A few weeks ago, we went to California for the weekend. Yep, the weekend! We had originally booked a trip in June using airmiles, but we had to cancel that trip because I ended up subbing for the final month of the school year. In order to avoid incurring any change fees, we had to rebook the trip in and out of the same airports, so we rebooked the trip for October, with plans to drive from Los Angeles to Albuquerque for part of the trip to attend the hot air balloon festival there, which is a long-standing bucket list item for us. Well, I was fortunate to begin my new reading specialist position in August, but that meant we had to cancel the trip planned for October. Since we had initially "cashed in" the airmiles way back in January, we only had a few months left to use them, so we looked at the calendar and decided to go over Veterans' Day weekend, since I had a three-day weekend. Kind of a long way to go for only three days, but we had a great time!
We flew to LAX on Saturday, November 9 (with an empty middle seat between us – always a bonus!) and arrived around 10 am. We rented a car, which was a Mercedes SUV, because it was only $5.00 more than a regular sedan. Honestly, I will never understand car rental pricing! There were two places I really wanted to visit on Saturday, so we headed to Griffith Park and Venice Beach after picking up the car. At Griffith Park, we were finally able to see the merry-go-round when it was open – we've been there a few times before, but it was always on days when the merry-go-round was closed! It was awesome to see it in action and to imagine Walt Disney there with his daughters as he dreamed up visions of Disneyland. After Griffith Park, we went to Venice beach because I was determined to get a photo of the rainbow/Pride lifeguard tower. As you can see, it is just beautiful and totally worth the insane parking (or lack thereof) that we encountered!
 |
| top: when we left home bottom: when we landed in California |
By that point, it had been a pretty long day for us, so we decided to go to our AirBnB in Laguna Beach, which was amazing! Once we settled in, we decided to wander around Laguna Beach and grab some dinner before calling it a night.
On Sunday, we just drove around. That might not seem exciting to some people, but we love to be in the car and so we just explored the coast and admired the ocean and asked ourselves repeatedly why we don't live in California! We spent a good chunk of time in Huntington Beach, which is truly one of my favorite places on earth, and I was reminded how much happiness I derive from a good stroll down memory lane! That evening, we decided to drive over to Downtown Disney to do some shopping, which may not have been our best decision because it was insanely busy there, but was fun nonetheless!
 |
| A Place for Fun A Place for Knowledge |
On Monday, we checked out of our AirBnB, and spent the morning exploring more, but rather than sticking to the coast, we drove inland a bit. California is such breathtaking state! We stopped again at Downtown Disney for a short time, then drove to Hollywood to see the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and finally ended our trip taking in the scenery from Mulholland Drive. Our flight home was the red-eye, so we landed around 6 am and after a quick stop at home, I went to school for the day!
While I would certainly love to spend an endless number of days in California, this three-day weekend was a perfect getaway. We hadn't really traveled anywhere in over six months, so three days of beautiful scenery and relaxation was wonderful!
Happy Tails to you!
No comments:
Post a Comment