California Donuts and Venice Beach

Another sunny day in LA. No complaints here (ok, maybe my feet are sort of dirty and hurt a little but we did that math, and I walked at least five miles today!).

Exhibit A

Ellen had to leave for work at 9:30 and Cara and Phil wouldn't be back until 10:30 which gave Rose and me time for a walk to California Donuts, which was about a mile from their apartment. We'd read about this place online and knew we needed to go! They have a panda donut! (See Exhibit A). They have your standard flavors: glazed, chocolate, old-fashioned, Boston cream etc. but then they have the specialty flavors like the Panda donut or donuts topped with cereal or my personal favorite: a donut topped with M&Ms. That's right, someone said, "no no no, a donut by itself isn't good enough, we need to add some of God's favorite candy on top because calories don't matter when you're eating a piece of heaven."

Exhibit B

I did not eat this deliciousness for breakfast because that much sugar in the morning might have made me absolutely intolerable for the rest of the day. I went with another classic breakfast goodie, the cinnamon roll (going with their standard option and not their super jumbo version) and Rose had a green tea donut but then we splurged and purchased a few specialty donuts to bring back to our less-fortunate working friends (See Exhibit B). I mandated the purchase of the "M&M Overload" and the Panda while Rose really wanted to try the Girl Scout Cookie Samoa Donut. We filled out the rest of our order with the Thin Mint, Fruit Loop and Lucky Charms donuts. Rose and I hurried back to the apartment with our purchases before they could melt in the heat and stashed them in the fridge for later.

Having returned from work, Cara was ready to join us for some more sight-seeing and we returned to the beach! This time, it was a lot easier to find parking in Santa Monica (although we had a bit of trouble getting Phil's car to turn on before we could head out). We walked in the opposite direction, so instead of returning to the Pier, we made our way to Venice Beach. Lots of shops and walking. We didn't really know what we wanted to do there so we bounced around, retracing our steps multiple times and soaking up the sun.

Making Tyra proud

Now, I am in serious need of a new headshot, so we had a little photo shoot on the beach. I was supposed to be the model but since I'm not a very good one, Rose helped me out. More walking followed that, so we didn't feel very guilty when we dug into the donuts upon returning home!

We chopped the donuts up so there was plenty to go around (well, some of them -- we tried the M&M Overload, Samoa and Fruit Loops). This will surprise no one, but the M&M Overload was my favorite and I'm dreaming of having another one right now. They were all basically your standard glazed with the various toppings but very delicious! We suspect that the panda donut has some type of filling but we couldn't cut up that cute face just yet!

Ellen, Rose and I had pancakes and mozzarella sticks for dinner (because we're basically reliving college this week, so why not?) and now it's TV time! On to Hollywood tomorrow!

New headshot, maybe?