Month: August 2015

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USS Midway and the Pacific Ocean

Amy Kline

Today we planned to go to see the USS Midway Museum in the morning and then to Coronado Beach in the afternoon, then head back to our campsite. Both turned out to be even better than we anticipated.

Carson and I woke up really early, so we went exploring around our campsite. Took some more palm tree photos and also discovered what we presume is a Native American reproduction of a wigwam. There were no signs though so I have no idea the purpose of it in that park.

We didn’t see any rattlesnakes, but we did wake up to ants crawling all over the outside of our tent with some getting inside through the tent seams. A drawback to setting up the tent in the dark? Perhaps, though when I looked up comments on Tripadvisor afterwards, all the campgrounds in San Diego had ant issues. 

We stopped at Denny’s for breakfast then got to the USS Midway right when it opened about 10 am. The USS Midway Museum is an aircraft carrier that was retired and turned into a museum. If you are interested, here is their website: http://www.midway.org/

They have an audio tour throughout the entire ship so we all picked up our headphones and remote thing. They have kid-level audio and an adult level one with more details about the different areas of the ship. Spencer loved the audio tour and listened to every single track! He was even punching in random numbers in hopes of more snippets of information. Carson didn’t like it hanging around his neck so he walked around and asked millions of questions (Mom? Mom? MOM?)

One of the veterans told us to go to the top and get the tour of the control tower because that line gets long.  The kids got to sit in the Captain and co-captain chairs. The control tower is just like the control tower at an airport.

We stopped to have a snack/lunch and call Opa to wish him a Happy Birthday. Carson loves to make faces for the camera.

We saw and learned about lots of other cool things on the ship.
An early computer. 

Lots of planes and helicopters on the deck.

The boys in the Brig!
Jeff and Spencer trying all the different knots that were used on the ship.

There was also a Young Pilot’s program similar to the Junior Ranger program in the National Parks. The retired veterans were so great with the kids, as were all the veterans that worked or volunteered at the Museum. Many of them had served on the USS Midway or else served on similar ships that the USS Midway oversaw.

We ended up staying until about 4 pm and learned so much about the Navy, how airplanes could land on a ship in the middle of the ocean, and how the men lived while at sea. It was definitely a happy surprise that it ended up being such a fantastic activity.

After that, we walked along the boardwalk where there were great shops, street performers and restaurants. I even met Tom Cruise!

The boys didn’t know what to make of the Human Robot Statue. Put money in his tip
jar and he moved and sounded like a robot.

Crabs crawling on the rocks.

This man balanced these rocks which were just part of the shoreline. Amazing!

During dinner we saw this huge ship full of Dole containers. That is a lot of bananas!

Swoon!!!!

We ate dinner (pizza for the boys, ravioli for me, and a gyro for Jeff), then headed to Coronado Beach to watch the sun set. Very swanky houses, but the beach itself was public so we parked and went to explore. The boys had a blast playing in the waves and then in the sand.  I wish we lived closer to the ocean.

As the kids were playing, I was exploring with the camera. 
Bird footprints in the sand
The sand had gold specks in it so the whole beach was glittering.

And ending the day with a beautiful sunset!

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Seeing the sights around LA then down to San Diego

Amy Kline

Today was planned as a much more relaxed day for us. The only thing that was scheduled was our campsite in a county park near San Diego at the end of the day. So we slept in, packed up and basically drove around LA most of the day in our nice air conditioned truck.

We did have to fill a prescription, since our insurance company would not let us fill it early before we left. The Walgreen’s near us in LA did not have it in stock but called and said another one in a different area might. So we called to confirm and they told us that they couldn’t tell us if the prescription was in stock over the phone, hence our first stop was at this Walgreen’s. Once I went in and showed them the actual prescription, they told us that they couldn’t fill it because it was not written by a doctor in California. Sheesh! Good thing it’s not a life-saving one or we would have had to go to an Urgent Care to get a new prescription.

After that wild goose chase, we drove to Beverly Hills to have a look around. None of us wanted to get out of the vehicle because this:

So we happily drove past the Chinese Theater and saw the stars in the sidewalk. Definitely a tourist trap area too. 

We finally saw Mickey Mouse though. We didn’t see him at all in Disneyland (though the boys didn’t seem to mind). 
There were homeless people on many corners, especially the tourist areas. They always sit in the sun. I wonder what their stories are and how they ended up in such desperate situations. So sad.
And then we were in the opposite end of the financial spectrum. Rodeo Drive. I used the Zillow app to look at home prices and they ranged from 15-20 million dollars. The cars on the streets changed too. Jeff was checking out all the people at the stop lights, looking for celebrities,  while I was ogling all the gorgeous houses because I wouldn’t recognize a celebrity if the person came up and told me who they were!

We drove up and down Rodeo Drive where Julia Roberts shopped in Pretty Woman. I’m glad that we didn’t even consider getting out and “shopping”. I wasn’t dressed in nice enough clothes (I don’t even own nice enough clothes) to even walk down this street! 

Before we left LA, we also took some time to drive past locations that were used in shows and movies that we liked.
Jeff watches Sons of Anarchy and this is the gate to Teller-Morrow.
We both were excited to find the Walsh’s from 90210.

Jeff found the Troubadour’s, the place where the Eagle’s got together.
And lastly, the house from It’s a Wonderful Life.
We made our way down to San Diego and set up our campsite just as the last light of day was fading. I grabbed some pictures of the palm trees by our site with the sunset in the background. Did I say that I just love palm trees? They are fascinating!

Before we crashed for the night, the kids played with their light up swords that they chose for their trip souvenir. They got them at Disney but there wasn’t enough room in the hotel room to properly duel with them.

Even though we basically drove around all day, we were exhausted!

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Universal Studios

Amy Kline

Today we headed out to Universal Studios. It was only about 20 miles away from our hotel in Anaheim, but it took about 80 minutes to get there due to LA traffic. You know that SNL skit where they make fun of all the highways in California? Well, it is true. We never stayed on the same highway for more than 10 minutes. Thank goodness for the GPS!

It was a beautiful and very hot day. On the lead up to the park gates, we walked past a bunch of chain stores that looked like a great place for hanging out after the park closed at night. But then we were finally showing our tickets and entering.

The first shop inside the park was the Harry Potter store. The boys and I were so excited and raced around exclaiming, “Look at this!” and “That is so cool!”. The boys wanted everything of course, including the Griffindor Sword, and all the wands.  We promised that we could come back after we were done in the park or we never would have gotten out of there.

The first show that we saw was Waterworld. The boys have never seen this movie at all, but it was still exciting to watch all the stunts. We sat at the very top in the shaded section, so we weren’t in the “Soak Zone”.  We had great seats to see the whole set.

After that, we walked around a bit and saw the future entrance to Hogsmeade and Hogwarts which is supposed to open in 2016. No behind-the-scenes tour  this year though, I asked. 

One of the newer rides is the Minion Mayhem ride. Jeff learned his lesson from Disney’s Star Tours and decided to sit this one out while the boys and I went on this one. This ride is a 3D immersion ride where you sit in seats that jiggle and move as you watch a big screen. This one also blasted air at you too. It was awesome!
Beginning of the line

Our cool 3D glasses

My little Minions

When you come out of the ride, you are in the space that is geared to the younger kids. The kids and I rode on the bugs, which is like the Airplane ride at Bay Beach in Green Bay.

All over the park there are these Cool Zone fans that blast out mist. Since it was literally the hottest day of the year (temp hit 100 degrees), it definitely helped. These mist fans were in most of the lines too. Disney should add these to their lines that are in the sun.
We took the Studio Tram Tour next and waited at least an hour. They did have workers whose primary job was to make standing in line go faster and cool people off by squirting them with squirt guns. The boys thought he was hilarious and as our line snaked closer to the worker each time, the guy made them laugh.
Once we got on the tram, it took us down to the backlots where they actually do film some shows. Many of the sets are generic back grounds that are decorated once a show is scheduled to film there.
A New York City street scene.

This was used in Back to the Future

A street that has a flash flood.

 They were filming two different shows in the park that day. One was an unnamed pilot and another was a show that neither Jeff nor I ever heard of.

Desperate Housewives. 

At the end of the tour, there is a cool 3D portion that happens when the tram goes into a garage. Dinosaurs and trucks look like they are crashing into you on both sides. The effect was a little ruined however because the 3D part failed to start, so we had to drive out and around and go back in. 

After that, we were all getting a little exhausted by the heat and sun. We walked down to the Jurassic Park ride, which involved going down 4 steep, really long escalators, but the line for that was more than an hour long. We went to play in a little shaded playground for a bit but the kids didn’t even want to do that for very long. We could have gotten the add-on “Front-of-the-line” VIP passes, but it would have added another $200 to the day, so we decided against it. Would it have been worth it? I’m still not sure.
We were all getting close to being ready to head back to the hotel by this time (4:30). But one of Jeff’s favorite shows, the animal tricks show, was one more stop that we all wanted to make sure we attended. It was definitely not the excellent show that he remembered (and that the old family movies showed). Very cheesy, with a couple dog tricks, one cool bird trick, and a really silly story line. 
We had our promised stop in the Harry Potter store before leaving. The boys got Griffindor bookmarks and I bought my trip souvenier, a huge Marauder’s Map coffee mug. 

Did we get everything out of Universal Studios that we should have? Definitely not. We missed most of the rides like Simpson’s, Transformers, Jurassic Park. But we definitely had a great time. We still got back to our hotel a little before 9 pm due to the drive on the crazy California highways. In all, it was a fun day!