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Back To Life …

Ugh. Back to the grind after two weeks of vacation. Just park a Hummer on me.

Anyhow, the last two weeks have been relaxing and fun. The first long vacation Wifey™ and I have had since we’ve been married. I’ll do my best to condense my recap as much as possible.

Wifey™’s parents and their friends arrived on October 6th, the same day as our anniversary. I brought a camcorder to film their arrival, but unfortunately only turned it on for a few minutes before being told by airport security that I’d probably end up surrounded by the police if I continued to shoot video inside the airport. Erm. Okay. It’s not THAT important to film the event. Everyone arrived and almost walked past us, as we were searching the crowd for them. They were right next to us and Wifey™ and I were looking deep into the crowd. Ugh.

After settling in and getting caught up, we headed to the location of our wedding reception for dinner with my father and stepmother. Since Wifey™’s parents weren’t able to come to the wedding, this was their opportunity to see the place and have a nice meal. Her parents and their friends all ordered the same thing – Fettuccine Alfredo. Way to try something new. Anyhow, dinner was nice and a good way to start the vacation out. One couple only spoke french, Wifey™’s parents spoke both English and French, although most of the conversations during the trip were in french … which I don’t understand or speak. I relied heavily on quick translations from Wifey™ for the entire trip.

After a nice night of sleep, we all woke up around 4AM to hit the road for Disneyland — which is a six hour drive from where we live taking Hwy. 5. It’s the fast route, but also the most boring. Basically the heartland of California’s agricultural community. All cows and agriculture for about five hours of the trip. You can get up to about 90MPH but it still feels like you are going 20MPH. It’s insane. They all slept while I drove the Dodge Grand Caravan we’d rented for the duration of the trip. The minivan handled great — for a minivan. A very smooth drive.

Once we entered Los Angeles all bets were off. The freeway system out there is fucked up. I thought I knew what traffic was from my experiences with Bay Area traffic, but nothing compares to LA traffic. Ugh. Wall to wall cars … all the time. And you’d think there’d be BIG ASS signs telling you which was Disneyland is. Erm. No. So, following our little road map we managed to get there after getting lost at the studios in Burbank. I think we were driving around in circles at one of the studios where the Ellen Show and ER are taped because we kept seeing these huge billboards for those shows. Anyhow, after a stop at a grocery store for directions we eventually arrived at Disneyland, only to get lost again trying to find our hotel. Like I said, no signs anywhere and too many people trying to give directions from the rear of the car.

The hotel was nice. Not spectacular, not plush or luxurious but who the fuck needs that when you are planning on spending all your time at Disneyland. It was a two bedroom suite with a small living room area. Each bedroom had two queen beds and the living room had a fold out sofa. There was also a refrigerator and microwave and two bathrooms. Ample space for the seven of us.

Disneyland and the new California Adventure were amazing. The lines were ultra short, with only ten to fifteen minute waits at the most. We got through all of the rides we wanted to get through and then did some of them again. Good times.

The second day, since we’d pretty much covered both parks we headed into Hollywood to see some of the things there. For those of you that haven’t been there, downtown Hollywood is pretty much a slum. At least most of the walk of the stars is. It’s filled with junky stores and you’d probably not want to do the walk at night. The area near the Kodak Theatre and Grammans Chinese Theater, however are a bit nicer. It’s a short trip that you should be able to do in an hour or so, but is about an hour drive from Disneyland … factoring in traffic.

The third day we headed out, deciding to take the more scenic Highway 1 part of the way back home. Unfortunately, we spent too much time on one of our stops in Santa Barbara, which prolonged the trip home. Highway 1 is a coastal highway. It’s all curvy roads and sits on the very edge of California’s border. Once false move and your are swimming with the fish in the Pacific Ocean. Also, once you get on, you are pretty much commited to it for about four or five hours, until you can crossover to the other faster freeway. About twelve hours later, we arrived home. Ugh.

The next day our plans were to visit a winery and I’d held tickets to a tour at the Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa. Great fun. We toured the vineyard, picked some grapes from their vines and learned the process of winemaking and then did a taste test. I’m not a red wine drinker, but the Chardonnay was very good. The big hit was a dessert wine called Moscato de Oro which was a sweeter wine. Everyone “ooo’d” and “ahhh’d” over this one, probably irritating the tour guide that we’d prefer a dessert wine over some of their “reserve” wines that he’d let us taste. Overall, I’d recommend the tour. It lasted about an hour and a half and gave us a general overview, which is basically all we really wanted.

The weekend was more of a relaxing weekend. Saturday we headed to San Jose for a flea market that they wanted to see. We spent a lot longer there than I really would have spent, but they were having fun getting “bargains”, which was a recurring theme of the trip. In Hollywood they could care less about most of the sights and concentrated mostly on those crappy shops along the edges. 10 t-shirts for $5 was a big hit. I think they bought about fifty t-shirts. We also tried to bring them to nicer restaurants, but they preferred KFC and Jack in the Box. Some of the outlets also didn’t impress them as much as Kmart and Payless shoes did. Anyhow, after the flea market we did a drive by of HP Pavillion where the hockey team plays and then headed home.

The next day was a family day, where my family could meet Wifey™’s parents. My mom had a get together and everyone got to mingle and get to know each other. The highlights included Wifey™’s father getting to drive my sister’s fiance’s monster truck. Huge tires, a television, a dvd player and a playstation all built-in. Anyhow, her father got to drive it. Not to be outdone, though, her mother got to drive my cousin’s Jaguar. I think for the both of them … this might have been better than Kmart.

Monday was our Alcatraz day. I’d never actually been there or done the tour so it would be a first for me too. Arriving at Pier 39 is always a treat for tourists. The first stop has to be the seals that have migrated their for years and have taken over part of the boat docking area. It’s nature’s own tourist attraction that even locals can’t get enough of and a must see for the first-time tourist.

Alcatraz was also interesting. They don’t lock you into cells anymore, but you pretty much have free roam of the island while you are there and can catch any boat back. The nice part of this tour is that you wear headphones to do the tour and they have headphone in French, so everyone could follow along. The tricky part is not getting ahead of the taped tour.

Tuesday marked our final day of doing real touristy stuff. We visited Coit Tower and even went up into it, which was also a first for me. I’d been there before but never up into it. The elevator is a crack addicts dream come true. Jesus. You get in and the thing is about a hundred years old. The operator tells you that the bumps and jolts you feel are “normal”. Ugh. Eighteen stories up later … you are in the nose of Coit Tower looking down on the city. It’s spectacular if you can handle the elevator ride up.

Wednesday we made a quick trip into the city for some final wrapping up tours. We stopped at Fort Point to get a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge. The same spot that Alfred Hitchcock film one of his movies from. Hadn’t been there in decades.

Also made a stop at the Palace of Fine Arts, which was a part of the International Exposition in the earlier part of the 1900’s. It’s a great old structure and a definite landmark to the City. It also makes for some great photographs.

All in all, the trip was fun. We did A LOT. And although I couldn’t understand what anyone was saying most of the time and although, they preferred Jack in the Box to a nicer restaurant or Kmart to some of our nicer stores, it was still a fun and relaxing experience.

Even nicer was that the friends that Wifey™’s parents brought along had been married 25 years and had never gone on a honeymoon or even travelled outside of their hometown. So, it gave us a nice feeling to know that we could be a part of this trip with them.

After three days of rest, now I’m back at work and back into the monotonous routines. A small handful of people have come up and said “welcome back” and asked about my trip. Others have just continued on as though I wasn’t ever gone. It’s strange, but not unexpected. The last two weeks have given me a lot to think about.

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