Looking Back: Completely Surrounded by Dolphins

Man, it's been a while since I've posted!!! This is from towards the end of last year.

For our anniversary weekend we stayed in a place in Laguna Hills in Orange County. The first night we were there, we went to a place that's been mentioned on The Woody Show, Sargent Pepperoini's.

You may have figured out from thier name, it's a Beatles themed pizza place. Beatles and Beatles-adjacent music, artwork, and a Beatles pinball machine, which of course I played several times.

One thing that is often mentioned on The Woody Show when discussing the place is the pin wheels. They are smallish sized little pizzas, without much sauce. Had to try them, and they are good!!!

Of course, we had to have a pizza, too. Also good, but I think I'd fill up on the pin wheels!!! After we ate, we went to a nearby theater and watched Dune, which gives you an idea about when this took place!!!

Didn't have much planned for our time, but on the second day, we went down to Dana Point Harbor and went on a whale watching boat.

It was gray and overcast, and the ocean was fairly flat.

Something they didn't tell us when we were signing up, there haven't been a lot of whale sightings this year. The reason hypothesized by the boats' marine biologist is that we have a huge backlog of freighters offshore waiting their turn to get unloaded, and if they are going to have any power onboard, they have to have the engine going.

So, all the cargo ships are making all this racket, and she thought that the whales are probably heading farther away from shore to avoid it. Makes sense.

So we didn't see whale one, but the captain spotted a pod of dolphins feeding.

And what a pod it was!!! The marine biologist estimated it was probably 700+ dolphins!!!

We were in the midst of the pod for probably close to an hour, and got to see a lot of dolphins!!!

We also saw a sun fish, and of course there were sea lions on the bouys on the way back.

Afterwards we went to a Mexican restaurant for a big lunch, which was pretty much the last we ate that day.

Headed home the next day, but I was looking for something to do on the way. Looking at the map of the shoreline, I came across a listing for "pirate tower".

Well, I'm something of a pirate myself!!! I've gotta go check it out!!! Sure enough, there's a tower right next to the cliff. Apparently it was made as a beach access stairway back in the 20's or 30's. It's closed off now, but it's a great visual!!!

It was a great little getaway!!!

Ventura Shore

Welcome to what is probably the final post for our vacation!!! Mostly about the locale where we stayed for the last part.

This was the view from the hotel we stayed at, right on the Ventura harbor. It's from the gap between the two buildings. Our room was facing the fields, not the ocean, on the top floor. Probably worked out better, because in the morning, sea lions start barking.

After we went out to eat at the barbecue place the first night, we drove over to the Ventura pier as it was getting dark.

The view was great!!!

The moon was almost full...

I had my Pokemon Go going, there were stops all the way out!!! Several of the creatures, not many of them water types!!!

The next night, the boy & I went on a walk around the harbor to the ocean side.

On the way back, there was a restruant that had a live band doing country western standards on the upper level patio. We hung out and listened to them play for a few songs from the seating by the harbor, then their time was up for the night.

And there's that jacket we bought!!!

& there's a heron we came upon. He flew off, squaking noisily.

The next morning, we were on the outside patio having breakfast, and the sea lions were carrying on.

Turned out they were just a bit down from the hotel, on the dock between two empty slips!!!

The were quite active... except for this one!!!

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!!!