The Getaway

We celebrated our anniversary by going on a little road trip just recently. My wife was saying we should find a place not too far from home that's on the beach.

She thought we should try and stay at the Hilton in Huntington Beach where we'd been a couple of times for the company Christmas party, and stayed one year when they had a decent price for rooms. Turns out that decent price is long gone!!!

I kept looking, and found a nice Best Western in Dana Point. It turned out that they are in the process of a bit of much needed renovation, but our room was truly outstanding!!!

I had spent a little more than some of the standard rooms to get one with an ocean view, and a balcony. Didn't really spend a whole lot of time on the balcony, but the view was great. It's on the far side of Coast Highway, and then it has the rail line before it's actually to the beach.

We arrived and got our stuff in, then headed down (it was on the next level down from us, you can see it from our balcony)to the hot tub to soak for a while. Of course, with the time change the sun was going down not long after we arrived, and it was setting as we soaked. The weather the whole time we were there was really nice!!!

Second shot is just after the sun had set, and the next one was after moonrise through the sheer curtains.

After we'd checked in, I asked the desk clerk if they had any restaurant recommendations. She said the place next door has good pizza. It's a pub with pizza, she said. If you'd like some good Mexican, though, there's a great place about 10 minutes south in San Clemente. Sounds good, so that's what we did!!! It was very good!!!

Our room featured an electric “fireplace”. Fired it up, it's OK but I'm not buying myself one just yet.

Being a Best Western Plus, they have a decent breakfast. One thing I generally don't care for about places with included breakfasts, they usually end before I'd like to get out of bed when I'm on vacation, but this one has breakfast available until 10!!! Nicely done!!! Also had check out at 11 instead of 10 that seems to be the standard at most places. I complimented them on both these while I was checking in!!!

I'd been thinking we could re do the whale watching excursion we'd tried a couple years ago (you know, where we didn't see whale one, in hopes of actually seeing whales this time) when we were staying close to the general area, but when I checked the night before, there were none out of Dana Point running the day we would have gone. Could drive up to Newport Beach or down towards San Diego and taken one from either of those, but San Diego is kinda far, and Newport Beach kind of sucks for driving to and parking, in my humble opinion. We had seen a thrift store in San Clemente when we were heading for dinner the day before, so we headed back and went there instead. Turned out there were two right near each other. My wife found several things (including a new large black leather purse) and I got a couple T-shirts, a 16- or 32-bit look Rick and Morty, and a Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt (not because I'm a big Skynyrd fan, but because I'm a bit lacking in brown shirts!!!).

Another shirt post could be coming, I did get a cool shirt while we were in Catalina (surrogate son also got one of the funny Stinky's Fish Tacos shirt there) and I found a pretty funny Michigan shirt at a local thrift shop.

My wife remembered our last anniversary finding Monster Shakes and wanted to get ice cream somewhere. I looked it up on the map, and on the same street as the Mexican place was, there was a place that was touted as the best in Orange County. Close enough, and highly touted, so that's where we went. It was tiny, with just a little table outside. We both got shakes (up to your choice of 3 flavors) and sat out at the table with a nice older couple and enjoyed visiting and our treats.

Since we were in San Clemete again, I thought we ought to get a little beach time in. We drove down to the shore and walked out the pier. The first shot of the wave, I like the quality of the light shining through the water, giving it that green hue.

There were fishermen on the pier (really not a lot else, other than a lifeguard station and a bar and restaurant at the beginning of the pier) and one of them brought up a little fish, but tall through the middle, and tossed it on the pier by a seagull who was perched on the railing. My wife shot a lengthy video of the gull eyeing it for a long time before flying down and grabbing it. I didn't think it would make it past his beak, but he got it down!!!

By now the sun was heading down again, and we got some good shots from the pier, and an awesome one from the parking lot!!!

Tried to do a raid in Pokemon GO at the start of the pier, but there were constant reception issues and we gave up on that.

Headed back to our room for a bit, and then we looked for a place to eat that evening. My wife was up for pizza, and checking the map found a Chicago Pizza place!!! Turns out it's something of a chain with 3 locations in South Orange County, Selma's Chicago Pizzeria and Tap Room. Not sure how they did it, but our pizza came out in what seemed like a fairly short time, and was excellent!!! I'm making myself hungry thinking about it!!!

Before we left on the final day, I hoofed down to the bridge that crosses the tracks to check out the beach we'd done nothing but seen. It was rocky. It's south of Doheny Beach that I've been to before and may still be considered part of it, and I remember it being rocky. Took pictures of the waves with the wind whipping the spray back out to the ocean, and pictures from the bridge both ways down and up the tracks. Side note on the train, I knew the Amtrak Surfliner would be going up and down those tracks, but our first night a freight came through in the middle of the night, blowing his horn three times and shaking the place.

Speaking of Pokemon GO, there were no stops or gyms reachable from our room. There was a gym you could reach from the south end of the hotel, and you could see a couple of gyms at a park south of there and up on the bluff. On our way back from the Mexican restaurant I went by there to put some 'Mon in because they had been yellow and that way for a few days, but when we arrived they had been turned blue, the team my wife is on, so she got to put hers in instead. When we left, they were back to yellow, and we went by and I did my put ins and took the final picture.

3 Random Pictures

Just a few pictures from my phone...

To start off, last week they held Burger Week at Oinkster. Never posted about it, but I followed up in 2016 by participating again. I skipped last year, but heard about it again this year and decided to give it a go again. Once again, I enjoyed breaking the routine. One thing, though, since the Oinkster has a fairly small parking lot, I usually end up parking up one of the side streets and walking about a block. Along the way, I passed this tree with massive roots, where it looks like they actually conformed the sidewalk to clear it!!!

A week back I was wearing a shirt with a breast pocket. I dropped my phone into it before we went for a drive in Jade. Unbeknownst to me, I'd managed to swipe the camera on on it's way in, and it took over a hundred pictures as we drove. I deleted all but this one, as we were going under a railroad bridge. Most of the other ones were nothing but sky, and a few with palm trees or power wires.

Final shot is of the wife's pelvis. I've never gone through all of it, but she's go a lot of titanium!!! Started out by getting both knees replaced at the same time. Following that, she had the one hip replaced, and I believe this is the first picture I have of it. Next, she had her shoulder replaced, the one she's been complaining about for the longest time. Most recently, last August, she had her neck reinforced. Last Monday we had a final appointment before she was going to get her spine reinforced, but her doctor noticed she was having trouble getting around. The X-ray he'd taken for her back had down to her hip bones, and he called in his colleague, the hip guy. Now she's got an appointment with him next Monday!!! Her doctor reasoned that hip surgery is a quicker recovery than back surgery.

Up North

As promised, here's more of a rundown of the extended weekend we took to Northern California for the Garlic Festival.

We left out fairly early (Well, quite early) on Thursday morning. While we could have driven up, I'd just as soon spend a bit more on airfare and rental than blowing a day each way driving. We flew into San Jose and had our luggage all stowed in the back of our rental car (a sweet little PT Cruiser, AWESOME for the "economy, sub compact" I'd reserved!!! Lots of cargo area and plenty of room and power, while delivering decent fuel economy. The counter guy tried to sell me on a class upgrade to a Challenger for only four dollars a day more. I was greatly tempted, but am glad I didn't) before we likely would have been dressed and ready for the day on a regular weekend. From there, we headed south and towards the coast to Santa Cruz, a great tourist spot and where I had our first night's lodging reserved. Still before noon, our room wasn't quite ready, but the innkeeper gave us our parking pass so we wouldn't have to pay to park elsewhere. No problem anyway, we were going to the boardwalk!!!

I told my wife the name of the place, the Paradise Inn by the Sea, and she replied that it sounded like a pink, shabby place. It turned out to be just that. See their sign??? It says "The Fireside Motel", but it's been changed on the parking lot sign. No matter, the room was fine, and we didn't spend that much time in it anyway. The nice part is that it is indeed very close to the sea, as well as the boardwalk and the wharf. Oh yea, they had Mr. Pibb in the soda machine. We parked, and didn't move the car again until we left.




The boardwalk. It is pretty bitchen. The last of the coastal amusement parks on the West coast. It has been expanded since my previous visits there. Strangely enough, its all concrete, not even done up to look like boards. Got to go on several rides, some lady gave my wife some sugar coated greasy fritter thingys that she didn't like while she and the younger waited for the older and I to exit the Giant Dipper roller coaster.






After a while, wifey wanted to go get into our room and have a little rest. We got her set up, then the boys and I changed into our swim suits and went to play on the beach some. We dug holes and made castles, played in the surf, then made our way to the very end (probably more than a mile down) of the beach, where there is an inlet, and an archway that we needed to explore. It was full of water, and led to the next beach over. We explored back a ways, and there was what looked like a giant mouse hole in the cliff face. Turned out to contain a drainage pipe. To come back, we waded across a lake connected to the inlet (it was sizable) and, back on the boardwalk, rode the chair lift back to the other end. Time to get some food, so for dinner we went to the patio of the bowling alley next to the inn. The younger fell asleep waiting for his pizza to come. It was a long day!!! And not done yet, the older boy and I went back to the boardwalk and rode some more rides. We closed the place down, we did, and ended up with one last ride on the Giant Dipper.






The next morning, after a rather crappy continental breakfast in the inn's lobby (nothing but packaged pastries and coffee), we went for a walk on the wharf. Of the four times I've been to Santa Cruz, this was the first time for that, and for actually going on the beach. The wharf was pretty cool, longer than it looks!!! Sea lions (who we'd heard from the beach the day before) climb up on the underside of the end, and they have openings cut through so they can be observed.




From there, we went to a nearby place called Roaring Camp, a railroad attraction. Much like last year's vacation to Florida, where the timing was perfect for a shuttle launch, this coincided with a three day event going on at Roaring Camp, a "Day Out with Thomas". Thomas the Tank Engine, that would be, one of the younger's favorite things. Normally they have a narrow gauge railroad that does a trip through the giant redwoods, that I probably would have gotten us tickets to ride, but that day we got to ride on a train pulled by Thomas.









One more stop before we left that general area, the Mystery Spot. Cut and pasted from their web site, "Within the Mystery Spot you will be stunned as your perceptions of the laws of physics and gravity are questioned. Some speculate that cones of metal were secretly brought here and buried in our earth as guidance systems for alien spacecraft. Some think that it is in fact the spacecraft itself burried deep within the ground. Other theories include carbon dioxide permeating from the earth, a hole in the ozone layer, a magma vortex, the highest dielectric biocosmic radiation known anywhere in the world, and radiesthesia." In fact, it is a shack built on a 27° slant. Nonetheless, it is well presented and a lot of fun, as well as being one of the better deals on touristy places of the whole trip.





From there, we had a bit of a drive out to our next room, near Gilroy. Considerably nicer lodgings, but strangely almost exactly the same room arrangement. The next morning we had another innkeeper provided continental breakfast, MUCH nicer than our previous place. From there, a short drive to the focal point of our trip, the Garlic Festival!!! First, Gilroy: The place smells of garlic!!! Awesome!!! The exit ramp was jammed, and the roads leading up to the parking area was jammed, and there were big lines to the shuttle buses to the grounds, and big lines for the passes and to get in. It was a zoo, tons of garlic lovers there. The first thing we got was some of the fabled garlic ice cream. Con Agra was giving it away for free, and shockingly there was a huge line for that, too. It tasted OK, and interestingly was about the heaviest garlic flavored thing we had there. Garlic egg rolls, almonds, fries, and kebabs were among the other goodies we sampled. Garlic makes 'em good. Watched a bit of a cooking presentation, and let the younger go on one of the overpriced rides. They had a playground area that was inaccessible for the event, and some playground equipment that you could let your kids crawl through for the modest sum of $2.85!!! That wasn't going to happen. We had our fill after a few hours, and headed back.




Still having some day left, I checked to see if there was a theatre in the area, and we ended up going to see Wall-E instead of the X-Files movie (momma's pick), at the kids constant nagging. (Side note: we ditched the boys and I took her to that this weekend. The most first run movies I've seen in a LONG time. I'm glad I didn't take the boys to that, it really wasn't that good. Could stand up as a TV episode, but mostly it was a vehicle to get Fox and Scully together again, it seemed like. I wanted it not to suck. I narrowly avoided outright suckness, and if that's the best I can say... not good)









Our final day once again began with a continental breakfast, then we headed out. The first real unscheduled day, and we didn't know exactly what we were going to do. Montery bay and possibly the aquarium there were considered, but that was the wrong way for getting to the airport and a bit of a drive at any rate. I considered swinging up past San Jose to the Frisco area, but once again, the drive. Ended up just going back to San Jose. Thought we might go bowling, or see another movie before heading to the airport, but it turned out there were neither theatres nor bowling alleys in San Jose!!! I was stunned!!! Adjacent to the HP Pavilion, there was a park with a nice play apparatus and a carousel. We stopped and let the boys play and we all rode the carousel. That got old for my wife and I in a hurry, and we walked around the park a bit. At a visitor's center there, we found out there's a children's discovery museum not far from there. Made our way there, and it turned out to be quite awesome!!! Fire truck and ambulance to play on, a few electrical generation displays, a very cool water area with all kinds of neat things, bubble displays and devices, a special exhibition based on Alice in Wonderland, and so much more that I can't even remember. Of all the things we did, this was one of the better, and also pretty good in the value department, too.









A great vacation, every day we managed to get some fun adventure in!!! I may do another post or two of photos...

ÃÝË's Been Working on the Railroad

Now, this was cool!!!

There was a blurb in the paper about an open house going on at a model railroad club.





I've always loved trains, and, even without my input my youngest has pretty much loved trains from infancy.



They have their own building with a layout over 5,000 square feet, and a great amount of detail. If you look closely, in the first picture you can see there's a guy bungee jumping from the bridge span. I didn't even see that until I looked at the picture tonight!!!





It also happened to be pretty close to my home, so that was a plus, too!!!