Last weekend I (Greg) had the opportunity to go out to California to visit two siblings of mine who live there. This is the first time I've been able to go out to see them, their homes, and one new niece.It was just me who flew out to visit for the weekend. I left the rest of the family at home on this particular trip. The main reason it was me and no one else was because with all my business traveling this past year, I had saved up enough frequent flier miles for a free trip that I needed to use before the miles expired. We all want to go out as a family to California, but we are waiting until we can afford to go as a whole family and visit Disneyland and a few other places--as well as waiting until the boys are tall enough to be able to enjoy most of the rides (which should be soon).
I flew out late Thursday night (June 5) where my brother Jeffrey met me and took me to get some Italian-style pizza before taking me back to his home. His wife Melissa & son Parker were asleep by the time I got there, so we did a light tour and set up a sofa-bed for me to sleep on.
(Jeffrey and me)
The next morning I was still on Texas time which is two hours ahead of California so I got up before long before Jeffrey did. Parker had kept his parents up all night since he wasn't sleeping in his crib (which was in the room I was sleeping in.) So when I came out in the morning, Melissa was crashed asleep on the front room couch while Parker was scooting around making his apparently normal mess of everything he can get into. I'm not sure what goes through the mind of a 10-month-old when a strange man suddenly shows up in his living room, but Parker seemed fairly casual about this new guy. It didn't deter him from continuing to make his mess. Melissa finally roused herself after I came out and we visited for a while and she showed me the "Wii Fit" game that Jeffrey was lucky enough to get on the day it came out. (I've been looking for one for weeks with no luck!)
Eventually Jeffrey got up and we all got ready and went out to go visit some sites. The first place we visited was the Taylor Guitar factory tour. This was something Jeffrey had been wanting to do but was looking for an second party to accompany him. I'm no guitar connoisseur, but it was interesting to walk through the factory and see all the steps from raw wood to finished guitar. It's a pretty involved process and sadly they did not give out free sample guitars at the end of the tour.
(Part of the Taylor Guitar tour. Some boards being glued together.)
From there we drove to Old Town San Diego, which is the site of the first permanent Spanish settlement in California and considered the "birthplace" of California. Now it's a set of quaint historic buildings full of lots of interesting shopping and restaurants. We ate at one Mexican-style restaurant for lunch where we were serenaded a couple times by wandering mariachi bands. Most of the musicians throughout the Old Town that I heard were really good, but one set came by our table that were really terrible. Somehow through a miscommunication, they played us an encore after their first song. I was only able to stop them from playing again by paying a bigger tip than anyone else who came by.
After lunch we wandered the streets a bit. I found the Chuck Jones Gallery that had a bunch of paintings from Chuck Jones (an animator who did Looney Tunes, animated Grinch, and many other cartoons) as well as some from Dr Seuss, and several other interesting cartoon artists. (I have no pictures, since they did not allow photography in the gallery.) We also wandered by a memorial site for the Mormon Battalion, which unfortunately closed two days earlier for remodeling that will keep it closed until 2009 sometime. And finally, we found my dream store: "Old Town Root Beer Co." a store dedicated entirely to root beers and other sodas. According to their website, they offer over 99 types of root beers! We sadly were only able to sample one by purchasing a couple floats.
(Me in front of the Mormon Battalion Memorial)
I believe from there we went back home and relaxed and played some more Wii with some games that I brought for them to try ("Boom Blox" is a really fun casual multiplayer game, by the way.)
The next day we headed up to Los Angeles to meet with my sister Sharie's family at Knott's Berry Farm theme park. Also coming were my parents and three of my sister Shauna's kids who just happened to pick that weekend to come visit as well. (It wasn't pure coincidence, Sharie's baby was being blessed at church on Sunday.) The lines were long, but we had a good time. It was fun visiting with my nieces and nephews while we waited.
(My niece Ashely looking over a bridge near a waterfall in one ride line.)
One of the first rides I went on was called the Pony Express. Instead of sitting in a cart like most roller-coasters, this one had you straddling a pony almost like a merry-go-round--if the merry-go-round went 70 miles per hour and featured lots of screaming people. After that we went on a rapid water ride in a circular boat that featured lots of splashing and getting wet. I missed most of the frontal water assaults, but got hit from behind several times which ran down my chair and pooled around my hind quarters, which spent the rest of the day very, very damp.
(Jeffrey squishing a rider on the Pony Express)
At the end of the afternoon, Melissa came and picked up Jeffrey and me (she wasn't interested in riding coasters so hadn't joined us at the park) and we went to downtown LA/Hollywood to visit yet another Italian pizza restaurant--except that this one was so fancy and popular that you had to make a reservation if you wanted to eat there at least a week ahead of time. (Jeffrey went to Italy on his mission, hence his love of Italian food.) We were lucky enough to just barely make it to the restaurant in time to get our table. The food was good, but I don't think I enjoyed it as much as Jeffrey and Melissa did.
(Proof of me rubbing elbows with the "in" crowd in a posh Hollywood restaurant.)
(My hosts, Jeffrey & Melissa, enjoying their gelato and other desserts)
After dinner we went a few blocks over to go get tickets to a performance from a musician named Josh Fix. We didn't know much about him, other than we'd been enjoying his debut CD and when we were looking for concerts and events that were happening during the weekend of my visit, his name was the most appealing of the choices. We got the tickets a bit early for the actual performance (which was in a pretty small club) so we went down the street to an amazingly cool CD/record store called Amoeba Music. According to Jeffrey, you could find almost any CD at this store, so just to check, I thought of the most obscure band I could think of that I wouldn't expect to find at a non-online store. Sure enough, they had it, and I bought it. (Bryan Scary & The Shredding Tears "Flight of the Knife" -- my favorite album of the year so far.)
We walked back to the club and waited for the band before Josh Fix to finish. In the mean time, Josh was out talking to people. We found some CDs on a table and we grabbed a couple and eventually were able to get to Josh to ask him how to buy the CDs. He didn't have a clue, so he told us to help ourselves to a copy. Eventually we went in when it was time for the show to start. On the album, Josh Fix sings and plays every instrument (except drums, I believe). Here, he had four other musicians backing him up with Josh himself on electric piano. In the little club, it was almost too much. He probably could have cut two members of the band and done the Ben Folds Five thing (bass, drums, piano) and sounded better. However, it was fun to enjoy yet another concert in less than a month. We even got Josh to sign the CDs we swiped earlier after the show.
Here's the video from Josh's debut single. Beware, it's catchy!
I'll continue my trip in my next post.
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