Wednesday – May 23
We started out the trip with an evening flight from Detroit to LAX (on Northwest). The flight was uneventful and we arrived in LA on time, around 9:30PM. There were no problems retrieving the rental car from Budget, which I purchased on priceline. Then it was onto the hotel, the Westin at Los Angeles Airport. I will try to write reviews of the hotel and rental car at a later date but let me say that I was very satisfied with each. After a quick McDonald’s, it was off to bed.

Thursday – May 24
We woke to some low clouds but a generally nice day. This was the trend for just about every morning we were there. We had a busy day ahead of us so we took off right away! First stop was the Farmer’s Market in LA. Traffic getting there was no problem and I wanted to show it to mom. It was really lovely by the time we got there and we tried to get some late breakfast. The place we ate wasn’t great but the atmosphere of eating outside with all the little booths is really unique and a lot of fun. It’s interesting just to walk around and check out all the different offerings the vendors have. I’m glad I took mom there. We also spent some time shopping at the adjacent shopping center, The Grove. That is reallly nice too and by this time the weather was next to perfect. Mid-70s probably and just about the warmest day we had!

In the afternoon, we headed to the Warner Brothers Studio for the VIP tour. This is really interesting if you are into TV (or movies) at all. They give you a pretty detailed 2-hour tour of their facility in Burbank. We even toured a sound stage this time, for Three and a Half Men. It was really interesting to see how small that was. Everything is on hiatus so there wasn’t really any filming going on. They do a lot of TV shows and few movies there. The upcoming “Oceans 13″ was filmed there. Gilmore Girls and ER are a couple current TV shows that we also saw sets from. It gives a good overview into the behind the scenes of movies. It’s $42 but worth it I think.

From there, we took a quick tour of the Hollywood area, near the Grauman’s Theater. There is also a newish shopping mall attached to the Kodak Theater. This area was *very* busy and frankly not all that impressive. We could have taken a tour of Hollywood but I’ve done it before and it’s not great. And there are too many people here pushing whatever it is they want to sell. I think it’s something everybody should see but after an hour, we were ready to go.

We drove down the Sunset strip from Hollywood all the way down to the ocean. That is really cool drive and it really spans a lot of the LA area. Very pretty as you get closer to the Pacific. Once there, you can choose to take the Pacific Coast Highway, north or south. Right there is Gladstone’s, where we ate dinner. We got lucky and snagged a good table with a nice ocean view. There is just something special about eating with a view of the ocean!!

After a quick tour of Santa Monica, we were ready to call it a night! That was a long day!

Friday – May 25
Well, since we clearly didn’t get enough time there the night before, we had breakfast in Santa Monica. People in CA apparently don’t like eating inside. We sat outside on right on the promonade at a place called Barney’s Beanery. It was great and a really good breakfast on top of that. For whatever reason I really like having a nice breakfast when I’m on vacation.

Anyway, from there we drove up the coast, past Malibu. That section of coastline is really breathtaking and I wanted mom to see it. I wish we had more time to spend a little time at the beach. It was pretty quiet but the northbound traffic was really picking up. So we headed back south and towards Beverly Hills. We made a quick stop on Rodeo drive for some window shopping. Nothing there was even remotely in our price range!! Well, except parking spots — they were actually free!

Our next stop was the Getty museum. This is really a beautiful spot on the top of the mountains (Santa Monica mtns I guess). You can really see a long ways and they have it landscaped just beautifully. I really enjoy that you have to take this tram thingy to the top. They have various art exhibits as well which are pretty interesting. A lot of their exhibits are exhibitions so you will probably see different things when you are there. I think the highlight is the gardens though — they really are lovely with all the flowers. The architecture of the place is worth a trip. I really don’t think my words can do it justice so just look at the pictures!

From here, we made a quick stop in Sherman Oaks to have dinner with my friend, and then it was on to San Diego!! I must say that I wish we had more time in LA. I think it has to be one of the most underrated cities in this country and deserved more than 2 days!!

Reviews posted about this trip:
Westin LAX

Gladstone’s in Malibu

Barney’s Beanery – Santa Monica

To continue reading about San Diego, click here: San Diego Blog.

Mom & I took a quick trip to Florida over Labor Day weekend this year. We went to the beach, did some shopping, and spent a marathon day at Disney! Three parks in one day is something i don’t think i’ll repeat anytime too soon. We stayed at the Pop Century resort at Disney which was really great. Here are the pictures!

The first thing we always do when we get to Florida is go to the beach!

New Smyrna Beach was our “home” beach as a child and we always enjoy going back there to remember the “good ol’ days”…

After the beach, we had an adventure getting back to Orlando as we got some crazy thunderstorms. However, we made it and headed for Downtown Disney for some shopping and food. I love the Ghiradelli store!

The Pop Century resort at Disney is a great place to stay if you are doing the Disney thing! There are tons of families there but they keep it super clean and the transportation around the park was great as well. They have HUGE icons of the 50s-90s all over the place. Here are a few pictures:

Next it was off to Disney!! We started early in the day armed with our one-day hopper passes in hopes of getting three parks in! First stop: Animal Kingdom.

The animals really are wonderful there!

Next it was on to Epcot! We were only there for a couple of hours…. just long enough to want to come back!

We spent the longest time at MGM as i had never been there before. It was a fun park although i think we did it pretty fair justice in half a day. The park was open until midnight which helped us out a bit here.

We saw a few shows — this is the Indiana Jones stunt show.

The parade was a highlight — there were so many of our favorite characters, both new and old alike.

The fireworks were a blast as well, even though we almost got rained out! It was pouring and pouring but the weather cleared up just in time to have the show. We ate a late dinner afterwards and pretty much had the park to ourselves after that. It was a really fun trip as usual, although I will say it was HOT!!!!

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The first place I visited was Astoria, Oregon. This is a lovely little city on the Columbia River, where Lewis and Clark ended their exhibition. I climbed the Astoria column (which is free) and took this picture of the city and river.

Not far down the road, I came to Tillamook, home of the famous Tillamook cheddar. I just had to stop for a few pictures. It looks like a little bit of Wisconsin stuck by the mountains and ocean.

I stopped for a while to tour the Yaquina Head lighthouse area (?). There were lots of birds along with an amazing tidepool area. Here are a few pictures here as well.

I can’t really describe what the coast was like and I don’t think pictures do it justice either.

Here is another smaller lighthouse.

The southern part of the state has a much more “california” look to it. Very pretty also, but less rocky.

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Let me start out by saying that it was a very overcast day as I travelled from Mt. Rainier to the Olympic peninsula. I didn’t have high hopes of being able to see anything! As I approached the 17-mile road to hurricane ridge, I considering skipping this park entirely. I was so glad I didn’t though! As I got near the top, the clouds cleared and the views were spectacular!

Upon reaching the visitors center, I took a hike up the mountain to get some further views and got some nice pictures of the snow-capped peaks.

I even saw some wildlife! (This is a bear but i didn’t want to get any closer).

The mountains really were awesome. This is the best place to view them from.

The wildlife was rather friendly! This deer couldn’t have been 5 feet from me!!

As you can see, I was truly above the clouds!

Look! Proof I was there!!!

From this point, you could see across the Juan de Fuca straits…. on a clear day anyway. You can really see how cloudy it was down by the water though. In the distance, you could almost see Canada.

Visitors Center off in the distance

Here’s a nice shot of the wildflowers and setting sun.

This area was once a ski area.

As I went back down the mountain, this is what I drove through.

I drove around the peninsula that night and arrived late at a (FREE) campsite along the road to the Hoh rainforest. It was spooky at night but very green in the morning.

I arrived at the Hoh visitors center relatively early in the morning for some hiking through the forest.

I took lots and lots of pictures. Here are some typical shots of what it looked like. It was very green, although i’m not sure it was as pretty as the west side of Rainier or in Oregon. It was just SO green there!

The trees were very tall!

This was near the hall of mosses.

One interesting aspect was the “feeder” logs. When big trees fell, other trees would grow out of them. Life lives!

One sad element to this entire area was the extensive logging. Anyplace that wasn’t directly protected had been logged and the picture looked more like this:

Finally, i got to the Pacific Ocean! It is very rustic there. Wide beaches and the water is COLD!

All in all, this area was pretty as well, although I don’t know if I would do this section again. it was a VERY long way around the peninsula and the highlight was certainly hurricane ridge. What you see at Hoh can be seen in other places in the pacific northwest. Still, I am glad I made the trip.

To continue with the final section of my trip, the Oregon Coast, read Part 6 – Oregon Coast.

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