California Vacation 2013

3 of our last four vacations have been to California. (The 4th was Vegas last year at Easter.) This was more of a trip to see people than a vacation because we didn't really see anything new, just hung out in a different state with my family. So, taking a page from Alison's blog, here's a rundown.

Stayed: Hilton Garden Inn, Mountain View - It was expensive because of graduation weekend. Probably the most $ we've ever spent on a hotel stay. But we did get a combination cooked-to-order and buffet breakfast every morning. (Except for the morning we were exhausted and slept through it.) It was clean and even though it's mostly a business hotel, we didn't feel completely out of place with a baby. The crib was functional, but not great. It had a bumper on it to soften the metal bars, but we took that off and let him take his chances with the metal bars. (He was fine.) I asked for an extra washcloth when I walked by the cart in the hallway on our first day so that I could lay out the bottles after I washed them. After that, she always left an extra next to our pile of bottles. Nice touch. It had a fridge which was helpful with the bottles and they let us use their freezer to freeze our ice packs for the flight home. There was a heated pool but we didn't get to use it. I liked that we had a chair with an ottoman and a ergonomic desk chair. Supposedly the bed had a dial for the firmness but we never figured that out.

Ate:
In & Out - Mike had an actual meal but I just had fries because it was late and I was tired and not that hungry. People rave about this burger chain, but I've never been impressed. I'm not a fan of fast food burgers, they don't have chicken strips (my fast food go-to), and their fries are just ok. But even my brother who is a healthy and/or fancy eater loves this place.

Pepples Donuts - Mike's favorite junk food on the planet. Although I don't know if you can call a vegan, organic donut junk food. He likes "green tea" and lots of other random flavors.

Boudin Bakery, Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco - Since we had a huge breakfast, I just had a "turtle bread" for lunch. (It's sourdough bread, shaped like a turtle. Adorable and overpriced - perfect for vacation!) :) The rest of them got takeout crab cocktail and calamari from the seafood stands in the wharf.

Tied House, Mountain View - A microbrewery in cutesy downtown Mountain View. I had the brisket sandwich. It was heavenly. Best I've had in a long time.

Lobster Shack, Portola Valley - A little tiny place in an out of the way strip shopping center with food ranging from brisket or tri tip sandwiches (me) to lobster salad sandwiches (with or without mayo dressing - you can just get lobster on a roll) and whole lobster dinners. I liked mine ok, but with baby timing this was my turn to eat cold dinner so I probably would have enjoyed it more hot. That's life! They did have fancy local organic (?) soda, so I had some great root beer.

Red, Santa Cruz - Like many of the restaurants that the guys chose on this vacation, this decision was driven by the beer selection. :) Also, they have famous mac & cheese. I had a really good burger. Luckily my turn with the fussy baby time aligned with being done with my meal this time!

Pampas, Palo Alto - My parents got a gift card to this "Fogo de Chao" style restaurant from a bunch of my brother's friends after they hosted the group of bikers for the Tucson bike race. We were excited to help them spend it. While it was slightly disappointing to not have the gluttony Fogo experience at lunch, the food was all great and we all left stuffed - so we didn't miss anything in the all-you-can-eat style that you can have at dinner. And we paid half price for lunch. :)

Philz, Palo Alto - This coffee place makes coffee one cup at a time! The whole menu is various beans. That's it. Your only choices are small/large and whether to have them add cream or sugar. Usually I like to add my own cream, but they did a good job and it was frothy. I even had 4 choices of decaf beans to choose from! I just ordered one style, but I later heard people ordering combos of different beans. I'll totally try that if I ever come across this style of coffee shop again.

The Fish Market, Palo Alto - Instead of the steak I usually get at seafood restaurants, I had a chicken caesar salad. It was fine, typical of that meal. The croutons were great and I liked that there were lots of them! Luckily our meals came slightly staggered because we took turns holding the baby. BEST BARGAIN OF THE WEEKEND - Dessert - 6 chocolate covered strawberries for just $6.

Interesting Fact: Not a single place we ate in CA had the type of high chair that flips over to hold the car seat - so he had to either sit on the floor out of sight which he doesn't like, or sit in our laps, which works only for awhile. Also, not a single place we ate had a baby changing station in the bathroom. Are these just Maryland things?

Saw/Did: Santa Cruz Beach quickly ... they have rides and a boardwalk that we've driven by on both of our visits but haven't visited. We were going to walk around town but it closed at 8, which surprised us since it was weekend and summer. We also tried to walk around Half Moon Bay, but it closed at 5:30 on Monday. Thwarted again!! :) We walked the embarcadero in SF from end to end and back the first day and saw an America's Cup sailboat racing around in the bay. RACING. The helicopter and speedboats were keeping up, but it was taking effort for those motorboats to keep pace. Spent Sunday at my brother's graduation. Long day, but they took care of us. Bottled water, cookies, trail mix, fruit, and then lots of food and champagne!

Drove: Fox Rental Car - Our go-to small chain when we're on the west coast. Always beats the big guys prices.

Year 3 - Day 224 - August 11

Today we jumped in the car at 8am and went to Long Beach Island, NJ. I grew up going there and haven't been since the fall of 98, shortly before my parents sold the beach house. It was cloudy and drizzling for most of our ride, but as we approached the bridges and the shack, we saw blue sky!

Our first stop was bagels for lunch. The remnants of my salt bagel. They're the best. It's like permission to eat a hot pretzel for breakfast or lunch!

My favorite bagel shop on the island is Bageleddi's in Ship Bottom. I was terribly excited to find out they still had a good bagel selection at 11am. Sometimes the good flavors (you know, the salt ones) are gone by then. Whew. This was probably because every one was either coming or going from the island at this moment! (All the rentals go Saturday-Saturday)

After getting to the B&B, changing into our suits, picking up the beach badges and getting to the beach, the clouds rolled in once again. I honestly was never uncomfortable on the beach and Mike wasn't roasting, but it was breezy and not prime beach weather. We stayed for a couple hours and then headed back as the rain rolled in. While it rained, Mike went for a run. (I think he's nuts, but it's his favorite running conditions - breezy but not windy, not hot, rainy, and super flat!) I enjoyed the sugary treats and hot chocolate that the B&B had out for afternoon tea and watched Olympics. I find that far preferable to rainy exercise!

After dinner at Kubel's next to the B&B, we headed down the island to do the 2 things I really wanted to do. (Honestly, the beach was an extra. I can go to the beach anywhere. These were the things that make my beach vacations complete!) First we went to Flamingo Golf. There are flashier, prettier, harder courses around. But this one is my favorite. If you are careful, aim well, and time your shots, 16 of the holes are relatively easy. My brother & I used to go to the tournaments on Thursday mornings when we were little, and I got really good at this course. One day I got either 10 or 11 holes in one, and 7 of them were in a row! That was exciting for me because for years they had a record board up and the tournament record was 6 in a row. I broke it! We went and saw my name on the board. Of course this was the 80's or 90's so we didn't have a camera with us. THE NEXT WEEK SOMEONE GOT 8 IN A ROW. My short lived moments of fame. :) (At least in my head!) Now 7 and 8 are routine, but they start over every year. Today I only got 4 and I don't think any were in a row. Totally off my game. :)

After golf, we kept heading south the Beach Haven to enjoy a delicious elephant ear. They're a cinnamon, sugar, buttery pastry. So so good. They're about a foot across, maybe not quite that big, and you can go in to sugar shock if you try to eat the whole thing by yourself. (I speak from experience!) But it's so so so good.

On our way back to the car I had to check out the new "Surf Shack" at the waterslide park. It's a FlowRider, just like on cruise ships! I think it's wider than the ones on cruise ships though. Saturday night must be "people who know what they're doing" night because it was really fun to watch them and there were minimal wipe outs.

Year 3 - Day 152 - May 31

I had lunch with my "library camp" friends today to celebrate the retirement of one of the ladies in our group. We ate at Gertrude's at the BMA. I didn't even know the BMA had a restaurant, let alone a decent one. If I knew they had one, I probably would have assumed it was like a snack bar or something. They have all local food and a pretty big variety. Some of it was a little pricey, but my BBQ sandwich was $10, which is a pretty common price. Since I got there a little early, I took a run through the gift shop. This knitting book (with sample!) made me giggle - Knit Your Own Cat. I presume it had patterns for different style cats. If you were a knitter, and you had friends with cats, you'd have a years worth of gifts taken care of!! :)

Year 3 - Day 98 - April 7

This is a terrible angle, but there's a lit up baseball stadium out there. Day 2, win 2! Woohoo!

We are home now. We didn't lose any money in Vegas. I played slots and video poker with a $10 and only lost $1.50. However, Mike was playing at the same time and won $30 so we came out ahead, especially with my TV watching money.

Would I go to Vegas again? Maybe. If I did, I'd pack fancier clothes and lay around or explore during the day and use my fancy clothes to get me into the fancier restaurants at night. We ate at good places, but there were places we were dress-coded out of even thinking about. Also, if I went, it would NOT be with children. I was shocked at how many children are around. The gambling is one thing. I mean, to a little kid, slots look the same whether they're at an arcade for tokens or in a casino for money. But the blatent sex that is everywhere is a little much for kids. At least if it's an infant they are oblivious. I can't imagine that 8 year olds don't notice. I'd probably also talk Mike into seeing a couple shows. They're just so expensive and there was nothing we were dying to see. I'd like to see "O" but it was dark while we were there. Plus, I want to see 5 minutes of "O," not a couple hours.  If we go back, we'd use it as a home base, rent a car, and see some stuff further out as well.

But there are other places to see before we go back.

Year 3 - Day 96 - April 5

Today was awesome. So many fun things happened! First, we decided that we were going to explore things going south today. We wound up at MGM watching sports in their sports book. (Yay! It's baseball season!) While walking through MGM, we got offered the chance to watch a CBS TV pilot and give feedback. Mike wasn't thrilled with the idea, but I was excited. The show was ok, but not fantastic. (My review. Mike hit the 'change the channel' button soon after it started.) My ratings on the computer qualified me to participate in a focus group in the afternoon. We sat around and talked about the show and then they paid me $50 cash! That's way better than gambling. :) In addition to the cash, we both got a folder of coupons just for watching the show. We used our $5 each at Starbucks for a drink, and then I used my CBS store coupon to buy a new shirt:

It made me laugh, and will continue to do so even if people don't get it. :)

After hanging out with my parents for happy hour at a Mexican place, we went out to dinner with one of my oldest friends who just recently moved to Vegas. This is two vacations in a row he's happened to live in the city we've visited. We had Thai and chinese food somewhere in the Aria area which was super pretty and swanky. I like days when I'm never bored!

Year 3 - Day 95 - April 4

This morning, the 4 of us crammed into my dad's tiny car and headed to the Hoover Dam. It was really cool to see. Of course we have no pictures of the whole thing, since we were standing on it. But it was impressive. We also had lunch at a little brewery in the nearby town. (Great fries. Wow.)

Then we did some more exploring. We realized that the casino bar side of Sugar Factory has BOGO drinks during happy hour. Of course that meant I could finally justify trying something!

I had a smores martini. It was so good. It didn't even taste like alcohol! They used chocolate milk or something along those lines as the base, but then added chocolate vodka, vanilla vodka (I think) and toasted marshmallow stuff too. Plus real marshmallows on top! Oh, and did you know that to make the cool swirls in the martini glass, the secret is to keep the chocolate sauce really cold so that it doesn't run? Mike's drink was a root beer float with no root beer and no ice cream. It had rock candy flavored vodka, root beer flavored vodka and ice cream vodka. It's crazy. Neither of us ever gets fancy drinks, but this stuff was too crazy to pass up. What was REALLY crazy was the fishbowl of a drink that the girl next to us got! I wish I took a picture!

Finally, to finish off the night we went to Spago for dinner. We happened to walk by Max Brenners, so I had to get a cup of hot chocolate to go. Their Italian hot chocolate is to die for. It's seriously like a melted Hershey bar!

I hope you're not counting my calories through these pictures. I'm not. :) Plus, we're walking miles a day, so that helps. ;)

Year 3 - Day 94 - April 3

Greetings from sunny Las Vegas! Back around Thanksgiving when I realized I had a real spring break this year, we took advantage of a Southwest Airlines sale and got cheap (for these days) tickets to Vegas. We're staying at Paris. The property itself is nicer than where we usually stay on vacation, but the rooms are starting to show their age. However, the price is great so we're happy. When we got here today, we headed up to the Carnagie Deli in the Mirage to eat lunch with my parents. (They're here now too.) We spent some time exploring and I finally got to see a Bellagio water fountain show. (Somehow, I missed it completely last time.)

(It's hard to see, but the fountains are spraying in this picture.) There's our hotel! You can't see our room, because our room looks at the loading dock. I'm guessing you have to pay more than rock bottom prices to get a good view. Tis ok, we're not there much anyway.

We did lots of exploring, including Coca Cola World. They had a great "Soda Around The World" sampler set.

We did not finish them all. The best part was that 14 of the 16 sodas were Jenny friendly! (No caffeine, not diet.) Some were gross, some were ok, and some were fantastic.

After exploring for the afternoon, we went to Sugar Factory (my new favorite restaurant) for dinner. Dinner was fine, but dessert. Wow.

That would be chocolate peanut butter pizza. Holy cow. It was supposed to have strawberry whipped cream on top too, but that sounded suspicious so we went without. It was great. The brownie one looked good too. I'll have to come back someday. :)

Yes, I know I had soda AND dessert today. I love vacation!

Year 3 - Day 90 - March 30

You know what's great about today? It's March 30. I'm finishing up and printing my lesson plans for the next time I'll need them. THEY SAY APRIL 9!! And even better, that Monday is still part of Easter break. So really, I'm not teaching again until April 10!! Now THAT is a vacation. I love my kiddos, but I really love vacation. :)

Year 3 - Day 84 - March 24

I'm in Hershey for the weekend with 3 of my high school friends. We're visiting the Hershey spa, shopping, and hanging out. Of course vacation means dessert! Especially in Hershey. ;) This was my dessert at lunch. A trio of little desserts - peanut butter (PB mousse and PB cups), salted caramel (just a whole shot glass of liquid caramel!), and peppermint patty (mint mousse and peppermint patties.) Delicious! This was all at the bar and grill on the Hershey Hotel property. Yum, yum, yum. Plus they gave us each a hershey bar just for checking in!

Ha - I just realized you can see Sarah's hands taking a picture of her own dessert in the background. ;)

Year 3 - Day 61 - March 1

For our summer trip this year, we're looking at finishing up the West Coast. We did the southern part 2 years ago, the central part of CA last year, and now we have the rest to go! We will probably skip the space between SF and Oregon just to save time because we aren't wine people and there are Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia things that interest us more. I have been sending away for visitors packets for different places and they started arriving! Now we just have to figure out a plan and some dates. For someone who has the summer "off," there are an awful lot of school things on my calendar. Some curriculum writing in June, some Professional Development Training in July, Laptop refresh in July, and an earlyish call date in August. Once we nail down those dates, we can buy plane tickets!

Year 3 - Day 16 - January 16

We stayed in a pretty nice hotel on Lexington Avenue. Mike got a special through booking.com or hotels.com or something like that. It was a decent sized room for a city hotel room and (for once in our bargain paying days) it wasn't right next to an elevator. But we laughed when we opened the blinds & this was our view. :) For the price we paid, we put the blinds back down and moved on with our lives! I'm perfectly happy to deal with this view to have a great location, great service, and a well maintained, clean, city hotel room.

Year 3 - Day 15 - January 15

We started our morning bright and early because there was so much to fit in. First, we had breakfast at Penelope's. It was a cute little local place. What surprised us when we sat down is that they had a pre fixe menu for breakfast. I don't know if that was because it's Sunday or what, but your choice of breakfast came with either coffee & juice, an apple cider mimosa, or a pomegranate bellini. Mike was excited that the world gave him permission to drink that early in the morning, even if it was a girly choice. ;)

We then headed over to Queens (another borough - I've now been to all of them!) to see the Museum of the Moving Picture. Two friends recommended the Jim Henson exhibit to us and we decided to check it out. It was cool, but so was everything else! The exhibit had lots of muppets & props & the stories behind a lot of Jim Henson's creations. We saw Miss Piggy in her wedding dress. :) Sarah would have liked the things from Dark Crystal & Labyrinth, too. The rest of the museum was all kinds of things that show you how to make TV & movies. We made claymation stop animation films, did voiceovers/dubbing of "School of Rock" and made movie soundtracks. There was a neat exhibit showing how a producer uses the 12 feed options from video cameras around a baseball stadium to make decisions about what to actually show on the air. Lots of costume and sets stuff too. If I could have any other job, it would totally be behind the scenes of a TV show. We got lucky on crowds, too. We made sure to get there right when it opened so that we could be done before the Ravens game. The place was empty! Oh, and right next door is Kaufmann Astoria studios, where they make Sesame Street!

After chilling a bit & watching the Ravens, we headed downtown to see the 9-11 memorial that recently opened.

We thought of it at the beginning of the game and were able to reserve passes online for the last time slot of the day. With all the construction going on, it takes forever to get in and out of the park because you have to go all the way around. Once the construction is over and the trees mature, it will be a very peaceful place.

I didn't realize that some of the buildings down there had gotten so high. It's transforming the skyline. We didn't spend much time at the memorial, because we had to get back to the theater district to pick up our tickets from will call.

I've wanted to see Memphis since before it opened! Someone in their production department had a great behind the scenes blog so we got to read about every step of the process. I also thought it was great that the show kept so many of the original workshop actors rather than dumping them all when it transferred to Broadway. It must be a fun show to do, because they're in the 3rd year and lots of originals are still in the show! Back in the fall, though, I found out that Adam from Rent was taking over the male lead, so I asked for tickets for Christmas. (Little did I know it would turn into this whole weekend of fun!) It was great. I really enjoyed it. Mike said it was fine, but I did hear him laughing out loud at all the jokes, so he enjoyed it more than he'll admit, I think. ;) There were lots of Adam fans in the audience, (or people who saw the interviews that came out when he joined the show) because you could hear everyone waiting to see if he'd pull off the high note at the end, (He did) and then reacting to the note.

We are finishing up our day at the bar & grill by our hotel, with this view.

Not too shabby!

Year 3 - Day 14 - January 14

We're in NYC! We got here this afternoon and promptly jumped on the subway to Brooklyn in order to hunt down the Brooklyn Brewery. When we got there around 3:30, there was a line outside. Assuming it was the line for the 4pm tour, we got in line and bundled up. We were surprised to find that it was actually the line just to get in. The brewery is a giant open space (see above) full of people. You can bring your own food (there was a pizza truck right outside the door) and buy tokens to get beer. It appears that people just hang out all afternoon. We did take the 4pm tour, but it wasn't really a tour about beer. It was more the story of their brewery, which was interesting and involved some funny mob stuff.

After an afternoon at the brewery, we headed back up to midtown to find our hotel and put down our backpacks. They sent us to a local sushi place for dinner so that Mike could get his inner city sushi fix. (I had cooked appetizers!) Finally, then it was time for dessert! We decided to walk the 20+ blocks south just to work off dinner and work up a dessert appetite. It was cold & flurrying, but it's not freezing freezing. Behold, our dessert at Max Brenner's:

Fondue for 2! 2 types of chocolate & a butterscotch/caramel dipping sauce along with strawberries, bananas, marshmallows, brownies, and blondies. Plus, a hot thing to roast the marshmallows on! I love the tray it came on, too. It looks like notebook paper! Mike also decided to order the Italian hot chocolate:

Oh my gosh it was so good. The mug is a little squished (and doesn't have a handle) so you can cup it in your hands and drink. (or spill, like we did a little.) See how thick and dark it is? It was really that thick. It was like drinking a melted hershey bar. YUM.

After another brisk walk back to the hotel, we are now ready to never move again. Or at least not until tomorrow. :)

Year 2 - Day 363 - December 29

Today we headed down to the Pima Air & Space Museum. The downside is that it isn't free like the real ones, but the upside is that they have a really cool set of planes. A lot of the museum is really just old (and newer) planes parked in the desert. Other exhibits (older, more special, etc) and things are inside hangers.

This particulary weird shaped plane is called the Super Guppy. I also thought it was cool to see the NASA "Vomit Comet" that they use to practice weightlessness.

Year 2 - Day 362 - December 28

Every time I turn a corner and see huge alcohol displays in a place like Target out here, it surprises me!

Year 2 - Day 361 - December 27

This is one of our favorite restaurants in Tucson. The chef has a gazillion recipes in her head and every day picks a few beef, a few chicken, a couple seafood, and a vegetarian dish for lunch and dinner. Even though I am completely the opposite of an adventurous eater, I have liked what I ordered all 3 times we have visited because they all have a Mexican flair and I like Mexican food. I think I've gotten a beef dish all three times. One other menu option is to get the variety dish. You get smaller portions of 3 things on the menu. You don't get to pick what your dishes are, you have to agree to be surprised. But if more than one person gets the variety platter at your table, they all get a different set. I think all 3 boys have ordered that every time and every time, they've gotten the veggie option, a beef, and a chicken, but I could be wrong about that. I find it hilarious that some people refuse to eat there because it's expensive because it's $25 for most of the meals and I leave stuffed to the gills. I'd much rather pay $25 for real food than something at Outback or Chili's or whatever (even though I love those places too) ;)

Year 2 - Day 360 - December 26

This picture doesn't do the hill justice, but you should know that we survived this cliff today while on our ATV excursion. It was fun, and scary, and terrifying, and fun again in that order. Some of the steep up and down hills in the middle passed scary and stopped being fun, but then it got fun again. :)

I did like that we were in a huge group, and went single file the whole time. That probably drove some of the more dare devil participants crazy, but I liked it. We had 3 guides - one in front, one in the back, and one that switched to different places. When we got to something hard like a steep hill or lots of boulders, one of the guides got off and stood there and gave extra directions. I couldn't believe how pathetic this hill looked when I downloaded the picture, because it was super steep in real life!

At the end of the ride, we went through a box canyon that was once part of the mail and pony express route. There was an old adobe building from a long long time ago and really high walls. I don't really use the adjective "pretty" with the desert that much, because I don't find rocks and dirt pretty, but the sunset did light it up very nicely.

Year 2 - Day 313 - October 31

When we visit my parents, they have to rent a car to drive us all around because my parents are old (sorry, it's true, parents) retired people with 2 seater sports cars. Usually it's a lot cheaper to rent the cars from the neighborhood branch of the car rental agencies rather than driving out to the airport to pick up a car. This year, my dad found that it was cheaper at the airport. To save trips and driving, he called to see if Mike & I would just pick it up when we got there and drive it to the house. No problem. He told me the Southwest.com-get-frequent-flier-miles price and it beat the Hotwire.com price I had showing on my screen. So...I pulled Southwest.com up on Safari and got the window on the left. I read him the prices and he acted like I was a crazy person. No matter how many times we read each other the price, our numbers weren't matching.

I remembered a similar issue with Hotwire from the past, so I opened firefox and did the same search. I came up with the prices in the window on the right. $40 cheaper, just by switching browsers! No cookies involved because I've never price checked a car in Tucson before. Weird, weird, weird. (For the record, Chrome matched the FireFox price.)

Year 2 - Day 295 - October 23

Before heading out this morning, we had breakfast at the Dough Roller on the boardwalk. I saw a sign saying they're famous for their wide variety of pancakes so that's what I ordered. Bacon pancakes! Genius idea! Really they just cooked an "X" of bacon strips on the grill before pouring the batter on top, but still, genius. That, added with THIS view made for the best breakfast I've had since my birthday brunch!

Also seen in this picture, the balconies of our hotel. We opted to be cheap and stay on the bay side. It's ok though because you couldn't beat the location and we could still see water! This was the last of our fun meals on this mini getaway and let me tell you - it was fun while it lasted!

Year 2 - Day 294 - October 22

Even though I live within a few hours of the famous horses of Assateague Island, I had never seen one in person before today. It was pretty cool, but if we go again we'll definitely bring bikes and park on the free side and bike over. The horses are everywhere and really easy to find. Much easier than the bears at Sequoia (but not as easy as the rattlesnakes!) :) For much of our time, the horses were even closer than the one in this picture!