Last Sunrise in Malibu

A sad day as we were leaving on this day, but it was a pretty spectacular sunrise!

I have added a whole bunch of new posts tonight as I finally have time and a good WiFi connection!  Boy, we sure did a lot of stuff!

Amazing flowers

When we were here in January on our big trip, there were actually more flowers in bloom in the campground, but there are many beautiful plants in the campground now. Hibiscus, jasmine, gardenia, prickly pear cactus, aloe, agave, jade plants as big as trees, and so many more that I don't know the names of.  Oh how wonderful it would be to be a gardener here!

Morning Coffee Spot

Why would you go to Starbucks when you have this?

This is where we sit with our coffee every morning, and I'm really starting to like it!

Muscle Beach in Santa Monica

 The older muscle beach in Venice Beach is still there, and has more of the weight lifting equipment.  There is a new and different muscle beach in Santa Monica.  I would classify it as a Cirque du Soleil practice beach!  There was a section of squishy mats, like you would find in a playground, where teams were balancing on each other.  There were tons of metal beams, low and high to the ground.  Even bars, uneven bars, rings, and trapeeze wire made it as equipped as a gymnastics training centre.

 

There was one section where little kids and the general public could play, and another section where more experienced adults were "training".  We watched for quite a while and tried a few things!

I tried to download a video - but no luck, so we'll have to do with photos.

 

 

 

Santa Monica Pier

This was probably the busiest beach that we went to, but luckily, we did not come to go to the beach, but to walk the iconic pier.  There are tourist shops, restaurants, and a huge arcade, and of course the amusement park, with the very famous Ferris Wheel.

Do you need a little Kiss?

Gene Simmons, from the rock band, KISS, has a reality show called Family Jewels.  A couple of years ago, his wife, Shannon Tweed (who happens to be one of David's favourite Canadians!), decided she wanted to take the family camping.  But of course, a rock star can't go camping in just any trailer, and why not do a little advertising while you are at it! 
This is in fact, his trailer, but the family was not camping in it while we were there, just some members of his "posse". They were parked directly across from us at the campground, and it was pretty funny to watch other campers, especially the Europeans, stop and take photos on the way past!

Malibu Mornings

This was a good morning for fog, but not so much for sunrise colours.  The fog rolled in off the ocean and up the hillside, you could literally see it flowing over the edge.  It wouldn't work very well in a photo, though. There were a couple flocks of pelicans going by today, and of course, my friends, the porpoises!

Zuma Beach

Zuma beach is about 4 miles up the coast from the town of Malibu.  The beach is about a mile and a half long with beautiful sand.  The kids did not like the waves that much for boogie boarding, but maybe they have had enough of that by now.  I thought that the lifeguard tower was a fairly iconic California beach picture, so here it is!
Last night we went to see the movie, Bourne Legacy at the Malibu movie theatre.  After the movie started, three people came in late, asked if the seats beside us were taken, and came in past us.  David whispered at me if I recognized them, but I was trying not to be obviously staring in a dark theatre.  (The movie was actually good, but I missed Matt Damon)  Anyway, after the movie was over and the lights went on, we checked out the guys beside us.  One of them was Ricky Schroder who was a child actor in Silver Spoons, and recently has been in a cop show.  The other man, we recognized the face, but David had to do a bit of research to come up with the name.  It was John Paul DeJoria and his wife.  He is, according to Wikipedia, an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist.  He is best known for his line of Paul Mitchell hair products and his charity work for many causes.
We know that there are tons of famous people who live around this area, but it is all very low key and calm.  I saw a photographer with a huge camera the other day, but it is not like there are a lot of paparazzi hanging around.  Last time we were here we saw Scott Caan as he came in from surfing.  He was parked just down from us in the lot.

Marvelous Mallibu

This is the view out of our bedroom window which is at the back of the trailer.  It is an amazing view to wake up to every morning, and to listen to the waves as you go to sleep at night.  On the far left side you can make out the taller buildings of LA when the fog lifts.  I have woken up before sunrise every morning, and then David comes out later to share coffee and the view.  What a great way to end our holiday!

Walmart Adventure

We tried to go to a Walmart to pick up a couple of things.  The GPS can find them for us, but can’t tell us what the neighbourhood is like!  We had driven through a number of ethnic communities, especially Korean, but by the time we got to the Mall, it was predominately black.  As we turned into parking lot we saw about 10 police cars and the first few warning bells started to sound, as we drove our rather large truck around the very crowded parking lot, the bells got a bit louder, when a rather large black women came around the back of her car, radiating attitude as only a “fierce” black woman can, the bells were telling us to go home!  On the way out of the parking lot we saw a sign in the neighborhood stating that “Cruising not allowed.  Cruising means going past the same point twice within six hours.”  If they need to have signs out to stop cars from driving around looking for ‘drive by’ opportunities, then perhaps this was not the neighbourhood for this little white family in their big white truck!

Hollyroooooood (movie quote)

After driving around the ritzy sections of Hollywood, we drove up into the hills to the Griffith Observatory, which looks out over LA and the surrounding cities.  You can also look further up to the Hollywood sign (which, besides Rodeo Drive, was Rianna’s tourist item for the day).  The road to go up to the sign is closed to the public now, probably due to too many people doing stupid stuff L 

I think the part that amazed me the most was the people running up the dirt path that went up these hills.  There was a path that would up through the trees that many people were using for their workout – you sure wouldn’t need to go to the gym if you did that a couple of time a week!

Beautiful Bugatti

No trip to Hollywood would be complete without a drive down Rodeo Drive.  It was super-hot, and we really couldn’t go into any of the stores anyway, so we decided just to drive, and not walk down the sidewalk.  That was ok until Sean saw his dream car! 

This beautiful Bugatti is worth over a million dollars and caused a great amount of excitement in my car crazy son.  I cannot even comprehend driving a car worth that much money!  David was able to drop us off so that Sean could drool in a close up and personal fashion, not to mention getting a photo with the car!  Usually Sean gives me grief for looking like a tourist and taking pictures of things, but he sure loved his mom with the camera here!!

The MacGregor's go to Hollywood

Well, there is probably more I should have added about San Diego, but I am way far behind, so we are just moving on!

Nothing like walking up and down the Walk of Fame in 37 degree heat!  We got to see lots of “stars”on Hollywood Boulevard and checked out Grauman’s Theatre.  It was hugely busy of course, which made it difficult to see things at times, but what can you do?  We drove parts of the Santa Monica Blvd while singing the Sheryl Crow song, and then drove around Beverly Hills.  The homes were beautiful, but my favourite part was the lines of palm trees down the streets!

Bikes with Brandon

KOA campgrounds always have lots of fun things to do, and the one here in Chula Vista is no exception.  The boys rented KOA trikes t zoom around the campground.  Great workout for the legs, not so easy to see when you are trying to drive through a campground with a big rig since you are only two feet off the ground.  Brandon and Sean found a spot at the back of the campground where they could practice “drifting”. This KOA also had 6 seater family bikes, a climbing wall, ping pong table, playground, horseshoes, and pancake breakfasts.  They had luxurious camping cabins that were more like houses with two floors.

We did not end up doing a lot at the campground because we were out doing things, but it would be a great campground to come and spend a weekend.  Obviously, people in the area do just that as the campground was pretty much full on the weekends, and less busy during the week.  Whole groups of camping caravans came together, with 20 families hanging out.  If you lived in the heart of LA it would be a lovely weekend!!

Coronado Again

The Hotel del Coronado is a beautiful old hotel that has been an important historical feature in San Diego since before the Depression.  They had a couple of young men walking around with hawks on tall poles to scare away the pigeons and sea gulls that try to gather on the grounds or around the outdoor restaurant. I thought that was pretty ingenius!

We spent a few hours before the baseball game walking around Coronado's shops.  Everyone here has beach cruiser bikes.  They look like the bikes that we had when we were kids.  There are no gears like on a mountain bike, they don't need them since everything is flat.  We even saw some with sissy bars and handles like a chopper bike.  Pretty retro!

Getting ready for football

Sean and David spent some time playing football on the beach.  The girls spent most of their time sun tanning!

Isn't this cute?

When you have no children around to spend your money, you get to decorate your new convertible beetle to match your rolling home on wheels!

San Diego Padres

We went to see the Padres play against the Chicago Cubs.  The game was good, but not all that exciting.  I had some really good fish and chips though, from a waterfront restaurant that has a little mini version at the stadium.  We had a good chat with a teacher from Oregon who was city beside us.

The stadium is right downtown, and of course we got to go through rush hour traffic to get there, but at least we didn't have the trailer!

Boogie Boarding

It is interesting how different beaches can have such different waves.  The degree of slope, current, wind, all make a difference.  Learning to wait for the right wave, kick to get going at just the right time, and then having it push you all the way into the beach  definitely takes practice!  It is such an awesome feeling when it all comes together!

This is Solano beach, one of the best ones that we went to for waves!
Sometimes the water seemed pretty cold, I know that I know I was happy that we brought the wetsuits from the lake.

WaveHouse

Still trying to catch up on San Diego days, so bear with me!

We spent another day at the beach with the Aab's and the Noble's at Mission Beach, just outside a bar and restaurant called the WaveHouse.  It is right alongside the boardwalk, facing out to the beach.  We sat at a table made out of a surfboard, and watched all manner of people travel down the boardwalk, on foot, bikes, and skateboards.  Very entertaining!

The reason that it is called the WaveHouse is because there are two giant wave machines that you can pay togo on and surf or boogie board.  It was also very entertaining to sit and watch people surf (and wipe out).  Some of them were quite amazing and could do flips and difficult moves.

Surfin' USA

We went to three main beaches while in San Diego:  Coronado, Solano, and Mission.  All are within half an hour or so of the KOA campground.  All were great beaches, but Solano had the best waves.  The Aab family was meeting up with another family down here, who are also from Calgary.  Brandon plays hockey with their boy, Cole.  His family is friends with  another family who lives here, who came with us to the beach and brought their surf boards!!  Sean, Rianna and I all spent some time trying to "ride the waves"!  Watching the experienced surfers was awesome, and a little daunting.
Sean actually made it up for a few seconds, Rianna was able to kneel and go for a bit, and I was awful! 
The board was huge, heavy, and really tried to get away from me with every possible wave and opportunity!  Finally, it decided it had had enough of the ungainly, whale-like object trying to ride it, and turned it's vengence on me.  It waited for it's moment when a nasty wave turned me upside down, and then it wacked me with its fins (somewhat reminiscent of the killer whales using their tails to splash the crowds at Sea World).  As I returned to the safety of dry land, with blood running down my leg and a bruise already forming on my thigh, I passed off the surf board to another unsuspecting dry lander, and checked another item off my bucket list!
I may not have conquered the board, but in a small way, I conquered my fears.

We love dolphins and orcas!

I know I am a big suck, but I still get really emotional when I see dolphins and orcas. (Flashback to when I was 12 and dreamed of being a marine biologist)  The trainers do not get into the pool with the orcas (due to the accident that occurred in Florida about 2 weeks after we saw the show there), and they were not even in the water with the dolphins very much.  It is still awe inspiring to see these amazing creatures!

Count them - that's 6 dolphins in the air!!

Sea World

We decided that we could pass up the San Diego Zoo, (I think ours is way better, and far less commercial) but could not miss Sea World.  The shows have all changed, there are some new rides, and it was fun because the kids got to hang out together.  Rianna was so happy to have lots of friends to do rides with!

Rianna's latest Passion

Rianna could not travel on holidays and not bring her nail polish.  Unfotunately, she brought enough to open her own salon! So...here is the San Diego KOA nail spa!  She will do a myriad of colours, styles, stamps, and free hand designs.  She should have put up a sign and made some extra spending money.  Karen, Jocelyn, Taylor, and Morgan all decided a trip to the spa was a good idea!

This is why we came to the Malibu RV Park.  David is standing right behind our trailer, and this is our view!!  I sat and watched the sun come up, watched dozens of hummingbirds come and go in these bushes which are full of red flowers, and watched the porpoises travel right in front of our spot! The campground is right above the Pacific Coast Highway, just a couple miles north of Malibu.
When we came on our big trip, there were the most amazing sunrises over LA (which we can see just to the south) and sunsets up the coast.  I was so excited about coming here for just that reason!!  Unfortunately I forgot about the seasonal changes due to the rotation of the earth, so the position of sunrise and sunset are way different, but still beautiful!!

Coronado Beach

The island of Coronado is connected to San Diego by a 2 mile bridge on one side, and a long strip of beaches and bridges called the Strand on the other.  A lady who works in a shop in Old Town told me that it was rated as the third best beach in the world.  Would be interesting to see if that is right.  It is a beautiful beach, that goes on forever.  The waves are good for boogie boarding, and the kids spent a lot of time just playing in the huge waves.

The homes on this island are beautiful.  They are mostly older, and smaller, but have amazing gardens and trees; magnolia, bouganvillea, lime, lemon, grapefruit, and roses everywhere.  We have seen a few homes within walking distance from the beach that are for rent during the summer.....hhmmmm? 

The ants go marching one by one.....

David is giving me grief because I am behind in my blog entries - but is he here typing them out for me?  I don't think so!  We just have not had a whole lot of sitting aroune time to do it.  I usually would do the blog in the evening after supper while they are watching TV or playing a game.  Now we are usually out by the fire visiting, or out somewhere doing something.  Oh, well...why am I giving myself dealines while on holidays??

Anyway, here we are in San Diego!  First job when we got here was to ant proof!  There are tons of teeny tiny ants (say that 10 times, fast) here, and they love to come inside for food!  Every place that the trailer touches the ground has to be surrounded by comet or some such corrosive powder which the ants don't like. We have comet and borax.  You can also coat things with vaseline, but that just seems really messy to me.  It seemed to work well - not many ants inside. Until last night anyway.....

David and Sean went to see a Chargers game last night so Rianna and I went out to do laundry and some shopping.  We came home to drop off the laundry, and were going to the train station to wait to pick up the boys.  Rianna let out a scream and started her "I am a girl and I see a bug routine"  Usually it is some little spider or something, but this time, it was worth a scream!  There were hundreds of ants swarming all over the counter where we have a little opening above the garbage.  When we came back from Coronada today, I made clubhouse sandwiches for lunch before the boys went to the game.  I used the pre-cooked bacon that you just have to warm up in the microwave.  I left the paper towel in the garbage, and it was a huge attraction for the ants!!  The odd crumb in the cupboard was obviously not nearly as yummy for ants as bacon grease (can you blame them?)  We got the garbage outside and killed all the ants, but even for me, who is not at all squeemish, it was a little freaky. Lesson learned!
For the rest of the evening, though, every bug or something that touched Rianna, sent her off into the shivers!

Rianna stil dreams of going to Paris!

Rianna’s first choice for things to do in Las Vegas was shopping! (Big surprise!)  We hit the Forum shops, and a bit of the strip, picked up some supplies at Target.  Rianna and I found a lovely pair of Jimmy Choo’s for $1000!  While the boys went to the LV Automobile Museum at the Imperial Palace, we went shopping at the Venetian and had the most amazing chocolate and peanut butter covered apple that we have ever seen!  (Back to the food theme, I guess)  The Ross store by the Riviera is always good for some deals!  We walked through the newest part of the strip, called the City Center or Aria.  It is quite amazing from an architectural standpoint, but full of really high priced stores which had more security guards than shoppers.  With the US economy the way it is, we are not too sure how long this centre /shopping /casino will be open.

As always, Las Vegas is always interesting for people watching!  I do not know how women walk around the Strip in 4 inch stiletto heels!  Made me, in my Birkenstocks, look pretty frumpy!

Big Fun for Sean

Sean with an automatic weapon.  Can any good come of this?

Guns and Gold in Vegas

There were two things on the top of the list of things to do in Vegas for this trip – a visit to the Gold and Silver Pawn shop, as seen on one of David’s favourite shows, Pawn Stars; and shooting guns.  The line-up at the Pawn Shop both times we went by was huge, and since we didn’t feeling like standing in the blazing sun, we decided to pass this one by.  The gun part worked out a bit better! The first time we went to the Gun Store, there was a four hour wait, so again, decided not to stay.  Since we had to stay an extra day to get the tires done, we went back earlier in the morning.  Rianna got to shoot a Glock, just like the police use at home. She did quite well, and has one shot dead centre on her target.  David shot a 45 caliber 1911 - huge sound reverberating through the indoor range!  Sean had the big man experience with a Sig pistol and a MP5 sub-machine gun.  (He was just a little excited!) He did great as well, but we were all amazed at how quickly the bullets get used with an automatic gun.  You hold your finger down for two seconds, and there goes 10 rounds. I decided to save my money for alternate activities (yes, my favourite Brighton store is found here in Las Vegas).

Tire Trouble on the Way to Las Vegas

The highway between Salt Lake City and Las Vegas is not that exciting.  This is an area of high mountain desert, scrub brush, cactus, rolling hills, and mountains.  Temperatures can get very high; we have seen 42 degrees on our truck’s temperature gauge.  This makes for very hot road surfaces, lots of flat tires, and debris on the road.  Whether from the heat, debris, or just fate, we blew a tire on the trailer about 50 km north of Vegas.  After our previous tire blow out experiences, David was prepared for this!!  When we blew our first tire in Virginia, we called CAA to help us out.  Now we rolled into action as a team!!

 Luckily, we were very close to a highway exit so we were a little safer than the side of the Interstate.  Unluckily, we were dealing with 41 degree heat in the desert at the side of a road.  We raised the trailer up using the same blocks we use for levelling in campgrounds, mind you, I’ve never had to raise it up quite so high!  Sean provided the muscle to get the lug nuts off while David got the spare.  Rianna was the official videographer and water supplier.  We were only working for about half an hour, but I must admit that by the time I was done my part I was feeling light headed and nauseous.  The state trooper came by, just to make sure we were ok, so that was reassuring.

We were all very hot by the time we were done, and a little nervous for the rest of the drive into Vegas.  The tire had shredded quite badly, so we were a little worried about damage to the other tires or the undercarriage on the trailer. We managed to get into town, with no further problems, but it was a big relief to unhitch and walk into the hotel!!  We were VERY glad that we had decided to stay in the hotel part of Circus Circus, and not the campground!!  It also happened to be 5 minutes away from the tire dealership where we had to take it to get a brand new set of 5 tires!!

Salt Lake City

This year we had a much more enjoyable stopover in Salt Lake City since we didn’t spend hours in the hospital getting someone stiches! (That would be after my idiotic incident with a spring loaded knife for those of you who don’t remember!)  The kids were excited about dinner at the Red Iguana again.  (The fact that we are now accumulating favourite food places in different cities across America means that maybe we are travelling too much!)  Dinner of course was great, and we had left overs to heat up for lunch the next day.

We have passed by the Great Salt Lake many times, and so we decided that we needed to see if the stories were true about the ability to float in the water.  We drove out to the marina (which was closed by this time) and had to walk a fair distance to get to the water.  The lake is very shallow for a long ways and absolutely full of little shrimp!  The kids went out deep enough to float and said that it was a really cool feeling – very boyant.

A Gastronomical Experience

We have stayed in the Butte KOA a number of times.  They have a great little kitchen at the office where you can buy awesome chicken, jo jos, and beans.  This time, however, we tried something new.  Sean and David had seen a pizza place called Trimbos on the show Man vs Food.  And so, of course, we had to give it a try.  The pizza was excellent and the Stromboli was huge.  In our travels, we have often arrived at a destination, only to find some major event going on that fills up the campground.  In this particular instance it was Evel Knieval days!  We had a little trouble finding the restaurant because many of the roads were closed to set up booths and spectacular events like the cannon that shoots the lady into the air, and the show and shine  This looks like a fun festival, complete with a Smash Up Derby like we watched in Colorado last year.  Seems like a lot of bikers come here on the way to Sturgis. (These are mostly the recreational bikers that carry their bikes in the utility trailer behind their $100,000 motor coach, not the real bikers with tattoos and skin like leather.