The Return to Dana Point

A couple of things I do quite a bit: Take an early season vacation, and go back to places I've vacationed at before!!! Last month, we did both again!!!

The last time, it was for our anniversary celebration, so this was the first time for the younger. Stayed at the same Best Western in Dana Point, right across from the beach. I didn't opt for the room with the upcharge this time, just took one that sleeps four. I'm not sure they even have one that sleeps 4 with the improved view and balcony, but we didn't use the balcony much last time. The room was on the back side, so possibly a little less train noise from there. It didn't shock me awake this time, so either that was the case, or I was ready for it this time.

First day we were there we headed straight to Selma's again for more Chicago Deep Dish!!! It was a little early, and we did manage to get in on their happy hour for some pretzel bites as an appetizer. It was awesome, as it was last time.

Just as an aside, I had made a trip to a thrift store again to get a “work” T-shirt, and one for a pajama top, since a lot of mine seem to have gone missing. Ended up with three, one is a big, lightweight coral colored one for the PJ's (that I've used for general purpose as well), another is a Buc-ees with a nice Texas theme (it's a medium, so it's towards the smaller size of fitting me well. We'd stopped into a Buc-ees on our Texas vacation), and the final is shown here, a cool design, “McGuffin Creative Group, Established 2004”. Love me some McGuffin!!!

Last time we were in Dana Point, the weather was phenomenal. Not so much this time, a lot of gray skies. When we'd headed out and for most of the drive, it was bright an sunny. Just as we neared the coastline, it got grayer. It was mostly like that while we were there. When we arrived back at the lodgings, one of the guys camping across the street at the beach had a nice fire going in a fire ring. I considered heading over and warming myself to their fire, it's been forever since I've been to a fire on a beach!!!

The next day, we got in on another whale watching trip!!! I located one that was supposed to have underwater viewing pods, that sounded very cool. However, the ship with the viewing pods is being worked on, so we were on a catamaran. As previously stated, it was cold and gray. It has an upper viewing deck, side and bow access, and an enclosed cabin. My wife mostly stayed in the cabin.

The boy and I ventured out to the bow, and the breeze just cuts right through your hoodie!!! Didn't stop us. We headed to the upper deck, and shortly after they announced a sighting, looks like a juvenile blue shark, they said. Looked like the pictures I've seen of the Loch Ness Monster to me!!!

It just cruised along without a care in the world, and we were near it for several minutes. Not long after it was spotted, they changed the ID to a thresher shark. In my second picture, and in real life, you can somewhat make out it's long tail that it uses to smack stuff around!!! Pretty cool!!!

Always love seeing pelicans. Here was a line flying low over the fairly flat ocean. I also love seeing when they're flying high, and spy their lunch and fold into a spear and dive straight down!!!

They headed on, and just a little later, they spotted a pod of dolphins. It wasn't the massive size of the last one we'd seen, but it was good sized, and there was a good amount of action.

Hung around them for a while, then it was time to head back in. Once more, didn't see whale one!!! Ah well, it was still pretty fun. On the way back in, the obligatory swing by the buoy with the sea lions on it.

I noticed that this time, we passed the green buoy, and I was pretty sure the last time we'd gone past a red one. Went back to the pictures from then to confirm, and yeah, it was red. Didn't have a picture from last time, so here's one from 2021, when the sun was actually out!!! (I think it was gray most of while we were out last time as well, but it was clearing by the time we came back)

I don't remember if we had been discussing Chinese food prior to it or what, but I located a Chinese buffet place that we headed off to that evening.

The next day, after having a nice breakfast again at the hotel, the sun made an appearance in the afternoon!!! The younger an I headed across to the beach, and walked a ways up.

Spotted this white, looked like quartz based rock among all the dark ones, so we posed with it.

Later in the afternoon, we finally made the trek down to San Clemente for some Taco Bell. There's another thing I tend to do on vacation, spend a considerable amount of time looking for somewhere to eat!!! I think I was looking for places that serve dogs, and nothing really grabbed me, so Taco Bell never fails!!!

My wife wasn't feeling well, so she stayed back. Of course, I had to head down to the pier!!! Once again, just like the time we'd gone to the Ventura pier, he neglected to bring a jacket!!!

I hadn't mentioned last time we'd been out on the pier, but to the south there's an artificial reef, the Wheeler North Reef, that pokes up above the surface. I didn't get a shot of it, but there the boy is pointing it out!!!

As before, great views from the parking area, so rounding it out with a couple of shots from there!!!

Good Times!!!

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.

Wild Dreams

At the beginning of the week, the boy and I both some pretty wild dreams, and as I've said before it's pretty rare that I remember my dreams. I heard a few days ago that it was World Lion Day, so now I've got to share.

I dreamed that I was remembering back to when we had lions. The rest of the dream was mostly a flashback to those times. They were outdoor pets, and of course our yard has no fence. We had two, a male and a female. I remembered how they would come up and snuggle us when we'd come out of the house, just like a house cat, except they are several hundred pounds and the snuggle would almost knock you down!!!

I remembered feeding them big old hunks of raw meat, they loved that!!! I remembered them bounding down the canyon across the street. I thought to myself, "Wow, that was a hell of a liabilaty!!!"

I had another dream that night, too. My dad was still alive, and a bunch of us were getting together on a Saturday, something like the third time in a month we were all going out somewhere for a big family lunch. I was thinking, wow, that's gotta be a few hundred dollars every time!!! They told me that after we ate, we were going to see Martin Luther King III give a speech or a sermon or something. Huh, I didn't even know there was a Martin Luther King III!!!

My son's dream was he was at a pizza place. Not a full-on restraunt, it was just a take-out window in the side of a wall. He orders his pizza, and it comes out, but it's not just a pizza, there's hot wings, a big bag of them!!! And hard shell tacos!!! And a video game!!!

As his order is coming out, another guy who had ordered close to the same thing after him starts to grab it, and he tells him, "Hey!!! That's mine!!!" The guy backs off, and he takes his huge haul of food and game. He says the tacos were amazing!!!

Doing Time

Strange times are upon us, such as I have never seen. The Wuhan virus has put severe restrictions on our day to day lives. The government has all but put the gas-on-a-fire economy into an induced coma. Here's to hoping it will still live once restrictions are eased.

As always, with my work, I had to map out my vacation times off at the end of last year. Of course, not having anything planned out in advance, I was just going for random chunks of time strung together. My wife said, "we never take vacations in the first part of the year, you should take some time and do that!!!" OK, I requested March 16th to 18th off, strung onto a weekend. If you're keeping track, that's right around the time things started getting real with the Wuhan virus. That didn't work out well at all!!!

A couple weeks before my vacation time came up, I'd gotten an Email from the Catalina Island Company, who were doing an off season promotion where if you bought weekday lodging at a couple of their hotels, they would provide boat travel. That sounded like a pretty good deal, and I was considering doing it. However, getting close to time, and the weather prediction was for rain there most of the time. Since it's largely a pedestrian attraction, I scrubbed that from our plans.

I figured we'd stick close to home instead, go see a movie or two, go out and get some food, maybe do some things around the house. Then the lockdown came. Movie theaters were closed, and restaurants were limited to take out. Ah well, the best laid plans and all that...

So, watched a few recent releases on TV. I'd wanted to see the latest Quentin Tarantino feature, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It was pretty enjoyable, but I'd put some of his other works ahead of it. Maybe I just need to see it again and let it grow on me.

My wife has been wanting to see Dr. Sleep again. We'd seen it when we were on our anniversary weekend trip, right around when it came out. I'd read the book, and thought it was quite good. As far as an adaptation of a book goes, it was a pretty good job. An even better job was the melding of the original Stanley Kubrick Jack Nicholson Shining, of which this is a sequel.

Way back in 2007 I'd been bad-mouthing I Am Legend for being a poor man's Omega Man. Well, it happened to be on TV, and I checked it out. It was actually pretty good!!!

Ended up doing a few things on the cars, too. Finally took 3 to get aligned, months after replacing the tie rod ends. I'd been getting a code for a fuel tank pressure sensor on Scruffy. I got a replacement, and spent a couple days dropping the fuel tank and replacing it. It was the first time I'd done such a thing, and it was a bit of an ordeal since I didn't know that I had to completely remove one of the straps. Haven't gotten that code since, so it seems to have been a success. After that, I rotated the tires on 3, and had checked the rear brakes, where I had been getting a bit of a shudder. Figured it was probably getting time for new brake shoes, but they had lots of lining left, and it had a leaking wheel cylinder. Fortunately, I had an extra new one, so I put that in. The sealing washer was worn out, though, so finally got it finished a week later. Did an oil change on her, too. Next, I pulled the back end off Jade. I'd done the back brakes a while ago, and they didn't seem to be self-adjusting properly. Found the problem rather quickly, one of the springs I'd replaced back when I'd done them originally had broken.

We brought home a pizza one night, and another night had a frozen Jeno's East Chicago Deep Dish pizza.

Turns out my job is one of those critical services, as we supply many medical and infrastructure entities. Things are different there, but we're still going. I'm a bit jealous of the people who are having to stay home, I could get so many other things done if I were, but I think I'd rather still have an income in these uncertain times. Bonus, the traffic out there is some of the best I've ever seen!!! Double bonus, they have been having most of the office and sales forces working from home, so parking at work is also much better!!!

Last Friday I took Scruffy for a 4-wheel alignment to correct the rear tire wear it's been getting. apparently the toe settings were way off. Yesterday I began doing a piston soak on Jade, trying to use Sea Foam as the medium this time to see if it does any better. I've still been getting the P0410 code on Scruffy, so I'm trying some Sea Foam as a soak in the injector ports, too, to see if that helps.

Yule Do Over

Remember two years back when the company had the Christmas Party at Universal Studios??? Apparently, it was so well received that it was deemed worthy of doing it again!!! Two years back, I took the day off so we could spend some time at the park before the party started. This year, when they were distributing the tickets, they tell me, "Oh, you do the Saturday shift, right??? This year, for your crew, we're giving out the wristbands, and instead of passes for that day, here's a pair that are good until the end of the year!!!" Cool!!!

So, after I got off work that day, came home and got changed, then my wife and I headed over there. It was a good time again, tasty English style foods, and all the butterbeer you can drink!!! Two years back, when we were on the way out, I grabbed a bottle of the pumpkin juice drink they had there, and brought it home for the younger. He liked it, and asked us to try and get some more. Got two!!!

So, most of the year since the announcement, the younger has been bemoaning that he's never even been to Harry Potter land. Since I had separate wristbands and passes, a plan forms...

I took the Thursday before Christmas off, and the boy and I went!!! It was a good time, and while we were there, we both played Pokemon Go a good amount!!! At the time I had a Bulbasaur as my buddy, and there he is!!! He caught a shiny Charmander, so that was cool. We, and several others, did a 5-star raid, and got a Virizion, my highest one.

The first thing we did was hit the Harry Potter ride. We used the single rider line, and the wait wasn't too bad at all. Got some butterbeer afterwards, and found out that all the butterbeer I'd gotten for free was pretty expensive if you were to pay for it!!!

Went to the Simpson's area, and got a shot of Homer and Marge from behind from inside the shop we were in. Surprise, they were out of "Bort" license plates!!!

We headed down to the lower lot, the only area with anything approximating a proper roller coaster, the mummy coaster. Just as we got to the entrance, out of it comes the mummy himself, flanked by two very tall acolytes or priests-priestesses!!! The female one stopped by my boy and was petting his head!!! Then we posed for a picture with them all.

Also down in that area are the Jurassic Park ride, and the Transformers ride. They have recently redone the Jurassic Park ride, but it's one of those where you will likely get wet, and being on the chilly side, we had no interest in doing that!!!

We had never been on the Transformers ride, though, so we went over to check that out. Single rider line again, with a very short wait time. and it's a pretty good ride. However, close to the end of the ride, it broke down. It wasn't that long of a break down, but I did get a chance to take a couple of pictures!!!

On the way out, they gave us a couple of passes to go on the ride again in compensation. We went over and went through the Jurassic Park gift shop, then doubled back and went on the Transformers ride again, before heading back up.

The plan was to go on the tram tour, but we had just missed the last one for the day, so we went on the Simpsons ride, which had the longest wait of any of the rides we went on!!!

We'd gone to the Waterworld stunt show earlier on in the day, always entertaining.

I like the way the arch lines up with my head in this shot!!!

Headed back to Harry Potter land, where they were now restricting people going into the area. Not long after they had their Holiday display light show, projected on Hogwart's.

We had noticed the flare of fire coming out of the chimney before, and finally figured out that there's a spot where you can use your fancy new wand to cause it to do so. Went on the Harry Potter ride one more time, and the boy bought himself a good looking Hufflepuff watch.

Back in the Simpson's area, there's Luigi's Pizzeria, and the boy was interested in getting a slice. They have good sized slices, but they were almost $10 for a slice!!! I averred that for less than that, we could get a whole pizza. He made mention of that garlic knots pizza, so we ordered that on the way home to cap off the day. Here I am in the shirt I'd worn all day, one of my recent acquisitions, that depicts an alien eating pizza!!!