Traveling with Mom and Greg

 

I don't have much in the way of details or plot, so here are the bare bones:

I was traveling with my mom and Greg in the wonderful LA basin. We were driving around and visiting the different tourist attractions and cultural sites. If it were the Midwest, we'd be seeing things like the world's biggest ball string or the world's largest safety pin, but since it was LA, we had to settle for the various historically themed museums. 

I was a bit lost as we drove around, and I struggled to get my bearings. I figured we were in Whittier, somewhere near the Rose Hills Cemetery, where my grandpa is buried. Looking out my window, I confirmed this to myself when I caught a glimpse of the Griffith Park Observatory on its hilltop perch off in the distance. The mountains and foothills were covered with snow, giving the place a Yosemite type look.

We stopped at a third-rate museum that claimed to have some kind of depictions of the early explorers and the westward movement of settlers. The museum was in a boarded up industrial type building that looked more like a venue suited for a rave or an underground nightclub.  It was in a run down black neighborhood, and the line of people outside was relatively short, consisting mostly of thuggish looking gangster types. 

I surveyed the line, trying to decide whether or not to get in it or to join my mom and Greg, who were over at a concession stand nearby. I got some hard looks from a very black, licorice-faced fellow in his early thirties, overweight, with traces of baby fat in the round cheeks that offset his overly white teeth. Wearing black jeans, a black short-sleeve shirt, untucked and unbuttoned in the front, over a black t-shirt, with a thick gold chain around his neck hanging down mid-chest, he looked like a slightly leaner version of the Notorious B.I.G. 

I opted for the concession stand. It was a self-serve buffet with some very unappealing food choices: soupy Salisbury steak, soupy processed turkey and a mostly empty pan of what had once been some watery, over-boiled chicken. There was also the obligatory salad bin, with wilted iceberg lettuce and a few tiny bits of purple cabbage thrown in for color. All the food was sitting in steam trays in the typical cafeteria fashion, which is probably why everything was so soggy and soupy.

I contemplated my rather sad choices as my mom grabbed the last soggy hoagie sandwich. I was conscious of my diet in the dream, and none of this food looked like it would be very healthy for me to eat. Greg wasn't hungry, or at least he said he wasn't, but eyeing the crusty tray of baked beans, he opted to fill himself a small to go container for the road. Neither my mom or Greg seemed too interested in going in the museum at this point.

That's about it. Nothing happened, and no real emotions were generated, other than mild disgust at my food choices and the slightly uneasy feeling of being in the wrong neighborhood.