Los Angeles

I arrived in Los Angeles on the 3rd March after 11+ hours flight plus two additional hours sitting on the plane before it took off, why, i don't know why. We boarded early which I thought was a good sign but then sat on the runway for two hours....in the end leaving half an hour late. I got my upgrade thanks to my lovely nephew Richard who works for Virgin, larger seats, leather ones, more leg room....spoilt.

at 2.30 pm USA time (8 hours behind Greenwich meantime) we arrived in LAX...got off the plane easily but then stood for an hour while immigration took everyone's fingerprints and photo....great. It took ages...picked up my bags and staggered out to find Stanley waiting for me. As agreed he was standing in a red shirt with THE SIGN...Lyn. I didn't feel particularly jet lagged.

We drove for say 40 minutes or so and arrived at 309 Nancy Way to meet his wife Mary. Stanley and Mary are in their 70s and get up about 5 am...i did say i don't do that time of the morning but....anyway the first two nights i crashed anyway and was up early. As I settle in then maybe i will not be able to get up so blooming early....it is now 10;10 PM and they have gone to bed as they have been up for HOURS.

I suppose I should explain that Stanley Charles is a distant relative, from what I can gather from the family tree he is my mother's half uncle's son, so i guess he is my mother's half cousin. Anyway we met on Ancestry as we were both looking for information about Thomas Collingwood Chown of which there are two of them. The eldest TC Chown is my Gt. Grandfather and he is also Stanley's Gt GT grandfather. TC Chown junior is Stan's gt. grandfather. enough of that it will only confuse you.

Friday 4th March, Stanley and Mary took me to Santa Anita Race Course outside LA. it is a rather nice building in the art deco style. We went to the restaurant and had lunch and bet on the gigis....i won the first two races, lost the third, won the fourth of which I made about $20 profit...i also got another winner but didn't actually do a bet, so 4 winners out of 5 races was pretty good.

We went down to the paddock to see the horses and I took photos of which I would say two are really good the others ok. Anyway those two were satisfactory to me and I will upload them when i get on my own computer. Am sitting using Stanleys' Apple Mac and can't get my pictures on today.

Following my tradition of having a McDonalds in every city or country i go to how fortunate it is that there is one about 8 minutes walk away and i can get wifi there. Hence breakfast today was a sausage biscuit (yummy) so I could get on free wifi as stanley doesnt have wireless. the sausage biscuit biscuit bit is rather like a crispy scone and i must say was yummy.

It would seem that McDonalds senior coffee costing 55c (yes being aged i get cheaper coffee, sounds good to me) is going to be a daily routine whilst I am in USA.

Today Saturday i was taken to the penthouse restaurant in Santa Monica and we lunched and had a marvellous view of the ocean, sand and hills leading to Malibu. Unfortunately the walk on the beach didn't happen which I was a bit disappointed about but hey it doesn't matter.