Category: Los Angeles – Orange County

450 miles to Poke’

Made our road trip from Orange County to San Francisco Tuesday. I was in charge of getting in and out of cities, and P handled driving the long wastelands between the north and south. At about the 100 mile mark, we stopped at Carl’s Jr. – I got the Buffalo Chicken sandwich, she got the $6 Angus Burger. Super bloat – they were huge! Good thing that we stopped – right afterwards was the smoke from the Day forest fire that was smoking since Labor Day. After about 100 more miles, we were able to get out of it. 400 miles later, made it to Costco to refuel (2.55 is a lot cheaper than 2.99 at the one place we passed on I-5). We’re staying at the Sheraton Fishermans Wharf – huge place, comfy king sized bed, wi-fi. Wished that they had a fridge, but otherwise it is a very comfortable place in a fantastic location. But $39 a day for parking – jeezus!

Pacific Catch for dinner – we had Poke bowl and it was so awesome!!! Just think the best chirashi bowl, and multiply by 10. Absolutely recommended. Wandered around North Beach and got pasteries from Maria’s Bakery, then crashed watching a recording of Desparate Housewives.

Blocks

Quick entry today. Sunday went to services at the Mission Basilica of San Juan Capistrano, which is a 20 year old recreation of the original Spanish mission church that was built at a nearby site and collapsed in an earthquake. A basilica is sort of half way between a regular church and a cathedral in size and prominance. Awesome artwork, and the place was packed.

LegoLand! Every childhood playtime fantasy can be relived! It’s the one amusement park where the parents can have just as much fun as the kids. I think I had more fun here than at Disneyworld. P bumped into an old co-worker from when she worked for the City. Visited the Carlsbad Premium Outlets in search of a replacement safety blanket for the baby, but no luck – the discriminating tastes of the baby easily discerned the difference between the real thing and fakes. Dinner at Ruby’s, a 50’s diner recreation that had American Kobe beef on the menu. Go figure.

On the road to San Francisco, hopefully getting there by the end of the day today.

In the OC

Got into LAX way early Friday morning – like 3 am. We had a mechanical on the ground at JFK and they needed to replace a valve on the AC. We got free champagne and headphones. Once they did that we were able to have a relatively smooth flight and a pretty good 3 point landing.

We’re staying for the weekend with my law school friend BV from my study abroad in Hong Kong, her husband M, also an attorney, and their 19 month son. He’s mostly well behaved and a bundle of fun, even though his sentences are only about 3 words long and are usually monosyllabic abbreviations of words.

During the day we went to the farm to do some organic veggie shopping, and checked out downtown San Juan Capistrano. We then vegged on the patio for lunch. Later, we hiked up a trail overlooking the city with M. That night we went to BV’s twin nieces’ sweet 16 party, which was a luau pool party theme. BV’s sister catered the entire feast by herself, which was just amazing.

Saturday, we’re doing LegoLand and Sunday it will be a BBQ in downtown LA. Then Monday we will head up north to visit my bro.