Despite our fairly early night, I got up Monday feeling terrible. My vertigo had gotten really bad, too, so I spent a lot of time feeling like the world was spinning. We packed up our stuff, checked out of the Tropicana, and loaded up the car.

We then headed back over to Caesar’s Palace to do some shopping and have lunch at the Forum Shops before heading out of town. Matt got some new shoes at the Nike Store, since it’s an obligatory stop every time we’re there.

Then it was time to get on the road. Matt was driving and I was reclining most of the time, trying not to be dizzy. This was his first time driving the Baker/Barstow route through the desert, so he got to experience all of it.

There’s a monstrous solar array out in the desert. I didn’t get a very good picture of it, but it’s massive.

The drive into the Inland Empire (or IE, for those in the know) was uneventful. The thing we noticed most is that it’s HUGE. Everything is so far away from everything else. It’s incredible.

We found our way to San Bernardino, and exited at the road formerly known as Route 66. A few miles down, through a rundown residental area, we found the Wigwam Motel!

(It was actually dark when we arrived, so I took these photos the next day. How awesome is this place??)

Due to the time of year, there didn’t seem to be many other people staying in the wigwams. The front office told us we’d be upgraded to a deluxe model; I didn’t know what the difference was, but we appreciated it.)

The wigwams were small but clean and well-maintained. I like how the windows are at floor level, too. The bed was so tall I could barely climb into it.

We hauled our stuff in, and then headed off in search of dinner. Matt was starting to get hangry, and I still felt crappy so I didn’t really care about food. We’d picked out a place about 15 miles away (because NOTHING in the IE is close), and I gave directions as he drove. We got there to find it was totally packed, with a 45-minute wait. We decided to go elsewhere.

Also, it was really cold there at night! I was wearing a dress and freezing, so I hated even being outside.

Our second plan that night was to go to Hangar 24‘s brewery, so we decided to try that and see if maybe they had food there or something. They didn’t, but they did have a gigantic beer selection. We got all the samples.

By the time we were done we were really hungry, and I felt really crappy, so we decided to just find a grocery store, get some sandwich makings, and go back to the Wigwam. You’d think this would be an easy prospect, right? But no, you have to drive a million miles, and then you find a grocery store that’s like a castoff discount bulk grocery store that only has everything in mega-packs, and you have to drive to another store another million miles away. But finally you’re at Trader Joe’s, and things are looking up again. (I’m pretty sure this Trader Joe’s was still technically in San Bernardino, even though we were 20 miles from the hotel.)

Having obtained food, we went back to the Wigwam to eat, and I went to bed right away afterwards. We needed an early night for once.

We got up the next morning, checked out of the Wigwam, and got back on the road. It was time to head into the desert… after a filling breakfast, of course. We found the highly-recommended DJ’s Coffee Shop about 15 miles away (but still in San Bernardino, of course), and sat at the counter to eat. It’s a classic greasy-spoon-type place, but their food was great; I had an omelet full of green peppers that was spectacular.

I’ve seen most of coastal California, especially San Francisco and SoCal, but I’ve never really been into the desert (with the exception of the Vegas drive). I’ve always been kind of fascinated with it, so I was excited to see what it was about. We learned from a friend later on that Thanksgiving weekend is the official start of ‘desert season’ in California, where everyone heads over there to camp and ride 4-wheelers around. Kind of like summer cabin season here in Minnesota.

The drive to the Coachella Valley was really scenic:

We got off I-10 just past the Palm Springs exit, and headed east instead. We stopped at a gas station in Morongo Valley, where I bought three bottles of water, in addition to the full Camelbak I had in the car. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that it’s smart to have a ton of water with you in the desert.

Back on the road, we passed through Yucca Valley, a super-cute little town full of art and antique shops. From there we hopped off the main highway, and headed into Joshua Tree National Park.

We bought a park pass and got a map from the ranger station. While I was paying, Matt was busy reading the sign I missed on the building: it said, “Watch out for tarantulas on the road”. While I’m sure that was meant to protect tarantulas, he thought maybe we should run over any of them we found. Hopefully they’d travel in a giant train, so we could get a bunch of them at once.

Since we came in the north entrance, that meant we entered via the Mojave, or high desert side. The hills were very volcanic looking (some of them reminded me of Haleakala), but the geology also varied quite a bit. There were Joshua trees all over, too.

Some of the Joshua trees were dead. They make for good pictures, though.

I have a million pictures of the park, and none of them really do it justice. It’s gorgeous. Also, the sky. Totally perfect.

There were rock climbers all over the bigger outcroppings. These looked appealing:

This is my favorite Joshua tree:

A few miles in, there were cars pulled over because a coyote was wandering down the other side of the road. It would pass each car slowly and approach warily, which sucks because that means it had been fed by tourists before.

This was a popular climbing rock. You can see some of the lines right in the middle. I bet the scrub was chock-full of tarantulas, too.

Several miles in, there’s a turnoff for a spot called Keys View. It’s a few miles up a mountain at about 5,000 feet, with a short trail to an overlook. It’s worth the drive.

Off in the hazy distance, it’s the Coachella valley. I really didn’t know how much farming went on there; it’s a lot. This is looking west, directly over the San Andreas Fault, with the San Jacinto Mountains in the background.

Looking south, you can make out the Salton Sea, and Signal Mountain near Mexicali in the far distance.

We headed back to the park road, and passed through a section of giant rocks. (I think one of the turnoffs is actually called Giant Rocks.) This is Skull Rock:

I wish we had more time to stop at all the roadside attractions, but it was a long drive through the park. We did have to stop to see the cactus garden, though. By then we’d crossed into the low desert, the Colorado, and the landscape started to change quite a bit.

(Confession: I touched the cactus and lived.)

The cactus garden is surreal. There are a million of them, just waiting to kill you.

This is the inside of a cactus stem:

Bally liked the view. Bally likes everything, really.

We stopped at the visitor center on the south end of the park to pick up a souvenir and to fill my Camelbak, because yes, I’d consumed all three bottles of water plus that entire container. It’s the desert, man.

Rather than get back on I-10, we followed Google’s directions (which were suspect in California at best, even with GPS enabled) toward Mecca. This led us through Box Canyon, which was kind of amazing.

The road twists and winds through at least 10 miles of canyon like this, and there are areas on the side of the road where people have parked their campers and created little compounds. They all had ATVs, too.

We exited Box Canyon onto the road heading into Mecca, a small town at the north end of the Salton Sea. Looking for the road to the sea, we passed acres and acres of produce of all kinds. It was kind of amazing to see that much food production up close, and in full bloom during late November.

We finally found our way to the highway that circled the Salton Sea.

We headed east, toward the state park area. The sun was starting to set, so we had pretty spectacular views. I pulled off at one of the beaches so we could get photos, and upon leaving the car was instantly greeted with the main reason people had deserted the Salton Sea: the smell. It smelled like dead fish and chemicals, and not just a little bit. It was overpowering.

In case you weren’t aware of this bizarre wonder in the California desert, here’s the short version (or the long version, via Wikipedia): the Salton Sea was formed accidentally in the early 1900s while workers were trying to funnel water into the very fertile Coachella Valley. It flooded the low basin, and created a huge inland sea. It soon became a huge resort and vacation destination, because, well, look at it.

The problem, however, was that there’s no natural exchange of water in the Salton Sea; it’s not fed by streams, nor does it have any drainage. So all the industrial and farming runoff from the valley poured right into the sea, and it poisoned everything. Almost all the fish died, creating a hell of a stink, and people left in droves. In many cases, they just left the stuff in their houses, and fled.

So now you have places like Bombay Beach, a former resort town that’s mostly abandoned and falling apart.

We unfortunately got there very close to sunset, and couldn’t see as much of it as we wanted to. It’s strange and mostly-deserted, but there are still people hanging on there at the end of a giant stinky sea. It’s a really bizarre place.

And then it was dark, so we pointed our car in the direction of Palm Springs. It took about an hour to arrive at our hotel, the Movie Colony. I’d picked it because it was walking distance to Tonga Hut, the only real destination we had in mind there, because we knew virtually nothing about the town beyond its awesome 1960s architecture.

The hotel was an excellent choice. It was very small, centered around a courtyard with a firepit, outdoor bar (which currently had free happy hour cocktails), and swimming pool. The lady working there was super-friendly, and took us up to our room on the second level overlooking the courtyard.

Matt had done some research on dinner options on the way there, and we’d decided on a place a few blocks away called Workshop Kitchen. We changed clothes and walked down there, finding it in the back of an open mall area. It was small, modern, and thankfully had a couple seats for us at the bar, since the entire rest of the place was already booked. We had a great meal, one of those that reminds you how completely spoiled California is, foodwise. It’s so easy to be vegetarian there.

We’d made plans to get together with my very longtime friend Paul, who lives in Long Beach, while we were in Palm Springs. He was there for Thanksgiving, and it just so happens that he and his friends love tiki bars as much as we do. So our obvious next stop was Tonga Hut to meet them.

We walked several blocks down there, passing a ton of great-looking restaurants and super-cute shops, which were all closed for the night. I kind of regretted not having more time in Palm Springs, because I’m pretty sure we’d have loved it. I liked that everything was centrally-located, too.

We headed upstairs to Tonga Hut and didn’t see Paul there, so Matt and I grabbed seats at the bar. We were worried we’d missed them, since they had dinner reservations elsewhere. After a while, they all showed up: Paul, his husband Eddie, and two of their friends who loved tiki far more than we ever could… they regaled us with stories of all the places they’d been, and the huge tiki collection they had in their new house in Palm Springs. (Paul sent photos later – it’s truly amazing.)

We hung out with them for an hour or so, talking about travel and what it was like living in the area. Apparently it’s really common for everyone in the LA area to head out into the desert that time of year, like a pilgrimage. I’d do the same, really.

Then it was time for them to head to dinner, so we said goodbye and hung out a bit longer before deciding to walk back to the hotel. It was even colder than it had been in other places in the desert at night, but it wasn’t cold enough to deter us from hanging out in the hot tub for a while before bed.

Thanksgiving morning, this was our view from our hotel room. I wished we were staying longer!

We had a 3-night Airbnb rental in Topanga Canyon starting that night that we’d booked several months in advance. The owner called and left a voicemail that morning, so I called him back before breakfast. We reviewed the plans we’d made via email: we had dinner reservations at 7:30 in Venice, and would get to the house to meet him before 9-10pm. That worked out well for him, too, since he had Thanksgiving plans.

We ate breakfast at the little bar in the courtyard, then checked out. Here’s the daytime view down the street from our hotel. We didn’t even know those mountains were right there when we arrived.

We checked out and got on I-10 again. Our destination this time was Anaheim, and Disneyland.

I’ve been to Disney World a few times in my life, a couple times as a kid and once as a sarcastic adult who expected to hate every minute of it, and ended up having a really great time. (Occasionally for sarcastic reasons, but also because I can’t stop loving Epcot Center.) People in California really seem to have a thing for Disneyland, even those I wouldn’t expect to, so we figured it was worth checking out. Plus since it was a holiday, it wasn’t as crowded!

We got to the parking around 11am, and rode the monorail to the park entrance. Everything was decorated for Christmas, which was pretty great. Also, LA was having a huge heat wave that day, around 85 degrees, so it was heaven.

One pleasant surprise was that it’s super-easy to walk anywhere in Disneyland quickly (well, semi-quickly, depending on the crowds). That’s not really that easy at Disney World. This park is a lot more compact.

We walked down Main Street USA, and stopped to take pictures of the much smaller castle. Then we consulted the map to figure out our plan of attack for rides. I was a little nervous about them in general because I still didn’t feel great, and my vertigo was terrible. But dammit, we were at Disney, and I was at least going to go on Space Mountain.

We circled for a while to get our bearings, and then went to see what the deal was with Fastpass at Space Mountain. The last time I’d been to Disney many years ago, Fastpass was awesome and enabled us to get on Space Mountain multiple times in a row. That didn’t seem to be the case anymore; you had to go stamp it with a time you were allowed to come back and get in the fast line. Those times were multiple hours in the future, though. We stamped our passes anyway (for 4:30) and headed out again.

We needed lunch, and for some reason this was more challenging than expected. We didn’t really want a sit-down restaurant, especially since everything seemed to have a long line outside it. And while I know there’s plenty of vegetarian food there, none of it seemed apparent. We finally decided on a Mexican restaurant because they had vegetable enchiladas. They weren’t the greatest I’d ever had, but they were pretty good, and nowhere near as expensive as I’d expected.

Refreshed, we went to go get in the line for Pirates of the Caribbean. Having walked past most of the rides we wanted to go on, we’d already accepted that we were going to end up standing in line for most of the day. But it was nice out, so that made the half-hour-or-so wait worthwhile. The ride was entertaining, and I didn’t really remember much of it. There was also a guy sitting in our row who texted for the entire ride, so that was pretty funny.

From there, we decided to go on the Indiana Jones ride. It was about the same wait time, which wasn’t terrible. This one was advertised as being more jarring than the Pirates of the Caribbean, so I figured it was a good test of how I would feel in Space Mountain. We got into our Jeep, held on tight, and I screamed at every fast corner. (Screaming like an idiot is the best part of going on rides.) I was a little worse off from vertigo afterwards, but it was fine. Plus the ride was great.

Next we took it down a notch at the Enchanted Tiki Room. I’m sure I’ve probably been in there before (in Florida), but I didn’t really remember it. I definitely remembered the cheesiness of that animatronic era, though. The birds that descended from the ceiling looked a little bit ratty.

After that, it was time for some actual tiki. We walked over to the monorail, and rode over to Downtown Disney. They had a skating rink! Did I mention it was 85 degrees?

We found Trader Sam’s amongst the resort buildings. It was a glorious little tropical oasis.

We walked in, and the entire place was full. There was a bunch of patio seating available, but we’d been hoping to get a seat at the bar. Paul’s friends had told us that some of them were rigged to sink into the floor occasionally, and I really wanted to see that.

Regardless, the place was great. The bartenders were hilarious, and if you order a Shipwreck on the Rocks, they trigger this whole animated diorama of a ship on stormy seas that’s built into the wall. It would’ve been nice to stay there for a very long time, but we had places to be that holiday night.

After our drinks were finished, we rode the monorail back to the park. It was still a bit before our Fastpass time, so we grabbed a pretzel from a vendor and wandered around. People were sitting on the curbs on Main Street for the parade, even though it wasn’t happening for quite a while.

Finally, it was time for the one ride I’d come to Disneyland for: SPACE MOUNTAIN. The Fastpass line was pretty great, at least.

One thing it’s important to know about Matt is that he hates roller coasters with a passion. He doesn’t like heights, so he’s waited nervously by while I’ve done things like skydive and jump off the Stratosphere. But since it was just the two of us there, he’d agreed to go on Space Mountain with me. That’s true love right there.

We were both pretty nervous by the time we boarded. I was scared of our stuff flying out, so I had my purse wrapped around my legs as much as possible. Matt was carrying a tiki mug in a box and bag that he’d picked up as a souvenir, so he had to ride with it clamped between his feet. I was scared about my vertigo and the fact that I hadn’t even been near a roller coaster in probably 10 years. Then I looked over at Matt as the coaster started up, and he looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but there at that moment.

Space Mountain was FANTASTIC. It’s as good as I remember. Matt doesn’t agree, but he survived!! I was a little shaky getting it, but it didn’t seem to make my vertigo any worse.

Then it was time to start heading to the car. We hadn’t had very much time there, but it was good to see Disneyland. And we managed to get out before the parade insanity began.

We stopped into the gift shop to get postcards for my Disney-loving nieces, and was told they didn’t sell stamps there. Didn’t see stamps! At Disney, the place which can give you anything you want. That’s really strange, right?

We rode the parking train back to the car, and Matt pulled up directions to LA while I drove. We had dinner reservations at 7:30 in Venice, and then were heading to our AirBnb rental afterwards.

The drive was faster than expected (mostly because it’s safe to assume that generally traffic in LA will be the absolute worst), and we got to Venice with almost an hour to kill. I parked on a side street by the beach, and changed clothes in the car because I’m super classy (and was too underdressed for fancy Thanksgiving dinner). We then went to walk down the boardwalk to see what might be up in Venice on a Thanksgiving night.

The answer: nothing. There were a bunch people who lived on the beach hanging around, but all the businesses were closed. We saw one bar that was open, but the bartender told us they were just shutting down as we walked in. So went back to the car and decided to go try to find something on Abbot Kinney instead.

The one place besides our restaurant that was open was a bar that Matt had noticed more than once, and had wanted to visit. So we parked at The Brig and went in for a drink. The people at the bar were friendly (who isn’t when they’re drinking at a bar on a holiday most people are with family?) and they had sports on TV.

Then it was time for our reservation, so we drove down about half a mile (it was too cold to walk in sandals at that point!) and checked in at Joe’s Restaurant. I was a little worried we’d have to wait forever, because the bar area was packed, but they had our table waiting for us. They definitely weren’t wanting for business for Thanksgiving dinner, either – the entire restaurant was full, too.

They had a prix fixe menu that we’d approved beforehand, due to their good vegetarian options. We picked our three courses and a dessert, and Matt ordered from their awesome cocktail menu as well. My entree was half a butternut squash filled with vegetables, in case you were wondering if California is good at food.

Our dinner was going quite nicely when my phone rang in my purse. I looked at it, and it was the number for the guy who owned our rental house, so I answered right away. He started huffily exclaiming about how he’d been at the house since 7:00 waiting for us, and where were we? (It was close to 8:30 at that point.) I told him that no, like we’d discussed a couple times, we were at dinner and were supposed to meet him between 9 and 10pm. But he was having none of it; he just kept repeating over and over that he’d been waiting there forever, and that this was very rude, and what was he supposed to do? He even told me he had a recording of our phone call from that morning, where I’d told him we’d be there at 7:30. (If that was the case he probably should’ve listened to it, since I told him very clearly that we had dinner at 7:30 in Venice, and would meet him between 9-10.)

I told him we’d get there as soon as we could, and hung up the phone upset. We had to grab our server to get the tab quickly, run to the bathroom (it was still a long drive), and get our dessert to go. The restaurant was super-busy, though, so our dessert didn’t show up, and we ended up leaving. I texted the guy from my dying phone that we were on our way, and we jumped in the car and headed out of Venice and up the PCH.

We turned off the highway at Topanga Canyon, and began the 10-mile drive up into the mountains. I was glad I’d looked at Google Streetview earlier so I knew what to expect along the way. The road going up the hill wasn’t narrow, but it was really dark. We found the turnoff and headed up the wrong road initially, which ended up as a tiny narrow street that two cars couldn’t possibly pass on. After realizing that was wrong, we found the correct road up the hill to the house.

We found the driveway, which had a gate and closed garage door, with no path up to the house. My phone was dead, which didn’t much matter because Matt couldn’t get a signal up in the mountains anyway. The lights at the gate were on and there was a security camera pointed at us, so we figured he’d probably see us there. There was no bell we could find, so we waited around there for ten minutes or so, unsure what to do.

Finally, we gave up. I wasn’t thrilled at staying there knowing the guy was really flaky, accusatory and generally bizarre, and he obviously wasn’t in that much of a hurry to let us in. I wanted to just leave without telling him, but Matt convinced me that calling was the right thing to do. We plugged in my phone, drove back down the mountain, and I called him to tell him we were going to get a hotel instead. He was argumentative at first, but calmed down really quickly once I told him why I didn’t think it was a good idea to stay there (i.e. that I didn’t trust him at all, since he was being totally unreliable).

By the time we got back down to the PCH headed back toward Santa Monica, it was after 10pm. I was upset from the ordeal, and we had to find a hotel. Matt pulled up hotels.com on my phone and started searching for places, and I told him to look near LAX, since hotels were always cheap there. We decided on the Sheraton Four Points, and he used my phone to book the room while we drove there. Hooray, technology!

We got to LAX, found the hotel, and pulled into the driveway to find a ‘lot full’ sign in the parking lot. A guy who worked there was standing outside, so I pulled up and asked him about it. He told us that we should pull a ticket and go into the lot anyway, because a bunch of the staff was leaving right then, and there would be spots opening up.

Well…. no. We drove around and around in the lot, which was packed full. People had invented their own spots in driveways, so I’d go down an aisle and have to back all the way out to leave it. There were other cars circling, but nobody seemed to be finding anything. We discovered an underground parking area that was somewhat hidden, and ended up getting stuck in there and having to turn around, too.

We probably circled around there for half an hour, finding nothing. Finally, I drove back to the gate and pressed the call button and explained our problem. The lady told us to go park over at the Radisson, and they’d reimburse our parking.

We drove down a very long block, pulled another parking ticket at the Radisson, and found a parking spot. By that point it was 11pm, and I was on the verge on a panic attack. (I don’t deal with unplanned changes well at all.) We unloaded our suitcases and rolled them through the parking lot, across the street, and finally into the Sheraton to check in. When the very friendly lady at the front desk told us she couldn’t find our reservation, I wanted to cry.

It turns out that because I’d most recently been looking at hotels in Quebec in May, Matt had ended up booking a room for Thanksgiving 2015. Thankfully, that didn’t seem to be a problem for the front desk – she just updated the dates, and we were fine. We even got the same rate.

(Fun fact: while hotels.com will acknowledge that you did indeed stay for a reservation booked on the incorrect dates, they won’t credit your Welcome Rewards until the original dates actually occur. So I still technically have a room booked at the Sheraton Four Points LAX over Thanksgiving 2015.)

FINALLY, we were in our room and settled for our longest stay in one place… three entire nights!

In the morning, we got up and drove up the PCH to Malibu. I remember really liking the beach there, and wanted to see it again.

I couldn’t remember where my sister and I had visited in the past, so we drove up into town, made our usual vacation-obligatory stop at Walgreens to get about 10 things, and then decided to stop in and see what Malibu Lagoon was about. We figured maybe we could walk to the beach from there.

Parking there was expensive, though, so we just pulled in and went to take a look at the lagoon. There were lots of birds hanging out, and a view of the ocean in the distance.

Rather than go to the beach there, we decided to drive back down to one of the many more accessible beaches we’d passed along the way. (The drive up and down the PCH in that area is really incredibly entertaining, seeing all the expensive beach houses hanging on the very edge of California, and all the surfing paraphernalia.)

We decided on Topanga State Beach, because it had cheaper parking, and looked, well, like this:

It was too cold to swim, but it was plenty warm to hang out in the sand, eat some Takis from Walgreens, and watch the surfers and shorebirds.

The waves were pretty small, but it was fun watching the system the surfers used to line up and decide who got what wave. There was a stand-up paddleboarder surfing, too, which I’ve never seen before. Usually they’re just on flat water.

After sitting and staring at the ocean for a good long time (possibly one of the most restorative activities possible), we went and tested the water temperature. It was freezing. (I’m not sure I could handle California water temps even in the summer, though. I turn into an icicle very easily.)

After watching our feet off and putting our shoes back on, we got back on the road and headed back into LA. Our lunch destination was Golden Road Brewing.

We found it between the Los Angeles River and some train tracks just off the Ventura Freeway, and had to park a ways down the street. Despite the place being gigantic – a huge hangarlike taproom, a covered and uncovered patio, and a fenced-in side yard, the place was absolutely packed. That seemed to have a lot to do with the USC-Notre Dame game on TV, and the fact that it was lunchtime.

Matt got a beer at the bar, and we stood around watching for someone to leave so we could sit down. After half an hour or so, we found a couple leaving from the end of a long table shared with a very exuberant group of college friends who had clearly been there for a while.

Even though they were packed, the service was quite fast. I was really excited about the menu, because they had multiple vegan options, including a really delicious tofu banh mi.

After lunch, we headed back in the direction of downtown. But first we pulled off near Griffith Park again, and went into Hollywood to find the nearest natural foods store. As with every visit to LA, I had to stop and pick up a bunch of Sun Cakes. They’re the best!!

From there, we headed into downtown. The 101 was backed up even more than usual, due to Ferguson-related protests. We finally made our way towards LA Live and found a parking ramp very nearby that wasn’t charging a ton of money for parking. There were a ton of people wandering around there already, even though it was a few hours before gametime.

We’d never been to LA Live before (it’s the entertainment complex surrounding Staples Center), and it was much bigger than expected. Also, there was an ice rink set up in the middle with Christmas music playing and people skating. Awesome.

We’d planned on going to Trader Vic’s, because even though we knew it’d be chain-y and far from the original, we still wanted to see it. We didn’t see its name on any of the signs, though, so we went to find a map. Where it should’ve been listed alphabetically with the restaurants, there was a blank spot. Apparently it had closed sometime recently.

We walked around a bit and looked into a couple of places that looked promising, but they had a wait for tables. There was an awesome-looking bar in the lobby of the Ritz-Carlson, but it wasn’t open yet. We decided to try Lucky Strike, the bowling alley, because it advertised that it had a big bar. Thankfully, that was one of the places that wasn’t packed yet at 5pm, and we were able to get a couch in the bar.

We hung out there for a long time, watching sports and the place fill up. I couldn’t believe how packed everything was, because LA Live seems to consist of only giant chains, not local bars or restaurants.

Then it was time to head to hockey! The LA Kings were hosting the Chicago Blackhawks, and we were really excited to see it.

There was a big line-up outside the arena, and the metal detector checks were running painfully slowly. It made me grateful for Xcel Center‘s efficiency. Finally, we got in and found our way to the third level. We were at one of the ends in the fourth row of the upper level, which were surprisingly good seats.

The pregame show had LASERS. Get on that, every other hockey arena.

The people in the seats next to us arrived, and we learned that they were a father and daughter from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. We ended up talking to them for nearly the entire game, because they were even nerdier about hockey than we are. We also discussed various cities in Canada (he refused to accept that we actually wanted to visit Montreal), travel, the awesome hotel they were staying at nearby (the Figueroa – we’d noted the awesome Moroccan-style lobby when we passed it earlier), and the fact that he knew half the staff of the Kings due to previous hockey-related jobs. They were really entertaining.

I’d never seen the Blackhawks play live, despite the fact that the Minnesota Wild is in the same conference with them, and we visit Chicago a lot. (I’m more of a college hockey loyalist with my Gophers, anyway.) The Kings are a really good team, too, but the Blackhawks completely destroyed them. It was amazing to see that in person!

The Kings were losing solidly with a few minutes left in the third, so we decided to head out a couple minutes early. (With most of the crowd, it turned out.) On the way to the car, Matt was regretting not stopping to use the bathroom, so we decided to go in and see if we could use the one at the Figueroa. While we were waiting there, our Canadian friends walked in. We said bye to them again, and headed to the car.

Our next stop was for a late dinner at Chego. We’d really wanted to visit one of Roy Choi’s restaurants in LA (since his Korean taco truck was so awesome), and when we mentioned that to the lady at the Velveteria, she told us he had an awesome place really nearby in Chinatown. We found it in the back of a strip mall, the only place open that time of night.

Here’s Matt’s dinner. My tofu bowl was incredible, too. Plus it was way too much for one meal, so we ate half of it and then wrapped it all up to take back to the hotel with us.

We were going to visit Cana once again after dinner, but at that point it was after 11, parking downtown was a mess, and I was tired. So we headed back to the hotel instead.

In the morning, we got up, finished packing, and checked out of the hotel. Three nights was our longest stay in one place! It didn’t really feel that long at all.

We stocked up on coffee in the lobby and got on the road to San Juan Capistrano, where we had a date with the Amtrak station. One thing we’d learned and yet refused to accept is the Google Maps (or Google navigation) just isn’t that good in California. We got lost a lot, and Capistrano was no exception. We ended up driving all over the damn place, which was really stressful since we had a train to catch.

We finally found our way there, and parked in the ramp. They had long-term spots there that weren’t too expensive, so we were happy about that. We grabbed our carry-on bags, which just had a change of clothes and other necessities, and locked the rest of our luggage in the trunk.

I had never ridden the Amtrak before, at least not since I was a kid in Chicago going to visit my grandma in Milwaukee. Matt had taken the City of New Orleans years ago, but neither of us was entirely sure how it worked. We found a conductor on the platform, and he told us where to wait to board. We had standard tickets, not first class. You know, we’re not fancy.

When we heard the train coming around the bend, I was almost jumping up and down with excitement. I’ve wanted to ride the Pacific Surfliner since the moment I learned about it.

We boarded the train and found an open seat. The windows were configured in such a way that the view wasn’t perfect, but it was still pretty amazing. We headed off, and the conductor came through and punched our tickets. After a while, we decided to go check out the cafe car.

The view there was much better, so we stayed there until the end of the line. The staff working there was hilarious, too… they were mostly interested in smack-talking each other about their fantasy football teams.

We’d decided to take the train from San Juan Capistrano rather than Union Station in LA because north of Capistrano, it pretty much just follows the interstate, which is well inland. Starting where we did, we got just the section where you’re riding along the coast. I’d heard the views were spectacular, and that was absolutely true. We didn’t leave the ocean side until about La Jolla, heading into Old Town San Diego.

We headed back to our seats shortly before arriving at the end of the line, Santa Fe Depot in San Diego. Even pulling into that historic building was fantastic. We walked around to the other side, and found our friend April waiting there to pick us up. She had big plans for us!

April’s friend Dave had come along, because they’d been talking for a while about how he wanted to rent a boat and go sailing again, because it had been a while. April knew that Matt and I would never turn down a chance to go on a boat, so we were thrilled with that arrangement.

We drove out to a boat rental shop on Mission Bay and they made arrangements. It was a little chillier than I’d expected, so I bought a cute blanket they were selling in the shop. (I probably would’ve bought it anyway. Who’s a sucker for nautical stuff? ME.) Then we headed out to the dock, where we saw this amazing thing waiting nearby. I want to own it. (That’s a grill in the center, in case it wasn’t obvious. It has a gigantic sunshade that goes over the top, too.

While it had been overcast when we left LA, because bad weather was approaching, there was nothing but blue sky in San Diego. It was gorgeous.

There was a bit of difficulty sailing out of the harbor, but Dave got back into captainship quickly. Our instructions were to sail under the bridge into Mission Bay, since the opposite direction would take us right out into the ocean. Nobody needs that in a 20′ sailboat.

The center span of the Mission Bay bridge is just barely tall enough for the sails to pass under. It was nervewracking.

Then there was just sailing, and it was perfect. They’d brought banh mi sandwiches for everyone, so we had lunch on the boat. April is the best.

Bally had a good time, too, I think.

We couldn’t stay out long because the place closed before sunset, but it was really nice to get out on a boat again. Also, these dudes were hanging out in the harbor when we got back.

Also, there’s this seagull riding a jetski. I laughed about this forever.

After our sail, we decided to go get drinks before dinner. They took us to an awesome little dive bar called the Aero Club, which, to Matt’s great delight, had an absolutely massive whiskey selection. Like the shelves went all the way to the ceiling, and we spent a ton of time speculating as to how they’d get up there if you were to order from a bottle on top. (Later we found out the answer: they have a stepladder.)

We hung out there talking for a while, and another of April’s friends joined us. Then we decided it was dinnertime, so we walked down the block to Starlite. (You’ll just have to go look at the photos on the website to see how amazing it is.) We had an excellent meal there, and since we spent so much time discussing beer, decided to organize a beer exchange program with them. San Diego is pretty spoiled when it comes to great breweries.

Then it was time to go check into the hotel, so April and Dave dropped us off at the Urban Boutique Hotel in Little Italy. We said goodbye, and went inside. The place was super-cute and in a great location for walking anywhere downtown. Unfortunately, the room had some issues. Like no toilet paper, and the cable was wired wrong so the TV didn’t work. I didn’t discover til the next morning that the shower didn’t work, either. NOT OK.

We dropped our stuff off and headed back out to get a post-dinner drink before bed. It was still really nice outside, and walking through Little Italy was great. (I hadn’t seen much of that part of town before.) We walked down to Richard Blais’ restaurant, Juniper and Ivy, and got seats at the bar.

The place was really nice, and even though it was late, the restaurant was still full. (That’s one of the things I love about the coasts… it’s not weird to go get dinner at 10pm.) We hung out there for a bit, and then decided to walk down and see the Embarcadero before heading back to the hotel.

That end of downtown is immediately under the flight path for planes landing at the airport, so it was pretty awesome to see jets coming in that low over us. We walked down the hill and saw a couple huge yachts with parties in progress, and a very eager pedicab driver waiting to give drunk people rides home. We looked at the museum ships along the waterfront, and then walked back to the hotel and called it a night.

Being unable to take a shower in the morning was kind of distressing, but since it was our last day I didn’t care that much. We washed up in the sink as much as possible, and went to have breakfast. We’d seen a really cute place a few blocks away while walking around the previous night, so we headed that direction.

Harbor Breakfast was adorable. They had really nice versions of the classics, and I was very excited that they had bottles of Stumptown Roasters cold press.

The sun was out during breakfast, but it quickly became overcast, just like it had in LA. There was a storm moving in that evening, so we knew our timing was pretty excellent. (It was the storm that would result in a week of flooding over a lot of the coast.)

We walked through Little Italy again, heading toward a shop we’d also scoped out the night before. We wanted to pick up sandwiches and snacks for the flight.

Did I mention that Little Italy is great? We walked past a group gathered around a podium of speakers, which was apparently a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new pedestrian-only street in the neighborhood. We approved, because it’s a really cute little area with lots of great shops, restaurants, and housing.

(Plus this sign.)

Seeing Christmas decorations in warm-weather places is always confusing to us. We’re going to have to get used to that if we’re moving to the Caribbean, though.

We went into the excellent Mona Lisa Italian Foods to stock up. It was a very Italian store, and I wanted to take everything home with me. (Broders in Minneapolis is pretty good, but not that good.) We bought sandwiches and a couple more bottles of beer to take home with us, and Matt got the duty of carrying the really heavy bag back to the hotel and up to our room. We distributed the items between our carry-ons, at which point I wished I had brought a backpack like Matt, instead of the shoulder bag containing bombers, food, bottles of water and espress, my toiletries, dirty clothes, and the blanket I’d bought the day before.

We checked out of the hotel and headed in the direction of the Santa Fe Depot.

I love this building a lot.

Since we were early for the train, we decided to walk back down to the harbor to have a look in the daytime. Stormy weather was definitely rolling in.

We walked all the way down to the end of the cruise ship pier. It’s always interesting to see buildings like that empty. (There had been a ship there the previous evening, but it had sailed off already.)

I was happy to put my way-too-heavy bag down for a bit. Matt and Bally chilled on the pier while I took pictures.

Then it was time to go back to get our train. When we got back to the depot, our train was sitting there waiting. And it was a double-decker one this time!! I was so excited. We crossed the tracks and headed for it, but were stopped by a crabby conductor who pointed at the line of people standing over by the depot. Apparently that was the boarding process in San Diego. (There were maybe 6 people waiting at San Juan Capistrano, so we didn’t know.) We went to stand in line, and they announced boarding about 5 minutes later.

As we all rushed to the train, Matt pointed out the cafe car also had seating on the upper level. We boarded that one, and found the upstairs nearly empty.

This train was way newer than the one we’d ridden south on. We found seats with the best possible window configuration for a good ocean view, and we were off shortly thereafter. During the boring part of the ride, we went down to the cafe car and got a glass of beer, so that I could enjoy as many beverages as possible.

Though we had a much better view, the weather was nowhere near as nice. We did notice a ton of campsites along the way, and I made a note to do some research on that. (As much as we love San Francisco and LA, I think our next visit should just be to San Diego and environs. It’s such a great walking city, and the beach options are excellent.)

We arrived back in San Juan Capistrano about 1:30, and took our bags up to the car. We still had some time before we needed to head back to LA, so we went over to the mission. It’s one of my favorite places in California, and I was dying for Matt to see it.

This is the view from the parking ramp roof. I love that cute little town.

The sky could’ve done a better job of cooperating, but at least it wasn’t raining.

I probably have 20 different versions of this photo I’ve taken at various times. I’ll keep taking it, too:

Unfortunately we had to rush, but at least Matt got to see it. I resisted shopping at the newly renovated gift shop, and we went back to the car. We hopped back on the interstate and headed north to Costa Mesa, where we had two important stops to make before our flight. The first was Hi-Time Wine, where Matt had his eye on some rum we couldn’t get at home. We bought that and a couple more of those bubble-wrap bottle protectors, since we’d already used the ones I’d brought with me (for beer).

So now we had carry-on bags and a couple more bottles to add to our already-stuffed suitcases. Because we’re super-classy, we dragged our bags out into the parking lot at Hi Time and started re-packing. Conveniently, I had my blanket from San Diego to wrap things in. When both bags weighed in over 50 pounds, we had to resort things again. After some rearranging, we had exactly 100 pounds of luggage in two 50-pound bags (mine was something like 50.9, but I dared Delta to challenge me), and a couple of packed-full carry-on bags. Mine had tiki mugs in it, because we figured they were safer that way.

Our second Costa Mesa stop was a return visit to Taco Asylum, because I had regular fantasies about their paneer tacos. We had a quick lunch there, then got back on the road to head to LAX.

One of the fun parts of planning any return trip to LAX is that there could be no traffic (unlikely) or there could be the worst LA traffic in the world, with cars sitting 14-lanes wide at a dead stop. That option always seems more likely, but we got lucky this time. We made it to the car rental place with no hassle, and hopped on the shuttle bus to the terminal. We were extremely pleased with Delta’s recent upgrades to their formerly-crappy terminal (it looks a lot more like MSP now), though we’ll miss Malibu Al’s fake beach bar, where we’ve spend several hours of delays in the past.

We arrived back in MSP around midnight to brutally cold temperatures, and decided to take a taxi to Matt’s car rather than having to walk the two blocks in the cold. It was an excellent decision.

We arrived at the airport Thursday morning to find our flight had been delayed because, according to Delta, there was too much air traffic heading to the west coast right then. (Really?) When we finally boarded, I found my exit row window looking somewhat less-than-safe, with something that looked like medical tape holding it in place. That made me a little nervous.

I dozed on and off and worked on my knitting, then Matt and I had the very delicious sandwiches we’d packed for the trip, because now we are THOSE PEOPLE.

We arrived only a little late in San Francisco, and headed to the information booth to by transit passes. April picked us up outside, and took us to lunch at Zante Pizza. We ordered a vegetarian Indian pizza and Indian beers, and life was very good.

April drove us to our hotel, the Executive Hotel Vintage Court, and we checked in and dropped off our bags. I wasn’t sure what the hotel would be like, but it ended up being much nicer than I’d expected. We then ran back down to where April was waiting, and headed toward Telegraph Hill to see Coit Tower. I’d been there on both previous visits, and I wasn’t going to ruin a good streak.

The sky was fairly clear, so we could see almost everything except for the Golden Gate Bridge.

After we finished taking in the scenery, April drove us down to Fisherman’s Wharf and dropped us off to go be tourists. We walked down by the little beach, then headed toward the historic ship dock. The national park was closing down for the day, but the visitor center was open, so we stopped in to see the museum. Further down the wharf, we noticed the Musee Mecanique, and decided to go in and see what it was about. It was FANTASTIC, and free!

All the machines took quarters, so I dug some out of my purse and we tried some of them. In the back, they had a collection of old video games, as well as skee-ball and whack-a-mole. I wished I had way more quarters than I did.

We decided to walk down the Embarcadero toward the Ferry Building, which was about a mile and a half a way. We encountered the same pedicab guy three or four times, and he tried unsuccessfully to convince us to hop in each time. It’s not really a vacation if there isn’t a ton of walking. Along the way, we passed the Alcatraz ferry dock, and the huge complex they were building for the America’s Cup in 2013.

We finally reached the Ferry Building Marketplace, and found it full of awesome restaurants and shops (I was really excited to see Cowgirl Creamery’s outpost there). There were a bunch of little places with carry-out, and some full-service restaurants with outdoor patios facing the bay. We weren’t hungry at the time, but I made note of the empanada cart.

Matt’s destination of choice was Boccalone, which sold two things: pork products and water. He lamented not being able to carry on gigantic hunks of meat, and settled on some smaller packaged bits instead, and also a t-shirt.

We got a couple glasses of water and went to go sit and examine our maps to figure out where to go next. We weren’t ready for dinner, but it seemed like a pretty good time for beer. I didn’t see anything great on the map, so we decided to just walk for a while and see what we could find. While we walked into the financial district, I searched around for beer bars and finally noticed the Rogue Brewpub on the map. PERFECT.

I quickly discovered just how excellent Google’s transit directions are. We found our way to a bus stop, and the bus arrived right when Google said it would. We fired up our transit passes and hopped on. Within a few stops, the bus became packed to the point of preventing excess breathing. I kept checking the map as it counted the stops along the way, but still managed to miss it by one. We hopped off and walked back a block to the brewpub.

We sampled some of their excellent beers and hung out for a while, trying to decide whether we wanted to have dinner there or elsewhere. After a while, it became apparently that they were setting up for trivia or bingo, so we decided to go somewhere else. Matt researched a couple recommendations, and we decided to try Comstock Saloon, which was less than half a mile away in North Beach.

It turned out to be a very good choice for dinner. They had a great cocktail menu, and our entrees were excellent, not to mention a huge step up from what we’d have found at the brewpub. (My gnocchi with mushrooms and sunchokes made me very happy.) Matt pointed out the gutter running along the front of the bar beneath the stools; according to David Wondrich, that used to be so you didn’t have to leave your spot to go pee. REALLY.

Since we had to walk through Chinatown to get to our hotel anyway, we decided to seek out the notorious Red’s Place. We found it down the end of an alley, and walked in to find the bartender and one person sitting at the bar. We assumed by the way he was talking to the bartender that he worked there, but no… he was just in it for the long haul.

I decided to go with their special, a shot of Jameson and a Budweiser for $7. Matt wanted a beer upgrade, so he asked for an Anchor Steam. The bartender asked if he wanted the last of their Christmas release (it seemed a little early, but whatever), so he took that. Because of that, she decided it was time to celebrate Christmas in the bar, and went to put Christmas music on the jukebox.

Two women and a man came in a little later and said they were celebrating one of the ladies’ birthdays, but she looked not very happy about it. When we finished our drinks, we inquired about the scary-looking bottles on the back bar. They were both Chinese whiskies, and the bartender described the one in the red bottle as being kind of like Jagermeister, but made from sour apples. The other one, which looked like something you’d put in an engine, she said was best avoided. We believed her, and got a shot of the first one instead. It was surprisingly delicious.

Much as we’d have liked to spend our night and possibly the rest of our trip at Red’s Place, we knew better. We decided to go elsewhere, and promised ourselves that we would bring Steve and Colleen there. It was an easy walk from our hotel, after all.

We headed toward the financial district, and found a place called Rickhouse that we’d seen listed in Foursquare as having a giant whiskey collection. That was no joke:

The place was crowded, but we found a spot at a barrel next to the bar where we could order. I got a Sazerac and asked the bartender to make it with really good rye, because I had faith in their selections. After a while a couple of bar stools opened up, so we moved there and examined the menu. I had a corpse reviver next, and we talked to the bartender for a while. Then we decided it was probably time to head back to our hotel, since our friends would be arriving the next morning.

In preparation, we stopped at a corner store to pick up something to bring to their hotel room. I was going for champagne, but Matt saw the Moscato and had to get that instead. GAG. We also picked up a couple of cans of Tecate for the room, and walked back up the gigantic hill to our hotel.

Matt and I got up Friday morning and walked the half-block up to the cable car stop on Powell Street. We were about six blocks up the giant hill from the turnaround, so it was already pretty full when we got on. We got seats a bit later, and I discovered it’s actually easier to stand on the cable car than try to keep from sliding around too much on the wooden seats.

We rode all the way down to Fisherman’s Wharf, and went into the Buena Vista Cafe for Irish coffees. If there were tourist badges for San Francisco, we would have earned at least six of them just in that half-hour.

The bartenders were a couple of old guys with fancy mustaches and ties, and they made the coffees 12 or so at a time, tossing a sugar cube accurately into each one from an impressive distance. We sat at the bar to enjoy the show, but couldn’t get breakfast there since they didn’t serve at the bar. That was ok, because the menu looked overpriced and underinspired.

So we went to In-N-Out Burger instead. As usual, there was a line out the door, and the food was great. While we were eating, Colleen texted to say their plane had landed at SFO. We wandered in and out of a few shops at Fisherman’s Wharf, then headed back to the cable car stop to ride back to our hotel.

We stopped into our room, grabbed the bottle of Moscato, and walked the couple of blocks to their hotel. The Triton was VERY VERY trendy, and the walls were covered with the text of “On The Road”. I couldn’t stop staring at it, so I doubt I could have slept there. We enjoyed our delicious Moscato, by which I mean we tolerated it, and then we set off in search of lunch. (In-N-Out was… brunch. Yeah.)

We walked through Chinatown, stopping to take a photo of Red’s Place along the way. I wouldn’t want to forget the most awesome bar in the world.

One of the first restaurants we passed in North Beach, Giordano Brothers, had a sign out front saying they served Pittsburgh food. I didn’t really know what that meant, but Steve and Colleen were more than excited to show us, having both lived there. We got a table and ordered beers.

This is what Pittsburgh food looks like:

They even had two vegetarian versions of the gigantic sandwich with fries on it. (How we managed to do anything after eating lunch, I will never know.) While we were there, we showed them our plans for Saturday night, which we’d learned about at the museum at Fisherman’s Wharf.

(I also gave Colleen Drunk Cat, which I’d torn out of Skymall. It was hard to stop looking at it.)

After our late lunch, it was time to head to our ferry. We walked the mile to the Ferry Building, and passed through to see all the shops again. On the far end, we found the stop for our ferry to Alameda. While we waited there, Matt and Steve started writing their own sea shanties, so that they could present them at the shanty sing-along Saturday night.

We boarded the boat and got a table. The shanties continued, most of them about “a ferry to Old Alameda”. And the rhymes… well, they were pushing it a little. The ferry took us into the channel between Alameda and Oakland, which is very industrial and full of gigantic container ships. We noticed a building with “Hangar One” on it, and knew that was where we were headed from the dock. The ferry landed at Alameda Main Street, and we got off with a bunch of commuters who were all headed to the park-and-ride.

We were following directions on the St George Spirits website, which said their building was a half-mile walk from the ferry docks. From what we’d seen arriving, it appeared to be a lot farther away, but at least we knew what direction to go. (According to Google Maps, it’s actually exactly a mile.) We headed off that way, walking through semi-deserted dirt parking lots along the shipping channel because there weren’t any sidewalks. There weren’t many people, either; there were a few people fishing, and evidence of someone’s sleeping quarters inside a giant bush. There was a dog park with a few dogs laying down, not running.

The entire place was so surreal that we decided we were probably going to die. I took a picture in the hopes that someone would eventually find my camera and be able to recreate the moments leading up to our murder.

Then there were no people, and then road took a sharp left turn into a naval base. That definitely didn’t seem like somewhere we wanted to walk, but it was the only option, and we knew St George’s was on the other side of it.

We saw a man standing at the gate to the base, so we got more and more nervous as we neared him. Once we got up close, we saw that he was just a guy standing and smoking there, even though there was really nowhere nearby for him to have come from. We avoided him and passed through the gates (where someone had spray-painted HELP on the window), and realized that the base was obviously no longer in use.

Just past the gates, there was a baseball diamond with a group of men playing something resembling softball, only there were at least three people on each base, including behind home plate. (There were also a ton of geese hanging around in the outfield.) There was gym that seemed to still be in use, and farther along on the right, a skate park with a few teenagers. The entire left side of the street was empty barracks in varying states of abandonment. Some of the windows were boarded up, some were broken, and some had falling-down curtains, which really added to the ambiance. We were positive we were going to die.

Finally we got to the end of the street and saw the giant warehouse with St George’s logo on it. We had to go around the back to get in, but we were reassured once we saw cars in the parking lot. Their view is pretty excellent, too, looking out over the old airstrips toward San Francisco:

We went inside and checked in for our tour, which we were very early for. We hung out in the lobby, just being happy to have survived. There were a bunch of people there doing tastings, and the place was still decorated for Halloween. It seemed appropriate.

After a while, everyone showed up for the tour and we headed into the distillery. We’ve seen a lot of them, but it was pretty awesome to hear about their approach… they use all-natural ingredients, which is a big change from a lot of the flavored vodka makers.

In the back near the bourbon barrels, there’s a shark. The guy leading the tour explained that it’s the same shark that ate Samuel L Jackson in Deep Blue Sea, and that the employees liked to ride it around the building sometimes.

After the tour, it was time for the tasting. We all lined up at the bar and sampled about a million of their offerings. The infused vodkas were legitimately great, too.

Then it was time to head back to the ferry. We were the only ones leaving there on foot, of course, and this time it was dark. We didn’t see any evidence of haunting or murderers in the empty barracks, but there were still people at the skate park in the dark. We made it out of the base, and walked back through the giant parking lot again. There was at least one car parked there with completely fogged-over windows. (When I think romance, I think of the shipping channel in Alameda.)

We waited on the dock for the ferry, which only took about 5 minutes to arrive. A couple people got off and headed to their cars. I asked the guy who was taking tickets if the boat went to Oakland first before heading back to San Francisco, and he became very confused. He told us the boat wasn’t going to San Francisco, which made us a little nervous. We didn’t want to be stuck in Alameda, but we really didn’t want to be stranded in Oakland, either. He finally told us to go talk to the guy on the boat, so we went down there and boarded.

The guy explained that yes, they did stop in Oakland and then headed back to San Francisco. The other guy didn’t speak very good English, so he must have misunderstood the question. We got margaritas from the bar, and grabbed a table. There were only a couple other people on the boat at that point, and by the time we landed at the last stop on Fisherman’s Wharf, we were the only people on the ferry.

We needed dinner, stat, which was kind of unfortunate since we were in the most crappy-tourist-restaurant-laden part of town. We walked down the Embarcadero looking at menus, and finally found a seafood restaurant that looked sufficient. There was a guitar guy playing in the mostly-crowded bar area, but the restaurant was nearly empty.

We looked over the menu, and everything was crazily overpriced. Our server brought a basket of rolls, so we ate those and ordered beer and appetizers rather than a full dinner. We sat there talking about a building Steve had learned was a sex club in Seattle, while a creepy guy sitting by himself at a nearby table didn’t bother disguising the fact that he was listening to our entire conversation. We paid up and headed to the bus stop to ride to the Tonga Room, figuring we could probably get more food there.

Matt and I knew what the interior of the Tonga Room looked like, and that it was inside a hotel, but we didn’t realize it was inside the Fairmont Hotel. (We also didn’t realize that the three-block walk from the bus stop would be up an insanely steep hill.) We were shocked at the fanciness of everything in the lobby. There was a sign for the Tonga Room pointing downstairs, so we headed that way and found the entrance at the very back of the building. It looked alarmingly like a club entrance in Vegas.

We were also a little shocked at the $7 cover and the fact that it was incredibly busy that early in the night, but we ended up at a table right between the bar and the dance floor, where we had a great view of the disaster unfolding around us.

First of all, there was this lady sleeping at the table next to us. She spend about 20 minutes like that, and then went and danced the rest of the night after the bouncer woke her.

There was a large group of people taking up most of the bar area and dance floor (which was also packed), and they were all clearly on the wealthier end of the spectrum. After overhearing bathroom conversations between some of them, we figured out that it was probably the most expensive rehearsal dinner event of all time. It seemed like probably half the people in the room knew each other, and some of them were in various stages of hilarious drunkenness. Colleen said there was even a girl crying on the far end of the bar.

The mai tais were way too sweet, but the scorpion bowl was awesome:

In the middle of the room, there’s a pool (the old hotel swimming pool, as a matter of fact) with a barge floating in it. That’s where the cover band plays. Every half hour or so, there’s fake thunder and light-flashing and it rains over the swimming pool, near the dance floor. That coupled with the pre-wedding spectacle going on around us made the entire thing really entertainingly surreal.

After our scorpion bowl, it was time to call it a night. I just wish we could have seen the aftermath the next day when all those people had to go to a wedding.

We had the best intentions of getting up Saturday morning to watch the Minnesota (us) – Michigan (Steve and Colleen) football game, but since it was at 9am and the only bars we knew would have it were far away, they decided to sleep in instead. I was up early, so I ‘watched’ it on my phone. Not that I really cared, because I knew exactly how it would end up. Our football team is godawful.

We met them at their hotel a bit later and rode the BART to the Mission for lunch at Pancho Villa. I was thrilled to find a tofu ranchero burrito on the menu. After a ton of food and a beer, we were ready to go be tourists. We rode back to where we’d come from, and walked to SFMOMA.

We only had 2 1/2 hours there, but we figured we’d see what we could. Our first stop was the rooftop patio, because it was gorgeous outside. It was kind of hard to leave there, actually.

We managed to see a pretty decent amount of the museum, including a really good Jasper Johns exhibition. We had a bit of time to hit up the gift shop for some souvenirs, and then decided it was time for beer. Luckily, there was a little brewpub called ThirstyBear right around the corner!

After a couple beers, we headed back to our respective hotels to change. Colleen and Steve came to meet us at our room, and we went to grab the town car they’d called using Uber. It was the first we’d heard of it, and the idea was indeed pretty awesome. Our driver took us over to the Japantown area, and dropped us off near State Bird Provisions.

We waited for a short time for our reservations, and got a table in back. We ordered beers, and our server explained how it worked: they had dim-sum-style carts going around the restaurant, and you could also order a few items off the menu, if you wished. We decided to wait for the carts.

The food was really impressive, but the carts were very low on the vegetarian offerings. We ended up ordering a couple things off the menu so I could have more dinner. All in all, though, it was great, and insanely popular. The line got a lot longer as we ate, and it was already late in the evening.

We walked over to Japantown mall in search of a beverage at a store that was just closing as we arrived. We decided to go check out a bar we’d seen on the way to the restaurant instead. When we got there we found a bouncer and a certain degree of fanciness involved, so we nixed that idea and went into a nearby pizza place for beers instead. We hung out there for a while watching sports, and then decided it was time to take them to the GREATEST BAR ON EARTH.

Colleen ordered another town car, and we had to chase him up the block because he had the location wrong. We got in and the whole car smelled like the driver’s really intense cologne. I said something about wanting water, so he told me to take a bottle from the back deck. I was happy to have it, but even the plastic was permeated with that smell. Amazing.

He dropped us at Red’s Place, where we got to introduce them to the joys of Chinese whiskey and the awesome jukebox.

Steve played a pretty amazing playlist, to the delight of some of the other customers. (It included “Call Me Maybe” and “Hey Jealousy”.) We decided it was finally time to leave when “Come Sail Away” came on, so we walked down the street in Chinatown singing it. (To the delight of some passers-by.) We were maybe a bit raucous, but then Chinatown was totally deserted. Nobody seemed to mind too much.

Sunday morning, we got up waaaaaaaay too early for my Chinese whiskey hangover, but Colleen and Steve were flying out and we wanted to see them before they left. We walked around the block and met them at Scala Bistro, which had an excellent breakfast.

Afterward, we said goodbye to them and went directly back to our hotel to sleep a while longer. When we got up the second time, I felt way better.

We walked down to Chinatown and caught a bus down to the Embarcadero. It dropped us across the street from the ferry dock for the Alcatraz cruises. We checked in and got in line for our boat, with about a million other people.

I had originally wanted to take the night tour, since I’d done that before and it was awesome. I quickly realized the benefits of the daytime trip, though, because of the views from the boat.

We landed on the island, got our ‘briefing’ from the guide, and all climbed the hill to the prison. We waited in line for headphones, then headed upstairs for the self-guided tour. (It’s really, really funny to watch how a giant group of people behaves when they’re all being led around by audio instructions. There’s a lot of standing and staring blankly.)

I feel like the tour may have been more extensive during the day, too. I don’t remember going outside at all on the night tour. Possibly there’s a “no, it’s way too cold” option. Anyway, the view was fantastic, as was the weather.

We got to visit solitary confinement, too:

The tour of the prison ends in the kitchen. They had a pretty interesting exhibit there about life after Alcatraz.

We turned in our headphones and went out to find the trails on the south side of the island.

The Agave trail was aptly-named. They should be making tequila there. Also, amazing views of the city!

We hurried back to the second-to-last ferry and stood in a really long line to board. We rode back to San Francisco, and crossed the Embarcadero to wait for the streetcar. (The same streetcar I’d almost been pickpocketed on before, thank you very much.) One streetcar passed without stopping, so full that limbs were sticking out all the windows. Another one came along 10 minutes later, in the same state of fullness. We attempted to board, but Matt noticed that they didn’t take cash. (Not that we could’ve gotten anywhere near the guy taking money, but whatever.) We decided to walk instead.

We headed back down toward the Ferry Building for a snack, because I had been thinking of the mushroom empanada stand for far too long. I got my empanada, and Matt got a meat cone from Boccalone:

We also stopped into the grocery store to get beers, and I asked the lady at the counter if we were allowed to drink them outside. She said yes, as long as they were decanted into something and/or kept in a bag. Since it was too early in the day to be drinking out of a bag, she gave us a couple plastic cups and pointed us in the direction of the best seats nearby.

We went out back and found a bench facing the bay. This guy noticed our food right away, and hung around watching us for a very long time:

We hung out enjoying the view for a while, and then once it started getting dark, decided to head over to Mission Chinese while it was still early. We’d heard they always had lines to get in, and we figured that would ensure us a table. We walked over to the BART station nearest the Ferry Building, and rode to the same stop as usual. (What we’d quickly realized is that the Mission is where San Francisco keeps all its best food.)

The place opened at 5, and we arrived shortly before 5:30 to find a line had already formed. There was a clipboard hanging out front with the menus, so we put our name down. There were probably 6 people ahead of us, and one of the hostesses said that the wait probably wouldn’t be very long. We stood around admiring the massive variety of people in the neighborhood, and finally my name was called 20-30 minutes later.

The place was worth the wait. We got beers, the vinegar peanuts, and I ordered the Thrice-Cooked Bacon vegetarian style. The tofu skin and little rice pancakes were amazing. Matt had the Ma Po Tofu, which he loved just as much.

April texted to see what we were up to, so I told her we would be heading her direction after dinner. We made arrangements to meet at Smuggler’s Cove. Matt and I headed back to the BART after dinner, and rode to the stop near city hall. On the map it didn’t look like the bar was that far (less than a mile, at least), but the neighborhood was weird and deserted. (It was mostly the municipal buildings, so that makes sense.) It turned into a mostly residential area, and we found the place in an unassuming location around the corner.

The main-level bar was closed, but the downstairs and loft were open. We went downstairs and found it just full to the point of there being no seats left (the place is extremely tiny). We ordered drinks at the bar, and admired the decor while we waited. Since we had just visited an original 60s-era tacky tiki bar, it was pretty excellent to get to hang out in the modern variety as well. (Note: the decoration is largely the same, it’s just the drinks that are a world apart.) The bartenders were fantastic, and their drink list was huge.

We took up a corner-standing spot and kept an eye out for seats while we waited for April. A group of three Russians, two men and a woman, came in and got drinks at the bar, but seemed very confused about the tiki concept… one of them just wanted a shot of Jack Daniels. They hung out on the couch surrounding the fish pond for a bit, then left disgustedly. I quickly grabbed the couch, and April showed up shortly afterward.

She noted that they had a drinking challenge, wherein you got a card with all their drinks on it and had to work your way through them, so we picked that up at the bar as well. After a while, a couple vacated a table around a barrel nearby, so we upgraded seating. That worked pretty well for a while until April and Matt went up to the bar to get drinks, and a couple showed up and asked if they were returning. I said yes, but offered to scoot over on the couch to give them some room. (People LOOOOVE communal seating in California. They’re friendlier than Midwesterners.) They took that space and more, basically taking over the table we were using. It was strange.

We had a couple more rounds there, and then it was time to head out for the night. It wasn’t very late, but that would make having brunch and running errands before our flight much easier the next day. We said goodbye to April, and walked back to our hotel.

I woke up in the middle of the night with a strange feeling in my head, and realized I was getting sick. It wasn’t horrible, but it was enough to make me wish I’d brought decongestants. (At least it had the decency to wait til our last day, too.)

We got up around 9, did most of our packing-up, and hopped on the BART back to the Mission. We got off at the same stop we’d already been at a few times, and headed over to the Pork Store on Valencia. I’d eaten at their Haight outpost a few times, and really wanted him to try it too.

We got a table on the sidewalk and ordered mimosas and brunch. It was a hell of a brunch:

It was gorgeous outside, too, which made the fact that we were leaving that afternoon a lot more painful.

After lunch, we rode back to Powell Street and headed up the hill toward our hotel. We still had a couple hours until we had to be back to the hotel, so we stopped into the recently-opened Uniqlo and did some shopping. We then swung by Walgreens for some Sudafed (which you can buy over the counter in California… apparently they don’t have a meth problem there?), the went to the hotel to finish packing and check out.

We left our bags with the doorman for a little while, and walked down to Chinatown.

We stopped into one store to pick up the panda vest that Colleen had picked out for Very, and then a couple others for last-minute souvenirs. I got an orange waving cat for my desk at work, because sometimes I need all the luck I can get.

Then it was time to head back to the hotel and get our bags. We rolled them down the giant hill to the BART station and rode to the airport. The airport was fairly quiet, and we were early enough that we had time to get lunch while waiting.

On the flight, I sat next to a really interesting (and very talkative lady) who lived on Lake of the Isles and talked about her travels all over the world, proving that it’s pretty hard to be rich. Not that we can really complain.

We left Minneapolis for LA at 5:30, which meant we arrived there just in time to see a pretty spectacular sunset in the valley.

We picked up the car and attempted to stop at In and Out Burger by the airport, but there were one million people in line. So we got right on the road to Costa Mesa instead; Matt’s conference was there the next day, so we were spending the weekend in Orange County.

Matt researched restaurants in the area while I drove. We weren’t arriving til around 9:30pm, and most places looked like they closed by 11. He finally found a place called Taco Asylum that looked great, so we headed to something called The Camp to find it. We quickly discovered that the place was mobbed, and people were circling for parking. I was tired and hungry and didn’t want to deal with it, so we decided to look elsewhere. After driving for a bit, though, we realized that was pretty much the only area with food open. We managed to find a spot, thankfully.

I was very glad we ended up there, because it was fantastic. The server told us that if we waited for 5 more minutes it was taco happy hour, so we grabbed a couple of Maui Brewing Coconut Porters and hung out. She came to take our order, and we each got three of them. I got one with wild mushrooms and two with curry and paneer, which were so good I wanted to marry them. (Sorry, Matt.)

After dinner, we swung by the liquor store for some beer for the hotel, since we didn’t want to be out too late. We went and checked in at the Ayers Hotel, guaranteeing that the Flo Rida ‘In the Ayer’ song would be stuck in my head permanently. We hung out on the couch for a bit, then went to bed.

We partook in the breakfast buffet at the Ayer-ay-ayer-ayers hotel, then met Matt’s coworker and his wife. We checked out and then I drove them to the college where the seminar was being held, after getting lost on the way there. Then I hopped on the 405 and headed south!

San Juan Capistrano is one of my favorite places in California. I’ve been there multiple times, and it still amazes me.

I got there shortly after it opened, and there were already several other people there, all of them with giant expensive cameras. It’s that kind of place.

After wandering around the mission for a while, I decided to drive down to the coast and then head up highway 1. I’ve driven large portions of that highway before, but most of it was north of LA. Plus any day I can drive along the ocean with the windows down is a pretty excellent one.

Orange County was pretty entertaining. It’s all gigantic, gorgeous houses in highly secure gated communities. Who exactly is breaking in there? My theory was that it was to keep the mere millionaire rabble out.

I parked in Laguna Beach (which was super-cute) and walked down to the ocean to get my feet wet. I had to, since that meant I was in the Atlantic and Pacific within a week’s time! I then sat on the boardwalk for a while, enjoying the sun.

I headed slowly back up through Newport and Huntington Beach, which we’d visited on the previous trip. I then turned back and drove inland to Costa Mesa, because I was meeting April and Jonathan for lunch at Eat Chow. It took me forever to find it, but it was worth it!

From there, I decided to go to Anaheim, mostly because I’m the kind of nerd who likes seeing other cities’ sports arenas. Google Maps led me astray so I went about 20 miles out of the way, but I got to see the mountains, at least. Once I was on the right highway, finding Angels’ Stadium was easy. I drove around that area for a while, then went to see Honda Arena, where the Anaheim Ducks play. (Blink-182’s tour buses were outside. Haha.)

I still had some time to kill before Matt was done, so I decided to go check into the hotel and get the keys. I headed back up the 405 to Seal Beach, circled the marina (which I loved), and found our cute little hotel in town. Our room opened out on the pool, though we wouldn’t have time to use it. I stayed there long enough to use the bathroom, and headed back to get Matt in Costa Mesa.

We stopped for food at In and Out Burger (did you know they have an awesome grilled cheese? It’s basically a cheeseburger without the meat, but it’s delicious), then ran to Hi Time, the liquor store with EVERYTHING. The power was out when we walked in, but that wasn’t stopping them from selling: everyone was just walking around with flashlights. We found a few bottles of rum with my phone’s flashlight app (it’s surprisingly handy!), then got in line at the counter. Since their inventory system wasn’t working, either, the employees were running back and forth to the shelves to check prices, then telling us to remember them and tell the cashier. Their resourcefulness was pretty impressive!

After that, it was time to go to Huntington Beach for happy hour at Don the Beachcomber. (I don’t think they had actual discounts then, but any hour you spend there is happy.) We soaked up the tiki ambiance for a while, then went to the hotel. We hauled our bags in, Matt changed clothes, and we headed out on foot toward downtown Seal Beach, just a few blocks away. Our destination was 320 Main.

We had great food (I hadn’t expected many options at what’s really a steakhouse), and the cocktails were as good as we expected. Plus we got to sit out on the patio only a few blocks from the beach. We unfortunately couldn’t stay all night, but we had places to be the next day.

We walked down to the beach so that Matt could also put his feet in the Pacific. The surf was glowing an electric blue color, and we kept trying to figure out where the weird reflection was coming from. It took us forever to realized it had to be the water itself that was glowing with bioluminescence. I couldn’t believe how bright it was, especially on bigger waves. (We didn’t know til we got home that we were seeing red tide. I assumed that meant it glowed red!)

Sunday morning, we got up, checked out, and headed up the 405 to Santa Monica. We’d been trying to get to Real Food Daily for three trips, and it was finally going to happen. We even got to Santa Monica before it opened, so we had some time to wander around.

After brunch, we walked down toward Santa Monica pier. For the first time ever, it was actually sunny while we were there! And just like the previous visit, I got a text saying that our flight was delayed. Go figure.

We walked around the pier for a while, then decided to go have a beer and people-watch. That was pretty fantastic, and we discovered the existence of the Primo Bombucha! We decided to just stay there and have lunch, and finally it was time to get ourselves back to the airport.

On the flight home, we got to watch the Minnesota Lynx win the WNBA championship on seatback TV! They clinched it just as we landed at MSP. Awesome.

Matt had another regional conference to attend in LA, so we made it a long weekend!

(The entire photoset is here on Flickr.)

Read from the beginning below, or jump to each day:

• 4/22: Friday
• 4/23: Saturday
• 4/24: Sunday
• 4/25: Monday

Lately, Matt and I seem incapable of taking the same airplane on vacation. On the way to LA, he flew out in the early afternoon on Frontier, because he had a voucher for a cancelled flight to use up. I was flying Delta after work.

Since I have 24-hour parking in downtown Minneapolis, I decided to leave my car in the ramp and take the train, which is only a couple of blocks away. I would be arriving before Matt on the return leg, so that seemed to work out well. The airport was pretty much dead when I arrived, and the security people were barely paying attention to anything. I didn’t get scanned or patted-down, for the first time in a long while.

I got a sandwich at the new Surdyk’s at the airport, then climbed aboard my on-time, not-overbooked (!!!) flight.

We landed in LA around 7:30, and I found Matt near the rental car shuttle. We went to get the car and headed to our hotel, the Marriott at Marina Del Rey. It’s conveniently located near the airport and within walking distance of Venice. The hotel was super-fancy, way nicer than we’d normally choose, but his coworkers had picked it. There seemed to be some kind of ultralounge in the lobby, and an Indian wedding going on. The formal saris were kind of amazing.

We dropped off our bags and headed off on foot to Venice, where we had dinner reservations at 9:30. The place was about a mile away. As we headed down Ocean Drive, we suddenly heard a bunch of loud quacking, and turned to see these guys just standing in someone’s yard macking on a lady duck. They didn’t care that we were only a few feet away watching them.

We were very much underdressed for the Tasting Kitchen (their website says ‘casual’… not even close). We had a cheese plate, fresh bread, fries, and I had broccolini and lentils for dinner. We had a couple of cocktails, too, and their sidecar was the best I’ve ever had. Seriously, I’ve had some fantasies about it since. Also, our server was fantastic. We liked her a ton.

We walked back to the hotel after dinner, and this time it was past the ducks’ bedtime. Not to mention ours, since we’d sat down for dinner at 11:30 Minneapolis time!

This was the view from our room on Marina Del Rey. It wasn’t overcast, just really sunny. So much nicer than at home.

We had breakfast with Matt’s coworkers, then drove over to the site of the conference at Pepperdine University (not the main campus, but the one near Howard Hughes Center). I dropped Matt off, then headed towards Griffith Park. On the way there, I saw a car burst into flames on the 405. Oh, California.

I ended up driving around Hollywood for a while looking for a place to get more caffeine and use the bathroom. This resulted in me using one of the scarier gas station bathrooms I’ve ever been in. Refreshed, I headed into Griffith Park.

I was hoping to do the same hike my sister and I had taken before, which climbs a steep hill and ends up overlooking the observatory and the rest of the valley. When I got there, though, I realized that was a lot harder than it sounded: there wasn’t one trail, there were many, many trails. And many, many people hiking them, which meant no parking spots. I decided to keep driving up the hill, to see if anything looked familiar. It didn’t, but I did end up at the observatory itself. Which was awesome.

There were a ton of people up there, since it was very nice outside. I climbed up to the top of the observatory to see the overlook first.

I then went inside the observatory and took in some science. There are a lot of great displays there, but it was way too crowded to spend much time in there. My favorite part was getting to see the actual telescope.

From Griffith Park, I decided to head into downtown LA for the Museum of Neon Art. It was around lunchtime at that point, so I was kind of half-heartedly on the lookout for food as well. As I turned down a street, I saw a bunch of food carts a few blocks away, so I headed that direction. It ended up being the Fashion District, and it was mobbed.

The Fashion District seems to contain several square blocks of stall after stall selling clothes, accessories, and pretty much everything else you could ever want. It reminded me a lot of every Caribbean port town. There were a million hot dog trucks, too: no other food, just hot dogs. I’d have stopped to do some shopping, but there was nowhere to park, and it took me a good half-hour to just circle a few blocks in that neighborhood. I decided to head to the Museum of Neon Art instead.

The museum was small, but awesome. I talked to the lady at the front counter for a while, then went in to see the exhibits. They had a good combination of classic signs and new pieces. She said they were building a new museum in Santa Monica that would be open next year; I really want to go back and see that, because the drawings of it looked amazing.

It was getting close to time to go pick Matt up, so I drove over to Kassava restaurant to pick up some Jamaican patties to go. They were way faster than I expected, so I ended up with time to kill. I drove through Beverly Hills, then got on Sunset Boulevard headed back toward LAX. At that point I was glad I had spare time, because there was an insane accident that had me sitting in the same spot in traffic for over half an hour. I was glad when Matt texted that they were running late, too.

I got back to Howard Hughes Center before they were done, so I parked and got a coffee at Starbucks. This allowed me to sit outside and soak up the California sun, which was glorious. Matt joined me after a bit, and we went to check into the hotel.

The Millennium Biltmore is hella fancy, and its lobby is famous for being in several movies, including Ghostbusters. The rooms aren’t anything super-extravagant, but it was very nice, and very conveniently located in downtown LA. Also, you can avoid the $40/night valet parking fee by parking in the garage across the street, which is only $15/night.

After dropping our stuff off, we headed to one of the greatest bars in the world: Tiki-Ti. Though it was only 5:30pm, it was already a standing-room-only crowd inside. (That was probably to do with their 50th anniversary celebration, which was just kicking off then.) The doorman was Ken, the same guy we sat and talked to the last time we were there. We only had to stand for a bit, and then a table opened and some people moved, so we got seats at the bar. The bartender let me fondle the 50th anniversary tiki mug, too. (We came home and ordered one a few weeks later.)

We needed some food, so we headed over to El Carmen (mostly because we knew it was full of luchador memorabilia and good drinks). The host told us there wouldn’t be any open tables for a few hours, but we were welcome to hang out by the bar. We grabbed a less than optimal spot and started to look at the menu. Soon afterward, the host came back and told us they had a cancellation, and we could have a table. Score! Our food was excellent, as were the cocktails. Matt had a mezcal that tasted like scotch. We’d have stayed longer, but that would have meant taking a cab back to the hotel, so we headed back to the Millennium and parked the car for the night.

From the hotel, we walked the mile or so to Caña Rum Bar. We’d been reading about it forever on the internet, and needed to go. You enter it through a parking garage, and it’s very small. The tables were full, so we went out to the enclosed patio (it was kind of like a greenhouse), which we had to ourselves for a while. The cocktail menu there was amazing. We had a couple drinks, then decided to go inside the bar because it was getting chilly outside. There, we were served by Allan Katz, the GM and rum-nerd celebrity (I think Matt was a little star-struck). He poured us a personal tasting flight that was fantastic.

We would have stayed all night, but we’d probably never have found our way back to the hotel.

Sunday morning, OpenTable was kind enough to get us reservations for brunch at Susan Feniger’s STREET. We kind of kept forgetting that it was Easter.

STREET was amazing. I had the Kaya toast, which is covered in coconut jam and served with an egg and soy sauce. I’ve been having fantasies about it ever since. We both had excellent brunch cocktails, too. I couldn’t believe the place wasn’t more crowded on Easter.

From there, we headed to Venice Beach. We’d driven through the area and saw enough to know it was awesome, but hadn’t been to the actual boardwalk. It was time to fix that, and it was gorgeous outside.

We wandered down the boardwalk, taking everything in. There was a lot to look at. Then we handed over the best $5 we ever spent, and went in to see the freakshow. It was fantastic.

I bought two pairs of sunglasses from a vendor on the boardwalk, and then we decided to stop at the beer garden and hang out in the sun for a while. Of course we both managed to get sunburnt within less than an hour.

Somehow I always manage to forget how massive the beaches in California area. Seriously, they’re huge.

On the way back to the car, we stopped to buy an awesome calavera from a vendor on the boardwalk, and then for food at a couple of walk-up windows. Matt got samosas, and I got a falafel sandwich from a man watching Armenian television.

It was then time to head southward. Our goal was Costa Mesa, home to the well-known (to booze nerds) Hi Time Liquors. They were only open til 4 on Easter, so we had to time our departure well! On the way, we saw the Goodyear Blimp hanging out at its home.

We got to Hi Time with only 15 minutes to spare. That was plenty, though, because we managed to find not only some of the rums we’d sampled the night before at Cana, but our original goal: Lemon Hart 151. It’s just been recently imported into the US, and it’s extremely hard to find.

Our dinner reservations weren’t til 6:30, so we killed time wandering around Newport Beach. We saw the little town, did some shopping, and wandered out onto the pier. We then stopped into the Newport Beach Brewing Company for a beer, and managed to see the Anaheim Ducks get knocked out of the playoffs. Hooray!

It was then time to head up the PCH to Huntington Beach, where we had reservations at Don the Beachcomber. It’s hard to express how excited we were about that, but holy crap. It was great.

Our table was a little slow to be cleared (actually, we were pretty early), so the server asked if we wanted to sit in the lounge instead. That was an excellent stroke of luck, because the lounge was fantastic, and we probably would’ve missed it if we had sat in the dining room. We got a round table, ordered tiki drinks, and settled in to watch the Hawaiian band. I loved every minute of it, to the point that I didn’t even mind their complete lack of vegetarian food (I ordered a salad without meat).

We sadly had to leave Don the Beachcomber and head back to LA. We wanted to stay all night, but then we’d be sleeping in the car in Huntington Beach. On the way back to Hollywood, we ended up in a traffic jam on the 101. At 9:30 on a Sunday. What the hell, LA? (Our theory: everyone in LA is issued at least 2 cars, and is obligated to drive them as many hours as possible. There’s no other explanation for why the traffic is so insane there 24 hours a day.)

We finally reached our destination, the Dresden Room. Matt really wanted to go there, as he’s seen Swingers something like four million times.

The Dresden Room was awesome. They had the typical round tables and oldtimey bar, and a bartender who looked like he’d been working there since the 50s. He made a great Manhattan. There were only a few other people there, but I did manage to eavesdrop on a very dramatic conversation between some Hollywood-types. The lady was going on and on about how hard it was that day with all the extras on the set.

After the Dresden Room, it was again time to go drop our car off by the hotel for the evening. We parked and headed in the direction of Cole’s, which has an awesome speakeasy-style cocktail bar called Varnish in the back. It was midnight as we arrived, so we were appalled to find the managers there closing the place up. (We’d yet again completely forgotten it was Easter.) We asked if any other place was open, and they pointed us next door to a bar called The Association.

The Association was an awesome little lounge with a good variety of classic cocktails. But what mattered more was that we befriended the DJ and his other friend at the bar, and ended up talking to them the whole time, which then resulted in shots of Fernet seeming like a really great idea. When Fernet seems wise, you know things have reached a certain point.

Our friends insisted on buying us a cab back to the hotel, even though it was only 8 blocks or so. We’re pretty sure they didn’t believe us when we said we were walking, since nobody in LA actually walks. They’re all too busy driving their multiple cars.

When we woke up Monday morning, our heads hurt a lot. Thanks, Fernet! We packed up, checked out of the hotel, and headed to Santa Monica to try to find some brunch before leaving LA.

When we arrived there wasn’t really enough time for a sit-down meal, so we decided we’d try to find something else. We went to the co-op where I’d found California Suncakes before (seriously, it’s a sick obsession), and I really wanted more of them. The store had just been remodeled and was right in the middle of restocking, so of course they weren’t in the same place as before. I found an employee and asked about them; after 20 minutes and consultations with a few other employees, still no Suncakes. They were apparently still hidden in the back somewhere. SIGH.

We grabbed some lunch food (I got a surprisingly good vegan ‘chicken’ salad sandwich, and Matt had sushi) and sat outside the store eating. It was kind of the appropriate lunch for our hangovers: shoving food in our mouths in a busy parking lot.

It was then time to head to the airport. We dropped off the car, and said goodbye in the terminal because we were flying different airlines. At least our flights were only 15 minutes apart this time! I had no line at the Delta gates, but of course had to go through the body scanner. (I survived.) Matt had to wait in a huge line. My flight was direct and landed in Minneapolis early; his was delayed leaving Denver.

I got to the airport, hopped on the train, and went to retrieve my car from the parking lot. That was a pretty good system, though if I didn’t have an excuse to take the time, I think it’s probably worth it to just take a cab home. I went home, unpacked, and went onto Flightaware to keep an eye on Matt’s flight. It kept getting later and later, and I was getting sleepier and sleepier. I finally resorted to walking in circles around the house just to stay up til he got in.

I headed to the airport around 11:30, and finally had my fiance back!!

Matt headed out to San Diego to schmooze with his coworkers on Friday morning, while I waited until after work to leave, as I’ve been conserving vacation time for The Honeymoon. I had an entertaining dinner with my parents, and then they dropped me at the airport around 8pm. I was not the slightest bit thrilled to see the huge security line and the body-scanning machines in use. But because I’m tricky, I managed to avoid both the scanner (and the pat-down, nothing short of a miracle) because I chose the right line and got stuck behind someone who irritated the TSA to no end. Their distraction was my win.

When I arrived, Matt texted that he’d be picking me up in an egg yolk. He wasn’t kidding:

Since it was already after midnight and he had to be at a conference in the morning, we headed right to the hotel to sleep.

The next morning, we got up and had breakfast with his coworkers, and then I dropped him off at the nearby University of San Diego. I decided to go over and see Balboa Park first, because though I’d been to San Diego a couple times before, I’ve never seen it.

I got there just as the run/walk for autism was dispersing; it took me a while to realize why there were so many people with numbers attached to them wandering around. By the time I found parking, not only had the crowds cleared, but so had the sky. It was sixty degrees, which for a Minnesotan is almost summer: I was in a sundress and flipflops, while all the locals had jackets on.

Balboa Park was gorgeous. I’m obsessed with anything Worlds-Fair-related, too.

The park is huge, too, so I drove around it as much as possible, then did my wandering.

In a part of the park that was meant to look like a rainforest, I encountered Demandey the Squirrel. I was worried he would chew my face off if I didn’t produce a snack for him.

I wanted to see more of the international village, but only the main house was open. The Ukrainians had it for the day, and were demonstration traditional handcrafts. I realized it was weird to look at the pysanky (Ukrainian eggs) and think, “eh, that’s old hat”, but I totally used to make them as a kid. Just ask my mom, she’ll be happy to show you her collection.

From Balboa Park, I headed toward Point Loma. On the way to Cabrillo National Monument, I noticed a sign for Shelter Island and decided to go check it out, since we had dinner reservations there later that night. I sat and watched a sailboat race for a bit, and wished Matt was there to see it too. He’d probably want to commandeer a boat himself, though.

On my way back, I got a text from April asking if I wanted to meet her for lunch. I did! We decided on Old Town Mexican Cafe, so I headed back that direction. I was pretty early, so I planned on wandering around Old Town and shopping to kill some time. Of course I’d forgotten how hard it is to find parking around there, so I spent most of that time driving around looking for a spot for the Yolk.

Lunch was excellent (I had vegetable mole enchiladas and a margarita), and it was great to get to see April again! I hadn’t seen her since our previous trip to Las Vegas. She had also supplied us with many many suggestions for later dinner and cocktail entertainment, which served us very well.

After lunch, I headed back toward Cabrillo National Monument. I’d forgotten that you have to drive through a naval base to get there, so that freaked me out a little. At the overlook, I met this little dude, who was missing half his tail.

The view from Cabrillo is excellent. I think you can see Mexico from there.

It was getting close to time for Matt to be done, so I headed back toward the university, listening to the Butler-Florida game on Sirius. The game reached the final minute of as I arrived, and I was very relieved to find a parking spot so I could freak out safely as they went to overtime. Matt arrived shortly thereafter, and we went to the hotel to watch Butler win, and so he could change out of his business clothes.

From there, we went to Coronado Island. As I constantly torture him with Don Henley songs (he hates the fuckin’ Eagles, man), of course we had to go see the original Hotel California. Plus there’s beach!

It was really windy and overcast on the beach, but we still saw multiple weddings going on. Also, some pretty impressive sand castles:

Because they had patio heaters, we were able to sit outside Babcock & Story and have cocktails and an appetizer. The people-watching at the Hotel Del Coronado was amazing, and there were a ton of people in Coast Guard uniforms with fancy ladies wandering around for some kind of ball that evening.

From there, we went over to see the Embarcadero, which I’d also never seen before. Because I’m super-classy, I changed out of my dress into jeans and a hoodie in the car. It was getting chilly outside, and things were shutting down, so we wandered and saw the ships, then headed back to the car.

We had some time to kill, so we drove back up to Balboa Park so Matt could see it. After circling around for a bit, we headed over to Shelter Island for dinner at Bali Hi.

We figured we’d maybe have some oldschool tiki drinks and alright food, but everything was way better than expected. They had excellent vegetarian options, and of course the tiki drinks were great. Also, I got to bring this well-known guy home with me:

After dinner, we headed to the Tractor Room, a bar April had recommended. It was fantastic; they made really inventive cocktails, and the bartenders were awesome. We hung out there for a few hours, and then it was time to go back to the hotel.

The next morning, we dropped the Yolk off and shuttled to the commuter terminal at the airport, or “the place all flights to LAX originate from”. We got to walk to our tiny plane on the tarmac, which is always exciting! The flight was really short, and we could see the coast of California the whole time.

We had a 2-hour layover in LA, so of course we had to return to our favorite “beach bar”, where we’d spent many hours being delayed on the way to Hawaii. This time, at least, Delta chose to be on time for once, so we were home with plenty of time to hang out on the couch that evening.

Saturday morning around 9:45, our friend Bill picked us up and drove us to the airport. I felt a little bad about making someone get up so early on the weekend, but he had a new baby at home. He said he was used to it.

We got to our gate just in time for the agent to announce the flight was delayed due to “a mishmash of mechanical issues”. (If there’s any way to instill confidence in travelers, it’s not that.) A bit later, they told us that the plane had a broken windshield, so they were going to replace it at some point. With nine flights scheduled over the next week and a half, we’d expected to spend some time in airport bars, but we hadn’t been counting on that quite so soon.

Delta managed to do something right, because the new plane was delivered fairly quickly, only about an hour delayed. We boarded, and the captain said we could blame him for not wanting to fly with a broken windshield. We were totally fine with that decision; I’m more alarmed that Delta was willing to leave it at the pilots’ discretion.

We touched down at LAX around 2:30, picked up our rental car, and headed into Beverly Hills via Santa Monica Boulevard. Our plans kept adapting to the time we spent in the car: we were hungry and hoping to find an In-n-Out Burger or Del Taco, but eventually we became so tired of driving and being hungry that we were just looking for anything decent. We ended up finding Good Microbrew and Grill on Sunset Boulevard, and it turned out to be an excellent choice.

We sat out on the patio having awesome beer and really good (i.e. California) food. (I can never get over the huge difference in the quality of produce between here and there. It’s very noticeable.) There were Minnesota beers on the menu, too!

After dinner, we headed a few blocks down Sunset toward our primary destination: Tiki-Ti. I won’t bother trying to explain it, since the website says it all. It was even more spectacular than we’d hoped.

The bar sat 12 people, and there were tables for maybe 20 more at most. An old guy propping up the end of the bar scooted over and greeted us with, “Hello king, hello queen.” He’d obviously spent some time in Jamaica.

We had some tiki drinks, then I got up to use the bathroom. When I got back, Matt had made friends with the guy on the other side of him. He introduced himself as Ken, and told us that his dad was Filipino and his mom Scandinavian (hence the Minnesota connection). We spent the rest of our time there talking to him about his experience living in LA and his visit to the Philippines.

We didn’t really want to leave, but knew we’d never get out of there alive otherwise. We said bye to Ken and the bartender, and went to go check into the hotel.

We picked Stay because of its proximity to the places we wanted to visit on our short trip to LA. It’s very conveniently located right in the middle of downtown, on Main Street. The building is very strange but awesome: the rooms are updated with modern art, and everything is very clean. Half the rooms have shared bathrooms in the hallway, but we got one with a private bath. The only downside, though, was the lack of air conditioning. While it wasn’t too terribly hot, the importance of that fact wouldn’t become apparent til later.

After we became situated, I started looking up our other stops on the map on my phone, only I couldn’t make sense of anything on there. I couldn’t even figure out where we were. I finally laid down when I realized I was having a huge blood sugar crash, obviously due to the tiki drinks. It was very strange because I’d felt totally fine til right then; usually you can feel any blood sugar disturbance within half a minute. At any rate, I passed out for 20 or 30 minutes, and experienced the very unpleasant delirium of the rush of insulin. Within the hour, I felt fine again, just really exhausted.

We walked to a nearby pizza place for a slice, then moved on. We’d initially been planning to go to Caña, but it was about 2 miles roundtrip and I wasn’t sure I could make it. We added that to the ‘next time in LA’ list, and went here instead:

(We’re both graduates of the University of Minnesota, and huge Gophers hockey fans. The bouncer asked for our drivers licenses and made the connection right away, so we loved him.) The Golden Gopher is a super-classic bar, though it didn’t look too much like it on the inside. We got there around 9 and it was fairly empty, so we grabbed seats at the bar and ordered manhattans.

Around 11pm, the bar started to fill up. It wasn’t hatefully douchey or anything like we were expecting in LA, but it was still pretty different from our usual crowd; the most common drink ordered was Grey Goose and Red Bull. Seriously, you’d pay $11 for a drink involving Red Bull? At least don’t bother with the Goose. Once it became crowded to the point that people were leaning on us, we headed out.

We got back to the hotel around 12:30 and had to switch our usual places in the bed so that Matt could be nearer the open window (he’s the one who’s always way too warm). It was then that we realized the true downside to no A/C: not the heat, but the noise. It was a combination of people yelling, cars honking, music, and possibly even a brass band from 1am til sometime after 4. Needless to say, it was not the greatest sleep of our lives.

Our hotel starting blasting dance music from the lobby at 8am. It would’ve been way more painful had it not been for the time change that made it feel like 10am, and the vacation adrenaline. I get up way earlier on vacation than I ever voluntarily do at home!

I went to get coffee and a giant croissant in the lobby while Matt finished showering, and then we headed out to see more of LA. Stop one satisfied the geology nerd in both of us: the La Brea Tar Pits.

(It’s always bizarre and confusing that that exists right on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. Before the first time I visited, I assumed it was in the middle of nowhere.)

From there, we drove up to Hollywood Boulevard for the obligatory super-touristy stop.

It was gorgeous outside, but apparently not gorgeous enough for all the impersonators to be out hassling people for photos. We were pretty glad about that.

Matt and Bally picked their favorite stars on the Walk of Fame. Shortly thereafter, we named our rental car ‘Ponch’.

We stopped at Jack in the Box for a quick lunch (we’d still been unable to find In-n-Out or Del Taco, even though California ads led us to believe they were on every street corner). Matt visited the restroom on the way out, and said he’d seen a guy enter the stall with his hamburger and heard him continue eating on the toilet. CLASSY.

We hopped on I-10 and drove to Santa Monica, where we sat in the same insane traffic as the two other times I’ve visited Santa Monica. What the hell? We finally found a parking spot and walked down to the Promenade so Matt could check out the dinosaur topiaries and awesome street performers, the best of whom was Biggie Smalls painted completely silver.

From there, we walked down to the pier. Though these pictures make it look really overcast, I don’t recall it being that dark at all! It was just the typical Pacific coast fog.

I’d told Matt that the first time I visited the Santa Monica pier was on my three-week solo roadtrip, and it was one of the only places I was sad to be alone, because it was kind of romantic. I wanted to fix that, so we did.

The pier was as crazy as I’d remembered. There were buskers (including Mongolia’s only pro contortionist), the amusement park, and vendors selling things like unflattering caricatures and your name on a grain of rice. It’s basically exactly what you want from that kind of spectacle. We walked down to the end of the pier, saw the fishermen and the end of Route 66, then headed down to see the beach, which had a different kind of spectacle:

(The crosses represented the number of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Horrible.)

We went down and dipped our feet in the ocean. It was freezing, so we were pretty excited to be heading to Hawaii very shortly…

…or so we thought.

As we climbed the steps back up to the pier, I got a phone call from Delta. I missed it and called right back, knowing what it would inevitably mean. The agent said our 6pm flight was delayed 2 hours, but that we would still have to be at the airport at the correct time, ‘just in case’. AARGH.

We still had some time to kill before heading there, so we did some shopping at an awesome British grocery (the snacks we got there made it through the entire trip with us, on various flights), then stopped at the TNB BBQ truck for Korean tofu tacos. We may not have made it to In-n-Out, but we did get to experience one of LA’s finer taco trucks!

We took highway 1 down the coast toward the airport, passing through Venice (which was awesome) and Marina del Ray. By the time we arrived at the car rental place, Delta had called again to notify me (via friendly robot) that the flight was now delayed 3.5 hours. That would put it into Honolulu dangerously close to midnight, and I knew we were starting to run the risk that it wouldn’t leave at all that night. While I’d have loved an extra night in LA, I’d prefer it to not come at the expense of our trip to Hawaii (and also missing the next day’s flight to Kauai).

We checked in, and the Delta machines spit out a couple of $6 meal vouchers as apology. (Nice work, guys.) We decided to turn them into drinks, and headed to Malibu Al’s Beach Bar, to attempt to pretend we were somewhere tropical already. Also, it was right by our gate. We ordered long islands, played cribbage and canasta, and later ordered pizzas from CPK (located across the way… they just carried them over).

We eventually got sick of Malibu Al’s and crossed over to the Cantina just for a change of scenery. There, we ordered margaritas and watched the Giants game. We were so tired and punchy that everything I saw was the funniest thing ever. Finally, after 5+ hours at LAX, they announced the boarding of our flight.

We were glad to be in row 19 near the front, and to have already been supplied with blankets and pillows. I was also really glad to have the window seat this time. I napped on and off for 4 1/2 hours or so, then spent some time staring out the window at the stars and ignoring the reruns of stupid comedies on the overhead screens. We landed in Honolulu around 12:15, and the passengers on our flight were the only people left in the airport.

We grabbed our bags and headed to the shuttle bus, which of course had to wait around for a long time for other passengers. We finally headed off into Waikiki. Matt and I were dying of exhaustion, and kept ourselves awake by counting the number of ABC stores we saw on the way to our hotel (11 of them!). We arrived at the Castle Ocean Resort, close to 2am. They’d roped off the lobby and were cleaning the floors, but there was still someone waiting at the desk to check us in.

When we got up to the room and found that our keys didn’t work in the door, I thought Matt was going to die. I left him with the bags and ran back to the lobby, and thankfully everything worked the second time. We barely took time to plug in our phones and brush our teeth before collapsing in bed. This time, with air conditioning!