Going to the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo

It's the last full day of Monica's trip. :( We spent our second day in San Diego at the World Famous San Diego Zoo. I'm still amazed how huge the zoo is!

We saw the Elephants:

And a friendly turtle statue:

And camels! I love them! They're funny:

And Monica was a giraffe:

And I was an orangutan: Doug put the sign in my mouth, it wasn't my idea. And I couldn't reach it to pull it out.

After this we drove home exhausted. It's been an AWESOME trip and everyone is dead tired. Another successful vacation!

Old Town - SD Pt 2

After Cabrillo we drove over to Old Town San Diego (kinda like Acadian Village) to "learn about life in the Mexican and early American periods of 1821 to 1872." It's kinda cheesy but really really fun! There was supposed to be a tour at 6pm, but of course that tour was canceled that day. So we just wondered about and did a self guided tour.

This little guy was in the main visitor center - I have no idea:

Hanging Laundry (and Mon's feet): Crates of Pandas, Incense, and HI AMY! (seriously, who ships pandas like that?):
Pretty backdrop by the restaurant where we ate. The food's good and cheap - Monica and I split a plate and were still stuffed:
Dia de los Muertos: She looks so happy! I love this imagery.

Finally, we went check into the hotel. There, in the lobby, was one of the greatest things I've ever seen (rivaling the Cozy Dogs).

May I present Sir Waffelot:
(it's way better if you hum Baby Got Back and fill in the words with breakfast items)(And why yes he does have a pat of butter for his nose. and that 'pat of butter' is a piece of Styrofoam with the bottom corner chipped off)

2009 Cabrillo Festival - SD Pt 1

Doug, Monica, and I went down to San Diego for the weekend. After our day at Disneyland yesterday, we took the morning easy and didn't get to Cabrillo National Monument until almost noon. After a quick lunch and looking at the little museum, we went up to the Old Point Loma Lighthouse:
We were there on the weekend of the 2009 Cabrillo Festival so there were reenactors!!! This guy was pumped about the whole HI AMY! project.He quite excitedly told us he was in the Peace Corps (of course, that made so much sense). He said he was stationed in Northern Africa. He wanted to know what unit you were in - but none of us knew what that meant so we ignored the question. He was SO EXCITED about this whole thing, yelled at the other reenactors for us to get a HI AMY! picture:The woman with us was really sweet. She said this was her first reenactor gig and was all nervous.

The Peace Corps dude was so excited he almost took off after Miss Cabrillo (the Festival Queen) to get a HI AMY! picture with her. Mon and I talked him out of it - I can't imagine many things would be more petrifying than him running down the hill, yelling, and flailing his sword about.

It was really fun - but we had to leave. Old Town San Diego was calling!

Characters Galore!

It's officially Halloween Time at the Disneyland Resorts!!! This was our long day here - Doug got off work so he could accompany us. We arrived at 8:45am - right on time to walk in a few minutes past the 9am opening. Hurrah!
Monica had to meet Mickey Mouse so that was one of our first stops-(why yes I do have my Ears on. They're Haunted Mansion themed)

With the start of Halloween there was a TON of characters out-several of whom you usually don't see! How fun!!

Meeko from Pocahontas
(poor Meeko was just standing there with everyone ignoring him. He would wave at people and the crowds just kept on walking. I felt he needed some love)
Gideon from Pinocchio

The Penguins from Mary Poppins! (they're all waving HI)

Monica wanted to meet Minnie too - we didn't have time earlier in the day, so we went back to her house in Toontown!We saw the new Halloween fireworks and the Fantasmic! show - we got a few more rides in and then dragged ourselves out of the park at a quarter pass midnight. Long, but great, day.

Couger-Crane-Gopher

Doug had to work today - and Mon and I needed a slow day after Disneyland (and in preparation for Disneyland ALL DAY tomorrow, woo hoo!) - so we hung around Riverside. We drove downtown, looked around the Mission Inn for a little bit, and then went into the ambitiously named Riverside Metropolitan Museum. Where we found this wonderfully confused/goofy looking cougar:I think he's hysterical. It's like he just smelt something bad

They're having an exhibit named Reading the Walls: Japanese-American Families during WWII. It's a neat little exhibit. There's a place to make a paper crane - two middle school girls have made it their project to make a crane for every person placed in an interment camp. To which...shrugs. It was quite amusing for Mon and I to attempt:
You're supposed to put them where the HI AMY! sign is but I obvously kept mine (and Monica wore hers in her hair). Mine is the one with the L to the right and Monica's with the M to the left.

We went to Doug's Museum (Western Center in Hemet) for Monica to see. We watched the movies, looked at the fossils, made some clay models of fossils. Also at the museum - friendly golphers!

Monica's Birthday!

It was Monica's birthday so that could only mean one thing - DISNEYLAND!!!!!!! It was her first time going to a Disney Park - we were both super pumped!!!

(see, Sulley's waving HI to you!)

Although Halloween Time doesnt officially start until Friday (the 25th) they had some of the decorations up. The Haunted Mansion is being taken over by Jack Skellington and Sally and the rest of The Nightmare Before Christmas cast. Neither Doug nor I have seen the Holiday Overlay - I'm really excited for Friday!

History! Hollywood! Los Angeles!

Monica and I got up early and drove into LA. Our first stop was El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument, a little historic district about the founding of LA. There we met Felipe De Neve (1728-84)

Spanish Governor of the Californias 1775-82
In 1781, on the orders of King Carlos III of Spain, Phelipe De Neve
selected a site near the river Porciuncula and laid out the town of El Pueblo de
La Reina de Los Angeles, one of two Spanish puebloes he founded in Alta California.

Next stop: Hollywood! (that makes the city what it is today)


We went to a taping of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. We saw kinda a lame show - there was no good guests, but c'est la vie! It was neat to see in person!!

Citrus!

Nothing big happened today, we kinda took it easy. We did go visit California Citrus State Historical Park. It's still a young park (established in 1993) that has a lot of great plans but still needs time to grow into itself. The idea is that it'll eventually resemble a complete citrus-production community circa 1880-1935 complete with an operating packing shed, laborers' camp, grower's home etc. The Visitor Center is a replicated citrus packinghouse:
Entrance - an old fashioned fruit stand:
I then successfully without a map found the Mother Tree (officially The Parent Washington Navel Orange Tree). This is the tree that most of the navel oranges we eat come from. They're all grafted from this one tree (it's seedless, so you can't just plant the seeds).
Parent Washington Navel Orange Tree, located on Magnolia at Arlington Avenue, Riverside, ca. 1902. View shows fenced tree, one of two received from Brazil via Washington, D.C. and sent to Riverside in 1873 or 1875. It was transplanted from Luther and Eliza Tibbets homestead, its original Riverside home, to its current location in 1902. Riverside is the birthplace of the navel orange (and a lot of the citrus farming out here) so this is way cool!

Joshua Tree National Park

Doug stayed home to rest (he has a busy busy week coming up) so it was just Monica and I at Joshua Tree National Park. It was awesome!! For someone from a wet climate who hates the dry and the brown and everything I apparently love the desert. Or, at least, love Joshua Tree NP (and all the National Park Service) (Monica Too!!). It's a huge park, so lots of driving about.

Versa (Vers for short) says HI too!

A personal message from one of the Joshua Tree's himself (who would like it to be pointed out he is NOT a actual tree but a member of the yucca family)

At the Cholla Garden: Monica loves cacti and always wanted one to pet when she was little. This was a dream come true. However, we did have to have a serous talk with the Park Ranger about these jumping cholla are very prickly and dangerous and should NOT be petted. At all. Ever. No matter how soft and fuzzy they look.

We did manage to carefully convince one to say HI AMY! (well we propped rocks infront of him so we wouldn't have to touch it, OW)

At the Oasis of Mara - it's just like the movies! There's this little cluster of palm trees that rise above the desert. There are only 158 desert fan palm oases in North America. Five are located in Joshua Tree National Park.

Plastic Baskets & Hot Dogs - a typical LA day (part 2)

After lunch at the Farmers Market we walked back to La Brea Tar Pits and past the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). There was a large outdoor art installation that we stopped to check out.
It was awesome!

It's Choi Jeong-Hwa’s HappyHappy and it consists of "floor-to-ceiling strands of thousands of household containers procured from local 99¢ stores. . .Choi is considered the father of Korean pop art, and his enduring interest in popular materials and consumer culture is evident when you move through the rows and rows of plastic containers, many of which are manufactured in Asia and found in many Korean homes." (A little more info)It's all part of the exhibit "Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Artists from Korea" that closed the next day so we were really lucky to walk into it (literally).

After playing around with the exhibit for a while we drove down (the traffic! the parking! it's bad) to the beach; any trip to LA and Southern California isn't complete without seeing a beach. We of course went to Monica's namesake beach - Santa Monica!
After that it was off to the Getty. I love the Getty and haven't had a chance to go since I moved out. We saw the special exhibit on French Bronze statues and then saw Irving Penn: Small Trades, a photography exhibit. I think you'd really enjoy it - he takes photographs of people just in their everyday work uniform. They have one section where he compares/contrasts the photographs of different nations but same job (Paris, London, NYC). It's interesting to see the attitude shift between the countries.

After the Getty we drove to downtown to eat at world-famous Pinks' Hot dogs! (specifically chili cheese dogs)
Yum!

Mammoths & Monkey Bread - a typical LA day (pt 1)

It was Monica's first full day here so we started things out with a bang! and delved right into LA's history.

At the La Brea Tar Pits and Page Museum:
(why yes that IS a dying momma mammoth in the tar pits while the daddy and baby look serenely on)

The giant ground sloth says HI AMY!!

(we then had to wrestle the sign away before he ate it)

After a morning walking around the tar pits we walked over to the Farmer's Market for lunch (it's only a few blocks away).

This was in one of the display cases of a bakery at the Market - the monkey's made me think of you:

Dodger Dogs for All!!

Monica flew in today for her Birthday Trip Vacation. Hurrah! We got the trip off immediately, going directly to Dodger Stadium from the airport. We got there in plenty of time and went into the stadium as soon as possible because we were in the All You Can Eat Pavilion!
All the Dodger Dogs, Peanuts, Popcorn, Coke, Bottled Water, and Nachos we could fit into our bellies! It was exciting and delicious!

After the game (which the Dodgers lost to the Giants (4-8, ouch), we got to go onto the field for fireworks!! I knew there was going to be fireworks, but we got to GO ON THE FIELD! It was way cool!
We're pointing to the fireworks, which started suddenly. We're both (obviously) thrilled.

After the game we grabbed a 'Dodger Ambassador' to take our picture-
After explaining who Amy is, he gave us the little card you see in the picture, of AJ Ellis, a player no one has heard of to send to you. It's the thought that counts?