Jaclynt.com

So long, summer.

Hello. I’m back from my vacation and getting ready to leave again, first for Boulder, Colorado for a week (work), and then to McAllen, Texas for another week after that (work again). After that…as in less than 24 hours after I get back from CO, I will be heading to McAllen. Yippee. I am so thrilled about this.

Anyway, on to better topics, my vacation was fantastic. We flew into LAX on a Saturday, early afternoon. We rented a car, which was actually a bit of a disaster actually acquiring the rental–the rental place had a line to the door and one person working the counter. Two by the time we got up there an hour later. Like I said: disaster.

But once we were finally on the road, heading to Andy’s brother’s girlfriend’s place, it was great. I had gone into this with nerves about driving in LA. You always hear stories about how awful/scary/agressive drivers are there and that they wil just run you over and you’ll never be able to change lanes.

Clearly these people have never driven through a single urban area in Texas. Honestly, the entire time I was there, driving in California was a breath of fresh air in comparison to Texas. On top of the drivers not being oblivious red-neck morons, the roads are actually constructed to handle a butt-load of people! It’s really quite brilliant and you just don’t find that in Texas. Especially when they decide to do construction on every major road in the state at one time and never finish.

Okay, enough talk about driving.  The first night there we headed down to Newport Beach. Didn’t do a whole lot that first day. But the next day we went to Disneyland! It was a blast! And again, I was dreading ginormous crowds and infinitely long lines, but it just wasn’t bad at all. Six Flags Over Texas has way longer lines. I think the longest we waited at Disneyland was 30 minutes. For most rides that seemed crowded we got those “fast passes” that let you come back in an hour and just walk right up. Genius concept, really.

I really enjoyed Space Mountain.We went on it toward the beginning. Not being able to see was highly amusing to me for whatever reason. We also went over to the California Adventure park, and my favorite ride there was called Terror Hotel, or something like that. It was one of those that takes you up high and drops you straight down. Only this one then brought you up again…and back down, and up again, and so on.

At one point, when we were really tired, we went on this brilliant simulation ride that takes you flying over various areas of California (maybe elsewhere too, honestly I don’t remember). What was so great about it was that it took you out and up a bit so your feet were dangling and I swear, the thing even had scents–like the smell of a field or flowers when you went over certain areas. Most relaxing ride ever.

We spent the whole day at Disneyland and I was sunburned and my feet ached big time by the time we got home. But we got back up the very next morning and headed out to Laguna Beach!

Gorgeous much? We spent most of the day in the water and in the sand building a sandcastle, which turned into a sand-flower. Ha. Yeah. We got more sunburned (I was all kinds of pasty pale and didn’t apply our crappy kind of sun screen often enough), and then met up with the others to eat dinner.

…Annnnnd the next day we headed back to LAX and made a short flight to San Francisco.

Our hotel in San Francisco was very cool. It was recently renovated and super modern. It was in the middle of every thing, so we just took a bus where we needed to go. The first day we went down to Pier 39. We were hoping to book a tour to Alcatraz, but it turns out they were sold out until the next weekend. WTF? I found it weird because when I went to San Francisco on a work trip in 2005, around the same time of year, I had no problem getting a ticket and seeing Alcatraz that afternoon. But oh well. We took one of the other cruises instead that went around the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and by the noisy sea lions. It was fun and cold as hell. I think it was that night that we ate down at Fisherman’s Wharf and had this insanely awesome crab mac and cheese and restaurant whose name I already forgot. But it was delicious.

The next day we rented bikes and biked across the Golden Gate Bridge. This was the one thing I really wanted to do since we started planning the trip and it definitely did not disappoint. Before this I hadn’t ridden a bike since I was a kid, so it was interesting getting used to that again, but I didn’t have any problems–particularly once I got my seat adjusted and bike in the best gear. For some reason the guys started my seat so low it was killing my legs to peddle, particularly up hill. They also told us 2nd speed (gear? I don’t have a clue…one of the 3 clicks on the left, not the right) would be the best for the whole trip. Liars. 3rd was way better. More bang for your buck with speed 3. Anyway. I eventually got it figured out.

It was a long ride just to the bridge, it seemed. Maybe it’s just that it seemed closer than it actually was when we started. Going across the bridge itself was so much fun and ridiculously beautiful. We only got about 3 million pictures. After crossing the bridge we rode on into Sausalito, ditched the bikes for a few minutes, walked around, and got a bite to eat–pizza at this cute little Italian cafe. The buildings in the hills amazed me here.

After we ate we got back on the bike and rode another 6 miles into Old Mill Park to see the giant redwood trees. We spent a few minutes in the park goofing around and taking pictures, then rode back to Sausalito so we could catch a ferry back to San Francisco.

All told, I think we biked a bit over 20 miles that day. Insane! And my ass hurt big time. How people manage to avoid that pain is beyond me. Ha!

That night we went to the Ghirardelli Square and bought a bunch of my favorite kind of chocolate. The next day we walked around Union Square and then flew back to LA. That night (get ready for a long string of names) Andy’s brother’s girlfriend’s brother cooked us dinner at their cousin’s house. He’s a culinary student, so it was very yum.

Then (take a breath) the next day we headed out to San Diego and ate the most awesome Mexican food ever in Coronado Island, then goofed around the beach for a while.

After that, to conclude our trip, we went to the San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park. Holy hot as hell. Seriously. Didn’t realize we’d hit 100+ degree temperatures on this vacation. Though at least it was a dry heat, so it didn’t compare to nasty Texas. The zoo was very neat–and there was so much there. I think my favorites were the elephants, or maybe the lions at the very end who roared at us.

And that is pretty much that. We flew back to Austin on a Sunday, drove back to Bryan, and went back to work the next day. It was a bitch going to bootcamp (my exercise program) the next morning, and I managed to sleep through my alarm missing it twice that week. Oops.