California

 We've just returned from an amazing week in California.  I am just in love with that state and have been since I was about 16 years old.  I miss living there, though not the cost of living and not so much the traffic.  The last time we were there was in 2018 when Evie was 6, so it was neat to be with her as a nearly twelve-year-old.  She was interested in different stuff than last time; it's fun to see how her interests change as she matures.

We left Saturday, May 25th which happened to be the 21st anniversary of our becoming a couple.  We flew into LAX early in the morning, got our rental car (an enormous Suburban which I was not exciting about) and headed north.  Since we hadn't really had breakfast and it was already effectively 3 pm for us (though only 1 pm in California), we stopped by Del Taco for west coast fast food.

On the plane

After our lunch we headed to Ojai to visit Wolfie.  Along the route, we pointed out sights to Evie (the Getty, the Pacific Ocean) and she perked up and commented with us on the beauty of the place.  Again, that's a level of maturity coming in - on previous trips, she makes a passing remark of "uh huh" when we point out sites to her and then goes back to whatever activity she was engaged in.  She was much more interested in the views than previous trips.  We visited with Wolfie for a while and Matt met up with us (he'd been in California since Thursday, visiting his mom), and we went to Korean BBQ and an escape room.  Then we headed to our hotel (Pierpont Inn) just a few minutes shy of being able to see sunset on the ocean from our room.

Korean BBQ

We escaped!

Sunday morning, we caught sight of a pod of dolphins outside our window.  Well, I say "we", but it was really Evie who spotted them.  We watched them for a while and then Seth and I headed to the breakfast room for coffee while Evie chilled in the hotel.  She's enjoying these moments of freedom where she can be on her own some.  When we got back, she wanted to go to the pool, which I thought was lunacy since it was 65 degrees outside.  She assured me that since the pool was heated she would be okay.  She did eventually get all the way into the pool, but it took her a while to acclimate, and she didn't stay in very long.  We were under the coastal cloud that happens in the mornings this time of year, so there wasn't much sun to heat her up.  So after 30 minutes, she was ready to head in.  We packed up and checked out, and then met Matt and Wolfie for brunch.  Matt brought a half flat of freshly picked strawberries for us, and Evie declared them the best strawberries she'd ever tasted.

After brunch, we headed to downtown Ventura to look at the mission.  Seth gave Evie the whole history of missions (he reminded me that he had to make a model of a mission out of sugar cubes during 4th grade).  After touring the mission, we wandered down Main St. for a bit and then parted company as we Maynes headed south to Sylmar to visit our friends Dan and Tisha.

Seth giving Evie the history of California missions

Cute photo op on Ventura Main St.

After visiting with Dan and Tisha, we headed down to L.A. and got checked into our hotel at the Millennium Biltmore, which was a lovely downtown hotel that has been the location for many films and TV shows (Ghostbusters, Ocean's Eleven, Mad Men).  We met up with Wolfie who was staying there as well and then headed to Graumann's Chinese Theatre/Hollywood Walk of Fame area.  We went to Graumann's for the obligatory placing-your-hands-into-a-celebrity's-hand-prints, and then went to the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum and Madame Tussaud's (because we are suckers for those kinds of things).  We ended the day eating at California Pizza Kitchen and then headed to the hotel to hit the hay.

Hollywood sign in the far distance

Marilyn Monroe

Jennifer Laurence (from The Hunger Games) and Evie have the same hand size

Madame Tussaud's L.A.

Monday Evie wanted to start the day with a swim again, so we wandered through the bowels of the Millenium Hotel to find the pool, which was beautifully tiled.

We had one unpleasant altercation our whole trip, which occurred Monday when we were trying to find a breakfast place downtown.  We walked to the end of the block, planning to eat at a cafe across the road, and then saw they were closed, so we were going to walk down the street to another restaurant that came up in my search.  As we were waiting, a homeless man walked up to the corner and started cleaning himself.  I stepped between him and Evie and we kept our backs to him while Seth and Wolfie kept an eye on him.  We crossed the street; he crossed the street.  We walked faster; he walked faster.  We decided to cross the street again, to our right, and he followed again.  This time as we were waiting for the light to change, he pointed at Evie and winked, and I said, loudly, "HEY!"  Before I could say anything else, the light changed again and we crossed again.  Again he followed us.  At this point, we knew it wasn't a coincidence and Seth started confronting him, telling him he needed to walk away and scaring him off.  We decided to head to the car and get on with our day, finding breakfast at a lovely place close to the zoo.  It was an unfortunate start to the morning and Evie had lots of questions about why he would have followed us, what we could have done differently, what we would have done if it had been just me and her and not Daddy, etc.  I think through talking about it, she became less concerned, but I'm sure it'll stick with her.

A lovely breakfast cleared away some of the gloom from the morning and then we went to the Zoo, followed by the La Brea Tar Pits, which was the location of our first date 21 years ago.

Flamingos at the zoo

Seth anad I climbed this sloth statue in 2003 on our first date, but we decided not to risk it now that we are old and decrepit.  Evie perched on top in our place.

Then we went to Toi for amazing Thai food, and then on to Santa Monica Beach where Evie enjoyed playing in the sand.  Then back to the hotel for some R&R.

Tuesday morning, we did actually go to that breakfast place downtown we had tried to go to on Monday, and it was delicious.  We came back to the hotel and checked out and then headed to the California Science Center, which Evie enjoyed immensely.

We stayed there until about 3 pm and then parted company with Wolfie and headed down to Orange County.  We got checked into our hotel by Disneyland, took a little nap, and then headed to dinner at Kaisen Kaiten, which is the conveyor belt sushi restaurant Seth and I ate at least once a week when we lived in Santa Ana.  Evie was absolutely fascinated by it and really enjoyed being able to pull edamame off of the conveyor belt.

Wednesday was our Disneyland day and Thursday was California Adventure.  It was neat seeing what was interesting to Evie on this trip vs. last trip when she was 6.  She wasn't interest in the dark rides at all and didn't care about the characters either.  She really enjoyed the less tame rides (though none of them are extreme) and also go into pin trading.

We caught the horseless carriage at the beginning of Main St and rode it to the castle.  I've never ridden in this before and always wanted to, so that was neat.  The driver was quite funny and also provided Evie with a Birthday Celebration button

She had amassed about 8 pins by the end of the first day, and had made several trades already.  The next day her collection grew by another 6 or so as she was gifted an entire set by the kind shopkeeper who took pity on her when she lost one somewhere in California Adventure.

We had a blast at Disney, as we always do.  Friday, we headed down to San Diego, stopping by San Juan Capistrano on the way where Evie and I both bought some jewelry in a shop, and we decided not to pay $70 to tour another mission.  We got to San Diego around lunch time, had some delicious tacos, and then went to the zoo.  We had an amazing time, except for the part where we got stuck on a sky gondola.  Well, Evie and Seth were not bothered by being stuck, whereas I was trying not to panic.

Before we got stuck....

Saturday morning, we headed back up to Orange County to catch our flight.  We stopped by a playground for Evie to run around and then noticed that we had a message from American Airlines saying that our flight through DFW was going to be delayed so we were able to switch to a later flight through Phoenix instead.  So we had even more time to kill.  We ended up going to get some delicious sushi and ramen, and then took Evie to a trampoline park to burn off some more energy.  

It was an amazing and relaxing trip, so much fun!