SoCal is awesome in the winter

I have been in Southern California since Jan. 5 to cover the BCS National Championship Game for Horns Illustrated and to compile some info on a handful of golf courses for Cybergolf travel features that will run in the late spring. I have never spent a lot of time here -- after all the Austin area is really heaven, isn't it? -- but the past few days have been so fine they are like a dream.

I flew into Bob Hope Airport in Burbank (below), where it was sunny and 75 degrees. There I picked up my luggage at the only outside carousel I have ever seen. You actually went out of the airport to pick up your bags in a shaded area -- only in Cali I guess.

Then I made the hour drive across town on no less than six different freeways to Newport Beach to pick up my media credentials for the big game at the Marriott down there. The lobby and meeting areas (all of which had been taken over by the approximately 3,000 members of the media that are here covering the game) at the hotel was really nice, but the infrastructure of the guest rooms was a bit aged. I went up to my buddy Kevin Robbins's room to see his eighth-floor view of the next-door Newport Beach Country Club -- from the balcony you could see much of the pristine track as well as the ocean in the distance and the hundreds of million-dollar yachts in the bay in between. It is quite a sight.

I finally headed east to where I would spend the next two nights, at the posh and really cool Pacific Palms Resort in City of Industry. You can see the resort hotel on the top of the hill out there from miles away (above), and my room -- on the top floor overlooking the first, tenth and 18th holes of the Eisenhower Golf Course (below) at the affiliated Industry Hills Golf Club -- was a fine place to stay. Can't say enough great things about the resort, the room, the golf courses (there is a second track at Industry Hills as well, called the Zaharias Course, after Babe)and the friendliness of the people over there. Thanks for letting me stay and for all the hospitality.

I had a great Swedish massage at the resort's Spa that first afternoon, then ventured down the street for dinner at La Pollo Loco, a famous California chicken place. Both had me ready for the next few days activities, which included rounds of golf at both the Industry Hills courses and a glorious afternoon of horse racing at Santa Anita Park (below).

On Jan. 7 -- after a round of golf at The Babe -- I high-tailed it over from east of LA to Pasadena and the Rose Bowl for the BCS Championship Game, college football's version of the Super Bowl. This year the showdown is between Texas and Alabama. You'll know pretty soon about who won and captured the national title.

After the game I am heading north some 35 miles to Santa Clarita, where I will spend a few nights at the Comfort Suites and play golf at Robinson Ranch, a 36-hole facility in the valleys and mountains that surround the town. I will give you an update on that part of the trip on the way home.