Theres a bit of a chain of these places,  intersting name but there are a few christian groups and do gooders with filthy minds who have protested about the name.  They are called pink taco because the tacos are pink.   They also got into a bit of trouble for shaving a donkey and painting it pink.. Why?

I hate Seafood, infact we both do, but Joe’s Crabshack caught our attention in Newport Beach California. With a place looking this dodgy we are not going to miss out on giving it a go.  No crabs for me,- i’ll have the chicken please.   They had some pretty dodgy tshirts to…I got crabs from the waitress at Joes Crabshack…etc

Hows this for a cool retro pickup. Its a Chevy SSR, I took this shot at a 7/11 in LA when I was buying beers. Unfortunately they dont make them any more, they ran from 2003 to 2006. They had a 5.3 or 6 litre (same LL2 one Holden Uses) V8 in them so they go pretty well.

Its absoluely beautiful here, warm sunny and clear (which is pretty weird for LA- usually you cant see much in front of you for thick pink smog)

The pool at our hotel  the Thomson on Wilshire Blvd Beverley Hills looks like the place to be, well at least at their rooftop bar.  Time for a beer! (or 6)

We left Washington at 6AM and the weather had turned to freezing, Last night it was a bit wet and cool, still in just shorts and T Shirt, This morning freezing.. We catch a small Delta airways flight to JFK in New York after a bit of delay due to bad weather. New York is worse than freezing, the plane lands out on the tarmac, sleet and icy rain. But no time to spare need to run to catch the next flight to Salt Lake City.

We here the airport closed about an hour later due to a snow storm.  We get to Salt Lake City then take the hour and a half flight to lovely LA, arriving in LAX one of the world’s ugliest bland airports- every thing is always under repair and beige – it never gets any better or nicer.

Good bye tasty Chilli Dogs and Philli Steak burgers and hello the LA culinary experience  – Bring on the Orange Chicken at Panda Express and the cool Mexican food!

The Panda Express didn’t let us down, its been twelve months since our last Panda Express Treat -think it was somewhere near Portland Oregon from memory last October.  The serves havent got any smaller too- this is the small one and it cost $5.99 with spring rolls in the box – there is no way one person can eat it all.. The whale across from me has ordered a big one- it will be intresting to see how she goes- She has the traditional Diet Coke (why bother) to wash it down- its as big as a bucket!

Washington has a huge array of free museums called the Smithsodians, there cover just about all catergories, art, science, natural history, cultures etc. We visited the one of their air museums a few days back and saw the Concorde and Space Shuttle, today we visit the Air & Space museum in the city. It is home to the Wright Brothers plane and the Apollo 11 space module which brought the first guys back from the moon  to name a few of the amazing items in their collection.

This place is a washington institution and the chilli dog was amazing- called a half smoke it was a smoked sausage in a bun covered with tasty rich chilli, think my shirt wore most of it.  The place was packed and no wonder why.  The restaurant has been open since 1958 and came to fame during the assassination of Martin Luther King when much of the area was burnt down in riots. Bens was one of the few places which was unharmed and became a symbol of the protest serving food to the people trying to help and restore order.  The walls were covered in photographs of celebs who have visited and there was everyone you can imagine on the wall,   It is meant to be one of Obama’s favorite places and he has been known to drop in and grab a chilli dog even the French President dropped in for a bite to eat recently. There was a sign on the wall saying  Only Obama family and Bill Crosby Eat Free- everyone else pays no exception. Dont know why Bill Crosby is so special? 

The pentagon was a huge and powerful looking building, and yet another 9-11 legacy.This top photo is the repaired section which the plane went through. There is a huge gardens with intesting sculptures built as a memorial, one sculpture for each person who died in the event.     There were signs all around the Pentagon fenceline and car park  saying no photos- and lots of black vans with tinted windows.

We saw an interesting thing at the station..a train with 10 or so carrages, first few had a few people in it- all looking a bit stange- they were trying ot look like normal people but just didn’t for some reason- they were all a bit too alert or something , then the last few were all blacked out with instrumentation you could see through the darkened glass. They must transfer stuff secretley  between stations.

washington is very similar to Canberra the way it is structured with iconic buildings dominating the cross roads. the city was base on Paris, which you can see with the roundabouts and diangle streets.

Beautiful gardens and pretty impressive building. unfortunately the big guy didn’t invite us in for a fried chicken dinner, suppose he’s a busy man trying to fix up this stuffed up country and planning his trip to see Julia.

The gardens were very lush and pretty flash, with plenty of squirrels hopping around gathering nuts and other treats. From the right angle you could see the secret service or who ever they weere on the roof with machine guns, from this bottom photo you can just see the top of his head on the ledge to the left of the flag pole if you look close.   It was surprising how close you could actually get to the building, the fenceline is only about 50 metres from the house.

How good are these little piggies, and check out the fancy attachment device

This place was pretty cool a space shuttle and a Concorde all under the one roof
Mikey Ds as they call them were the caterers so it was a mc 1/3 pound angus with Swiss and mushrooms….. Wish.I could say yum