...In the Warm California Sun

The first part of our trip took place in northern California.  We flew in to LAX on Saturday morning and immediately began heading north to the San Jose area.  We were on a mission to get to Fentons (see previous post for details) and it did not disappoint.  We spent Sunday in San Francisco at the Walt Disney Family Museum.  We had no idea just how amazing this museum would be.  We planned on spending about two hours there, but ended up being there for over four hours – and we would have stayed longer had it not been closing time!  The special exhibit was about the art of Tyrus Wong, who did much of the scenery for the film Bambi.  While that would be enough for most people, he later designed absolutely incredible kites and at age 102 goes to the Santa Monica Pier once a month to fly them.  His life story was so inspiring.  The rest of the museum was equally fantastic:

Tyrus Wong's kites

Dachshund by Tyrus Wong

Disney Artists' Paint Jars

Model of Sleeping Beauty Castle

Model of Disneyland

Monday was spent driving down what is seriously one of my favorite roads in the country – the Pacific Coast Highway.  It is some of the most gorgeous scenery ever and it is difficult to conceive of a better way to spend a day.  On Tuesday as our drive down the coast continued, we stopped at the Santa Monica Pier, which was something we’d never done before.  We wandered around the pier, walked along the beach, and observed a huge flock of pelicans swooping around – there had to be at least twenty of them flying together.  What a beautiful sight!  One thing I love about the ocean is watching young children experience the waves rushing up to swallow their feet or their sand creations – the squeals of delight are unmatched anywhere else.  It is so life-affirming to witness that kind of unbridled joy.  After the pier, we drove to Griffith Park in Los Angeles and headed to the observatory.  I had not been there in thirty years, and C had never been there, so it was definitely a place we were really looking forward to visiting.  Plus, we are definitely space junkies, so it really appealed to our nerd side!

View from PCH

The Pacific Ocean - beautiful!

Santa Monica Pier

LK <3 CK

Griffith Observatory

Monument to Great Astronomers

View from the roof

Albert Einstein

Sundial

Observatory

Telescope

After the observatory, we made a beeline for Anaheim.  We spent Tuesday night at the Doubletree because we weren’t sure how late we would get to Anaheim and we had no interest in paying the Disney hotel rate when we didn’t know if we would even arrive in Anaheim at a decent hour.  However, we arrived in time to check in, head over to Downtown Disney for dinner at Naples, a restaurant that makes an amazing margherita pizza, and then go to Disneyland in time for the fireworks (“Magical”).  Those of you who know me are well aware of the fact that I could watch the Magic Kingdom fireworks (“Wishes”) in WDW a million times and never tire of them.  I’ve seen them dozens and dozens of times, and I cry every single time.  I have the soundtrack and I listen to it quite often, and even if we don’t go MK on a given day, we will often go there at night just for the fireworks.  I love them.  That being said, I had not seen the DL fireworks in several years because there is a water and light show (“World of Color”) at California Adventure that is one of my most favorite Disney things ever and so we go there in the evenings when we are in California because it is such a spectacular show.  This has resulted in us not seeing the DL fireworks in the park in a really long time (we watched them from our room at the Disneyland Hotel last year because we had a view of the park and they played the audio track on the TV).  So I was not prepared for just how much I enjoyed them!  While the fireworks were great, it was the lighting of the castle that really impressed me – Sleeping Beauty Castle is much, much smaller than Cinderella Castle and does not have the presence or grandeur that Cinderella Castle has.  But that did not matter during the show because the colored lighting of the castle (you know how I love colors!) was just spectacular.  I was amazed and I was silently kicking myself for not knowing what we had been missing!

The next morning, we checked into the Grand Californian Hotel, which is reminiscent of Wilderness Lodge in Florida, and spent the next four days in Disney bliss.  Although DL is relatively tiny when compared to WDW, there is a lot to do there, including many things that aren’t found at WDW.  We really love Cars Land at California Adventure, which is a perfect replica of Radiator Springs, the town depicted in the film – it is uncanny.  We were fortunate enough to see it last summer when it opened and it was at the top of our list for this trip as well.  Disneyland was fun as always, and being former band geeks, we love the musical performers around the park.  The Dapper Dans is the signature barbershop quartet and the Disneyland Band was awesome, too.  The ceremony we witnessed for the first time was the flag retreat at Town Square.  The Dapper Dans and the Disneyland Band performed, current and former members of the military were invited to step forward and be recognized, and the crowd sang along to the Star-Spangled Banner and America the Beautiful.  It was so moving and just about the perfect note on which to conclude our trip.  Even so, Saturday evening came far too quickly for our liking and there are still a ton of things we need to experience!  This fact certainly gives us a reason to go back (not that we needed one!).

Hotel Sign

Fireplace in Lobby

Fireplace in Lobby

View of Lobby from Third Floor

Sleeping Beauty Castle

Nighttime View of Sleeping Beauty Castle

Dapper Dans

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

Teacup Chairs

Our Ride Vehicle for Toy Story Midway Mania - perfect!

Welcome Sign for Cars Land

Sign for Flo's V8 Cafe

Flo's V8 Cafe

Sign for the Cozy Cone Motel

World of Color

World of Color

World of Color

World of Color

We took the red-eye home on Saturday night, which would normally not be worth mentioning, but I had an exciting encounter at LAX.  As we were waiting at the gate, I recognized Dustin Brown who was sitting about fifty feet away.  For those of you who don’t know who he is, shame on you!  ;-)  He is the captain of the L. A. Kings, and I was wearing my L. A. Kings sweatshirt at the time!  I didn’t really know how to approach him, so I first walked past him and pretended to have to go to the bathroom in order to assess whether it really was him.  On my way back, I just summoned up the courage to go over and talk to him, and he could not have been more gracious.  I am not ashamed to admit that I was babbling in a rather incoherent manner…I told him how much I love the team and how great it was to meet him.  He kindly let me take his picture and stood up to shake my hand…such nice manners!  I finally wandered back to my chair nodding at C like a maniac with a huge grin on my face.  A few minutes later when we boarded the plane, I passed him and told him I had forgotten to mention what an amazing Stanley Cup run they had in 2012, and then I saw him again the next morning near baggage claim and I told him to have a great season.  I am sure he wanted me to stop talking to him.  :-)

All in all, it was a fantastic trip and a great way to wrap up the summer.  The very best part was when we got home and the girls were thrilled to see us.  Five wagging tails...priceless.

Happy Tails to you!