California Trip - Day 5 - O.C. Beaches / Weird Al

I got the sense that Crimson was a little disappointed by the mall viewing of the Hollywood sign so we made a quick detour to Griffith Park Observatory. The view was a little better and near the best you'll get without some hiking, which was the last thing Crimson wanted to do. The bonus was we had a nice view of the L.A. skyline as well. As usual, the skyline was covered in a sickening smog.

Next up was a visit to Rodeo Drive. Since Crimson had been warned before hand that the budget didn't permit any shopping, the visit was pretty quick. Just a nice walk up and down a couple of blocks.

Now it was time to return to the coast. I was determined to see most of it so we headed back to almost where we left off starting a Dana Point. We worked out way North with the intention of seeing many beaches. I quickly realized this would be impossible due to traffic and parking issues.

Our first stop was Laguna Beach but we had to park about a mile away and walk to it. Crimson got to watch some people playing volleyball and critique them and I got to snap a few pics.



Next up was Newport Beach and the Balboa Peninsula. Despite it being pretty late in the day it took a long time to get out to the tip and find some parking. But the time was worth it as we got to watch some people risk body surfing at the "Wedge". It wasn't exactly warm (about 70 degrees) so Crimson and I had little interest in getting in the water.



We skipped a couple of the beach stops I had planned as our time was running out. We got to our hotel in Long Beach with only 10 minutes to spare before we needed to head back South to Costa Mesa for a Weird Al Yankovich concert at the Pacific Amphitheater.

I was thoroughly impressed by the venue. It was quite bit big (I read 16,000) and was 90% full. That was a lot more people than I expected. With no opening act, Al's performance went on for 2 hours and 15 minutes. He did a bunch of quick costume changes while showing Al TV interviews on the big screen, including one with my favorite, Robert Plant.

His material covered a lot of his career and played most of the crowd favorites including My Bologna, Eat It, Fat, Yoda, Smells Like Nirvana, Amish Paradise, The Saga Begins, Couch Potato, White & Nerdy (With Crimson singing loudly), Canadian Idiot, Perform This Way (in huge peacock outfit), TMZ and Craigslist (loved his impression of Jim Morrison). It was a great performance and a nice end to a long day.

California Trip - Day 4 - Hollywood

We actually got to sleep in a bit because we weren't about to head out into the thick of rush hour traffic in LA.

The first stop was a tour of Warner Bros Studio. This was a two hour tram guided tour of many locations on the Warner Bros lot. Lots of neat insight provided by the guide and we saw a lot of historic sites. However, since almost all filming is on hiatus during July we didn't get to catch anyone live.

We did get to have nice look at the preserved Friends Central Perk set where I snuck this picture that I wasn't supposed to get. I was quickly told to get back behind the couch after taking it. Such a rebel.



My other highlight was seeing the Kash and Grab set from one of my favorite shows, Shameless. It didn't mean anything to anyone else on the tram, but at least I recognized it. We saw the studio for Big Bang Theory but most of it was undercover at the moment. Finally, there was a wardrobe and prop museum that was filled with 50% Harry Potter stuff.

We didn't have much time before our next event so we grab some grub out of the car and started the short walk to wait for Jay Leno. Initially I was a bit concerned about getting there in time since they intentionally overbook it. Fortunately, we were as numbers 154 & 155. We got in and got some very nice seats straight back from the monologue spot. As we had heard, it was freezing in there, but it was a great experience. Jay does a good job of welcoming and talking to the audience before the show and it was fun despite some less than interesting guests (Kathie Lee & Hoda, Sig Henson and Ashton Shepard). The highlight was probably a guest spot by William Shatner.

After taping we set out for the heart of Hollywood and the tourist traps. We saw the Walk of Fame, Chinese Theater and caught our first glimpse of the Hollywood sign the the Hollywood & Highland Mall.

We had fun at Madame Tussaud's Was Museum mingling with the wax stars. They are so lifelike it is a bit creepy. One time Crimson even mistook a live person for a wax statue. We struggled a bit to find some decent food but eventually did at the Boulevard Tavern.


We ended the busy day at our hotel in the center of West Hollywood.

California Trip - Day 3 - La Jolla and Departure North

Another big activity on tap early, so it was breakfast from the grocery store in our hotel room before departing for La Jolla Cove in Northern San Diego. Elise, Sam, Crimson and I were going to spend a couple hours on a kayaking and snorkeling tour.

The first challenge was finding a place to park. This would be a recurring theme for much of our trip. It's like the state of California always figured people would walk to the beach.

The cove was beautiful and water nice although quite cold. It was a good thing we had wet suits otherwise we couldn't have handled the 2 hours in and on top of the water. The kayaking was a good workout and the team of Crimson / Mark worked well together. The snorkeling was less impressive than most of my other attempts with zero appearances of the hyped leopard sharks. The highlight was our swim into the caves.

We built up quite a hunger and headed to the La Jolla Cheese Shop for some massive sandwiches. The food was great but the service pretty slow. They did have a nice selection of hard to find candies and drinks.

We headed back to the hotel and said our goodbyes to Mom, Elise and Sam as they were returning to Phoenix that afternoon. We were headed North because our next day was a busy one in Hollywood.

On our way North we stopped at Torrey Pines Glider port hoping to catch a glimpse of some hangliders. Although we didn't see any, the site was quite beautiful and people were having some fun with remote control gliders.



We got our first taste of traffic as we reached the Southern edge of Orange County. Our hotel stop was in San Clemente. A nice quite hotel that thrilled Crimson simply because it had more TV channels. Pizza at the local Stuft Pizza became a bit weird when one of the employees cranked the volume on the only TV to maximum level and walked away.

California Trip - Day 2 - San Diego Zoo and more

Still on Atlanta time, I awoke pretty early. Since Crimson was still asleep I decided to take a walk and some pics in Embarcadero Park behind the hotel.

Instead of opting for the outrageously expensive $23 hotel breakfast buffet, we went around the corner to Café 222, a great decision. Excellent eats at a very reasonable price. From there it was off to the San Diego Zoo and more animals.

We started out taking a bus tour of the grounds. It's a 40 minute guided tour that allows you to see a lot of the park although not that close to the animals. The wait for the bus was a bit longer than I had hoped but it was a relaxing way to see a lot.

From there it was on foot to explore the zoo. It certainly lived up to its billing as the one of the world's best. The zoo is huge and the collection impressive. Many of the habitats are quite well done. We saw a lot but still only covered about 2/3rds before most of our group was too tired to continue. My highlight of the day had to be watching 4 or 5 people jump just because a lion raised its head behind the glass.



Mom, Elise and Sam were ready to head back to the hotel but I wanted to keep sightseeing and Crimson opted to go with me. Our first stop were two old bridges in the area. First was the 375 foot long Spruce Street suspension bridge built in 1912. When we got within a couple steps of it we realized Crimson had found a limit. There was no way she was going to cross it. I ran across, snapped a few pics and we moved on to the next bridge. This one was the Quince Street wooden trestle bridge built in 1905. However, there was no crossing this bridge as a section of it had broken away. Perhaps Crimson was on to something.

Next we headed out to Point Loma for some great views back at downtown San Diego and even a glance at Mexico. Checking out Ocean Beach and its amusement park on the way back turned into a bit of a mystery that was finally solved when a quick trip to the Internet revealed the amusement park had been closed for years.

For dinner, the crew headed to Old Town and some authentic Mexican food at the Old Town Mexican Cafe. The wait was long and food only average but the company was good. Sam picked up a Mexican wrestling mask that he was determined to wear everywhere.

California Trip - Day 1 - Air Travel & San Diego

We woke up bright and early around 5:00AM for an 8:00AM flight. Things didn't get off to the best start as I somehow missed the exit to I-85 despite the fact that I've taken this route literally hundreds of times heading downtown. We recovered though to make it to the airport in time and our flights were on time as well.

A mix up at the car rental office had me renamed to "Deion" for a bit but in the end saved me a day rental of rentals fees and the cost of a tank of gas. We quickly headed out to our first destination, San Zoo Safari park.



This park is a subsidiary of the San Diego Zoo but at a different location. It's a huge open space which houses a lot of animals in wide expansive habitats. It was really neat seeing giraffes roam relatively free across the "plains". We took a guided safari tour that gave us a close look at the grounds and animals. Expensive, but worth it.

After the Safari we went back to our hotel and met up with Mom, Elise and Sam. The San Diego Marriott Marquis & Marina had beuatiful views of the city and the harbor. We ate dinner at the hotel and then drove quickly to Coronado to check out the sunset at the world famous Del Coronado Hotel and eat some ice cream.

California Trip - Prologue

Crimson and I are finally back from out two week trip to California and I figured I'd share more than a bit about the trip with all my friends and family. Before diving into the day to day details, some background.

I've been thinking about a Western coastal trip for a couple years. I was really interested in driving up the coast, seeing a lot of beautiful scenary and checking out the interesting sights in between. I knew Crimson was very interested in seeing Hollywood and would be thrilled at visiting Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park and it world-leading 18 roller coasters.

I rarely travel without researching a LOT, undoutably too much. When I travel I like to keep busy, not sit around a hotel, by the pool or on the beach. I save that for Barbados. Crimson is pretty much the same way. So, I bought a couple of books, scoured the Internet and made extensive use of Google Maps.

I quickly realized my dream of traveling from San Diego to Seattle was not a possibility with only two weeks to work with. So, I amended the trip to simply San Diego to San Francisco with a day journey North of Frisco.

However, things weren't exactly linear for us as we'd be making detours inland to Hollywood and Six Flags. Since we wanted to see Leno and tour a studio, a weekend date in Hollywood was out of the question. Doing Six Flags on a weekday was also desirable. After struggling with this a bit, I found a rough itinerary that would work. Next up was an attempt to coordinate so that Mom, Sis and her sons could meet us in San Diego. We worked that out although Seth couldn't make the trip due to baseball.

With a rough idea in mind, I started working on specifics. Reservations for hotels in 10 different cities were made, 150 locations and way points were added to the GPS, lists of sites/activities were typed up, tickets for popular activities were purchased and about 50 maps were printed. It took me weeks to put together and organize but it was well worth every minute because it helped us maximize our time and see a LOT.

The last step was to get to the two us packed and ready for the trip. Our early departure from the house meant we'd probably be tired before we even started.

Coming up will be blog entries describing each day of the trip and including a couple photos from each day. The remaining pictures will be available shortly.

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Epilogue