Another California adventure
Spent last weekend out in California for a family reunion on my maternal grandmother's side, reprising the successful get-together from three years ago. But we got to see a bit more this time around.

This time, we were closer to civilization the whole time, forgoing the mountain cabin for a park just down the street from Santa Anita Park (although there was no racing that weekend). In fact, the town of Arcadia where we stayed was an interesting mashup of chain restaurants galore and "real" homegrown businesses in downtown. It seemed a bit odd to me that there were walkable towns in the L.A. suburbs, but there they were.

The trip itself was moderately memorable in that we were all going to connect in Houston for our flight to Ontario on Thursday night, but my parents and brother nearly missed the connection because of issues getting out of Newark. They did make it, although I was having flashbacks to when a former co-worker (who was also supposed to drive us around town) nearly missed a flight we were booked on to Chicago because he got caught up in security. It's good to travel in groups, except when the person with a lot more idea of what's going on misses the flight.

We had plenty of time on our hands Friday during the day before the reunion officially kicked off, so my parents and I started by a little driving around downtown L.A. after dropping off my brother for an appointment at USC. I finally got to see the L.A. Coliseum up close (the parking/traffic schemes have to be hell), and we drove by the Staples Center, Dodger Stadium, and the Bonaventure Hotel, prominently featured in this film. We also saw the Cathedral, which didn't look like it from street level. That was the extent of the actual city of L.A. tourist experience, which wasn't half-bad for ad libbing in the morning while waiting for my brother.

Later we met my mom's godmother, which was really nice, and I started to wonder if my goddaughter would try to track me down years from now. (FWIW, my godmother lives in the L.A. area as well, but didn't get a chance to meet this time around.)

Friday night came the reunion itself, which was good as always, seeing a lot of familiar faces (some armed with new or older kids) and meeting some new ones, which included a handful of cousins from London -- complete with the British accents. They were pretty cool and very excited to be in the U.S. actually meeting other members of the family. The accents also threw off the Filipino stand-up comic who performed and naturally brought down the house. After some bonding over drinks Friday night, it was off for part two on Saturday.

For part two, we went to another part of the park for all the basic picnic-type activities that included me actually doing a halfway decent job at horseshoes. Later on in the day, a bunch of us started an impromptu poker tournament. And somehow all that time playing online poker paid off as I was the last man standing and came away with $110. Still trying to figure out how I won, but I don't think you'll be seeing me at the World Series anytime soon, though. There was more reunion stuff Sunday and I ended up with a ton of macadamia nut-based foods thanks to my cousin who lives in Hawaii and brought a ton of that stuff stateside for prizes.

Starting Sunday night, I really started to get a good feel for how massive Southern California is driving-wise. While my brother did all the driving, I did much of the navigating for a side trip to San Diego to visit a couple of my dad's friends Sunday night. A mad criss-crossing of the Southland came on Monday that included a trip to the Reagan Library, a stopoff at the Rose Bowl, shopping for Filipino pastries and then visits to an aunt's house and cousin's place before taking the red-eye back to Atlanta (and thus reprising my Jack Bauer travel/sleep schedule ... just picture Kiefer having to chase around an 18-month-old or looking at Clippers t-shirts at WalMart).

It was a fun weekend for sure, and I'm already looking forward to the next get-together, probably in another three years -- this time in San Diego. I'm thinking there will be a lot more changes (especially among us young adult-aged folks) when that comes around. But for now, I guess I'll see a few more of them at a wedding next month in Canada.