucking on my favorite beer...free beer! Take the secret corridor over to gate 71D for the bus ride to the EMB120. They almost put us on the wrong plane which was going to San Luis Obispo. Get to my seat 3A which was occupied. I asked the 'gentleman' if he was in 3A which he replied "I guess so".

I let the FA know that I was going to take 4A and settled into my new seat with a few well placed knees to the back of the seat along with a few foot movements under the seat. He really didn't like the fact that my newspaper was spread over the top of his seat (my favorite trick) but since he was in the wrong, he didn't make a big deal of it. But what a beautiful day it was outside! Besides having great BBQ, Santa Maria has quite a few wineries that you need to go tasting at!

I knew that Dan MileCrazy got there ahead of us and since he wasn't at the gate to meet us and there just happened to be a bar there, I put 2 & 4 together to come up with a quess that he just be in that bar. What a surprise when Dan comes up the stairs with a surprised look on his face. Oh well, a margo down the chute, off to the hotel to check in, then over to Jocko's for din-din.

Jacko's
I cannot tell you where this place is because they don't want the advertising. Just be hungry! Large rack of pork spare ribs, dry rubbed with salt, pepper, and garlic salt. 2 huge pork chops, 3" thick and as big as your hand. 2" - 5" thick steaks, either spencer (Rib Eye), NY, or top sirloin. Plus, salad, beans and salsa, garlic toast, and ice cream. Oh yeah, I forgot the beer too!

Time to head off for a night on the town...yeah right! Pub crawling is a new thing is Santa Maria. We finally ended up at a semi dark cocktail bar with drunk cowboys dancing in the aisle and a farmer singing karoke. 3 cold ones and out of there! Back to the hotel bar for a night cap then off to the land of snooring!

Dan left early and Mark and myself had a good breakfast then walked over to the airport for the ride home. My seatmate grew up in Long Beach and is now an engineer for Boeing on the Delta Rocket program. We talked about how great Douglas Aircraft used to be (my dad retired from them) and what it was like under Boeing. We exchanged cards and promised to look each other up when we get to each other's town for dinner or drinks. Beautiful day flying into LAX. You could see Catalina and the Channel Islands. It was a shame that the flight was only 35 minutes.

We stopped back at the President's Club for a Bloody Mary then headed back to the Hilton to check in and get my car. We headed back to my apartment so that Mark could write his trip report and check out our email's and FlyerTalk (I took a nap). Then we headed off to pick up MrLimo and went on to meet PremEx for dinner. The CatCop can write about that.

UA posted the miles in 1 day! I now have a whopping 5387 miles!!!! So I promptly called the Mileage Plus customer service desk and transferred 5000 miles over to my Hilton account. Netted 10000 HH points out of that. Can't let those miles build up with since UA is going to be taken over by ...