Sky with palms

One last picture from California, in honor of Skywatch Friday.

Anniversary 32

Today is our anniversary. We basically spent it travelling home, but we celebrated early with a dinner in Anaheim a few days ago. I liked the little shiny stuff they scattered on our table, though it's hard to read the "Happy Anniversary" in the picture above. It was a very nice dinner.


As for the traveling, if you ever have to go through LAX, leave LOTS of time. First you get your boarding pass at the little kiosk. Then you get in the long line to go up to the counter to drop off your bags - and when you get to the counter, you have to wait while the staff person goes to the other end of the line to get your luggage tags. After that, you get in line for security - which goes all the way outside. When you get to the front of that line, they let you into the maze that takes you to the people who check your boarding pass and id. And then you get to go up the stairs to get in the maze for the security screening. Including the long wait for the rental car bus to take us to the airport, I think it took over an hour and a half from getting out of the rental car to clearing security. We're really spoiled at MSP.

Beach adventures

Today, Russ and I had planned to go whale-watching. The concierge told us about this cool tour where they pick you up at the hotel, take you to Newport Beach, you go out on a morning boat tour for 2 1/2 hours, then they bring you back. Sounded great, and we signed up. When the bus comes, it's the "OC Cruiser" and it has this surfing theme (Beach Boy music, old surfing photos, etc.). After the last hotel stop, they tell us what's going on. It's a 3-hour circuit tour of 3 beach towns (Huntington, Newport, and Laguna) with the ability to get off, spend a few hours at one of the beaches, then get back on the next loop. For the whale-watching, we can take a noon tour instead of the morning one, and get back around 5.

Well, Russ had plans for the afternoon, so he decided to go back to the hotel. I went ahead with the trip, even though it was far from what we'd planned. The first stop was Huntington Beach - Surf City. The US Open of surfing had just finished there, and we had about a half-hour stop. So I took some photos.


Then on to Newport Beach. The driver showed me where to check in for the whale-watching and gave me his cell phone number to call when I was done, so we could figure out when he would meet me. The whale-watching people wanted some kind of card from the tour people. So I hurried back to the bus, which was on a 10-minute stop. The driver had no idea what they wanted, but filled in the slip I had gotten from the concierge and gave me a phone number to pass on if the whale-watching people had any trouble. They looked at the numbers he'd filled in and told me I was way over-charged, and lent me binoculars instead of making me rent them. I was almost 2 hours early for the noon trip. We didn't see any whales, but did see the expected pods of dolphins:


The surprise was the sea lions. They were laying in a pile on someone's boat dock on the way out, and then we saw this pile on the buoy on the way back into the harbor.


Anyway, I thought I might have to wait another 2 hours to get back on the bus. But when I called, the driver said he was headed back, so if I would spend $1 to take the ferry across, he'd pick me up on the way instead. I was glad to get back earlier. And then I could have taken the ferry for free - apparently the crew thought I was part of a different group.

So it ended up being an ok day for me. I did stop to let the concierge know about the problems, though.

Hollywood

Today I took a Grand Tour of LA. While we saw some historical sites (first street, first fire station, first mission) and some beach areas (Santa Monica Beach, Venice Beach), a lot of time was spent on things:

The above picture was taken from the Hollywood Bowl overlook off Mulholland Drive. We drove down the twisty canyon roads, and we also drove through some of the residential sections of Beverley Hills and Bel Air. We saw Aaron Spelling's 36,000 square foot, $50,000,000 house, the house where Michael Jackson died, and several others. Even in other parts of the city, we ended up talking about movies (went over the 8-layer interchange featured in Speed, saw Mel's Diner and the Rodeo Drive shop that wouldn't sell clothes to Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, etc.). We also stopped near Grauman's Chinese Theater, so I took some pictures:


Someone asked about seeing stars on the tours. The driver said that once he was stopped at a red light and the passengers started screaming. There on the sidewalk was Tom Hanks. The driver opened the door, and Tom Hanks got on the bus. He took some pictures with the passengers, then said he had to go and got off. Nothing so interesting happened on our tour - the closest I came was this:


More pictures from the tour later.

Livin' it up at the Hotel California

Well, actually it's the Hilton Anaheim. Got in late last night. L.A. isn't great on the street signage - we had to do a couple of U-turn maneuvers because we missed an on ramp. But all in all, it wasn't too bad. Drove right past Disneyland just before we got to the hotel. The checkin line was surprisingly long at 10:30 at night. Chatted with a couple from New Zealand about temperature conversion (70 F is about 21 C).

Nice room with 2 queen beds on the 14th floor - the Executive floor which includes some food and its own bar in the evenings. This morning we had breakfast in the room while looking out at the rather smoggy view:

Now off to check Russ in for the conference. And then? Not sure. Update later...

Encounters with an eagle

Russ and I went to a friend's lake cabin in Wisconsin this weekend. It rained (quite hard at times) on both the drive down and the drive home. But it stopped just after we got there, and didn't start again until we were halfway back. Had a great time, and took lots of pictures. Went out on the lake in a pontoon boat three times, and once in a paddle boat. It's a nice quiet no-wake lake. And the friends actually own 2 cabins side-by-side, so Russ and I slept in the guest cabin all by ourselves.

Every day, we saw a bald eagle. The first couple of times, he was flying by and there was no chance for me to get a picture. I tried on one flyover, and couldn't even find him. Saturday evening we were out on the lake watching the sunset and found him in a tree. But it was too dark to get anything but a very blurry picture, especially as I had to use maximum telephoto length. But finally this morning we were just about to give up when he flew over us once more. He landed in a tree and posed magnificently while I took about 20 pics. Here are the best two. You can click on them to see a larger version.





I'll post more photos from the trip in the coming days. (I'm going to try to post more regularly.) Right now, I should head to bed.

Life's a beach

I had a great weekend in Philly when Karis and I went to visit my sister and her husband. We shopped a little, drove around a lot, watched a lot of movies (mostly on DVD). And for the finale, we spent the last day on the beach. I took tons of seagull pictures, and I thought this one turned out quite well. It's not retouched at all, honest.