Southern California - Day 4

Off to San Diego, but first we needed breakfast so we stopped in Laguna Beach which is along the way. We ate at Madison Square and Garden. The garden was full of fun locally made yard ornaments and amazing weather vanes!

Now onto San Diego. First stop is Mission Beach. It is very touristy, but very nice and a huge surfer haven. We walked along the boardwalk. People bike, rollerblade, run, and walk all along it.

At the beginning of the pier they actually have little houses for people to live/rent. It was kind of freaky that cars can drive on the pier, especially since you could feel the pier shake when they did. 

After our long walk along the beach, we got hungry. We had lunch at a restaurant along the marina. Great views of all the huge boats!

Just down the street from the marina, there is a mini park with a rock-lined beach. It has great views of the San Diego skyline, so we had to get a pic! Notice the brown layer hovering over the city....hello haze! There's actually a huge mountain behind the city, but it is hard to see through all the smog (maybe the second picture is clearer).

After Mission Beach we went farther south to Point Loma. It is a hilly peninsula just west of the city, so it has excellent views of downtown. The original name was La Punta de la Loma, which translates to "Hill Point", which is obvious. (You can compare the picture above taken at sea level of the city, and the picture below, taken atop the point). 

Near the top of the Point Loma hill there is a statue of Portuguese explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, who first found the peninsula.

Then it was off to Old Loma Point Lighthouse. Notice the lighthouse is not very tall. It doesn't have to be since it sits so high above the ground/city already. We also went over to the Sunset Cliffs, as they are aptly named, for some great scenic photos.

There is a naval base, and other military installations on Point Loma. They also have a beautiful  Veterans cemetery. On the high side it looks as though the tombstones flow right into the clouds. On the low side of the hill, they have a great view of the ocean. There are veterans in here from both World Wars, Vietnam, and Korean Wars.

Next it was off to La Jolla for a beautiful sunset along the beach. While it is warm here during the day, it gets quite chilly at night, so we were very thankful we brought sweatshirts for the beach.

Off to LA tomorrow!

Southern California - Day 3

Off to Laguna Beach today! Yes, it is where some of the richest people in America live, but it's also where a whole bunch of hippies live, so it was a very unique mix. First we just walked a lot of the streets and checked out the architecture and stores.

Being an artsy town there are many, MANY galleries. While almost all of them have incredibly beautiful art in them, most are out of our budget. However, then we stumbled upon a cute art shack full of great original and re-printed pieces, and were much more budget friendly, so we snatched up a great one of the beach with the famous hotel!

Below is the famous Hotel Laguna. The hotel is over 125 years old. The original building burned to the ground just 60 days after opening, but was rebuilt in 1888. It changed owners, and went through many exterior remodels/teardowns before finally being finished with its current look in the 1930s (with the bell tower at the top, despite never actually having a bell).  It used to have a huge sign above the tower, but it was removed in 1996 after a building ordinance was enacted to keep signs below a certain height.

All throughout the city they have local painters who painted these color palettes that are placed on light posts every few blocks....very neat.

One of the stores we stopped in was a candy store. Not just any candy store.....an O-Mazing candy store! They had rows and rows or salt water taffy in barrels. Most of them were normal flavors, but every once and a while you saw a rather strange flavor. 

They had an entire aisle of candy cigarettes!

They also had an entire aisle of pez candies and dispensers! And if that wasn't enough, you could also just pick out the decade you wanted your candy from. They had boxes of candy from just the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. 

After getting a huge bag full of candy it was off to the beach! While the sand is a darker brown color, it is just as soft as some of the sandy beaches in Florida. Very nice (except not when you wear tennis shoes, because then it gets stuck in every crevice).

Sunset is pretty early here...around 4:45pm, so you have to remember to take your pictures pretty early on the beach or you end up with a weird glare in your pictures. 

Tomorrow it is off to San Diego!!!

Southern California - Day 2

Today was set to be the warmest of the days we are here, so we decided to spend most of the day walking around the hotel property and going to the pool. It was supposed to be about 78 for the high today, but it was a bit cool in the upper 40s this morning with some fog. Once the fog burned off, we really enjoyed our walk. The hotel buildings have a Mediterranean/Spanish architectural feel to them. Very nice!

About half of the buildings have water views off in the distance, the others are not high enough up to have a view, but still very nice views of palm trees :)

After our time at the pool, we decided to walk to Crystal Cove State Park since it is just across the street from the hotel. 

Along the beach there are tons of mussels, oysters, and other shells clinging to the rocks until the tide comes back in.

They are everywhere!  

There is a huge difference between low tide and high tide. We were there during low tide, and it was interesting to see the seaweed and other sea plants just left on the rocks.

Dinner at a sushi bar tonight. It was a legit sushi bar, where you have a sushi chef who makes it at a bar right in front of you. There's no real description of what is in the sushi, you are just expected to know what is in a dragon roll, rainbow roll, and other "popular items". We just went with the ones we had heard of before. We aren't quite sure what was in some of the sushi we ate, but all of it was delicious!!!!

 Then, we decided to head over to Fashion Island, which is the local mall. We both agree, it is the nicest mall we have ever been to...hands down! Food court was also the nicest and cleanest! 

While the mall does have your normal department stores in it, it also has a lot of very upscale stores, and a few random, yet high end places as well.....like a Tesla store. You don't actually buy the cars there, you just look at the technology.

Now back to the hotel....it's off to Laguna Beach tomorrow!

Southern California - Day 1

First day in Southern Cali...and we're off to the Rose Parade! It starts at 8am PT, but our hotel was about 1 hour away, so we had to leave our hotel around 5am to give us enough time to drive there, find a parking spot, and walk the few blocks up to the parade site to get a good seat. Well worth it!

First up.....Honda's float. The wheels on the car actually moved!

Some other impressive floats...

The Dole float actually had a working waterfall on it!

Who wouldn't want a pickle car made of flowers?!

Best costume award....

The Indonesian float was the absolute best float of the day....hands down!

Apparently not everyone was impressed though. I spotted these two gentlemen in blue flannel  (along with their lady friends) sleeping halfway through the show. 

Here is the same street just after the parade ended.....HUGE crowd!

After the parade, we headed over to Huntington Beach for lunch. For those who were at our wedding you may remember these.....

BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse is where we first got the idea for our wedding Pizookies. So we HAD to have some after lunch! One cookies and cream, and one red velvet!

After lunch it was back to the hotel for a nap and light dinner, then early to bed since we aren't quite used to the new time zone.