Gone Back to Legoland

Day two of our vacation this year, as noted, was Legoland day!!!

As you can see, they are gearing up for Halloween, and there were touches of it all around!!!

We started heading towards the Mini Land area, always cool to see, and if they've added anything new. We did drop into the Ninjago ride on the way past.

There was a double headed dragon on the monument in the DC area.

Of course, a shot of the Capitol biulding so they can make a spurious accusation that you're attemting to overthrow the government...

As I mentioned, it's been a while since we've been to Legoland, since before The Lego Movie came out, so of course there's movie related stuff that's been added. This was in the build area, suspended from the ceiling.

And a big head of Princess Unikitty, one of my favorite characters from the movie.

I'm not sure what area this was supposed to be, but as you can see, there's a big flying monkey with a skeletal wing on the roof.

The only addition I found in Mini Land was their attempt to go green, wind turbines added. They turn. Ironically, they actually use power instead of generating it!!! The other change is that they had a bunch of Star Wars scenes last time I visited, which were gone now, I wonder if it was a limited time presentation. Didn't get to every area, I know there was a full size Vader and X-Wing there last time, too.

They have the adjacent Sea Life Aquarium, I'm not sure how much business it does, but somewhat related, they've added in a submarine ride with fish and sharks.

We had headed over to the far side of the park, searching for the Sky Cruiser ride (that you pedal around an eleated track) pictured in a previous post here but it's been removed. Just a bit further is The Lego Movie World area. One of the cats from the second movie, and the biulding in the background is shaped like Princess Unikitty's head. It houses Emmet's Flying Adventure, a hanging flight simulator. Emmet has constructed a triple-decker flying couch!!! It's one of the better rides there, but was also the one we had the longest wait for, almost 10 minutes!!! It was honestly a great time to go, almost every ride was a walk-on, and several of the better ones (both coasters operating, The Dragon was shut down and this one) they ran us through twice!!!

I hadn't picked up on the fact that the cat lady in the 2nd movie was named Mrs. Scratchen-post!!!

And, finally, the internal steampunk workings of a unicorn!!!

Going Back to Grandview

A couple weeks back we took another vacation. I'd had the week sceduled off for some time, and leading up to it, I was considering where to vacation. The Disney parks are doing a locals special where you can go 3 days for less than $100 per day, and it's been years since I've been there, so I was thinking of doing that. My wife was on board, but when I ran it past my son, he was less enthused. See, for several years his school had gone on regular outings there, so he's had a pretty good fill of them. He opined that for himself, Legoland was some true nostalgia. It's been a while, and I've always liked it, so we decided to go there.

The first night we were in the area, after we ate and checked into our lodgings, the boy and I headed over to Encinitas to revisit the beach we'd gone to five years ago, and this time to take some pictures!!!

Once again, it was dark by the time we got there, but the stairs are illuminated, and phone cameras actually do an amazingly good job of gathering the available light!!!

The tide wasn't at it's highest this time, but there still wasn't a lot of beach showing.

After taking several pictures, we stashed our phones and put on our swim trunks, but didn't do much more than getting wet up to our knees.

The water wasn't nearly as warm as last time we were there, but we still enjoyed it.

One of my favorite pictures is this "shadow selfie", that I hadn't even realized I'd gotten until I looked at it later!!!

Night Surf

A couple weeks back, we went on a vacation with extended family down towards San Diego. We actually stayed in Encinitas, a ways north of there, just south of Carlsbad. Our hotel was only a block from the ocean, which was a good part of the reason we'd stayed there.

Every single day we did some sort of touristy thing, which was quite a drain on my parents. The second day we went to Legoland, and my parents and my wife had had enough by late afternoon, and were ready to head back. I could keep going, and my youngest and niece and nephew were all good to stay until closing, so they split and we closed that place down. On the way back, we talked a bit about going to the beach. There are houses all along the coast, so I checked and saw that there was a beach access just a couple blocks north of where we were staying, and, of course, that block over. We all decided that the four of us could go for heading over and checking it out when we got back.

It was a bit different than we'd expected. Instead of the block over sloping down to the shore area, it rose up quite a bit. At the end, it came down a bit, but not as much as the rise. From there, it starts off with a concrete path, with areas of steps going down at intervals. From there, it transitioned to wood steps heading down. Straight down, at the end, and DIRECTLY INTO THE OCEAN!!! Well, we weren't expecting THAT!!! Turns out, we caught it right at an extreme high tide!!! The beach has bluffs that rise up from the back of it pretty straight up.

The waves would recede and reveal the sand of the shore, and just to the right around 50 feet, there is a lifeguard tower, backed right up to the bluffs. My niece was the first to decide that she would make a run for it when the waves receded. She made it, of course getting splashed a bit in the process. The rest of us headed over, and stashed our gear on the tower and did a bit of shore wading. The water was very mild, and the evening was pretty warm, too. My niece had brought her purse (go figure), and among the things contained therein was a GoPro camera, which she broke out to shoot a little bit of video. Don't know how that came out, but I'd like to see.

Of course, I didn't bring a camera, so the two actual "beach" pictures are stolen from the web, and the first pic is image searching the title of this post. By the way, said title was lifted from the Stephen King short story that spawned "The Stand". Grandview Beach is what this beach is called... I cannot attest to the view, but even from the shore area, you could see a lot more stars than back home.

Good times!!!

Let's Try That Again...

Once again, back from vacation with many a picture and many a tale!!!

This vacation, due to the financial constraints imposed by the sewer repair from earlier this year, is something of a revisit of two years ago's vacation where everything broke!!! This year came out somewhat better than the last one, but there were a few rough patches along the way this year, too.

The first couple of shots here I'm thinking of entering in my works second photo contest. I entered a couple shots in the first one, and didn't prevail with either. To be fair, there were a LOT of great shots entered!!! The first shot is of Descanso beach, where you go to start the zip line tour. Yeah, we did that again this year, on the first day we were there!!! The price has gone up, but they've improved the course with automatic braking at the end of the runs. They've added night runs, and that was (kinda) what we got. It was actually a twilight run, which could have gone until it was full dark, but the tour we were on only had two other people besides our group. Only had to have our headlights on for the last line. The younger is heavy enough to go on his own now!!! The second shot is from the top floor of the Casino building.

We went paddle boarding & kayaking around the harbor the next day (or the day after??? It's all a blur)... after we'd gone parasailing!!! Another that the younger had wanted to do, but chickened out on last time. He made it this time, though, and thoroughly enjoyed it!!!

A couple of new things we got to do this time were the inland tour (on a 1953 Flxable bus!!!) that made it to the far side of the island with a stop at the Catalina airport, the Airport in the Sky, and the behind the scenes tour of the Casino. Both were very cool, and both could get a post of their own. See if that happens!!! First time I've ever been inside the Casino, even though I've been to the island probably a dozen or more times since I was a kid!!!

I'd meant to put a shot or two of the Airport in the Sky... still could, but if I don't maybe I'll get to doing a post about that trip!!! There's the bus...

And there's a group shot from on the bus!!!

What about those rough patches??? They were both due to online travel sites, or at least so it seems. First one came on the day we arrived in Catalina. We caught the shuttle van up to the hotel, same one we'd stayed at last time, and went to check in. The desk clerk checks, and lo and behold, no reservation!!! She looks a bit further, and finds it... three days later, the day we were supposed to check out!!! Of course, there's no available rooms of the class we'd reserved. The desk clerk was awesome, and it took about 45 minutes and four hang ups on the phone from Expedia, but finally they got them to fax over an overwrite, and they put us up in an open room... the executive suite!!! Awesome room!!! It has a separate master bedroom, full kitchen, huge bathroom with a two person whirlpool tub and a giant shower stall, and two balconies on either side!!! EPIC!!! Better than our home, but a bit smaller. If I win the lottery, I'm moving in there for a few weeks straight!!!

The second came back on the mainland. To avoid any vehicular mishaps, a la last time, I had a rental car reserved. Headed over to pick it up, and, surprise, no reservation!!! Furthermore, no, we don't even have any cars, so you're out of luck!!! This was in Long Beach, so I headed over to my parents house to use their computer and retrieve the reservation information. Half an hour on the phone with Hotwire (much of it on hold) and they finally connect me to Budget rental company: "Oh, I see you've got a reservation with us... yes, we have that and we have your car waiting for you..." Funny how now they do... Needless to say, I'm not much impressed by either of these companies. From this point on, I called ahead on every reservation to verify.

There's the minor outline of the island portion of our vacation, as well as the worser parts. Back on the mainland we hit several parks, but none of them for a full day. We did a night in Buena Park, with an afternoon and evening at Knott's Berry Farm, then the next morning Knott's Soak City water park. Down to Carlsbad (same resort as two years back) and a morning at the Lego water park (which you have to go through the Legoland park to get to) then left for lunch with the thought of returning to Legoland for the afternoon-evening. Both boys were tired out and stayed back, but mom and I had to return to retrieve our stuff from the locker, as well as go on the Dragon coaster and check out Miniland some. The next day we went to Legoland some more, then down to San Diego. We went to Boomers mini golf & fun zone that evening, where we rode the go-carts several times, did the batting cages, rode the world's weakest bumper boats (but with a cool built in water cannon) and played 18 holes. Our last full day we headed off to Sea World until around 2 or so. I know there's a lot more I could tell about, but we'll save that for another post!!!

The Vacation Where Everything Broke

Back from this year's epic vacation, and it was (for the most part) excellent!!! We spent 4 nights on Catalina Island, two nights in Carlsbad (for the Lego parks) and 3 nights in San Diego. My logic in planning this year's trip was that usually we spend a few thousand just getting where we're going, as well as a day on each end in airports and flying, then spend a lot of the day just playing at the beach. Might as well stay semi-local and spend the extra money on better food & lodging!!! I think this worked out very well!!!




To get the part where everything broke out of the way, I'll lead off with that part. Once we returned from Catalina we were heading down to Carlsbad, and on the way there stopping in Oceanside to pick up these passes I'd gotten, good for admission to dozens of San Diego area attractions. We were travelling in Janice for the trunk space. As we were driving down a side street, the hangers for the muffler gave out and it started dragging!!! I had just replaced the hangers probably only 6 months ago. There was a parking lot right there, so I pulled off into it and stopped. As luck would have it, there was a Auto Club truck there already. Unfortunately, he didn't have any wire to hang it back up with, so we ended up having to get a flat bed out to haul her to a muffler shop. They didn't have the right hangers in stock, and didn't have time to fabricate new ones, so the guy did a very effective job of wiring up the tailpipe.



It was fairly late by the time we got out of there, so we headed back to the same parking lot we'd been towed from. There's a Joe's Crab Shack in that lot, and while waiting there we'd been discussing eating there, so we did. Cracking crabs takes a while!!! Headed out, and went to start the car, and nothing!!! I've seen this before, bad starter in the most inopportune time. Looked for a lug wrench to bang on the starter with, because that's worked before, and discovered that there is none in that car. Good to know before I have a flat!!! Called AAA again, and the guy had a jack handle that fit the bill. Got her fired up, and I'd been on the phone with my parents. They were good enough to let me borrow one of their cars for the remainder of our trip.



Didn't want to shut the car off again, so we drove down to our next hotel, and left the car running while I checked in and unloaded the trunk. Left the rest of the family, and did the night run back north then back. Made for a late night, but better than the other alternatives.



The next day we went to Legoland for the day. Afterwards, we went to the TGIF on the opposite side of the hotel. On the way back, we spotted a bunny rabbit. Of course, the boys are off chasing it. Unbeknownst to the older boy, there was an edge border by one part of the sidewalk, and he went down, hard. His ankle swelled up fairly nice (funny how you don't know how lumpy ankles are until you're inspecting them...) so I got ice and made up an ice pack. Ended up taking him to the Scripps emergency room, for my second late night in a row. I would have posted his X-ray, but I left the CD with those in my parent's car. Not much to see anyway, it wasn't broken, just a sprain. They splinted him up, and gave him a pair of crutches.



That's almost all that broke, if you don't count the rental wheelchair we got for him the next day at the San Diego Zoo's Safari Park. The screws were coming out of the wheel handles, and they'd click on the side. When they found out, though, they refunded the price of the rental, so it's all good.



Other than that, it was great!!! The zip line course in Catalina is the one thing that everyone says was the best part. The older boy & I went parasailing. The younger boy had wanted to go when we were in Hawaii, but we didn't end up having time, so I was doing that mostly for his benefit, but he chickened out.



Didn't make it to the new Lego water park or sea life aquarium, because the boy's foot was bandaged up for the former, and figured we'd see sea life at Sea World when we made it there. On the big breakdown day, we'd been planning on going to a paintball park, but that got scrubbed. The actual San Diego Zoo we missed, too, as well as Belmont Park.

I'll go into more depth-things we actually did!!!-in further posts!!!

CSI-Legoland

"Lieutenant Caine, I found this decapitated head in the bushes next to the motorway..."

(This was the "more fun with this guy" I referred to in the Legoland post)

11 Years

11 years ago today my firstborn was born.




His desire was to go to Legoland with his friend, so that is what we did on Saturday.



It's great that there is a Legoland in the southland now, back when I was his age the only ones they had were overseas, and all I could do was read about them.



The Las Vegas mini land is new, I may do a full post with nothing but pictures from there.





That is a Lego alien coming out of a Lego toilet... on the way to the bathrooms!!!


I think any parent with Lego maniac kids can relate to the mural!!!






Police brutality!!! (I've got more fun with this guy to come...)