LA / Southern California

nooshinjohn wrote: »

Had the high honor and privilege of having Al here at my home this evening. He is a great guy to hang out with. His daughter is a fantastic young lady. It was great to meet them both, if only for a very short time.

After a very eventful week in SoCal, it's good to be home. Had a wonderful time bonding with Katie, my "little girl" who's become a young woman in the blink of an eye.

John - it was awesome meeting you, Nooshin, and your son. For those of you in the SoCal area who haven't met John, You're missing out. He made us feel at home in his home. Katie and I loved, LOVED listening to John's system. To see the expression on Katie's face listening to the tricked out SRS's, the PS Audio gear, and the Triangle Art TT was amazing. John takes great pride in his system, and all we can say is 'wow'! He very graciously let Katie pick and choose all different types of music to listen to. He gave her a "concert" type audition with music by AC/DC, the Beatles, Def Leppard, ABBA (Yes, ABBA - I think Katie was even dancing a little to that one!), and many others.

It's too bad we were so exhausted from a LONG day of traveling and couldn't stay longer. A Big thanks to John for inviting us to hang for a bit - he's a first-class guy, and a great friend!

More to come later on the trip itself!

Katie and I had a GREAT time in SoCal last week. Some ups and downs to the trip, but mostly ups!

To start, it's nice to have a friend who works for a car rental place... Not only did we get a GREAT deal, but they upgraded us to a convertible at no additional cost! My daughter had a smile from ear to ear.

Some things we did, and our impressions on them to follow... Sorry it's so lengthy, but maybe it'll help others plan their trips. We tried to do as much as we could that was suggested in this thread, and were fortunate to get a lot in while not stressing about doing TOO much.

Day 1

Upon arrival and picking up the rental (white Mustang convertible that we named "Pietro") we drive to the Santa Monica pier. Pros - not many, although it is cool and pretty. Cons - CROWDED on a Saturday evening; parking is almost non-existent, and traffic... Well, traffic in all of LA sucks, but multiply that suckiness by 10 along the PCH in Santa Monica and Malibuy.

Next, we drove up the PCH to our hotel in Agoura Hills. Drove through Malibu and up Malibu Canyon Road. Pros - Cool seeing how small a home millions of dollars buys you right on the beach! BEAUTIFUL drive through the canyons. Cons - Did I mention traffic sucks?

Dinner at the Habit - Cool fast food burger place kinda like Five Guys. John will slap me for this, but I still give Five Guys the edge in flavor and better fries... Pros - reasonably priced, delicious, awesome onion rings. Cons - none really.

Met up with John. Pros - the concert-like experience; their hospitality; and his son is just too cute for words (he gave Katie a hug and kiss when we left). Cons - Now Katie wants a $30k+ stereo...

Day 2

Reagan Library. Pros - beautiful, great tribute, wonderful staff, even tear-jerking towards the end. Cons - Air Force One was a little disappointing to my daughter, but I thought the dated technology was cool. The F-14 Tomcat was hidden in the back - can only see it from one side about 40' away.

Drove to San Diego (Del Mar) via the PCH. Pros - Decker Rd. (Route 23) from 101 to the PCH was amazing! Cons - Sad to see the devastation from the fires. Did I mention traffic SUCKS? Took 3 hours to go the 25 miles or so from Malibu to the 405.

Stopped in Downtown Disney (to appease Katie's Disney cravings). Pros - Beignets; It's Disney and Katie loves Disney. Cons - It didn't appease her, it made it worse. (See Day 4...)

Stopped in San Juan Capistrano for dinner at El Adobe. Pros - Most of the food was delicious! Cons - the taco that came with my meal sucked (but everything else was great).

Day 3

Breakfast in Del Mar at the Stratford Court Café was delicious! Hotel Indego in Del Mar is awesome!

San Diego Zoo. Pros - Awesome zoo! Cons - Well, it's a zoo, and seeing the animals in captivity is not the greatest; HOT; crowded.

Old Town. Pros - Awesome area, cool vibe, and very relaxing. Cons - none.

Fred's Tacos in Old Town. We LOVED this place. Thanks for the recommendations. Tacos and Tot-chos (tater tots smothered with taco goodness) were delicious.

La Jolla Cove. place is amazing. Pros - Absolutely breathtaking; awesome seeing the seals and sea lions 'barking'. We loved that we could walk right next to them and see them not in captivity like the animals at the zoo earlier. Cons - none!

Day 4

MARATHON DAY... Since we were SO close to Disney, my daughter begged and pleaded with me to take her to Disneyland and California Adventure again (we were there 5 years ago). I caved. Up at dawn, bought hopper tickets online, and drove to Anaheim. Pros - It may have been crowded by their norms, but compared to Disneyworld in Orlando, it was much less crowded. Love that they still do the old method of FastPasses. We also lucked out - Soarin' went back to "Soarin over California" just for June (might be the last time we'll see that one). Cons - It's expensive for a 1-day parkhopper; our legs felt like someone beat us with mace - we were there from 9 AM until midnight!

Day 5 Long Beach

USS Iowa. Pros - VERY cool, historic, love the way they honored active and past military as they came on board. Cons - none.

Aquarium of the Pacific. Pros - Nice aquarium, great for kids. Cons - much smaller than expected; geared more towards LITTLE kids; not nearly as nice as the National Aquarium in Baltimore.

Queen Mary. Pros - Again, very cool and historic, great staff, cool tours. Cons - Parking was EXPENSIVE and in addition to the tour costs. Not really a con, but Katie discovered that she has another irrational fear - she was freaked out by 'large machinery' and refused to tour the engine room or look at the propeller. It is eerie and massive. The engine room (more like rooms) takes a good 20-30 minutes to tour the whole thing.

Drove to Downtown LA and stayed at the Hotel Indego. Pros - Awesome hotel, wonderful staff, amazing views. Cons - Parking is expensive ($55 for the night); and traffic (wait for it) SUCKS.

Day 6

OUE Skyspace. Pros - Great views from the 75th floor! Cons - Not worth the price; slide was overpriced ($8 for a 2-second slide) - it happened so fast I didn't even have time to video tape Katie coming down.

Grammy Museum. Pros - Cool hands-on displays. Cons - A little boring; and an ENTIRE floor (out of 3) just for the Backstreet Boys... 'nuff said.

Sony Studios. Pros - Tour was awesome; guide was great; cool experience; smaller groups (more one on one) and not as crowded as others; free parking (that's a big deal when everywhere else charges!); free picture; saw the RV from Breaking Bad! Cons - none really.

Day 7

Warner Brothers Studio. Pros - Tour guide was great; guide was fantastic; learned a lot about the industry. Cons - Parking was expensive (and in addition to the tour); $26 if you wanted to buy the picture they take of you in the Friends set; much more crowded than Sony.

Universal Studios Hollywood. Pros - Not much... Cons - Overpriced; SMALL; worst crowds I've ever seen at a theme park; only have 8 'rides' and 7 of them are "virtual" rides; Parking is an insult (anywhere from $25-$50 on top of the ticket price); food sucked and took forever to get; hot; smelly; (and I could go on and on). Basically, avoid this place at all costs. You couldn't pay us to go back. We left after 3 hours. Didn't ride one 'ride'. Basically went in, did the backlot tour, had a bad (but expensive) lunch, fought crowds, and left. Wait times for everything was at least an hour.

Hollywood Sign. Pros - EXCELLENT vantage point from Canyon Lake Drive by Lake Hollywood Park; cool drive through impressive switchbacks to get there. Cons - tried first to go to Griffith Park, and rangers wouldn't let us drive up - would have had to park and hike 1.6 miles up the road and it was nearly sunset.

Day 8

Madame Tussaud's. Pros - cool place; realistic wax figures. Cons - touristy; cheesy; and a little overpriced. Although we did find ourselves taking a lot of pictures...

Dolby Theater. Pros - SMALL tours (only 5 of us and the guide); beautiful place; cool seeing it in person; got to go onstage, backstage, in the boxes; in the lounge (basically everywhere the celebrities go during the Oscars. Cons - none really.

La Brea Tar Pits. Pros - It's just cool to see! Cons - Small; dirty; reminded me of work (I teach classes on bituminous paving... Oh the smell of ASPHALT!)

Redondo Beach. We just wanted to end the trip at the beach. Pros - Cool little pier; nice beach. Cons - Pier was filthy; restaurants were expensive (and I didn't really trust them because it was so dirty).

Return home. Pros - It's nice to be home! Cons - American Airlines sucks!!

I'm not sure they'll fit...

jflail2 wrote: »

Glad you guys got to spend some time in La Jolla. I've not been to many places that I like more than there, and the Grande Colonial Hotel was a great place to stay there. Sounds like an awesome trip!

La Jolla was one of our favorite things on the trip. La Jolla Cove is amazing with views that are so nice they look fake. I'd been there about 25 years ago when my roommate from Penn State was in Grad School at UCSD. I knew it was a place I had to take Katie to. I wish we had more time to putter around the town, stop at the Salk Institute, and Torrey Pines. Here a pictures from La Jolla Cove (from my phone - we have much better ones on the camera that I haven't downloaded yet).

treitz3 wrote: »

Blacks Beach is where it's at for......



Tom

NO!!!!