Western Excursions - Summer 2010

Hey guys! I know these last two pasts are several days late. I have been travelling about 2/3rds of the way around the world (how often can I say that? tehe) and internet access has been pretty much non-existent. However, good news is: I am successfully off on my next (and sadly last) adventure of this summer! I’ll post more details about it at the end of this post.

So we got to sleep in a little this morning, before heading off again on to the day’s adventures. The morning was mostly spent groggily shuffling down to breakfast, being semi-conscious of eating, and then groggily shuffling back to the room. Did hem my pants though, which made me feel accomplished. And the Momster did some of our laundry which was great. Now I could stand within a 10 foot radius of people again.

Piling into the car, the first stop of the day was Laguna Beach, while I believe is also the title of a teenybopper daytime soap? Hey! Microsoft word didn’t underline teenybopper, recognizing it as a word! Oh that excites me. But yeah. I actually had no idea where we were when we got there, as I was dead to the world on the drive up. But it was pretty. Cold, but pretty. All of Southern Cali was chilly. This was so weird to me.

I also didn’t take any pictures, as I was too busy quite realistically depicting the living dead.

The next stop on our great beach tour was Newport Beach and Costa Mesa, another place that Dad used to live. We spent some time walking along the cutest little boardwalk along the beach (their beach houses were so much cuter than East Coast beach houses) and along the pier.

Three things:

1.       It must not flood ever as all the houses were on ground level.

2.       It was freezing. 70 degrees is not beach weather. The overabundance of bikinis claimed otherwise.

3.       Proclaiming everyone’s eternal damnation has become a family affair. Hiding behind a pillar, I managed to get a shot of one of the daughter’s signs:

Ohhh if I weren’t such a nice person (and some of you can stop laughing), I could have such fun with people like these.

We walked a bit along the pier, where I reached the conclusion that fishing is a bit of a dumb sport. You stand there for hours holding a string with dead meat on it, hoping that some other creature is dumb enough to eat it. Hmmm, I could make some crass political parallel here, but seeing as I am not entirely sure of my audience, I shall refrain...

Hunting down Dad’s old home was quite an adventure, but eventually we found the tiny little house that he shared with…well, an old girlfriend. Haha Dad became remarkably more interested in the McDonald’s they were building nearby when we pressed him for details.

The cool thing about this particular house, was that he was next door neighbors with Peter Gallagher, the actor. He’s the guy who plays the father on the O.C. and is the CIA director in Covert Affairs. Psh yeah.

Since I was flying out of LAX the next morning, we decided to cash in on family hospitality and spend the night at our cousins’, Wayne and Ruth Glass’s, place outside of Los Angeles in Pacific Palacades (I think I spelled that incorrectly). That was also a really long sentence. But yeah, the Glasses were super hospitable and graciously offered up both their home and their fridge to us for the night.

We walked on the beach some with Ruth as you can kind of see in the above (admittedly bad) picture. However, the outside temperature permitted us to do little more that stick our toes in the water and then run screaming to the security of the warm sand.  There were also some really weird piles of rocks on the beach (and what appeared to be a dead goose) which Ruth said was really unusual. Hmm strange. I think I like the East Coast beaches a little bit more. They’re warmer too, which is always a plus.

The evening was spent eating a delicious meal, followed by great conversation. Love it! Unfortunately, I did stay up long after everyone else went to bed, mainly putting together my blog for India (so you better appreciate it. Grr.). However, I did get some sleep which was probably a bad idea considering I’ll be spending the next two days on a plane.

In the morning, we ate another very delicious meal, had more great convos, and I proceeded to try and repack everything I had into as small a space as possible. This is no small feat let me assure you. Wayne was incredibly generous and gave me a very professional looking padfolio (I had been looking for one for a few weeks) AND gave my brothers a USC hat and jersey. How thoughtful was that? :D. Ruth and Wayne also had a guest book for their house that we had to sign, which I thought was the greatest idea. I’m totally going to steal that for my future house. The idea, not their guest book.

Well, this is where I am going to end this blog. I’m going to pick up right where I left off in my next blog, the India one. Since I can’t just end with a ‘see ya, see ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya’ taunt that my inner kindergartener is tempted to leave, I shall put in a brief reflective summary:

Overall, this was a great trip, allowing me to visit places I’ve never been and see things I haven’t seen. I got to horseback ride in the Rockies, spit into the Grand Canyon, gamble in Vegas, climb through cacti in San Diego, battle traffic in Los Angeles, stick my feet in the Pacific, and spend more time cramped in small places with my family than most college students would ever hope for.

But my favorite part by far was getting to spend an extended weekend with my extended family. I loved getting to talk to everyone, remeet everyone, hear the cool things people are doing, everything. You can travel all over the world, see all the amazing sights, but in the end, what really matters are the people you meet and build connections to. That is what is most meaningful.

 At least to me. My boundless wisdom I have accrued here in my numerous years on this planet hardly qualifies me to speak for everyone else.

But yeah, here is where I leave you guys. The rest of the fam is travelling up the coast to San Francisco to see the cool sights like Alcatraz, Monterey Aquarium, etc etc. Kinda bummed I’m missing out on it. Ah well. Can’t have everything. I was going to have one of them continue this blog, but as is always the case, we ran out of time. I will add their pictures though once they get back.

That being said, if you haven’t seen all the pictures from this trip already, here they are at:

Also, if you are interested in reading a little about my India trip, feel free to follow my adventures at http://indianglimpses2010.blogspot.com/. Or at least glance out it, cuz I am rather fond of this design.

Onward and upward :)

So I am still a day behind in my posts, meaning that not only do I have to do two posts tonight, but I also need to get all my travel information together for my flight tomorrow. Oh and I also need to make my blog for India.  For a normal person, this would be lowest on the list of priorities, but we all know that I would probably never be described as normal.

Let’s see. We left off at the nighttime explorations of Las Vegas, a mildly amusing, but generally all around trashy city. If I may be so blunt, of course. 

Today, we got up extra early and hit the road. Or tried to. In reality, we got up extra early and sat in the car, where we proceeded to have a huge power struggle with Carmen, our Garmin. But after a few yelling matches (always a good use of our time when dealing with technology), we manage to make it to the highway. Besides, who wants to argue with someone whose pronunciation of Boulevard sounds something akin to a drowning fish? (You think fish can’t drown? Think again)

The first destination for today? San Diego, site of the famous zoo, seal beaches, and my cousin Steve Huyler’s new India exhibit. The six hour ride was more or less uneventful, barring of course the face making contest my brothers had in the reflection on my computer screen. For hours. But we arrive in San Diego in more or less good spirits.

First off, let me just say that I LOVE San Diego. Or at least the parts of it that I saw. You might notice my ecstatic tweet over to the right of the screen, which basically just says exactly what I just told you. Yayyy, redundancy!

The best part about San Diego is by far Balboa Park. Very beautifully landscaped, with large open walkways and beautiful tree arrangements (none of which is native being as the region is all reclaimed desert –> fun factoid). The park is also filled with many museums, gardens and the zoo, and it was in the Minghei Museum (I thinkkkk…), that Steve had his Sonabai exhibit.

Wow. The exhibit was just fantastic. And I’m not just saying that because I’m related to him and there is the off-chance that he might read this. The whole exhibit was a tribute to this Indian woman Sonabai and the amazing contributions she made to Indian art – all of which she made being secluded in her husband’s house for 15 years…alone. Kinda makes me feel like I wasted my time when I was banished to my room for time out. I should’ve been making masterpieces.

But anyway, the exhibit was beautiful, full of color, light, pictures and music that mad eyou feel like you were there in an India village. However, my favorite part were the hanging photos that were backlit – very pretty and I might steal the idea with my future house. All in all, I highly recommend it to anyone who might be in the San Diego area before Sept. 5^th.

Leaving the exhibit, the fam and I went for a walk past the other museums and throughout the park. However, [cue dramatic music here] we soon came to a fork in the road. Alas, not a literal one, but a choice must be made. Should we visit the illustrious rose garden to our right? Or the spiny, dry cactus garden to our left? Dundundunnnn.

Despite four of the five family members voting for roses, an executive decision was made by La Madre. The cactus garden it is! It soon became apparent that we made the right choice (and by we, I mean Mom), as it was filled with all sorts of weird and twisted cacti. There may or may not have been mock shoving of the nearest sibling into said spiny apparatuses.

Now cacti are cool, but as some people know, we aren’t exactly on the best of terms. I accidentally let one of their brethren die after I forgot to water it. Yes, I killed a cactus. But hey, that takes skill. Mom however, loved seeing the cacti. Upon spying one particularly large and twisted cactus, she promptly declared, “If I were to be a plant, I would totally grow like that!” I knew I came from a twisted family…

We did also visit the rose garden and it was moderately cool.

After getting thoroughly lost and performing many u-turns on the way out of San Diego, we finally manage to find the scenic road that would take us up the Pacific coast. The problem was that this road kept having the unfortunate tendency to disappear. Now I was under the impression that this was supposed to be a relatively major road. This illusion was shattered when we spent the majority of the time on a small 30 mph road through a neighborhood filled with stop signs… Hmmm… But the view was pretty! Ish.

Along the way, we made several stops to ooh and ahh at the Pacific Ocean, warning signs be damned. I mean, when faced with a crumbling cliff and hazard signs, what else could we do except climb over the chain link fence for a better view?

We also stopped at La Jolla Beach, famous for its seals. We didn’t see any seals. Fail.

An hour later into what was supposed to be a 20 minute trip, we arrive at Del Mar, where Dad used to live in 1970. Dad excitedly pointed out all the old jaunts where he used to hang. He also took us by to see the old house he used to live in. There were several people standing outside it, chatting and enjoying the weather. Personally, I think they must’ve been freaked out of their minds, watching a large Ford Escape with tinted windows drive slowly by, reverse and then drive by again. If that didn’t freak them out, us all looking right at them while pointing and talking profusely most likely did the trick.

That night, after driving in circles forever watching every open parking space being taken by the car in front of us (no joke – it happened like 6 or 7 times), we dined at an old favorite steakhouse of Dad’s by the name of Bully’s. Dad was super excited to see that not only was it still there 40 years later, but they still had the giant prime rib steaks that they were so famous for. Cowitarian that I am, I was of slightly of the same mind.

Later that evening , we crashed at a hotel in Encinidas, CA. Getting only one room for the evening (which only allows a max of 4 people), we had a brief scuffle to decide which child did not exist that night. Patrick lost (but hey, I didn’t exist in Las Vegas) so he got the floor. Somehow, the middle child (John Alex) always seems to claim a bed space…

Well that’s it for right now. The only other thing I have to report is that upon opening my email that night, I was pleased to discover that I was the recipient of a decent sized scholarship :). This was a pleasant surprise, especially considering the circumstances under which I applied. It’s vaguely interesting; I’ll sum up:

·         Scholarship application due: April 1^st by 11:59 pm

·         April 1^st at 6pm: I start driving my suitemates down to the beach for Easter weekend

·         8:30 pm: I let Hannah drive and begin writing my scholarship essay (hey, it was a busy week at school, so I ran out of time…)

·         9:30 pm: we arrive at the beach, essay is more or less finished.  

·         9:45 pm: I discover the house has no internet for me submit my application. Mild panic ensues.

·         10 pm: Hannah let’s me borrow her iPhone. I type up my entire essay on a 3.5” touchscreen and finish the rest of the application on her phone.

·         11pm: I submit the application. Hooray!

It’s a good thing I don’t leave things til the last minute. Well, that’s all for today folks! Tomorrow will most likely be the last post by me. Adios!