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Seeking a few thrills before the big game
By Greg Garber
ESPN.com

SAN DIEGO -- With the kickoff to Super Bowl XXXVII imminent, my family and I decided to get all of those Jon Gruden stories out of our system and headed up to Los Angeles. This may have been a mistake.

The traffic wasn't too bad on the freeways, and we made it to Malibu in under two hours (if you are doing the math, that's at least 70-plus mph -- heh, heh).

In the Hugo Boss store on Rodeo Drive, I found a nice polo shirt -- for $625!

My 14-year-old daughter, Emily, has always talked about going to Dartmouth. But after seeing Pepperdine University on Saturday, she may have a different plan. Seeing the sun bounce off the Pacific Ocean from such a lofty perspective was simply breakthaking.

We then took Sunset Boulevard all the way to Beverly Hills where we didn't find any cast memebers from 90210 working in a local Starbucks. In the Hugo Boss store on Rodeo Drive, I found a nice polo shirt -- for $625! Or about $625 less than Phil Mickelson pays for these shirts.

Visiting Beverly Hills can be a cathartic experience; when the valet attendant pulled up my sporty Lancer at the parking stand, my children pretended they didn't know me.

The next stop was the Hollywood Walk of Fame. This was something Emily and my 11-year-old son Christopher had wanted to see. But after they started reading some of the names, they were arguing about whose idea it was in the first place.

How, exactly, does Leeza Gibbons get a star? Or Paula Abdul (and this came before "American Idol")? Yes, even Terry Bradshaw has one, but was it on the merit of his NFL career or his brilliant work on Fox? Our favorite inanimate stars: The Simpsons, Woody Woodpecker and -- Emily's favorite -- Kermit the Frog.

One last top: Disney's "California Adventure" in Anaheim on the company's free passes. California Screamin', a nasty little roller-coaster was the clear favorite.

Fourteen hours later, exhausted, we arrived back in San Diego.

Are you ready for some football?

Greg Garber is a senior writer for ESPN.com.


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