CA quick-trip (EPG relo, part 1)

This developed unexpectedly - EPG successfully interviewed for a job in the Los Angeles area and will be relocating in a matter of days. Advertising work with a social media emphasis. It sounds good. And wow, it happened fast.

With scant lead time, PJ, EPG and I drove over to LA on Friday, January 28 to see if we could track down an apartment. Didn't hit the road until mid-afternoon - I was stuck on the phone, plus my two fellow travelers were busy trying to line up appointments to see places. Mind you, proposed move-in date was just two weeks off, and this is a desirable area (Santa Monica) without lots of vacancies.

Anyway, Friday travels were easy - made great time, just one slow-down while in the downtown LA area. Had an unexpectedly nice dinner at La Bottega - Italian place with a deli feel, yet delightful dishes (home-made pasta), wonderful beer list, comfortable feel. Even better - after we all treated ourselves to an excellent dinner and drinks (Duchesse De Bourgogne and Delirium Tremens, photo below, as exhibits 1 and 2), EPG treated us by picking up the check. So that was quite fine. The restaurant was on the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Purdue Ave - the latter being a name with which we grew familiar during the next day.

By Saturday morning, things weren't looking good. The guy from the apartment-finding service flamed out, leaving us to hit the phones in the hotel room while simultaneously tracking locations on the web and trying to organize our own route. But: it all turned out fine. EPG and PJ had a pretty good idea of desired general area. EPG had a few places already lined up. We saw a pretty extensive cross-section of places. We did walk-ups and cold calls, spoke to building managers on the fly. Liked a place right off the bat at the corner of Purdue and Iowa (I know, what's with the Big 10 names?); eventually walked the Purdue street a bit and found one we liked better just a bit down the same block; made friends with the manager (Dana) who put EPG first in line for a really nice one-bedroom apartment that hadn't even hit the market yet - with current resident clearing out in time to support a 2/15 start date. Wow, that was pretty lucky. We also figured out that EPG's office is also on Purdue Avenue . . . about five blocks away from the apartment, with the prior evening's restaurant just about two blocks away. Weird alignment of restaurant, apartment, office on the same street; but certainly convenient.

We had looked at a couple places down close to the beach; also had lunch at what is basically a high-end outdoor shopping mall a couple blocks off the beach. Weather was great; we felt like we made really good progress; we finished at about 6:30p and didn't quite feel like hitting the road for AZ. So checked back into the same hotel, reprised our La Bottega dinner (equally excellent for round two, plus they were playing interesting music); then had a smooth return trip to AZ on Sunday (1/30) with stops at the outlet mall and Blythe.

So this was good progress . . . perhaps another trip for move-in soon? Santa Monica is a very nice area.