8 - Happy 80th Birthday, Pop !! - Fun with Jay

Every once in a blue moon, Jay and I will take a walk down memory lane and talk about the neighborhood we grew up in.  She always says, "Let's take a drive out to West Covina next time you out to California."  I always say OK, but we never do it.  Until this time.  It was quite bizarre to be back in the area of our childhood. It was quite run down and much less harmonious among the houses.  But it was quite fun to see the place once again.

We parked the car and walked up and down the entire street trying to recall which neighbors lived in which house.  We also drove a few streets around our street.  We drove to our elementary school and to our surprise, the school was gone.  It was a big fenced off construction area where they were getting ready to build condos or apartments.  That was really weird to see.  We drove past our jr. high school and next to that was our high school.  We drove past our grocery market which later became our church as well as past our Baptist church.  We tried to find our catholic church, but we couldn't figure out that one.  I would have love to have gone back into it.  After driving on many streets, we stopped at a very well-known restaurant called the North Woods Inn.  No matter how hot it is, the snow never melts.  We have been here many times with our family and usually always with friends of our family.  Today, Jay and I ate lunch here and talked about old times.  The food tasted exactly like it did decades ago.

Jay and I did a lot of things together and went to several places.  

Here are a few pix in no specific order.

On one of the hottest days, Jay and I went to the beach just a 20 to 25 minute drive from her house.  It was so hot, that when the waves flowed back into the ocean, the water from the sand was turned into steam.  I had to go into the water.  It was "this" cold but wonderful.

It was so hot, Jay took me back to the Thai restaurant where she threw me the retirement party because, 

1)    it's so delicious.

2)    she wanted to sit in a restaurant with air-condition.  Unfortunatey they only had fans running.

I believe this is from the day that Carlos and I returned to OC because Tami is there in the background, and I believe it is Carlos snapping this photo.

Carlos told us about this ice-cream shop that he had heard and read about in the paper.  It's supposed to be one of the best.  Carlos never made it but one evening Jay and I took a walk, and we ended up here.

For our last big outing before I was to return home, Jay took me to this spot that I had no idea existed.  High on a hill overlooking the Pacific at Newport Beach area.

If you have been following my blog, then you know very well that I like maps.  And I have a thing for Atlas.  You know, being a Traweek Titan and all.  OK - so enough of that and here are my maps showing this magnificent place.