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California, Coronado, Color

After a fun-filled day in Los Angeles, it was time to head south to another SoCal jewel: San Diego. It started with a drive on PCH towards La Jolla. The weather was cooperative (it was a little cool as we left the house, but the forecast reported sunny skies after noon. La Jolla Cove was nice, there were plenty of people walking around, enjoying the good weather. We stopped in a number of art galleries and had some Häagen-Dazs smoothies. After enjoying a nice little nap on a grassy lawn by the sea, we headed down to Coronado.

I had never been to Coronado and people kept telling me that I had to go there, so I figured, why not? Diane’s never been, I’ve never been, mom’s convertible has never been. Frankly, the only tidbits of info that I had on Coronado were: 1) it was reportedly a nice island located off the coast of San Diego; 2) it had a really nice, old, wooden hotel; and 3) you could take a ferry or drive on a really tall bridge to get there.

What’s funny about this is that I didn’t really know how to get to the hotel. I just imagined that I’d find the bridge to the island (that was easy) and that somehow I’d be guided to the hotel. Fortunately for me, I was correct. Mom’s little car turned out to be great because it’s so small and easy to park. I literally found the smallest spaces and was able to squeeze in.

The hotel was pretty cool; I liked the old-school elevator and décor. The courtyard was nice and I liked how each room had a small patio/balcony. I’ll have to stay here one day.

By now, it was early afternoon and I didn’t know what else to do. I thought about Sea World or the zoo, but I didn’t want to get home super late (we already had a long day in LA). I decided to pay homage to the Mormon Battalion monument.

One thing that I am not too fond of at times when visiting historical LDS sites is the member referral that follows a Church video presentation. I have tried sharing the gospel with my non-LDS friends several times and having spent the last decade at BYU, I have very few of these friends left. I hate to tell them no, but I honestly don’t have anybody to refer to them at this time.

Back to the whole Mormon battalion thingamabob. OK, so Word 2007 didn’t put that red squiggly line under “thingamabob.” I didn’t know that was a real word. I thought Ariel made it up. The sister missionary asked me if I had any idea about the Mormon battalion and to be polite, I told her know. Had I said yes, she wouldn’t have had anything to tell me about the place. So, I willingly sat through a 20-minute video. I thought about kissing Diane and turning it into a Seinfeld episode (The Raincoats 2) when Jerry and Rachel were caught making out during Schindler’s List.

Before going home, we stopped by the San Diego temple on the way home and took some pics. One of Diane’s sisters joked about how we were “temple shopping” during our vacation in California.

In case you were wondering what I meant by “color” in the title, I got fried while in San Diego because we had the top down on mom’s Z3. I had a nice, distinct line on my arms and neck (which still hasn’t gone away after two weeks at the lake).

Vacation in the South Land

Boy, if anybody can believe it, I've barely spent any time on the computer during these past three weeks. The first week of August, I spent time in California with Diane. She flew down at the beginning of the week and I showed her around the area. We spent some time in L.A., San Diego, and Orange County (I thought about abbreviating it as LA, SD, and OC, but I thought that is lame).

I picked her up Monday afternoon at John Wayne airport. It was pretty funny because a few days previously we had talked about how the reunion was going to be. I told her that it should be like in My Best Friend's Wedding where Julia Roberts runs into the arms of her best friend (and then has an awkward moment where attempts to kiss him, but he shoots her down—we were going to modify that ending). Anyway, the real greeting didn't really happen like that. Diane was riding the escalator down and I waited for her at the bottom with a bouquet of flowers. As she approached me, this random guy started asking us weird questions and pretty much killed the moment. Oh well, I was happy to see her and I'm glad that the three months apart had ended.

Since we had some time to kill before dinner, we headed down to Laguna Beach and walked around Main Beach and the little shops. After a couple of hours on the beach, we headed home where Diane got to meet mom and dad. I'm sure it was an exciting moment for everybody since they had never met her and I had never brought a girl home before. Grandma had prepared some enchiladas as part of an authentic Mexican dinner. I had to laugh a little bit because Diane and I had joked about my "Mexican-ess" previously and here she was having a Mexican meal for dinner. I should have told mom and dad to decorate the house differently to give her a little scare.

Los Angeles

I hope that I'm able to remember everything that Diane and I did. I thought that I had some pictures on my camera, but I guess not. I'm writing this entry on the drive home with Diane's parents (we're leaving Lake Chelan and heading back to Redmond). Diane's staying until Wednesday because I'm going to be in Kennewick for the next few days. In case you're wondering, the ride home has been pretty quiet. Nancy (Diane's mom) has been gathering her thoughts for a talk and Clair (Diane's dad) is quietly driving. I'm not really talking either…just typing away on the keyboard, so you can hear the clicks from the keys.

Since Diane has only been to California once (this past Memorial weekend), I decided to give her a whirlwind tour of the South Land. We started by going to the Getty museum; it was fun to have a cultural stop, but I was okay with only staying for a couple of hours. Museums tend to bore me if I'm there more than two hours. I wanted to take her to this supposedly excellent hamburger restaurant (I read about it in GQ a few months ago). Anyway, I couldn't remember the name of the place, so we stopped at In-N-Out a few miles down the road. The LA temple happened to be only a couple of miles away, so we made that our next stop. The visitor's center was closed for renovation, so we just took a stroll around the grounds, which are huge.

2:30pm - Not that anybody cares, but Toby just puked in the car and it smells worse than normal (he has bad breath to begin with). I hope my backpack doesn't smell (he's resting his head on it). I'm going to take a break because now I feel sick...

Santa Monica pier was the next stop on our journey. The pier was fun because it's like a mini carnival. I was hoping to see some sort of street performance at the end of the pier (like I had the last time that I visited SM pier), but there was no show, just a bunch of Mexicans fishing. Boy, I think I've used the word Mexican more in this blog entry than I have ever used the word in my whole life. Back to the pier...I thought that it would be fun to ride the little rollercoaster; I had never done it and I always wanted to. Needless to say, it was very exhilarating, but the little kids on the ride made it fun (average age was probably 5). It was kinda funny because you went around two times before you got off. I guess that's because the ride was so short.

While on the plane, I read on article about SM pier and Venice beach. I didn't realize that they're so close together. It recommended taking a bike or something and going from SM to Venice (a 2.5 mile trip one way). We found a bike rental shop (very poorly run, in case you're wondering) and got a tandem bike. It was quite the experience. It was my first time getting on one and it was super trippy! It felt so weird to have additional weight on my rear end. I struggled at first to keep my balance, but once we got going it was okay. I managed not to crash, which is more than Diane can say (we both took turns in the front). We had a near collision with a man and Di also took us into sand, which sent us flying off the bike (very funny to watch).

Venice beach isn't really that exciting. They have a bunch of freaks doing stuff on the boardwalk and there are some "modern" houses. Those were interesting to look at, but I can say that I don't really care much for the area. The original muscle beach was cooler than the new one (located about a mile down the beach).

We finished riding our bikes around 5:00 pm and I didn't want to drive back home because I knew that we'd be stuck in rush hour traffic. Instead, we drove to Beverly Hills and Hollywood. Talk about super nice homes and cars! We got to the point that Porsches were "bleh" because we saw so many Ferraris, Bentleys, Lamborghini's, etc. The houses were pretty, but well enclosed, thus making it difficult to see the whole property. I felt extra poor driving my explorer down some of the street because the "cheap" cars were BMW 750i's.

We didn't spend much time in Hollywood because it was getting late. I wanted to show Diane the Hollywood sign and go down Hollywood Blvd. (where all awards shows are held). The problem was that I had no idea where the Hollywood sign was. Fortunately, I was able to look it up online (on my Treo) and we managed to see the sign before it got too dark. The best thing about Hollywood was the French Crepe Co. The crepes we had were sooo good! We both got a strawberry crepe with butter and sugar. I'll have to go there again when I'm in the area.

Rocky Mountains to SoCal Sun

Chris's wedding was exciting and it was great to meet up with John-Evan, Adam, and Carla. I hadn't seen all of them in a long time (especially Carla—the last time was in April 2006 when she graduated). The ceremony was nice and afterwards we took some pictures outside the temple. The weather was kinda interesting. The weatherman called for thunderstorms and he was pretty on the dot because before we got to the temple, it was pouring! Fortunately, God smiled upon Chris & Ashley and permitted the sun to peak through the clouds for about an hour after the ceremony. We snapped a few pictures and then it started to rain again. Not wanting to cruise around in the PT Cruise anymore, Adam drove us in his rental (a Chevy Monte Carlo) to Costco where we enjoyed a hot dog, churro, and berry shake. We rejoined the wedding party at the country club and danced the night away.

The following morning J-E and I headed to the airport. It was a nightmare. Frontier was backed up and it took forever for me to check my luggage. I had to cheat the system because I knew my luggage weighed too much. My larger piece of luggage weighed close to 59 lbs. (that's 9 lbs. overweight for those of you who haven't flown recently). It was hilarious because I was lifting up the piece of luggage while she checked the weight and it was going back and forth between 49.5 and 50.0 lbs. Fortunately, I threw some things away from my other piece of luggage (because it was overweight too) and it came in at exactly 50 lbs. I was happy that I didn't have to pay the extra money to get my luggage home (I already spent money shipping a large box home and I didn't want to pay anymore). The guy at Newark didn't even care that both my bags were overweight.

Anyway, after waiting forever to check in my bags, I made my way down to security and was astonished to see how long the line was. I first thought that it was only like 20 minutes long (I saw people snaking back and forth for a little bit), but I soon realized that the line wrapped around the whole terminal. It was seriously ¼ mile long! I eventually made it onto my plane and I was sad to go back to my normal life in coach. I had a small seat with two people to my right. It was a short flight, so it wasn't the end of the world.

By early afternoon on Saturday, I was back in the promised land—sunny Southern California!

Journey Home

After completing my last internship, I was ready to get home to California. I was making a pit stop in Denver for my roommate's wedding, but I planned on being home by the weekend. When I was sitting at the airport, I heard the airline representative get on the loudspeaker and announce that she was looking for one volunteer. I didn't pay too much attention to it at first, but then my mind starting working. I asked this little girl next to me what the conditions were and she said that I would fly the next morning at 6:45am. Wow…early flight. So, I figured that if they were going to bump somebody to this early flight that I might be able to get something good out of the deal. As I approached the counter, this rather large gentleman beat me to the punch and he was offering his wife's seat. As I stood in the background listening, I heard the flight attendant say that his wife would be flying first class the following morning in addition to receiving a $400 flight voucher, a night in the local Holiday Inn, and some meal vouchers. I was quite bummed to learn this because I knew that I wasn't going to be receiving any of the free goodies.

As I sat there waiting for the plane to load, two men approached the counter and were complaining about their tickets being canceled. I listened attentively (yes, I was eavesdropping) and was excited to learn that they really wanted to be on the flight. I was in no particular rush because I would still arrive in time for Chris's wedding if I flew the following morning. The lady at the counter noticed me and asked if I still was willing to give up my seat. I told her that as long as I made the morning flight, I would be willing to give it up. There were stood hearing "Final Call…" in the background. I started to get nervous as I wasn't sure if I was going to be giving up my seat or not and I didn't want to have the other flight attendants (who were at the next gate loading the plane) close the doors on me. Finally, I was given a green light to stay and receive the vouchers! I was very excited to get all of these free goodies.

I awoke the following morning quite early (4:30am) because the hotel alarm clock was set to the wrong time (it was about 15 minutes fast). I arrived safely in Denver and John-Evan picked me up in our sexy, cream-colored PT Cruiser convertible. It was a total chick car, but oh well. I'll have to teach J-E to stand up for his rights at the car rental counter. Not only did we get this unsightly car, but J-E actually paid for the insurance (an extra $40).

To be continued…