Today we finally got in a bit of a beach day. We all biked down to Hermosa to eat some lunch (or dinner?) and wandered around the area there, catching some surfers and stores and all that. The bike path was unusually crowded, even for a Saturday, but we managed to make it in one piece. Before that, Mel and I had spent some time web surfing to see if we could find decent tickets to 'Wicked' since its playing here and Marlena has been wanting to see it. After trying all kinds of searches, we ended up getting four really great individual seats. Marlena and Sumner sat in the Mezzanine's first and second row right behind each other, while Mel and I swapped seats at intermission between an 8th row seat in the Orchestra and a second row seat in the Mezzanine. Both were different but equally good experiences. Traffic there and back was as jammed up as the bike path had been - so I guess they got the full LA experience out of it. Mel was glad to find a way to end the trip with a bang, fully aware that this could be the last family vacation for all of them together since Marlena starts college in the fall. Early in the morning its back to Baltimore for them. I suspect this cross-country trek will be one they'll remember for a long time.