Just hopped on the last flight, almost home.  It’s been a very successful vacation.  The blood pressure is down lower than when we left, that’s a success in my book!  The boys certainly change the complexion of  of vacation, a little more stress, different activities, and maybe even a broken toe due to yelling at one of the boys. 😉  Regardless, it was a success, many new memories were made, many old ones remembered, and ideas for new ones created!

While this is probably where I would add a picture and cut it short I’ve decided to do something different.  Seeing as I’ve become a big fan of reading my posts a year after they were written I’m going to help future me out on this one and give a quick day by day reminder and pic…

• Friday: Walk to the airport, get offered rides, have the first flight out of LSE for the boys, experience rush hour LA traffic, realize we flew halfway across the country to eat at a Cubs bar, and then walk Balboa Park.

• Saturday:  Head out to the ocean, have an awesome crepe breakfast, touch the Pacific Ocean, play in tide pools, have crabs in shell races, and chill.

• Sunday:  Early morning drive to Universal Studios, experience Hogwarts in person, realize how cool it can be to get stuck on a ride for 10 minutes because you get a front of the line password for other rides all day, watch some cool stunts, spend an hour driving around to see the “HOLLYWOOD” sign, and head back to the hotel.

• Monday:  Take our time getting moving, head out on the Pacific Coast Highway, drive up the coast, find sea lions after much searching, realize how much we hate driving in the LA metro, and go to the Channel Islands Visitor Center.

• Tuesday:  Ahh…  Channel Islands…  awesome boat ride out, found out Gavin is my “Adventure Vacation Buddy” because he loves standing outside on the front of the ship, get surrounded by dolphins (which now become Gavin’s favorite animal, sorry prairie dogs), kayak through caves, Dominic got to see his seals live and in person, had a great hike, ate sushi, and headed back.

• Wednesday:  Sleep in, eat a great breakfast including cookies, hike in nice state park, head back to the ocean, chill at the hotel, watch the Cubs win the World Series in an incredible game 7.

• Thursday: Joshua Tree National Park!  Number 18 for Becky & I (she’d already been there and hit 18 at Channel Islands – only 41 to go!), saw lots of cactus, climbed many rocks, enjoyed the desert, and chilled.

• Friday: Slept in, hit the ocean one last time, drove on the 405 one last f-inf time, and had a very calm and relaxing flight home.

Fun was had by all, and I’m very thankful we took the time out of our normal lives to experience this trip.  It has been a very successful trip!

Thanks!!!

Driving in the gigantic urban sprawl is disgusting.  Between being cut off, people blocking intersections, and coming within 3 inches of slamming into a car who just slammed into the back of another car – I’m still feeling stressed.  My neck and shoulders are tight, my driving leg sore, and I’m feeling a bit irritable.  Yuck!  

Being able to see stuff like this is pretty cool and makes it worthwhile, but I’m thinking there’s got to be a better way.

Regardless, driving around here is absolutely gross.  It makes me appreciate driving through “rush hour” in La Crosse.  Right about now I’d kill for my daily drive to Winona.  I’m uber thankful for only driving here once!

Thanks!!!

Ahh, the joys of big city life…  I’m actually typing this while sitting in the 605 in LA as our car idles in Park while we have been completely stopped for over 20 minutes.  LOL, I’ll take the time to blog whenever I can get it!

Today was day full of fun at Universal Studios and I had many memories of our family trip to Universal in Orlando when I was a teen.  While on that trip I was able to experience many new types of rides and learn a lot about how movies are made.  It was a very cool and eye opening experience for me, I had no idea how imagination and reality could be spliced together so incredibly well.  The divide started to be bridged from imagination to movie and then was further closed from movie to ride/experience.  I still have memories from riding in the backseat as we left, dreaming up a sweet new ride that I could build when I was older.

Fast forward to today.  There were so many things that just didn’t seem to be really real, and visiting Hogwarts was a pretty epic start (although the 5:30am drive through Southern California past LA’s skyline with very little other traffic was pretty cool too!).  The attention to detail was amazing and it truly felt like we had stepped into another world.  Not only was the ride fantastic, the whole are had such an incredible magical feeling to it, it felt like we were right there in the Harry Potter books and movies.  From the wands to the stores to the delicious Butter Beer it was spot on.

After more rides that blended imagination and reality we ate lunch and ran into Jenna, the daughter of my past manager at Express.  I hadn’t seen her in about 15 years!  Here we were, halfway across the country in busy amusement park with thousands of people we randomly ran into her, talk about feeling pretty surreal!

As we left the park we decided to try to get a good view of the Hollywood sign.  Thanks to “the Google” we found a route to get a good picture of it.  When that location didn’t work we played it totally by ear and drove around until we saw it.  In that moment of seeing it I experienced yet another moment of reality being a little “off.”  There was a weird feeling of wondering if it was really true that I was seeing it or if it was it part of a dream.  It was a perfectly balanced mix of reality and imagination.

Thanks!!!

This morning we did one of our normal, kinda crazy, travel traditions…  we walked to the airport.  It’s almost exactly one mile from our front door to the entrance of the airport.  Seeing as we are going to be sitting for long periods of time we’ll typically walk to and from the airport every time we fly.  Even when I’m flying alone there’s something very peaceful and relaxing about putting on my headphones, firing up some great music, and walking back to reality.  It’s actually a nice way to transition from travel mode back to reality.

This morning was the first time the boys joined us for this vacation tradition.  They both had their backpacks and Dominic was pulling their wheeled suitcase.  We were having a lot of fun joking around and burning off some of the vacation excitement jitters.  Along the walk there were hundreds of tiny slugs on the ground that held our attention for over half of the hike.

The part that made me smile biggest though was the number of people who stopped and offered us a ride.  Starting with our neighbor Amy and continuing through the couple of cars on their way to the airport and right down to the lady who saw us walk by her house, hopped in her car and offered us a ride, everyone was offering to help.  While we thanked each and let them know we were doing it for fun, we were very appreciative of all of their offers.  How cool is it that so many people were willing to help out random strangers like that?  It was a great reminder of why I should always stop for someone on the side of the road.  Even if they don’t need help you’ll put a smile on their face.

Thanks!!!

This morning I woke up to Becky literally bouncing on the bed singing “vacation” over and over again.  She then busted out a version of Holiday Road from National Lampoon’s Vacation.  The whole morning she was a non-stop bundle of crazy happy pre vacation energy – even while she was brushing her teeth!

While there was another picture of her giddiness while brushing she said I couldn’t post it, so here’s one that’s close from our New Orleans vacation a handful of years ago.

Waking up to her crazy high levels of energy and giddiness left me smiling all day long.  How can your day not be awesome when you have someone that happy first thing in the morning and then sending you giddy texts throughout the day?  I’m glad she’s as pumped for traveling as I am, or even more so as the case may be!

Thanks!!!