The Canadians' Road Trip Honeymoon to DLR/California - Last update :( 8/16 [Archive] - The DIS Discussion Forums

blabbermouth

05-05-2009, 07:22 PM

Ok, with a mere 6 and a half weeks to go, I’m ready to start my pre-trip report.

INTRODUCTIONS: Hi, I'm Kelsey. I am 24 and I work in accounting. I'm currently studying to get my Certified General Accountant designation. I love cupcakes, snowboarding and goin out/girl talk with my friends. The other person on the trip is my soon-to-be husband, Jason. He is 25 and does sales and office work for my Dad's roofing supply company. Don't worry though, I got my Dad the employee; my Dad didn't get me the boyfriend. He likes beer, golf and his motorcycle.

This was last September during our first trip to Disneyworld.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/image033.jpg

Here’s one of our engagement photos (My little brother is such an amazing photographer!)

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/DSC_0125.jpg

Ok, one more photo. This is where we're from! Victoria, BC. It was pretty cool to see this sign in Epcot, along with the gardens and the totem poles etc. Really made us feel at home.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/DSCN0580.jpg

TRIP PURPOSE: Our upcoming trip is for our honeymoon – we’re getting married at home in my parent’s garden on the 30th. We got engaged on February 28th (yes, much more romantic than the traditional February 14th) and 3 months and a few days later we’re gettin’ hitched. No no, I’m not pregnant! We’ve been dating for about 4 ½ years and living together for 1 ½ years in the condo we bought together, so we figured a wedding isn’t much more of a commitment than cohomeownership! (I swear that’s a word, break it down, it makes sense!) Plus, we knew it’d be at my parent’s house, so we didn’t have to book a ‘venue’, and the best time for pretty flowers is May. So we decided to not wait a full year, and just *ahem* get it over with! It’s going to be great, we have it all planned mostly. Fun, casual and cheap – that’s our wedding motto! Should get it engraved on the rings or something.

OUR DISNEY HISTORY: I’ve only been to Disneyland once when I was three-ish. The only things I ‘remember’, as in ‘have seen photos of’, is a Mickey shaped swimming pool (no idea what hotel it was!) and the carousel. So I consider myself a newbie. J has never been to Disneyland. We both went to Disneyworld last September with our good friends Randy and Karin (who are also getting married later this summer and honeymooning at Disneyworld). We had a good time at Disneyworld, but wanted to switch it up a bit and see a few more places.

TRIP DETAILS: We decided on a road trip because it’s cheaper, we both like to drive and it let’s us visit many places without renting a car. Also, it makes J feel like we’re going somewhere other than just Disneyland, which I’m looking forward to also. We will be going to:

- San Diego for 2 days 2 nights
- Disneyland for 4 ½ days 5 nights
- San Francisco for 2 days 3 nights
- And two lovely stops while driving: Oregon on the way down, and Washington on the way home

The first two days (and the last two days) will be very long days of driving, but we’ll hopefully be able to catch some sleep while the other person is driving. Once we’re in the three cities, we probably will drive very little, if at all.

Alright, next update will be our plans for San Diego. Hope you will all enjoy my PTR and my TR which will be starting in… 2 months. Ok, I really shouldn’t be thinking about coming home from our vacation already!

hurleysweety

05-06-2009, 03:42 PM

:woohoo: Great start! Love reading about the honeymoon trips because I was just doing that myself this time last year! I'm sure the PTR is still floating around the WDW somewhere....

Sounds like you have a wonderful trip planned! Can't wait to read more! popcorn::

blabbermouth

05-07-2009, 07:17 PM

Yay! One reader! Who is now in Disneyland :( I mean... yay for you!

Ok, so two things you'll learn about us is: 1. We're cheap. Hence the cheap hotels we're staying in. 2. We like to sleep in. It's just the way it is. I know the pros and cons, we've come to terms with them. We probably won't arrive anywhere before 9am. Maybe one day at Disneyland we'll get up early to beat the crowds, but only if we're feeling like we're not accomplishing enough.

So we have two days in San Diego. I think we'll probably arrive pretty late the night before, so we will just crash. We have two full days and then we're driving up to Anaheim late on the second night (so we'll be fresh for Disneyland the next morning). We don't really have a concrete plan for what we're going to do each day. We're just going to try and squeeze as much stuff in as possible. Three days might have been a better idea...

We're buying the So Cal City Pass. It will get us into Sea World, either the San Diego Zoo or Wild Animal Park, Universal Studios and 3 days at Disneyland. All for $259. It's a pretty good deal, I think. Comments? I tried to work it out and even if we don't go to Universal it's still worth it.

So we're planning on going to the Zoo one morning/early afternoon, and SeaWorld the other morning/afternoon. Jason is a big animal lover, so these are mostly for him. I'm hoping we can see enough at each of them in about 4-5 hours. I don't think either of us feel the need to see absolutely everything. As long as J sees the Koalas, he's happy. And we should probably snap a pic of the pandas for our friend who responded 'No one's THAT lucky' when someone asked him if people every hit pandas with their car in China (you know, like hitting a deer or a moose...).

Probably on the day we go to the Zoo we will take the trolley tour. It will pick us up at the Zoo and has stops at El Prado in Balboa Park, Coronado Island, Seaport Village, the Marina, Horton Plaza, the cruise ship terminal, Old Town and a few other places. It takes 2 hours for a full round trip, but we will probably hop on and off at a few of those places too. And it's only $28. Plus, our hotel will shuttle us to/from the Zoo, so that's handy too, no driving or parking!

The day we go to Seaworld will also be beach day. I think in the afternoon we'll drive over to Mission or Pacific Beach. Just for a little beach walk and relaxing. Maybe find a nice restaurant patio to have a drink on.

For dinners we're just going to play it by ear. It will depend where we are and what's convenient to there. I hope to eat some really good Mexican food though. Any restaurant suggestions? Lunch will probably be at the zoo and seaworld. Breakfast I'm not sure. I'm happy with a bagel and a coffee, but J likes big breakfasts. He might just have to suck it up in San Diego because it'll set us back too late. At DL I'll eat a granola bar or something then we'll probably go on rides for an hour or two, then we can stop for a late breakfast. It will make him happy to have eggs and bacon, so we'll do it. And a lil Mickey pancake or waffle never hurt a girl. And I do have to find time for that iced latte I've been hearing about!

I would have loved to stay in a more interesting location or somewhere with water views, but we're cheap so we're staying in 'hotel circle'. It gets decent reviews on trip advisor and a coworker has stayed there a few times, so I trust her. It's also pretty convenient to all areas of San Diego which is really spread out. But I'm having second thoughts. I'll see how I feel. Hmm.

Then the second night after dinner we'll pack up the car and head up to Anaheim to check into the HOJO.

Next up I'll talk a bit about San Fran, and then get to the fun stuff - Disneyland!

DizNee Luver

05-07-2009, 07:44 PM

I'm in...late but here......
Congratulations on your upcoming marriage!!!! A honeymoon at Disneyland will be so much fun & your side trips to San Diego & San Francisco!! Make sure you wave when you drive thru Medford Oregon (if you're driving I-5)...we're about 25 miles from the California border!!!
Can't wait to see more......please feel free to ask questions...we just did 2 trips to DL in March & April.....if you get bored you can check out my trip reports to get some info. (the link is in my signature below)

blabbermouth

05-07-2009, 10:02 PM

prettyprincessbelle

05-07-2009, 11:52 PM

You know I'm in.

:hippie:

DizNee Luver

05-08-2009, 09:54 AM

In fact you've already helped Diznee! I PMed you about hotels in Medford. So I'll wave right before I fall asleep!

I've read a bit of your first trip report before I posted much. I should go back and catch up!

So tonight, bad news lead to good news. J has been sick with the flu (no, not swine!) all week :sad1: but then his Mom brought us some amazingly good chicken noodle soup for dinner :lovestruc And he's starting to finally feel better today, so that's good too. At least he got it out of his system and will be healthy for the wedding and honeymoon!

:lmao: I knew the name looked familiar........ :rotfl:

The trip report just kept getting longer & longer & then we added a mini trip in there as well........now if we could just find employment down there, we'd have I'm moving to Disneyland report!!!!!! :cool1:

Glad J is feeling better.....mom's have a way with their chicken noodle soup!

Escape2Disney

05-08-2009, 10:25 AM

When you're going through Oregon, here are a couple of things that might be fun:

Hellgate Excursions (No, it isn't evil ;) ) - http://www.hellgate.com/ - These jet boat excursions are a lot of fun! The boat takes you down the river to a lunch (or dinner) in the woods, and then brings you back. It's about a 3 hour trip.
Wildlife Images - http://www.wildlifeimages.org/ - Since your husband-to-be likes animals, this can be very interesting. There are small guided tours to learn about their rescued animals, which include wolves, wildcats, badgers, owls, birds of prey, etc.
Wildlife Safari - http://www.wildlifesafari.org/ - I haven't done this one yet, but will be soon. I hear it is pretty interesting.

I'm moving to that area in late Fall to be near family, so we've done these things many times. Be sure to get a Dutch Brothers Coffee - there are TONS of them in Southern Oregon!!

blabbermouth

05-08-2009, 11:17 AM

:lmao: I knew the name looked familiar........ :rotfl:

The trip report just kept getting longer & longer & then we added a mini trip in there as well........now if we could just find employment down there, we'd have I'm moving to Disneyland report!!!!!! :cool1:

Glad J is feeling better.....mom's have a way with their chicken noodle soup!

Ok, I started back in on your report! Wow, so many great photos! I even somehow managed to get Jason to sit down and look at them with me. At least the Lilo and Stitch and GK buffet pics, lol.

You know I'm in.

:hippie:

*Yes* I'm going to read your update now.

When you're going through Oregon, here are a couple of things that might be fun:

Hellgate Excursions (No, it isn't evil ;) ) - http://www.hellgate.com/ - These jet boat excursions are a lot of fun! The boat takes you down the river to a lunch (or dinner) in the woods, and then brings you back. It's about a 3 hour trip.
Wildlife Images - http://www.wildlifeimages.org/ - Since your husband-to-be likes animals, this can be very interesting. There are small guided tours to learn about their rescued animals, which include wolves, wildcats, badgers, owls, birds of prey, etc.
Wildlife Safari - http://www.wildlifesafari.org/ - I haven't done this one yet, but will be soon. I hear it is pretty interesting.

I'm moving to that area in late Fall to be near family, so we've done these things many times. Be sure to get a Dutch Brothers Coffee - there are TONS of them in Southern Oregon!!

Wow, those sound really cool. And you must have known the other thing Jason likes a lot is COFFEE! :surfweb: Oh yeah, and I'm 1/2 dutch!

DizNee Luver

05-08-2009, 06:32 PM

Ok, I started back in on your report! Wow, so many great photos! I even somehow managed to get Jason to sit down and look at them with me. At least the Lilo and Stitch and GK buffet pics, lol.

Thank you.....we just kept snapping pictures thru the whole trip....but I'm glad we do that....lots to chose from when making Disney slideshows!!!!

blabbermouth

05-08-2009, 07:33 PM

Probably won't post more til Monday. Goin out for sushi tonight.

Tomorrow my sister is coming into town so we'll go shopping, drink some caesars etc. Sunday is my bridal shower, whee! So I'll be busy. Maybe J will be bored though... I can recruit him to post in my place!

OMG, just realized most American's don't know what caesars are! Bloody Marys, but with clamato juice instead of tomato juice. ie. WAY BETTER.

Have a nice weekend and mother's day everybody.

blabbermouth

05-11-2009, 01:35 PM

blabbermouth

05-12-2009, 04:35 PM

:woohoo: Time for the part you’ve all been waiting for.

We’re arriving in Anaheim Wednesday night, and will be leaving Monday late morning. We’re staying at the HOJO, apparently in a room overlooking the garden pool. Better than overlooking the freeway!

We’ll probably go to bed early so we can get up sorta early the next morning. By this point I think we’ll be playing it by ear as to how tired we are, so I don’t have an official plan. Horrible, I know.

We’ll have 3 ½ days for the parks, so I think we should have enough time to do almost everything. We won’t do a Magic Morning the first day, we’ll save it until Saturday and see if we need it. We’ll probably take an afternoon nap/pool break most days.

First day will be for Disneyland of course. I think we’ll try to get there close to regular opening and head around left (I think it’s left?) and do Indiana Jones, Pirates, Haunted Mansion etc. We’ll leave Fantasyland for that night and the ones with long lines for the potential Saturday Magic Morning.

Must do’s in DL: Indy, Pirates, HM, Matterhorn, Space Mountain (so excited to see how much better it is than WDW), Splash, BTMRR, IASW and I have to at least check out Toon Town. Oh, and Fantasmic! and the fireworks.

The next day we’ll start at DCA to get to Toy Story and Soarin’ early. I can’t believe TS doesn’t have fastpasses, so sad! We also want to check out Screamin’ (yes, I will be, but it makes it more fun, I swear), Monsters Inc, TOT (love it!) and check out Bugs Land (so many cute things to see).

I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot of things on my lists. The other day and a half will be reserved for whatever we still need to do or want to do again.

On to the FOOD. For some reason, when J was sick with the flu, I managed to tie him down and make him look at food pics and menus. He was too sick to run away, yet too sick to really think he would enjoy anything! Moihaha.

We decided on these Table Service restaurants: Carnation Café, Wine Country Trattoria and ESPN Zone for our dinners. We’ll only be there three nights, I’ll get to the fourth afternoon/night soon. Reviews, anyone? We would like to try Napa Rose and we do like ‘fancy’ food, but we’ll already be spending so much on vacation, it’s hard to justify the value of a $150 dinner when a night at HOJOs is less than that! Yeah, we’re cheap ;)

The morning we leave we’re going to do Lilo and Stitch Character Breakfast! The pics I’ve seen Stitch and Lilo (Thanks Diznee Luver) just seem like the cutest, like they actually take their time and have fun. But there’s also not a ton of characters to annoy you. It’s cheaper than Goofy’s and I like the Hawaiian theme. It’ll be one last goodbye before we hit the road to much less magical San Francisco.

For Counter Service we would like to go to a few of the following: Pacific Wharf Café, French Market, Rancho Del Zocalo, River Belle Terrace Breakfast, Little Red Wagon Corndogs and Taste Pilot’s Grill.

Snack time! Iced latte, corndog (Did I mention I LOVE Corndogs?), maybe a dole whip, maybe a tigger tail (keep me out of Pooh’s Corner so I don’t go crazy!) Mint Julep, Mickey or stuffed pretzel, cherry coke… yum!

Also, we want to do the wine tasting thing in DCA. Anyone know much about this? It still exists, right?

I’m sure I have more to say, but I’ll stop here because we still have 5 1/2 weeks to go! Oh yeah, I will talk about our 4th day later.

I might start on my planning binder tonight, if my first bootcamp class doesn’t kill me.

WA Kay

05-13-2009, 08:22 AM

DizNee Luver

05-13-2009, 10:14 AM

Looks like your plans are getting lined out.....very exciting this planning stuff!!!!

Yes Indy & POTC & such are to the left at the HUB. Remember to grab FP's early in your day to use later. You don't have to use them during the hour stated...just anytime after that "time" on that day.

Don't forget GRR at DCA...if you like Splash you'll like this one!!! It's one of my favorites!!!

We loved Carnation Cafe & ESPN Zone, but have never been to Wine Country Trattoria....this is on our to-do list. We've also never had the money to do Napa Rose, but someday........

I'm glad you enjoyed the Lilo-n-Stitch pics....we enjoyed ourselves even with just the 2 main characters...... If you interact with them, they'll interact with you!!

Counter service choices look good (although we didn't enjoy Rancho at all) but another one to maybe check out is the Hungry Bear Restaurant up by Splash Mountain. They have very good food & you can sit & watch the boats go by on the Rivers of America. We like sitting on the lower section, close to the water to feed the ducks!! Very relaxing down there.

Snacks look yummy!!! Don't forget about the Rice Krispy treats & popcorn!! Oh & if you get a chance to get one of the Smore bars at the Candy Palace on Main Street........delicious!

Can't help on the wine tasting as we don't drink wine....probably why we'd never eaten at Wine Country before.....but now that I've seen pics & reviews...we got to try it!

I'm getting excited for you now!!!!! :yay:

prettyprincessbelle

05-13-2009, 11:36 AM

KrazyKat4DIS

05-13-2009, 12:30 PM

I'm in! :thumbsup2 Sorry joining so late.

I still have to go back read your SF and DL section, but in regards to San Diego, you might think about going to Old Town for dinner and getting some delicious Mexican food and even better margaritas ;)

blabbermouth

05-13-2009, 01:38 PM

I'm in too. Congratulations on your upcoming marriage. :goodvibes I will keep my fingers crossed that the weather is perfect for the big day.

I also got married at home. It was casual, fun, cheap, and the sun shined all day. Of course even in Washington you are pretty much guaranteed nice weather on Aug 20th. :)

Your trip sounds perfect. I have driven from Mountlake Terrace (just north of Seattle) to Anaheim many times over the years and it was great getting to see so much. We would typically drive straight down I5 and come back up the coast.

I look forward to reading more about your trip and maybe we will see each other down there. My little group will be at HoJo's from June 20-27th. We are also staying in building 2 overlooking the garden pool.

Yes, we are hoping for... no rain. Doesn't have to be sunny, just not rainy!

Exciting to see someone that will be there at the same time! I guess I'll have to get some lime green mickey heads goin on so you can say hi.

Looks like your plans are getting lined out.....very exciting this planning stuff!!!!

Yes Indy & POTC & such are to the left at the HUB. Remember to grab FP's early in your day to use later. You don't have to use them during the hour stated...just anytime after that "time" on that day.

Don't forget GRR at DCA...if you like Splash you'll like this one!!! It's one of my favorites!!!

We loved Carnation Cafe & ESPN Zone, but have never been to Wine Country Trattoria....this is on our to-do list. We've also never had the money to do Napa Rose, but someday........

I'm glad you enjoyed the Lilo-n-Stitch pics....we enjoyed ourselves even with just the 2 main characters...... If you interact with them, they'll interact with you!!

Counter service choices look good (although we didn't enjoy Rancho at all) but another one to maybe check out is the Hungry Bear Restaurant up by Splash Mountain. They have very good food & you can sit & watch the boats go by on the Rivers of America. We like sitting on the lower section, close to the water to feed the ducks!! Very relaxing down there.

Snacks look yummy!!! Don't forget about the Rice Krispy treats & popcorn!! Oh & if you get a chance to get one of the Smore bars at the Candy Palace on Main Street........delicious!

Can't help on the wine tasting as we don't drink wine....probably why we'd never eaten at Wine Country before.....but now that I've seen pics & reviews...we got to try it!

I'm getting excited for you now!!!!! :yay:

Oh yeah, GRR at DCA, except that I hate getting wet, lol, but I will do it anyways.

Rice Krispies and popcorn are a given!

I will add the Hungry Bear. Heehee, I think that's what I should call Jason. And on that note I've been so good with cooking real food this week! Last night I made Mexican Lasagna and it was pretty good. Monday night I made quiche, and I have Chicken Souvlaki Wraps all lined up for later this week.

blabbermouth

05-13-2009, 01:42 PM

I just realized how many days you'll be in CA! Wooohooo!!

We've done Lilo and Stitch's breakfast several times and we love it. Jesus is a giant Stitch fan and I love the food there, so we're both happy. It's really mellow (not like Goofy's) and I think the food is fantastic!!

Yup, we're going to be down there for quite awhile! We don't really get the chance to go on lots of little trips, so when we do go, we go big!

I'm in! :thumbsup2 Sorry joining so late.

I still have to go back read your SF and DL section, but in regards to San Diego, you might think about going to Old Town for dinner and getting some delicious Mexican food and even better margaritas ;)

Never too late to start!

Thanks for the tip about SD, we were thinking about doing exactly that, so it's nice that a person who's done it thinks it's a good idea too!

And on a slightly unrelated wedding note: I just booked a hotel for our wedding night. Rack rate of $479 (!) and we're paying $119. Crazy! So excited.

blabbermouth

05-15-2009, 09:08 PM

We're going to spend our 4th morning in DL/DCA finishing the last few things.

That afternoon we're going to head up to Hollywood and probably just drive by the major tourist places and maybe check out Griffith Observatory. That night is "Jason Night" as we'll be going to see an LA Galaxy soccer game. Wheeeeee. (That was a sarcastic whee). To me, soccer is one of the most boring sports, and David Beckham (hottie for an older guy!) won't even be back yet. Oh well, J really wants to do it, and I'm hoping I'll like soccer a bit more in person than on tv. At least there's drinks and snacks! And there's no argument I enjoy those.

Another thing we gotta do: Get our picture taken at the Happily Ever After sign.

Also, I'm working on my planning binder kinda thing, so stay tuned for that!

blabbermouth

05-20-2009, 11:44 AM

A month and a day til we leave! I've been pretty preoccupied with the pesky wedding. Getting in the way of my trip planning!:eek:

But I have most of the trip planned I guess. Wish I had something else to write about, but I really don't right now.

Oh wait! Yes I do have a small change to our plans. In San Diego, we booked a way nicer hotel, top ten on tripadvisor for $104 per night. It's on the water and pretty and not in icky Hotel Circle like before. I'm pretty excited for that. I'm also going to try and get as many free upgrades as possible... it IS our honeymoon after all. But I'm pretty shy in that kinda situation, so it'll be a big thing for me to ask for that, but I'll try.

cinderella-princess

05-20-2009, 12:48 PM

hurleysweety

05-20-2009, 01:09 PM

Thats awesome that you upgraded to a nicer hotel! It's so worth it in situations like that. And don't be shy about saying is your honeymoon. I'm pretty shy, so I let DH do most of the talking - and the pins while we were in the park, haha. We were a little like that at first, but it got is a great room, ground floor like we wanted, and also a sweet red convertible for a rental car, for only a few $$ extra!! Also, free dessert at a ton of places :goodvibes. So go on, tell the world. It just makes people all giddy to hear that you're on your honeymoon. :cool1:

cinderella-princess

05-20-2009, 01:14 PM

blabbermouth

05-20-2009, 06:02 PM

It sounds like you have a great trip planned; I'm so excited for you! Congratulations on your upcoming marriage as well! :)

For the Napa Rose, my husband (also a Jason) and I ate there on our honeymoon. I would highly recommend it. It was probably $200 with taxes and tip but it was worth every penny. Our thought was that we were on our honeymoon and would proabably never do it again. It's your honeymoon - splurge a little! :)

Thanks! We've really been hemming and hawwing over what we want to splurge on/what we want to save on.

Thats awesome that you upgraded to a nicer hotel! It's so worth it in situations like that. And don't be shy about saying is your honeymoon. I'm pretty shy, so I let DH do most of the talking - and the pins while we were in the park, haha. We were a little like that at first, but it got is a great room, ground floor like we wanted, and also a sweet red convertible for a rental car, for only a few $$ extra!! Also, free dessert at a ton of places :goodvibes. So go on, tell the world. It just makes people all giddy to hear that you're on your honeymoon. :cool1:

We also got a ton of free drinks! We wore our bride and groom ears and the bartenders at ESPN Zone gave us free shots and random people in the bar would buy us champagne. It was awesome! :yay:

Alright, I will take your advice and milk it for all it's worth (:scared: I hate that saying... ick). I reeeeally don't think I will convince my Jason to wear the groom ears! I may just have to like, sneak attack them onto his head or something, then not let him look in the mirror. But if I tell him it will get us free drinks and dessert, it just might work. :woohoo: He would probably wear a pin. Unlikely: a creative matching disneymoon t-shirt.

Brady's Mom

05-21-2009, 04:53 PM

Ok, my fun weekend is over. Had a great time with my shower, so spoiled! It was nice for family and friends to all meet each other. Now for the next instalment in my trip report:

San Francisco

This will be the third and last destination of our trip. We will have two full days here and the night we arrive. This will probably be the most laid back part of our trip – no theme parks!

We only have two “must-do”s here: 1. Alcatraz tour. Probably the night-time one as we’ve heard it’s more interesting. 2. Rent bikes and bike across the Golden Gate Bridge (then take the ferry back from either Tiburon or Sausilito after having lunch). We’ll also probably stop in Golden Gate Park (My Dad says there’s some pretty gardens there… and we’ll probably need breaks!)

We also want to check out: Fisherman’s Wharf (I know people say its tacky), China Town, Union Square and maybe visit Lombard Street (the zigzag hill one) and ride a trolley. Also, enjoy some good food and soak up the atmosphere.

Since we don’t have a ton of plans, if anyone has any suggestions, let me know!

Last night, Jason and I finally got to spend some time together. Got Noodle Box takeout and watched Monsters Inc. We went to bed early; I was even too tired to talk about the trip!

Next instalment: Onto the good stuff - our plans for Disneyland!

Golden Gate Park is HUGE and really fun. Fisherman's Wharf is fun, too. I love to see the Sea Lion's. It actually used to be a real Marina until the sea lions moved in and made it impossible for the boats to dock. They are really territorial.

Check out the Cable Cars (NOT Trolleys) and the cable car museum if you can. It shows how the cable cars actually work and is FREE.

Take a coat - I kid you not - for the Alcatraz tour. On the boat you will freeze if you do not have a winter coat. A lot of people end up in San Francisco in the summer thinking it will be warm. It is not warm in the summer! DH and our oldest DS did the Alcatraz tour and our son did not believe his Dad when he told him he would need a coat. At least he had a hoodie and a wind breaker. He was way better off than the tourists that were wearing tanks and shorts.

If you go to China Town check out the fortune cookie factory. I'm sorry I can't remember the street it's on, but I am sure if you google it you could find it. It is in a little alleyway and is totally fun to see them make the cookies by hand. Yes, by hand. They are not all automated. You can buy some there and they charge you for taking pictures - but actually watching them make the cookies is free. And they give you some samples. Did I mention that they make chocolate fortune cookies??? ;)

I can't remember where it is but the Palace of Fine Arts and the Japanese Tea Garden are fun places to see in San Francisco. I'm thinking PFA is by the Golden Gate Bridge and the tea garden is in Golden Gate Park??? Sorry, not very helpful about WHERE they are - just that they are there.

If you have a chance go try some Dim Sum. Yummy Cantonese tea lunch. Try Yelp dot com to check out some good places. They usually have really good reviews.

Okay, no other suggestions. DH was born and raised in SF, so we have been there more times than I can remember. He just does the driving, so I don't always remember exactly where things are. :upsidedow And we don't always go and do the same things when we are there.

Sarah84

05-22-2009, 12:24 PM

Another newbie reader joining in :)

Your plans so great so far, im sure you will have a fantastic honeymoon, look forward to reading more :)

blabbermouth

05-22-2009, 03:23 PM

Wow, thanks so much Brady's Mom! I'll print that off for our reference!

Hi Sarah, thanks for joining in.

We're both getting really excited about the trip. This weekend we're having our bachelor and bachelorette parties, so it should be a fun one. Then we have a few little last minute things to do. Next week we will just be waiting patiently... or nervously for the big day! I'm sad because I had to take my engagement ring into to get a bit of it ground down so it sits closer to my wedding band, so I'll be ringless for my party! But that's okay.

Sometime after the wedding I'm going to call and make a few Priority Seatings and book the alcatraz tour and the trolley tour in San Diego. Then I'll have to start thinking about packing. Ahh! :scared1: Although, I do slightly prefer packing over unpacking.

Brady's Mom

05-22-2009, 04:05 PM

hurleysweety

05-22-2009, 05:37 PM

Yay! You'll have sooooo much fun at your bachelorette party! Maybe you can post an "appropriate" picture from it? HAHA! One of my girlfriends took all the pictures at my party and then gave it to me on a CD so I could deem which ones that people could see! :lmao:

Packing was a nightmare for me. I had to pack for so many different things since I took it to our wedding location with me too. I ended up forgetting a sweater, of all things, for the cooler weather. Its all nerves and all fun at this point! We're all so happy for you and your DFi! But I do agree, unpacking is much less fun! Although, you'll be unpacking with your HUSBAND! Have fun learning to say that word! :rotfl:

blabbermouth

05-23-2009, 01:19 AM

blabbermouth,

Here is a link to an E-How article my DH wrote about San Francisco's hidden treasures. It has some good info and gives a few more details about the things I mentioned in the pp. It is from a native San Franciscan's point of view.

http://www.ehow.com/how_4607391_san-franciscos-hidden-treasures.html

Hope it helps! Have a great trip.

Hey! That is so awesome. And I had to LOL at his name: Mr Potato Head!

Yay! You'll have sooooo much fun at your bachelorette party! Maybe you can post an "appropriate" picture from it? HAHA! One of my girlfriends took all the pictures at my party and then gave it to me on a CD so I could deem which ones that people could see! :lmao:

Packing was a nightmare for me. I had to pack for so many different things since I took it to our wedding location with me too. I ended up forgetting a sweater, of all things, for the cooler weather. Its all nerves and all fun at this point! We're all so happy for you and your DFi! But I do agree, unpacking is much less fun! Although, you'll be unpacking with your HUSBAND! Have fun learning to say that word! :rotfl:

I've threatened my friends sufficiently so I hope they don't do anything TOO embarrassing.

Haha, technically I will be packing WITH my husband too, since we're not leaving til three weeks after the wedding... but it'll probably be more like packing FOR my husband. Just gotta bring a lot of stuff for 2 weeks, I don't plan on doing any laundry while I'm gone!

And I'm having a hard enough time calling him my fiance and not my boyfriend! It usually comes out like 'B-fiance'.:laughing:

Sarah84

05-23-2009, 01:22 PM

I can't even imagine how excited you must be for your wedding now. Have great fun at your Bacherlorette party, we call them Hen do's and stags for the men over here deffiently prefer your name for them :thumbsup2

Arghh packing can be such a pain, im one of them people who even though i have checked, checked and checked again always feels like they have forgotten something and i never have enough room in my cases for everything though its not quite as bad as unpacking, gawd i really hate that :headache:

blabbermouth

05-25-2009, 01:45 PM

Heehee, hen do makes me think of like all the ladies standing around pecking at grain :lmao:

I had a blast! We went and got an old time photo done, we all dressed up as saloon girls. Went out for dinner. Went and took some salsa dancing lessons where my friends sufficiently embarassed me. They got the instructors to call me up with some random guy and made us dance in the middle while everyone watched :scared: But it was a lot of fun. Then we went to our favorite club, yay! I felt a little bit :sick: yesterday, but I remember everything and didn't get sick, so it's all good.

Jason also had a fun night as his bachelor party. His cousin made him a shirt in bright orange like a prison jumpsuit with "Property of Kelsey" on the front, and our wedding date as his "inmate number" on the back. He also had a "ball and chain" tied to his wrist. He said it weighed like 10 lbs, and he had to toss it over his shoulder when he went to pee! :eek: He went for a motorcycle ride, a game of golf, to watch the UFC fight/eat dinner and then to a club. I think he was a very good boy, probably better than me!

I'll see if I have an appropriate photos to add, but I'm not very photogenic when I'm drinking!

Only 5 sleeps til I'm married!

PirateFish989

05-25-2009, 11:43 PM

So, I'm just joining and haven't read all of it yet...BUT in response to San Diego (I go to school in SD!) - if you're wanting good Mexican food, I'd go to Old Town. There are a whole slew of good Mexican restaurants! As for Sea World, I haven't been in several years, but last time I went, it was at night, which was awesome! All of the shows are still going, it isn't not, you won't get sunburned and all the families with small children are leaving! AND, there are fireworks! Anyways, back to reading the rest!

blabbermouth

05-26-2009, 11:19 AM

shishigirl

05-26-2009, 07:46 PM

blabbermouth

05-28-2009, 11:34 AM

How exciting!!! Only four more days till the I Do's! Congratulations! I just read your ptr and how exciting to honeymoon in the Happiest Place on Earth! You will have so much fun! It sounds like your bachelorette and bachelor parties were a blast! I can't wait to read more! Good luck with everything!

Hi! Thanks for reading.

We're getting to crunch time now. Last night we went out and bought all the alcohol. Wow, filled up the whole trunk of my SUV with wine, beer, cider and champagne! We decided not to have hard alcohol, just keep it simple. It was kind of fun to go buy so much stuff.

Tonight I'm going to go get a pedicure, and tomorrow I'm getting a manicure. J's sister and nephew arrive today, so we're going to his Mom's place for dinner. And before we know it we'll be Mrs and Mr!

And then we still gotta wait three weeks til our honeymoon. Silly... who planned it this way... oh, me? That's okay, it'll give us time to get settled after the wedding. I have an exam on the 11th and then we have a week and a half to get ready/shop before we go. Time will fly I'm sure.

As for trip news, all I have is: We're going to go to SeaWorld in the evening because it's open til 10. We'll probably head over at about 4 or 5 and catch some dinner there (even if it's crappy). It'll give us most of the day to do other stuff... and sleep in.

blabbermouth

05-28-2009, 11:36 AM

Forgot to add that my coworkers threw me a big wedding shower party! It was such a surprise. I came up to my desk after my break and it was decorated, there was flowers, 2 cakes and a ton of food. And they pooled together and gave us $250 US! Whee! So thoughtful. It was a fun day, didn't get much work done though.

hurleysweety

05-28-2009, 11:41 AM

YAY! You get married soon!!!!!!! :cool1:

Have sooo much fun on your trip. I can't wait to read about the wedding and your honeymoon, already!!

Sarah84

05-29-2009, 06:12 PM

Hope you have a fantastic day tomorrow :flower3:

hurleysweety

05-30-2009, 05:00 PM

Have a super fab wedding day!!! :bride:

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y214/hurleysweety/kelseyjason.jpg

blabbermouth

06-01-2009, 12:27 PM

We're married. It was such a perfect wedding! The weather was amazing and everything went as planned, or better! Here is the one picture I have uploaded. I'll post some more later tonight.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/cake.jpg

shishigirl

06-01-2009, 01:56 PM

WA Kay

06-01-2009, 03:46 PM

Congratulations. I am so happy to hear that all went well including the weather. I am looking forward to more pictures and details. :goodvibes

Kay

blabbermouth

06-01-2009, 09:43 PM

OK, I have some more photos.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/eaf6a5d2.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/45e5d789.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/667caf26.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/DSC_0064.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/9dff7aa2.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/154820c9.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/7243b9d4.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/d21a6b76.jpg

Ok ok, enough of us now. Gotta get back to planning the honeymoon!

blabbermouth

06-01-2009, 10:06 PM

Congrats!!!:goodvibes Your guys look so cute! I love your dress, its beautiful! Your cake is also gourgeous. I love the yellow! Hope it was a wonderful day and you have a great time on your honeymoon!

Congratulations. I am so happy to hear that all went well including the weather. I am looking forward to more pictures and details. :goodvibes

Kay

Thank you both! My friend baked our cake, she's awesome!

My brother was our main photographer, but we're getting lots of pics from others too. Dinner was great, roast beef, salmon, salads and buns (I asked for my parents friends to bake me buns for a gift!). All in all, a perfect wedding!

WA Kay

06-01-2009, 10:45 PM

You pictures are perfect and you two are a stunning couple. Happy life to both of you and with any luck I may be able to congratulate you in person. My little group will also be in building 2 at HoJo's from the 20th - 27th. I plan a putting a LGMH in my hotel window so say hi if you see us.

Now, could we please have some more pictures and a wedding report. :)

cinderella-princess

06-02-2009, 02:09 PM

prettyprincessbelle

06-02-2009, 05:28 PM

Oh my gosh! I love the wedding pics! You look soooo pretty! Your dress, hair, everything! I love the picture where you guys are walking across the street! Too freaking cuuute!

blabbermouth

06-04-2009, 11:42 PM

Here is a half trip half wedding update. We got some fabulous gifts. We also got some gift cards. So tonight, since our condo is well over 30 degrees (sorry Americans, you gotta do your own conversion) we decided to go SHOPPING! :love:

So we found a great sale at the Bay: any watch under $100 is now $50. So I found a pretty funky buffalo one, normally $95 and J got a really cool yet dressy Fossil one, normally $150, but it was in the clearance section for $100, so he got it for $50 too. Totally random and spur of the moment, but I definitely needed a new watch, and J is just a watchaholic.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/d1d0c1b6.jpg

Don't mind my pale, freckley arm!

We've been hatin' on our little Nikon Coolpix S500 camera since we got it. (As a very lovely gift from my parents... not their fault it's crap. They even bought it at a real camera store!) But we didn't want anything too big either, just something that would take decent pictures most of the time. So we used some gift cards to pay for most of a Canon Powershot SX110 IS. Wow, cameras sure have long names! So hopefully we'll enjoy this one more. I'm glad we got it because now Jason is excited to take photos on our trip, and I'm not a good photographer so I'm off the hook. :woohoo:

And then it was still way too hot to go back to our condo, so we went to a restaurant on the waterfront and sat on the patio for dinner. It was a really fun night!

Well, that's my update for today. Really, if you want to know more about the wedding, just ask!

Eventually I'll make some PS too, so there will be another update soon!

blabbermouth

06-04-2009, 11:43 PM

OMG I love the wedding pictures! Congratulations!!!! :lovestruc You both look so happy, and you're so tiny! Your dress and hair were just perfect. And I agree - more wedding pics and some details please!! Since my wedding is over I like to live vicariously through other people's weddings now. :rotfl2:

Congratulations again!! :cheer2:

Oh my gosh! I love the wedding pics! You look soooo pretty! Your dress, hair, everything! I love the picture where you guys are walking across the street! Too freaking cuuute!

Thank you and thank you!

blabbermouth

06-07-2009, 11:59 PM

Not much to update. Does anyone else scrapbook? I was just thinking about the first scrapbook I made after our trip to Disneyworld. I loved it! This was the first page I did, the only one I have a photo of. I think I got much better at it as I went along. It's nice to have something fun to look forward to after a trip.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/3d02b62c.jpg

And I'll post a few more wedding pics because you've been asking!

A few more from the 'photo shoot':

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/228dd1a7.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/b62b4e70.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/77e1a653.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/f3f70334.jpg

Our rings:
http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/5c5fc3ab.jpg

Just married! After the ceremony:
http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/1e932c97.jpg

The cheesy bouquet toss:
http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/fffe56d4.jpg

More goofiness. J's friend made us do this. Melon mouth kiss:
http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/373e8c18.jpg

And a photo of me with my best friend's puppy:
http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/24b95d18.jpg

Sorry, that's about the best ones that don't have other people in them. It's one thing to post myself all over the internet, another to post my friends and family without asking.

Sarah84

06-08-2009, 01:39 PM

Congratulations on the wedding, your pictures are gorgeous :)

DSNY4ever

06-12-2009, 01:19 PM

Okay I am just finding this one- looks like you had a beautiful wedding (yellow is my favorite color!), and I can't wait to read all about your road trip honeymoon- sounds like a blast! San Francisco and San Diego are so fun too, you will have a great time. If you want an amazing breakfast in San Diego go to The Mission, they have 3 locations I think in San Diego, I am not sure where you are staying, but look them up, they are sooo good- the portions are HUGE and their mexican hot chocolate is fun to try. I also agree that there are lots of good restaurants in Old town, plus it's a fun place to walk around. While over near Fisherman's Wharf in SF you can get yummy clam chowder in a bread bowl (if you like clam chowder of course!). I still have to read through everything but I think you said you might go to Sausalito/Tiburon- we love The Spinnaker restaurant in Sausalito- yummy with a great view (but, this is a fancy one).

I can't wait to hear about your trip :yay:

blabbermouth

06-14-2009, 02:40 AM

Thanks Sarah!

Thanks DSNY4ever for all the tips, we'll try to fit them in :)

blabbermouth

06-18-2009, 03:50 PM

Ok, I finally made some trip related progress. Called and made PS for:

Carnation Cafe for lunch, Cafe Orleans and Wine Country Trattoria for dinner. And I'm going to go online and make a PS for ESPN Zone for dinner too. Have to wait til we get to DL to do that though. Yay! I'm excited. We're cheaping out and not doing Napa Rose. We've been going back and forth, but as of now we're going to skip it. (This time!? ;))

Also, booked our Alcatraz tour. Didn't realize they only did the night tours Thursday through Monday. Guess what two nights we'll be there? Tuesday and Wednesday. :sad2: So we'll do an afternoon one instead. Fine.

Booked our San Diego trolley tour also, for our first day in San Diego. Then we'll go to SeaWorld in the late afternoon/evening/night - just learned recently that they're actually open til 10pm.

Printed off all the hours for DLR to add to my planning book. It's not as fancy as most, just has our basic plan for each day, driving directions, PS times, hotel confirmation numbers etc.

Tonight is reserved for packing the majority of our stuff.

THREE MORE SLEEPS!!!! :banana:

WA Kay

06-20-2009, 02:36 AM

Hi

I just wanted to say a quick good by and safe trip before I leave myself. Happy honeymoon. :goodvibes

Kay

cannp123165

06-20-2009, 10:10 AM

Hi! I have just started reading your PTR - Congratulations on your wedding. The photos are beautiful. Have a wonderful Honeymoon. :)

blabbermouth

07-03-2009, 10:34 PM

Sad to report that we are home. We had an amazing honeymoon, everything went absolutely perfectly! Jason is sorting out the 784 photos we have so there will be some to post. I wasn't a perfect Diser; we didn't photograph every hotel and meal we ate, but we did pretty good! Our trip was great right down to the last few minutes: We drove on the 4 o clock ferry (BC Ferries to Victoria from Vancouver) without having to wait for the 5 and we saw REAL WHALES in Active Pass! Way better than Seaworld. And I have photos of both ;)

I shall start the first chapter of the report tomorrow with our first bit of honeymoon magic :wizard:

DLR29

07-04-2009, 12:37 AM

Can't wait for the pictures and the report!!

blabbermouth

07-04-2009, 01:02 PM

Our first day wasn't the most exciting, but it does involve some pictures!

Sunday June 21st we woke up at 5:30 am. I am not a morning person, so it was really hard for me! But we had showers the night before so we just had to get changed and load the car. I had some peanut butter toast too. We left the house just after 6 and drove the 30 minutes to the ferry terminal. Here is our first photo of the trip, taken in the car waiting to get on the ferry - note the sleepiness.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/IMG_0420.jpg

The ferry ride is about an hour and a half. We ate some breakfast, well, I ate some MORE breakfast, and drank some bad coffee. Forgot they had Starbucks at the 'cafe' but not in the cafeteria. No pics, I ate a banana and J had some icky breakfast combo thing. I read a book and Jason slept after that til we arrived on the other side.

Sitting waiting to get off the ferry, so excited here, this is where it always feels like the trip really starts.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/IMG_0421.jpg

Drive off in all the traffic, and it takes us about 30 minutes to get to the border. We took the 'truck crossing' instead of the pretty peace arch crossing b/c the wait times showed it being only half as long.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/IMG_0423.jpg

We had a really short wait, only about 10 minutes, and we were officially in the U.S. The drive through Washington really isn't that bad because a lot of the cities are along the I-5 so there are things to see. Here we are driving into Seattle.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/IMG_0424.jpg

Space Needle

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/IMG_0425.jpg

We stopped after Seattle somewhere for our first tank of gas and our first American fast food - Jack in the Box! It was good, we were both starving. Love curly fries and diet lemonade.

Back on the road and the next photo we have is the bridge between Vancouver, WA and Portland, OR. We were making pretty good time, this was taken at 2 pm.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/IMG_0427.jpg

Yes, this is foreshadowing for more exciting bridges to come!

Not sure why we took these, but here are some pics of Oregon. Good thing I don't work for the tourism board!

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/IMG_0430.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/IMG_0431.jpg

We arrived at our hotel in Central Point/Medford, OR at about 6:15ish. Therefore we had been driving for 9 1/2 hours. We actually had fun being goofy, singing (OK, that was just me) and we both like to drive.

We stayed at the Fairfield Inn, it was great! The woman at the front desk was SOOO nice. We got an upgrade to a suite and they made us a card and gave us a bag of chocolates and candy! It really started our trip off great. Here are some really bad pictures of our room.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/IMG_0434.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/IMG_0433.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/IMG_0437.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/IMG_0438.jpg
In this photo you can see our two tvs!

We asked the front desk for dinner recommendations and went to a local brewery called Wild River. J had a good beer and I had some more lemonade - really, there isn't much lemonade in Canada! And we shared a pizza - ham, pineapple and fresh tomato. It was SO GOOD. We must have stopped for gas too because J went in to pay and stumbled across the most massive Red Bull he's ever seen!

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/IMG_0435.jpg

He figured it couldn't be good for him, so he had to have it. He drinks it all within about 15 minutes on Day 2... he'll pace himself from now on :rolleyes:

Went back to the hotel and crashed, or tried to while listening to the mother next door talk really loudly to her kids, but we survived.

Day 2 = more driving :cheer2: Coming up soon.

DSNY4ever

07-06-2009, 12:11 PM

Yeah! Glad you are back and that you had a wonderful time- looks like day 1 went well, can't wait to hear about the rest!

Docter419

07-06-2009, 05:57 PM

Keep going! Glad to have another honeymooner around here. I'll be reading for sure! :surfweb:

blabbermouth

07-06-2009, 06:02 PM

No wonder your wife snatched you up Docter. You are good at obeying directions! And prompt. ;) Thanks for reading! I will write another installment tonight.

Thanks for reading DSNY4ever!

magicallyDisney001

07-06-2009, 06:38 PM

blabbermouth

07-06-2009, 06:51 PM

Coming in late to your TR but I'm looking forward to seeing the rest! Congrats on the wedding, by the way!! :thumbsup2

It's also nice to know that I'm not the only person who likes ham pizza! :laughing:

Yum, pizza... I'm hungry! I'm going to write an installment right now while I was for Jason to get home from his haircut to make dinner. Thanks for reading!

blabbermouth

07-06-2009, 07:34 PM

We were up at 6:30 am today. :surfweb: We both had a pretty bad sleep the night before, and neither of us felt great. The pizza the night before was fantastic, so we didn't blame it, but we didn't eat our leftovers either. We had some food at the continental breakfast. J had a Jimmy Dean microwave breakfast sandwich, and I had a muffin and a banana. It was OK, free is free!

We headed out of the hotel and picked up a coffee on our way to the I-5. We stopped at Dutch Bros Coffee on the recommendation of a Diser. It was great! Yummy latte, friendly server and the cutest coffee cups ever!

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day2/IMG_0440.jpg

I see the GPS in the background of this photo, so I'm going to take a minute to talk about it. Sounds like a great idea for a long road trip, right? A GPS? :snooty: Well, it *ahem* sucked! I'm really glad I had also written down directions from mapquest. It got us lost in Portland because it froze and didn't tell us to stay in the right lane. So we acidentally took the exit in the left lane and ended up downtown and couldn't figure out why it wasn't rerouting us. Had to turn it off then on again. Gets confused in downtown San Francisco, spins it's little arrow around in circles. Thank god for good signage. Also had really weird directions to get to our hotels in Medford and Anaheim and just in general was more annoying than helpful. Not sure if it was just that one we borrowed wasn't very good or if they're generally unimpressive. *Phew* Rant over :rolleyes1

We had a lovely 13 hour drive today. Took us through all of Northern, Central and Southern California! Being an avid snowboarder, the highlight of my day was this:

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day2/IMG_0446.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day2/IMG_0448.jpg

Beautiful, snowy Mt Shasta.
The sad part is we drove by this before 9 am! We took a moment to giggle at Weed, CA and variously other entertaining city names. For some reason I just loved 'Buttonwillow'. It just makes me think of Wind in the Willow and like soft little kitties and stuff.

We drove though Sacramento, which has about the same population as Greater Victoria.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day2/IMG_0453.jpg

We giggled at this tower of satellite type stuff. It's almost like driving into Seattle and seeing the Space Needle.... but not quite. And the Sacramento water tower:

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day2/IMG_0456.jpg

We stopped somewhere south of Sacramento for some Taco Bell for lunch. I had a chicken salad, yum! I went to look at my credit card statement to see what town it was, gotta give it credit, but I think Jason paid cash for lunch and gas this time.

Jason now knows all about the Disboards, so he would often say things like 'Take a picture of that... you don't have to post it on the Dis'. Often it was pictures of motorcycles:

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day2/IMG_0460.jpg

Note the boring scenery in the background. This was about 8 hours of driving. We also saw stuff like this:

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day2/IMG_0467.jpg

This was around 5 pm. There is a pretty lake down there! This is probably around Grapevine, CA where you start to head through some twisty mountain passes. Driving through this area on the way home, we saw a small truck not only blow a tire, but lose his entire wheel and come squeeling to a stop basically on his brake pad/axel. Yikes.

Then we passed Six Flags Magic Mountain:

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day2/IMG_0471.jpg

Looks way too scary to me!

I had some fun driving through LA at about 6:30, it was a little slow going, but all in all not bad. People were nice about letting you into their lane etc. We saw one fender bender with about 3 cars and that probably held up the traffic more than anything. I tried not to get too excited as we drove past Anaheim. I couldn't look around too much because I was behind the wheel!

About 7:30 is when I start to get a bit loopy. It's been a long day, my butt was going numb and my eyes were tired. We stopped for gas in Oceanside then kept on trucking til we arrived in San Diego at about 8:30, phew, LONG. DAY. Not bad, we had some good bonding time, but long!

We checked into our hotel on Shelter Island, the Best Western Island Palms. It was pretty nice.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0508.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day2/IMG_0503.jpg

This is the only room picture, but it had a nice entry way with a sink outside the bathroom and a little opening/counter top between the sink and the bedroom. They were all blue tiles and it was quite cute. We also had some pretty nice views.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day2/IMG_0473.jpg

I love palm trees!

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day2/IMG_0505.jpg

We were across the bay from the city.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day2/IMG_0507.jpg

Heehee, the duck tour boat. Seal tour? Whatever you call it. Shelter Island has a nice walkway all along it so we went for a wander the next evening in the setting sun. Here are a few other shots from the other side of the hotel.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day2/IMG_0513.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day2/IMG_0516.jpg

Where Jason wants to have a summer home:
http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day2/IMG_0514.jpg

And Jason's favorite - animals.
http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day2/IMG_0515.jpg

After we checked in and got into our room we went back to the front desk to see where we could grab a bite for a late dinner. The guy working at the front desk was pretty lame, his only suggestion? "The restaurants on the island close at 9 (it was 9:05) but up on Rosecranz St there's lots of fast food places". Well fine, we were too tired to care much so McDonalds it was. Took it back to our room, gobbled it down and went to sleep. (And we said we felt sick the night before!) But not before playing with my Manny the Mammoth toy from my cheeseburger happy meal. :woohoo: The little Disney touch to my day!

Stay tuned for San Diego city tour and Seaworld in Day 3!

cinderella-princess

07-06-2009, 11:57 PM

I see you drove through lovely Sacramento...it has such beautiful vistas! Water towers, weird radio towers, but you forgot my favorite...the puke green/yellow tower bridge! It's just so attractive. :eek:

I think the Grapevine is Jason's (my Jason's haha) favorite; besides for the pipes you can see for a few miles before the Grapevine. I think he just associates it with being so close to Disneyland. I can't believe your willpower though - you drove right past Anaheim!!! I don't think I could do that...:rotfl:

cinderella-princess

07-06-2009, 11:59 PM

No wonder your wife snatched you up Docter. You are good at obeying directions! And prompt. ;) Thanks for reading! I will write another installment tonight.

Thanks for reading DSNY4ever!

And yes...that is exactly why I snapped him up!! Besides his ridiculously good looks of course... haha

Sarah84

07-07-2009, 11:23 AM

ooh i missed your post to say you was back, so a bit late but welcome home and glad you two had a great time :)

Glad to see you have started your TR and a great start it is. Love your photos they are great. What a long drive, but it looks a good one. Road trips always look so fun in the US, some of that scenery is gorgeous.
Can't wait for day 3 :)

blabbermouth

07-08-2009, 06:51 PM

I see you drove through lovely Sacramento...it has such beautiful vistas! Water towers, weird radio towers, but you forgot my favorite...the puke green/yellow tower bridge! It's just so attractive. :eek:

Haha, funny girl! When you haven't seen a 'city' all day long and it's about 2 PM it sure seems exciting!

ooh i missed your post to say you was back, so a bit late but welcome home and glad you two had a great time :)

Glad to see you have started your TR and a great start it is. Love your photos they are great. What a long drive, but it looks a good one. Road trips always look so fun in the US, some of that scenery is gorgeous.
Can't wait for day 3 :)

Thanks for reading Sarah. I do really like road trips. I don't HATE flying, but it's not my favorite. And in/from Canada it's just too expensive.

I'll start Day 3 now, might break it up into 2 sections though. I have a cold today :( It's rainy since we've been home.

blabbermouth

07-08-2009, 07:30 PM

It was nice to wake up this morning knowing we didn't have to jump in the car for hours.

Driving to our hotel we caught sight of a Starbucks, so we headed there for a quick breakfast. It's a good thing I drank so many lattes on my trip, but I didn't get a lot of milk otherwise.

We then headed to Old Town Park (free parking!!) to hop on the Trolley Tour. (http://www.trolleytours.com/san-diego/)

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0474.jpg

We started off at about 10am and didn't get back to Old Town til 2. It was a really informative tour and we got to see a lot of things that we wouldn't have had time to see otherwise.

First we cruised by the Harbor. We saw their big ships/aircraft carriers etc. and heard about the military down there. The ships were huge!

The first place we got off was Seaport Village. Cute little touristy place for shopping/dining.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0482.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0486.jpg
The obligatory cactus photo. Jason's coworker's wife is from Mexico and he always insists they get a photo with a cactus whenever they go down there. It's really quite funny... umm Matt, she's kinda had her fill of cacti in the first 20 years of her life. She needs to make him pose with a big fir tree or something.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0483.jpg
Nope, not disneyland yet :sad2: Just a cigar shop with guys smoking cigars outside at 10:30 am!

It was pretty chilly so far this morning. Similar to Anaheim, chilly in the mornings/evenings and HOT during the day. Hard to keep up!

We hadn't really gotten into picture taking yet by this point. I should have taken a picture of this really cool hot sauce store! Yup, that's all they sold. Must have been 100 varieties. Jason loves spicy food, but couldn't decide which one to buy so we passed. Oh look, it's in the background of this shot: Hot Licks it was called. Look at the cute smiling hot sauce bottle, more like :headache: or :scared:.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0484.jpg

I maybe would have spent a bit more time here on our trip, we just weren't ready for shopping yet so early in our holiday. Back to the trolley we went.

This time we had a really lame tour guide. We missed Bob from the first part. This guy somehow gave off the appearance that he knew all, and was better than everyone else? Kinda fake acting. Bob was a retired guy who just seemed like he LOVED his job and wasn't working from a script.

We zoomed by the Marriot Hotel and Marina (there are a lot of nice hotels in San Diego if you don't mind paying $250+ per night) and Horton Plaza (a big new shopping area downtown) because like I said we weren't ready for shopping yet. Next stop to ditch the bad bus driver was:

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0494.jpg
The Gaslamp district. It's the trendy downtown area. We wandered around here and stopped for a snack.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0493.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0490.jpg
A tapa restaurant had a GIANT knight outside.

We were also close to Chinatown:
http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0491.jpg

We hopped back on the bus and were driven over to Coronado Island which was really cute! Could spend an afternoon there too. Then the trolley went through Balboa Park/the San Diego Zoo (see Day 4!) and Little Italy before taking us back to Old Town.

Now it was.... lunch time! We went to Coyote Cantina because it had a nice looking covered patio. We were on holidays so we order some margaritas. They were ok, I got watermelon because it was the special and therefore only $7 instead of $8.50 and up. We sat right by the torilla maker.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0495.jpg

Unfortunately the only food shot we got. :confused3 I suck at this! The tortillas were the best part of the meal. Wow, real fresh tortillas are amazing. I don't know what we buy at the store or eat at 'Mexican' restaurants here, but they are not the same. They also had fabulous salsa. More on my favorite Mexican food of the trip will be coming up in a few days... betcha can't guess where! :rolleyes1

We also got seranaded! That was fun.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0496.jpg

We wandered around Old Town for a bit and checked out some shops. Bought a pretty painted pot as a souveneir for my Mom.

Check out the name of this restaurant on the right. And a pretty church behind it.
http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0502.jpg

A funny mural while we waited to board the trolley.
http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0477.jpg

Lots of pretty buildings in the area.
http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0475.jpg

After that we headed back to the hotel to change into shorts and head to Seaworld. That will be my next installment. Thanks for reading everyone, don`t be shy to comment, or at least say Hi!

maryr1oz

07-08-2009, 08:13 PM

Loving your report! :cool1:

Can't wait to hear about the rest of it...

:banana::banana::banana:

DLR29

07-08-2009, 08:41 PM

Hi :wave: Awesome pictures and I can't wait to read more! :thumbsup2

blabbermouth

07-08-2009, 09:21 PM

Loving your report! :cool1:

Can't wait to hear about the rest of it...

:banana::banana::banana:

Hi :wave: Awesome pictures and I can't wait to read more! :thumbsup2

Thanks for reading! Don't give up on me, I'll get to the Disneyland part soon.

*RANDOM VENT*

Sorry, just need to take a moment to complain about how horrible Walmart's photo processing is. The photos look sooo nice on my computer screen - nice bright colours, crisp lines, things *pop*. Then I send them to Walmart. Not only do they print on really thin paper, the colours are sooo washed out. I know I'm pale, but I'm not THAT pale and sickly looking. So I'd recommend spending a bit more money and getting them done somewhere better. Ugh. What a waste of $40. Oh well, just for my scrapbook... so it's the memories that are important I guess.

*RANT OVER*

On a happy note, that just reminded me, I ACTUALLY GOT A TAN! That was a highlight of the trip. I really don't tan very well. But all the hanging out by the HOJO pool must have done me some good. I did get a weird shaped burn patch on the back of my neck where I missed sunscreen one day, but that was it. :cloud9:

Now gonna play some guitar hero :rockband:

magicallyDisney001

07-09-2009, 12:57 AM

Great pics, and congrats on the tan! :thumbsup2 Looking forward to the next installment! popcorn::

Docter419

07-09-2009, 11:59 AM

Very nice to read an update. Can't wait to hear when you get to d-landpirate:

cannp123165

07-09-2009, 03:36 PM

It sounds like you had a great time so far! :)

blabbermouth

07-10-2009, 11:14 PM

Thanks guys! Been kinda sick, so no time to update, but I will right now.

blabbermouth

07-10-2009, 11:55 PM

Alright, so after relaxing at our hotel for a wee bit and changing into shorts, we headed off to Seaworld. It was about a 10 minute drive from our hotel, not too bad. The hotel provided a big long list of directions to tourist attractions, so we just used those instead of the GPS.

I don't know if we A. Missed something, B. Are jaded because we live around real life sea animals or C. Any ideas? but neither of us really enjoyed Seaworld. For one thing it's not laid out nearly as well as Disney theme parks! We had trouble following the map, it wasn't intuitive/divided into logical lands. And I admit I didn't do as much planning as I normally do so we kind of wandered around aimlessly.

I think I got my times wrong in my last post... I think we arrived at Seaworld at about 2pm. We bought our city passes from a very friendly ticket agent then had to go trade them in at guest services for a ticket. This took a long time. There was a mother in there swearing etc :scared1: because she lost her stroller, I mean, because someone stole her stroller. She was scary/a bad parent swearing in front of her kids! But alas, we had our tickets and were off.

First stop, penguins. This was kind of neat because when you go inside it's almost pitch black to emulate what it's really like at that time in the south pole (I think south, right?). Does NOT make for good photos though! There were about three different varieties included the Emperor Penguin, my favorite. The next section had various other "cold weather birds" I will call them. Such as the puffin, so cute! I did a report about puffins in like grade 2.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0521.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0522.jpg

They had a little penguin area outside too, so we got some pics there.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0529.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0531.jpg

This one was extra cute, I think he was enjoying the sun and/or taking a nap :confused3 But he kept peeking out of his little eye.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0533.jpg

We then went into the manatee exhibit. We saw giant catfish (I think. Apparently I'm really bad at remembering basic animals!)

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0537.jpg

And some big manatee butts. I guess it was lunch time cuz they were munching on their lettuce and not paying any attention to us :sad2:

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0538.jpg

I think the highlight was the dolphin show we saw next. They are sooo talented! The only annoying (to me) part was how the trainers kept saying 'behaviors' instead of 'tricks'. Oh give it up, it's not like they splash with their tails on command in the wild! :rolleyes1 I'm a bit cynical about zoo-type places though.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0549.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0554.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0558.jpg

Wow, the Splash Zone gets SOAKED. DRENCHED. I CAN'T THINK OF ANY MORE ADJECTIVES, but REALLY REALLY WET. So not for me.

The did a cute little number where they got the Mom from the chosen family to stand up and grab the rope from the dolphin, then they stretched it out so the dolphins could jump over it. But instead the one dolphin jumps up, grabs the rope in his mouth and pulls it down so the other dolphins can just do a tiny jump. It was actually pretty funny.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0560.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0563.jpg

Note how Jason didn't actually get any photos of the dolphins in the air? Yeah, no comment :rolleyes:

It seemed like at this time the only other shows weren't until later in the evening for the summer nights shows, so we continued to walk around. Saw a ton of flamingos. Or is it flamingoes? Anyone?

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0567.jpg

Then we saw some cute tortoises. :lovestruc

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0570.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0572.jpg

It was really cute how it pulled itself up onto the sand. And some starfish which are always so pretty.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0574.jpg

And one more bird photo for the road. Jason loves this photo for some reason.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day3/IMG_0577.jpg

We also looked at the sharks, saw the whales and some more dolphins and a few other exhibits, but didn't manage to get any good photos. We watched the people go on the water ride too, looked like fun, but too wet for me! By now we had kind of seen most of the exhibits and were waiting for Disneyland for rides. It was only about 5 and we couldn't figure out how to spend another 2-3 hours before the night shows, so we just called it a day and headed back to the hotel. We still had fun, it just wasn't as great as we hoped I guess.

We hung out at the hotel for about an hour, then tried to decide what to do for dinner. We kind of wanted a few drinks and didn't want to drive so we headed to the hotel restaurant to check it out. The main restaurant was a bit upscale for what we were looking for after a tiring day, so we headed into the bar. Great decision - it was happy hour!

$2.50 margaritas + $3 for 2 fish tacos = happy Kelsey and Jason.

Amazing marg, best I've ever had! Julio the bartender was fab too. The fish tacos were really filling, so we both were stuffed after the two we had. So we had a great meal, a couple drinks and watched a baseball game all for under $20! Much tastier and cheaper than Seaworld would have been (from what I've heard).

After dinner we walked it off along the shelter island walkway/pathway/boardwalk kinda thing :rolleyes: I must be sick, I just cannot use my words like a big girl tonight. That's where we took some of the photos I posted in the earlier post. It was really pretty there along the water, there were a few groups of people with picnics and stuff, so that was neat too. It was starting to get a bit chilly so we headed into our room. We watched some tv, but then, uh oh, we were bored! I was expecting to be at Seaworld all night, so my plans were completely thrown off.

Finally J convinced me to go back to the bar for a few more drinks. We had a great time! No longer happy hour so margs were more expensive, but still delish. J switched over to Heineken now, his favorite. We enjoyed a few drinks, chatted with Julio and another couple who were there from Vegas. We all convinced Julio we needed some free shots, when we dropped the Honeymoon bomb it sealed the deal. So we had some shots we'd never had before called Oatmeal Cookie. Wow, just like a liquid boozy oatmeal cookie, so fantastic! We had a couple more rounds of shots, chatted about pretty much everything with the other couple and shut down the bar :thumbsup2

Well, it was only 12, but they usually close pretty early. We crashed because we had to get up the next morning for the zoo! We were pretty excited.

Next update should be Sunday, stayed tuned for lots of photos of animals that I will most likely label wrong! (Better not let your children read this because they're not going to learn anything from my science lesson!)

Silly 25 image limit, I just had to delete 5 whole smilies! So I apologize if every feeling doesn't involve a matching emoticon.

bumbershoot

07-11-2009, 01:12 AM

I saw your link in another TR, so decided to stop by. :)

I don't know if we A. Missed something, B. Are jaded because we live around real life sea animals or C. Any ideas? but neither of us really enjoyed Seaworld. For one thing it's not laid out nearly as well as Disney theme parks! We had trouble following the map, it wasn't intuitive/divided into logical lands. And I admit I didn't do as much planning as I normally do so we kind of wandered around aimlessly.

Oh yeah, that sounds familiar. Our very first trip to Seaworld was exactly like that for way too much of the day....

Just in case you ever go back, here's the secret to making it a better day. The Pets Rule show. That thing turned our day around! We might have seen it twice that day, or maybe I'm making that up. We came out of there happy, smiling, refreshed...

Did the dolphin show start with the fake family with the mom falling in the water? I really hope not. I didn't like that.

I never saw that tortoise! How amazing to see it right there like that!

DLR29

07-11-2009, 11:59 AM

Did the dolphin show start with the fake family with the mom falling in the water? I really hope not. I didn't like that.

:lmao: I love that part :rotfl:, but I think it's at the end. I was going to mention it too.

With all of the shows, Seaworld takes a little bit of planning. Did you at least see the famous Shamu show? That's incredible. And even though the rides are wet, they are some of the best themed water rides I've ever been on. Hopefully you had a better time at the zoo.

(OH and I hate the 25 image limit :headache: )

DSNY4ever

07-11-2009, 10:49 PM

Wait, so dolphins don't play with hula hoops in the wild? What do they do all day??!?! ;) haha, I know what you mean about the tricks.

I hope you like the zoo more, I can't wait to see your next group of pictures from there. So did you like the Best Western? Would you stay there again, or is it just alright? We head down to San Diego every once in a while and we are headed back in a few weeks and that hotel always seems to be running deals, but I have never stayed there. Looks nice from your pictures.

Looking forward to the next installment :)

blabbermouth

07-12-2009, 12:29 PM

I saw your link in another TR, so decided to stop by. :)

Oh yeah, that sounds familiar. Our very first trip to Seaworld was exactly like that for way too much of the day....

Just in case you ever go back, here's the secret to making it a better day. The Pets Rule show. That thing turned our day around! We might have seen it twice that day, or maybe I'm making that up. We came out of there happy, smiling, refreshed...

Did the dolphin show start with the fake family with the mom falling in the water? I really hope not. I didn't like that.

I never saw that tortoise! How amazing to see it right there like that!

oh, I thought the Pets Rule might be a bit cheesy. I doubt we'd ever go back, but just in case I'll file that away ;)

No, I don't remember a fake family mom falling in the water. This real mom did get VERY wet though, heehee. But it might have happened, my memory is crappy.

The tortoises were very cute. For some reason they're always one of those animals that makes me feel kinda sad... because they're so slow? No idea.

:lmao: I love that part :rotfl:, but I think it's at the end. I was going to mention it too.

With all of the shows, Seaworld takes a little bit of planning. Did you at least see the famous Shamu show? That's incredible. And even though the rides are wet, they are some of the best themed water rides I've ever been on. Hopefully you had a better time at the zoo.

(OH and I hate the 25 image limit :headache: )

*embarrassed* nope, we didn't see Shamu, shoulda planned better. But if you wait til the last day of my trip you'll get some whale talk, so be patient ;)\
Wait, so dolphins don't play with hula hoops in the wild? What do they do all day??!?! ;) haha, I know what you mean about the tricks.

I hope you like the zoo more, I can't wait to see your next group of pictures from there. So did you like the Best Western? Would you stay there again, or is it just alright? We head down to San Diego every once in a while and we are headed back in a few weeks and that hotel always seems to be running deals, but I have never stayed there. Looks nice from your pictures.

Looking forward to the next installment :)

We did like the zoo more, I'll tell you soon!

the Best Western was about a 4.5/5. I think it could have used just a bit of cosmetic attention like some paint and wood chips in door frames, some stains in the bathroom, just little stuff. And the door into the hotel right next to our room slammed really hard and woke us up, so that sucked. But all in all for $104 I wouldn't hesitate to stay there again. Nice view, neat beachy location and convient to other places.

blabbermouth

07-12-2009, 01:29 PM

Today was Zoo Day! :cool1:

Jason loves breakfast, so we went to the hotel restaurant so he could eat a real breakfast today. I had toast. I think he said his was ok, nothing fantastic, but bacon and eggs is pretty standard.

We used our directions to head over to Balboa Park where the Zoo is. Yay for more free parking. We headed to the front gates, switched in our city pass tickets and we were off. Today I took over and told J to just be quiet, while I took a map and took a second to focus our plans. I knew the first thing we had to do was go on the bus tour, so we did.

This was a great idea! Can't stress it enough - do the bus tour first. I have to say that just from all the animals we saw on the bus I was totally satisfied and could have left right then. So, without further ado, here are the pictures.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%204/IMG_0580.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%204/IMG_0581.jpg

Some grooming monkeys
http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%204/IMG_0583.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%204/IMG_0586.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%204/IMG_0588.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%204/IMG_0589.jpg

Two bad pics of California Condors. These were cool to see, HUGE wings.
http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%204/IMG_0590.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%204/IMG_0591.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%204/IMG_0595.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%204/IMG_0598.jpg

Pumbaa
http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%204/IMG_0599.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%204/IMG_0602.jpg

That was all we saw on the bus tour (and could get photos of).

After that we went to see Jason's favorite, the koalas!

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%204/IMG_0612.jpg

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They were sooooooo cute.

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And the "poo monkey". The funny little monkey I watched who picked up, smelled, played with his own feces. Eww.
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The cats: A leopard and a jaguar.
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Lazy hippo
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Sad looking chimps
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We also saw a bunch of other monkeys, birds etc. Saw the tigers, but couldn't get a good picture of them, they were hiding.

We had a great time, saw a wide variety of animals (way more than at Animal Kingdom!) and got some great photos. After that we went to explore Balboa Park. That will be my next installment.

casiland

07-12-2009, 02:49 PM

subscibing

DLR29

07-12-2009, 03:44 PM

No pandas?? Oh my goodness. :lmao::lmao:

magicallyDisney001

07-13-2009, 12:31 AM

Great pictures! The meerkat looks like he (or she?) is really enjoying the sun :laughing: Can't wait for the next installment! popcorn::

Sarah84

07-13-2009, 10:55 AM

Great update, my oyfriend is really looking forward to visiting SD zoo infact i think its going to be one of the highlights of our trip for him, will remember to do the bus tour first. Great photos, look forward to your next installement :)

blabbermouth

07-13-2009, 12:10 PM

No pandas?? Oh my goodness. :lmao::lmao:

I know, horrible. I really wanted to see them, but we just kinda didn't get around to it :sad1:

Great pictures! The meerkat looks like he (or she?) is really enjoying the sun :laughing: Can't wait for the next installment! popcorn::

Haha, I know, he/she was hilarious the way he was lounging like that.

Great update, my oyfriend is really looking forward to visiting SD zoo infact i think its going to be one of the highlights of our trip for him, will remember to do the bus tour first. Great photos, look forward to your next installement :)

Yup, the bus tour helps you understand where everything is. You get to see lots of animals like the polar bears that are way on the far side of the zoo that you don't really have to return to see if you don't want to.

blabbermouth

07-13-2009, 09:13 PM

After the zoo, we decided to wander around Balboa Park. It is so beautiful! I have lots of pictures, but I don't know what most of them are of.

They have some cute little replica houses from around the world. They got built for some there sometime back in the early 1900s. I'm gonna throw out 1919 :confused3 OK, I googled it: 1915-1916 Panama -California Exposition. The trolley tour driver told us about them. This is when most of the buildings were built and a lot of them were designed to just tear down the next year, after the exposition was over. :eek:

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This is the organ/performance area:

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Lots of pretty buildings:

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There are about a dozen museums within the park.

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We just randomly decided to go into the Museum of Man. $10 admission, so not too bad. We spent about an hour here. They had a neat exhibit on the people of South America/the Andes. It was mostly about their art and storytelling. Very neat artifacts.

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These are both replicas. This was my favorite part of the museum, the rest was mostly stuff we learned in school about evolution etc. The other neat part was there was an extensive exhibit on skulls and ancient surgery and skull wounds. A bit morbid, but interesting.

The park also has lots of statues. My faves.

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We stopped for a late lunch after our touring. We went to the restaurant in the park: El Prado.

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Lunch here was great. Not too expensive. Jason had a pulled pork sandwich with some great taro chips and I had a kinda boring, but refreshing green salad. He was going to share his sandwich, but it was on a ciabatta bun and too hard to cut in half, so I just had a few bites. Tasty! The waitress was so nice. Her name was Leslie (Yay! I suck at remembering names!) And she didn't even know it was our honeymoon and she brought us a free dessert. Just for being Canadian I guess. :thumbsup2 It was a cheesecake flan. We thought we were too full for dessert, but we gobbled it down and boy was it ever good. She also took a photo of us (with our dessert!)

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Great way to finish off San Diego. It was about 3:30 at this time so we decided to head up to Anaheim :banana: so we didn't get stuck in rush hour. Unfortunately we got stuck in an accident that closed off all three lanes of the freeway right near the marine base. It added about 45 minutes to our trip. It was ok though, not too hot. Better on our short drive day than on our 13 hour day!

We checked into the Hojo hotel and went up to our room in building 2. #2318. It was pretty nice, nothing overly fancy. It was kind of in the corner so it didn't get much light. It was really nice to have 2 sinks in the bathroom though. No pics because I figured there's lots floating around the Dis!

We relaxed for a bit, then decided to head to downtown disney for some dinner. We got there and that's when Jason started to feel sick :sick: He couldn't stand the yummy/gross smells of kettle corn and roasted nuts etc. He wasn't hungry so we headed back to the hotel and I just took a quick stop at McDonalds for something to eat. Not quite the exciting first night I thought we would have, but I just wanted him to rest to be ready for the big day the next day.

Yay, you guys made it to the Disneyland part! I will update tomorrow.

cannp123165

07-14-2009, 09:05 AM

Great installments - I love all the pictures of the animals. :)

blabbermouth

07-14-2009, 07:52 PM

Our first day at Disneyland. We woke up early-ish at about 7:30. I was determined to just have a juice and granola bar for breakfast to speed things along, but no, Jason wanted real food. We stopped at McDonalds and he had a McGriddle. To each their own.

First we had to stop at the ticket booth to trade in our city passes for park hoppers. (Our first strike against 'The Rules', but not the last!) We were going to do it the night before, but forgot after J started feeling sick. This went smoothly, the guy was very nice, gave us 1st visit pins. It's sad, we never ended up getting Just Married pins! Sad, I know.

I think we entered the tunnel at about 8:30. I love Disneyland's Main Street, so cute, but we walked right by. We headed left to Adventureland and got fast passes for Indy - I think at this time there was already a 25 minute wait. I tried to convince Jason to go somewhere smarter, but he just wanted a ride, any ride. It already felt like we'd been inside the park forever and hadn't done anything yet. So we looped back and went on...

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Jungle Cruise. So classic. Our tour guide was pretty good, but I never find them to be loud enough!

We continued through Adventureland and I made J climb Tarzan's Treehouse. Sure got the sleepies out of us. Some cool views actually.

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Jason stopped to take some pics of the island.

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As you can see from the pics it was a bit overcast this morning and not all that warm. I was comfy in jeans and a tshirt.

We went on Pirates - one of Jason's favorites with a 5 minute wait. I'm no pro, but I didn't really notice much of a difference from Disney World. Same wait for Haunted Mansion right after. We walked through New Orleans Square, so pretty.

Over to Splash Mountain. We didn't get too wet here thankfully. That's the only part I don't like!

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And since we were right there we did Pooh. So entertaining. It's so cheap and psychadelic. Popped into Pooh's Corner for a quick snack. Toffee chocolate pretzel for me! Sorry, no pic, but you can see them in the food thread! It was probably the cheapest treat at $1.25, but it was good for my sweet tooth (and a bite or two for Jason). It was about 10 am now.

Jason took a few more photos here and we went over to Tom Sawyer Island. (Oh wait, I think this is another strike against 'The Plan'!)

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After that we went to my personal favorite ride (kinda weird, I know) Big Thunder Mountain Railroad!

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Always a nice short wait for it too.

And then we saw a gecko/lizard kinda thinger.

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We headed over into Toon Town now to look around and we went on Roger Rabbit CarToon Spin! It was fun, the wait was a bit long for what it was though. I enjoyed the spinning part.

It was starting to get pretty busy now, so we decided to leave the other side of the park for later. We decided to take a lunch break in Downtown Disney to relax for a bit, then check out California Adventure.

We went to Ralph Brennan's Creole Cafe. J just had a burger (shoulda stayed in DL for that!) And I had a pulled pork sandwich with coleslaw. Hey! My first food porn! But it IS half eaten.

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The pulled pork was really good, nice and sweet. The pickles on it were yummy and the bun was soft and delish. The coleslaw was meh. A bit soggy. Oh, and we had a large lemonade to share, heh heh.

It was about 1 and finally starting to get hot, but we thought we'd head into CA before taking our pool break. We got fast passes for Soarin' for later than night. We also had fastpasses for Indy and Big Thunder Mountain at DL.

We took a few pics at GRR, but were too afraid to go on it.

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Those people stood there looking confused for at least 2 minutes while we wanted to take a pic! I guess I shoulda offered to help!

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We headed over to the pier with the intention of crossing our fingers and checking out Toy Story and maybe getting ourselves on Screamin'. Lots of sad blue walls!

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We stopped first at Mulholland Madness for a 20 minute wait. Wow, that ride is scary, like "I'm going to fall off the edge and die" scary.

We never road: The Orange Stinger, Golden Zephyr, Jumpin Jellyfish, Maliboomer (all too boring/non themed) or Mickey's Fun Wheel (didn't want to wait 45 minutes!). At this time Toy Story Mania had a 45 minute wait, which was fine, but we were starting to get the afternoon grumpies and didn't want to wait that long.

Screamin' had a nice short wait, but we were skeered! So we passed it for now... did we ever get on? You'll have to read the trials and tribulations coming up!

We decided we wanted to head back to the hotel for a swim, but picked up a TOT fastpass first. But not without getting lost in Bug's Land! So we went on Tough to be a Bug. So fun and nice and airconditioned for an afternoon break. Got a few pics also.

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We didn't go on any other rides in Bugs Land on our trip, seemed to kiddy. But it sure was cute!

Continued in next post!

blabbermouth

07-14-2009, 07:53 PM

continued...

We enjoyed our midday swim/nap and headed back to CA at about 5:30. I wanted dinner at Wine Country Trattoria.

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I liked it here, our meal was super rushed though, barely got drinks and bread before our food. But it's Disney, so I imagine most people like that.

I had a glass of white wine, it was ok. Jason had a Heineken, as per usual. The breadsticks were ok, but kinda tough/chewy, almost hard to eat!

I got the vegetable lasagna,
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And Jason had the beef lasagna,
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We both thought they were pretty good. This restaurant is a pretty good value for money too. You don't cringe quite like you do at Blue Bayou! Unfortunately, like so often on this trip, we were too full for dessert. No orange sorbet that I really wanted :guilty:

We rode our Soarin' fastpasses after this. Yay! We got the front row, definitely the best. We were full, but we love Tower of Terror so we went over there. Took a few pics on the way.

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After TOT it was getting a bit crowded with Electrical Parade people, so we went back to use our DL fast passes. DL was really busy at night during our trip, way busier than during the day. It was kind of a bummer, because it was too busy to really stop and take many pics without getting in people's way or them getting in your way!

We went to Indy first and as soon as we arrived, it broke down. Waste of a fastpass! So we went off to Big Thunder. Fun again, short wait, so we rode it twice! This was the only ride with a short wait though. It was about 9 at this point, things were busy and we were getting tired/too tired to wait 45 minutes for the Matterhorn, so we headed to Downtown Disney for a coffee at La Brea Bakery.

It was good, we relaxed outside and people watched. I tried not to fall asleep. We watched the fireworks, or the high ones at least from where we were sitting and then hoofed it back to the hotel on our very sore feet! Stopped at the HOJO store for some pop and chips for a snack.

magicallyDisney001

07-14-2009, 09:45 PM

Sounds like a busy but fun first day! Can't wait to read the rest! popcorn::

Sarah84

07-15-2009, 09:57 AM

YAY your first disney day in the report and sounds like a good one too. Love the pictures :)

Docter419

07-16-2009, 03:17 PM

Sweet, you two finally made it to d-land! Those are the best posts to read about. :)

blabbermouth

07-17-2009, 10:46 AM

Sorry I haven't updated for a few days! Should be able to when I get home from work today :surfweb:

cannp123165

07-18-2009, 12:10 PM

It sounds like you had a great first day at Disneyland - and got a lot done too! :)

blabbermouth

07-18-2009, 12:52 PM

Ok, so I've been busy the past few days, but also kind of putting this off. I can't differentiate between our second and third days at Disneyland! Jason isn't much help, but I'll do my best. I also don't have a ton of photos for these days because it was sooo busy. But here I go!

We woke up pretty early this morning, so I let Jason get a real breakfast. We went to Mimi's. It is actually as good as everyone says! I had the Mixed Berry Pain Perdu. I'm not a breakfast kinda girl, but this was deeeelicious. It's french toast filled with cream cheese and marmalade (the marmalade was nicely toned down by the cream cheese, not too bitter) and topped with fresh berries, butter and syrup. YUM!

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Jason had the Enchilada Bowl. Also really good, but more of a lunch dish if you ask me (except for the eggs!)

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We wanted to go to DCA first thing this morning to get on Toy Story Mania.

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We had ridden it in Disney World last year and loved it! Jason pretty much hates Buzz Lightyear now, just nowhere near as good to us. We got to the gates at about 10:02, :headache: But we hustled over and the CM said it'd be about a 40 minute wait. We gave in and just waited, because all day Thursday the line said 45 minutes. Wow, it's hard to wait for 40 minutes first thing in the morning. There isn't even any good angles for photos. While I waited, I got J to go get us fast passes for Screamin', whee!

After our fun, but uneventful ride on TSM where J beat me, we went over to Screamin', but nope, it was just breaking down. Ok, lets go get some fast passes for Tower of Terror. So we hike all the way across the park, get some fast passes. Then we go to Monsters Inc because it's nearby. Wait about 5 minutes (of the 10 it's supposed to be), and it breaks down! :headache: Ok, we walk over to GRR to get some fast passes so we could ride in about an hour before we head back to the hotel for our break. Fast pass machine broken down. :scared: So we got a bit frustrated and decided to head over to DL.

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I'm still sad we never rode the train :(

I think the first thing we did here was go get fast passes for Indiana Jones. Hopefully we'd get to ride it today! Then we went to Big Thunder :love: Rode it and had a great time. I think we then went to get fast passes for Space Mountain - I was excited to see the differences between DL and MK versions. Then I think we rode the Matterhorn for the first time on the Tomorrowland side. Hmm, fun! I like the old-ness of it. We got this picture later that night when we rode it on the Fantasyland side - I prefer this one!

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After that ride we were getting hungry. I knew I wanted Rancho Del Zocalo, so that's what we did! It was good, not too long of a wait (the lineup for the bathrooms was longer!) We shared the Carne Asada platter, it was soooo good. I was surprised at the yumminess of DL Mexican food. This is a 'borrowed' photo, but ours looked just like this:

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And a large lemonade. Not a bad price when we share and it was more than enough.

Here is Jason just outside of the restaurant looking goofy. :love:

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I think after this we rode some more rides! I want to say probably Big Thunder again, and then we went to Fantasyland and it was getting really hot and lines were long. Sadly, after wandering around for a bit we decided to just go back to the hotel for our afternoon break. Like I said, no, we didn't follow directions to get to Fantasyland early, and so no, we didn't end up doing any of the rides there. Ohhhhh well.

After our break, we headed to DTD for some dinner. We went to ESPN Zone, Jason's only choice on this trip. It was..... ok. Drinks were expensive, it was kinda loud. The menu didn't really do much for me. But, my salad was really good! I just got the BBQ Chicken Tender Salad: Lettuce, tomato and avocado, ranch dressing, bbq sauce drizzle, chicken tenders and fried onions. (another borrowed photo)

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It was soooo good. Still not really the healthy meal I was looking for, fried onions? But tasty. Jason got the philly cheese steak with salad. I couldn't find any pics of this on the net, but it didn't look that great anyway. He was kind of disappointed it didn't have any peppers on it and he said it was a bit bland. But he ate it and his salad was good and we were both full.

After this we did a bit of shopping around DTD. Well, window shopping at least. Waddled to the monorail for our first ride and took it into Disneyland. This is when we rode Space with our fastpass, whee! Love that ride, but I was nervous waiting in line because I found the one at disneyworld so scary!

Then we walked by the Tomorrowland Terrace to the Matterhorn and the dancers/singers were doing Michael Jackson... ooh :( We had heard about his death on the tv. So sad for his kids.

This time we rode the Tomorrowland side again. Still fun, the guy behind us was hilarious! Then we went across the park and rode Indiana with our fastpass. This was Jason's favorite ride! I liked it, once or twice, but not as many times as we rode it.... foreshadowing? Then I think we looked through some stores because it was getting busy, then went to ride Big Thunder again (yes, this one is ALWAYS fun... and the line is short!).

It was getting to be about 8:30 now and between fantasmic and fireworks things were busy and slow moving. We decided to take a break to DTD, and then we'd go back to the parks after the fireworks.

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We went to the Catal Bar. It was nice, but expensive! And it was starting to get a bit chilly out even with my jeans on. Jason ordered a heineken

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And I had a mai tai. Reeeeally strong.

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So he switched me

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After our drinks we headed back towards the DL gates. Waited in the esplanade and watched the fireworks.

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Then we waited a bit longer, watching crowds come streaming out. And then we went back into the park. Wow, this was the busiest we saw it the whole trip. We went through Tomorrowland first. Buzz and Star Tours both 20 minutes (not bad!), Matternhorn 45 minutes, Space (of course) 70 minutes. Fantasyland, packed. *Sigh* We were too tired to really wait and we had used all of our fastpasses after dinner, whoops! So we did a bit of shopping/looking around. Took some bad dark photos.

Then I decided it was time..... I wanted a corn dog. We make our way over to Main Street. I spy the Red Wagon. I approach. The CM tells me they're closed, even though they're helping some people in front of me. I cry. We go back to the hotel.

Ok, that was all true, except I did manage to hold back my tears, but boy was I annoyed! Guess I didn't realize a lot of places closed at 10. Anyway, it had been another long day (we need more practise!) so we headed to bed.

Day 7 will have quite a few more photos!! Should update soon.

Docter419

07-18-2009, 05:31 PM

Sarah84

07-19-2009, 10:30 AM

Another good day. Breakfast at Mimi's looks yummy, have a note to make sure we pop there for breakfast at least once on our trip. Shame the rides at DCA kept breaking down when you went to go on them.

cannp123165

07-19-2009, 11:15 AM

Another good day - breakfast looks really yummy at Mimi's. :)

blabbermouth

07-19-2009, 12:51 PM

I'm glad you guys stopped at the UVA bar. That place is the best to have a drink and meet people. We always stop there when we need a break for the park. The first night of our honeymoon that is were we hung out. Ahh... memories...

It was nice and relaxing for sure. It was pretty quiet by the time we got there though!

Another good day. Breakfast at Mimi's looks yummy, have a note to make sure we pop there for breakfast at least once on our trip. Shame the rides at DCA kept breaking down when you went to go on them.

Yup, you should definitely go to Mimi's!

Another good day - breakfast looks really yummy at Mimi's. :)

And it was!

blabbermouth

07-19-2009, 01:15 PM

Ok, I'll try my best to remember our third, and last day at DL.

We didn't get up very early today, but I don't remember when. I wanted to eat breakfast inside the park so we went to DL to go to RiverBelle Terrace. Stopped on the way for an Indy fastpass. We both got the Steamboat breakfast, eggs, bacon and pancakes. Wow, way too much food for me! But the pancakes were pretty good.

After this we must have gone over to

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0110.jpg

to get some Space Fast passes. And we also rode Buzz Lightyear with a 5 minute wait.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0111.jpg

And Jason beat me here too, even though I thought I was doing really well! The only video type game I can beat him at is Dr Mario on Nintendo. Love it!

It was neat to see that this area wasn't boarded up this day! Puts into perspective the fact that they are ALWAYS working on things.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0113.jpg

And then I admit it, we went over to Big Thunder. I took some photos this time though.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0117.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0114.jpg

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Then we hopped over to DCA. A few from our way out:

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The Dapper Dans! The cheesiest of cheesy.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0122.jpg

We were planning on seeing the Aladdin show at 12:10, so we had a few minutes to ride Tower of Terror (one of my favorites!)

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0074.jpg

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http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0075.jpg

Jason looks skeered!! Ahh, fun ride as always. It's the waiting for the drop that gets me every time.

The line for Aladdin still wasn't very long, so we went over to Monsters Inc since it was nearby. It's a cute ride, but I was a bit disappointed.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0086.jpg

Some pictures I took while standing in line.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0080.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0081.jpg

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http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0084.jpg

And then it was time for:

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0082.jpg

Also taken from the Monsters Inc line, go zoom!

Okay, too many pics, I will continue in the next post.

blabbermouth

07-19-2009, 01:41 PM

We LOVED Aladdin. It was a good time of day to get inside to some air conditioning and all in all it was a fabulous show. LOVE the genie, although I can only remember one of his jokes (not even one of the good ones!). "Don't worry Al, I won't go all Christian Bale on you!" hee, ok, I snickered.

I took lots of photos, most of them bad. We were in the first row of the second floor section. I'll just add the decent ones.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0130.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0134.jpg

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http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0139.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0140.jpg

We both agreed, we have to watch Aladdin (the movie) now. It's one of our favorites. It's totally my generation of Disney movie. Right along with Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. I think I'm probably forgetting some, but those were always my faves as a kid. Right before they went big into their Pixar movies, which I do also love.

We then went into the Animation Building to check out a few things. J was too shy to learn to draw, so we didn't do that. But we loved Crush (again), so cute and funny.

After this we did "IT". We went over to the pier and rode Soarin'. Glad it didn't break down today. It was so fun! Not even as scary as I thought it would be (I say now ;)) It was a great way to say goodbye to DCA, we wouldn't be back.

After our big, late breakfast we weren't hungry for lunch, so we passed and decided to just wait til dinner.

We weren't quite ready for a break yet, so we hopped back over to DL. I don't think we spent too long of a time here. I have one boring picture from 12:50, and then the next one is at 1:50. I really don't remember what we did during that hour! But at 1:50 we decided to have one ride on Indiana Jones before we went back to the hotel. Jason became so addicted to this ride! We didn't use our fast pass, just waited the 30 minutes or so. It's such a neat line, it's not too bad to wait in.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0093.jpg

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http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0097.jpg

Fun again, would we go again? Well we did have a fast pass for later!

Ok, I have to stop here for today. Taking my bff out for a birthday lunch. I'll do the very fun evening of this day soon!

Sarah84

07-19-2009, 04:58 PM

Another great update, with lovely photos :)

DSNY4ever

07-20-2009, 11:08 AM

I am so glad you took the time to see Aladdin- isn't it wonderful? So many people I know skip it because they think it'll be a kids show and I am always like "NOOO!!!- it is a must see!" haha.

Looks like you guys are having a wonderful time on the Disney portion of your trip! :yay:

prettyprincessbelle

07-20-2009, 11:49 AM

So I haven't forgotten about your TR! Silly me reads everything and doesn't reply. You got some awesome Aladdin pics!

blabbermouth

07-20-2009, 12:44 PM

Thanks for reading, Sarah!

I am so glad you took the time to see Aladdin- isn't it wonderful? So many people I know skip it because they think it'll be a kids show and I am always like "NOOO!!!- it is a must see!" haha.

Looks like you guys are having a wonderful time on the Disney portion of your trip! :yay:

Aladdin was great. If anything I think it's more geared to adults than kids! I was sad when it was over, the 40 minutes just whizzed by.

So I haven't forgotten about your TR! Silly me reads everything and doesn't reply. You got some awesome Aladdin pics!

Thanks! And thanks for taking the time to post! I know, I do the same, then I get sad when no one replies to my report :rolleyes1 But I figure some people are reading and not saying anything, so I'll just keep going.

blabbermouth

07-21-2009, 10:18 PM

We had another great afternoon break. We actually ran into some other people from our hometown at the pool, how random!

We skipped lunch today because we were still full from our Steamboat breakfasts. So we decided to go to Rainforest Cafe for dinner. We actually loved it! I guess we got a good seat b/c it wasn't nearly as loud and obnoxious as we thought it would be. Only took about 10 minutes to get a table too.

We had some yummy, fairly affordable drinks to start. Then I had the coconut shrimp with mango sauce with rice & beans and a veggie salad. It was all SO good. It's rare that the side dishes are as good as the meat, but yum. It might have been my favorite meal of the trip. Jason had the meditteranean chicken. He liked it. He likes chicken :thumbsup2

Some partially eaten food pics!

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0142.jpg

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No room for dessert, again!

We were sooo full after this. We waddled over to the monorail and headed into DL.

We got off in tomorrowland and Jason wanted more Indiana! But I made him window shop a bit because I will still so full and wasn't sure I wanted to be quite so tossled yet.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0144.jpg

heh heh. Yeah we did.

Then Jason wanted a drink, and I spied a ginormous pickle! Yes, I had to have it.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0145.jpg

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Ahh, it was fantastic, but there was no way I could make it through the whole thing. I finished it up while we waited (with our fastpasses) for Space! Yay, fun again.

Jason wanted to play at the starcade, so I let him have one game ;)

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0147.jpg

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Then we went over to the Matterhorn, and the wait was actually pretty short, I guess people were maybe starting to get ready for the fireworks now? It was fun in the dark. Feels even scarier in that might fly off and die kinda way.

Then I guess we walked around the back of the castle and into the store.

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And stopped for a nighttime castle pic.

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We walked by the plaza gardens and watched some people swing dance for a bit.

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Then through to frontierland near Rancho Del Zocalo

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0159.jpg

I assume we went on Big Thunder again. And maybe something else? It was starting to get busy now due to Fantasmic, which Jason didn't want to see :( Then we decided to head back to Rainforest Cafe for some drinks. We took a few photos on our way out, to say goodbye.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0102.jpg

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http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0107.jpg
See? The castle is back there!

Wait, I think these castle pics must have been from the night before, because I don't think the fireworks had gone off by the time we left this night and I don't think we would have gotten that close. These next pics are definitely from our last night though.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0161.jpg

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0164.jpg

I was sad to leave, but it was pretty crazy packed with everyone waiting everywhere and we were getting tired. We headed through DTD to RC and had some drinks at the bar.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0170.jpg

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http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%207/IMG_0165.jpg

We still had one more day in Anaheim, but this was our last Disney Day! Hopefully you guys will stick around and hear about our time in San Francisco! Lots of pictures from there! Thanks for reading again.

magicallyDisney001

07-21-2009, 10:54 PM

Aww....last Disney day. :sad1: Anyway, glad you guys had fun! I'm sticking around for the rest of the TR! :cool1:

Sarah84

07-22-2009, 11:12 AM

aww im sad that was your last day at Disney, the meals in RFC look yummy, i'll be sticking around for the rest :)

disneynerd420

07-22-2009, 01:07 PM

I loved your pics! I will be sticking around for the rest.

DLR29

07-23-2009, 10:38 AM

I've been on vacation for a week, and I came back and I'm up to date on your TR (which is great). Few notes:

1) That picture of French toast looks sooooo good
2) I'm glad your DH loves Indy. It's my favorite ride too and I can't get enough of it!
3) Pickles=Deliciousness
4) I'm glad you had a great time at DLR :thumbsup2

blabbermouth

07-23-2009, 10:56 AM

Thanks guys!

Hope you had a nice vacation DLR29.... I'm ready for another one! French toast AND pickles are both delicious, just not together! :lmao:

I should get a chance to do an update tonight.

Coming up...

Update 1. Cheesecake Factory in Anaheim/our last day, The 6 hour drive to San Francisco and our first night.

Update 2. Our first full day in San Fran including Golden Gate Bridge, Sausilito, Golden Gate Park and a baseball game

Update 3. Day 2 SF. Alcatraz.

Update 4. Two days of driving home :sad1: But don't miss it, there's real live animals - in the wild!

Docter419

07-23-2009, 11:57 AM

Sad to hear about your last day. I hate reading about leaving, it always give me PDD (post-disney-depression) :sad1: But I'm glad you had fun at the Rainforest Cafe. This one time I went there with my family before I left for college. So we ate lunch at ESPN and had a few drinks, then my sister said those famous last words... "whos ready for a shot?" So we immediatly strolled into rainforest and had some Jaegermeister. It was hilarious! :lmao: Needless to say we have a *very* good time that day.

magicallyDisney001

07-23-2009, 02:36 PM

Update 4. Two days of driving home :sad1: But don't miss it, there's real live animals - in the wild!

:eek: No kidding? There are real live animals IN THE WILD? :laughing:

Can't wait to see the next update! :thumbsup2

blabbermouth

07-23-2009, 09:04 PM

So Jason was more than done with Disneyland by today and I was just tired out. We slept in and decided to go to Mimi's for breakfast, except there was a 20 minute wait. I was too hungry, so we skipped over to Millie's instead. Meh, this wasn't as good, much more Denny's like. Jason got a eggs/bacon etc meal and I just ate his pancake. It worked, but I would definitely recommend Mimi's over Millie's.

Today we were going to head over to Garden Walk and go to Target. I know it's not exciting, but we don't have Target in Canada and it's just so much nicer than Walmart.

Garden Walk was OK, but I guess it's mostly restaurants and not really that many stores. We spent about an hour there. Jason bought an O'Neill shirt and I bought a Hollister shirt. We hopped back in the car and headed out to Target. Whee! We stocked up on Vitamin Water and various other snacks and toiletries etc. We browsed most of the aisles too. I checked out their scrapbooking section, but it was nowhere near as good as what I remembered the Bellingham Target to be.

I think by now it was just before noon, and we weren't really ready to head back to the hotel yet. So we randomly drove around Anaheim and Orange. That was kinda fun. Ran into a Best Buy and Jason checked out the prices of random stuff, but it was mostly pretty similar to good ol' Canada. Stopped and got some gas and J got a McDonald's iced coffee. We decided to pick up some Quizno's on Harbour on the way back to the hotel. It was OK, far from the best Quizno's I've ever had.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool. We headed to Cheesecake Factory back at GardenWalk for dinner. It was good. It's nice being a party of two, we never had to wait for tables anywhere on our trip.

Their menu is super overwhelming! Jason had a heineken, ha! And I had a glass of white wine. We kinda dressed up, it was nice. Shoulda got the waitress to take a pic, because my dress was really cute! Oh well. Here's Jason.

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I just ordered an appy because I knew there was cheesecake to come. I think these were avocado spring rolls.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%208/IMG_0187.jpg

And Jason got (surprise!) Chicken Madeira. It was just grilled chicken in a wine and mushroom sauce. Really rich, but he thought it was good. My food was ok, but got boring after about half of it.

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We ordered the... Kahlua Coffee Cheesecake, it was deeeelicious. It looked a LOT like this, although this is a lovely borrowed photo from yelp.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%208/cheesecake.jpg

We had a late dinner tonight, so we just headed back to the hotel to relax and pack. We had to be up early the next day to leave.

-------------

The next morning we got up fairly early. We had about a 6 hour drive so I wanted to leave by about 9:30 so we could get there before any traffic issues. We headed back to Mimi's to say goodbye to my yummy french toast.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%209/IMG_0191.jpg

Bye Mimi's, we'll miss you!

And off we drove up the I-5 towards San Francisco. I took the first leg and drove as far as Kettlemen's City. It was a good drive, really hot though. 44 degrees was the highest - sorry, I think that's 110 degrees farenheit. Gotta love a car that tells you the temperature. Here we stopped for gas and In N Out burger! Yay, it was soooo good. Cheeseburger Animal Style. And cheap too. I ate in the car and Jason took over, he was still full from breakfast.

After eating I stayed awake just until we got off the I-5 towards San Francisco and then I fell asleep. Woke up in time to help Jason navigate towards our hotel - Columbus Motor Inn. Jason was a bit stressed out driving through the city. It was busy and the streetlights were on the corners of the streets instead of in the middle and the street our hotel was on went diagonally across the normal 'grid' streets. But we made it no problem.

We checked in and got a room on the top floor facing the street. We had pretty awesome views!

Coit Tower
http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%209/IMG_0192.jpg

Alcatraz
http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%209/IMG_0195.jpg

Church
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Even just looking down the street was cute
http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%209/IMG_0196.jpg

It was right next door to this... but it's not what you might think! It's a pretty famous concert venue.
http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%209/IMG_0197.jpg

Jason was now starving, so we walked down to Fisherman's Wharf and basically stopped at the first place. It was cheap, but only mediocre. After this we just walked along, we were both kind of grumpy this evening for some reason. We didn't have any plans for this night so we just went back to the hotel. We were a bit bored so we decided to walk up to Ghiradelli Square and get some ice cream. It was a fairly long walk and it was super cold out. We had gotten used to Anaheim weather!

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Sorry, no ice cream pics, the place was packed and unfortunately not very relaxing. I'm just not really a huge fan of Ghiradelli ice cream. They have one in DTD at Disneyworld and I felt the same way. It has lots of little ice crystals in it and it's not smooth and creamy. Oh well. It kept us busy. We walked back to our hotel along the water and called it a night!

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%209/IMG_0203.jpg

We weren't quite sure if we liked San Francisco yet. Ho-hum meal, it was cold and it seemed really deserted... but it grew on us for sure. More to come soon, I should have another installment on Saturday.

blabbermouth

07-23-2009, 09:05 PM

cannp123165

07-25-2009, 12:12 PM

Great update - the food looks yummy at the Cheesecake Factory. :)

DSNY4ever

07-27-2009, 12:41 PM

I have gotten the Avacado rolls at the Cheesecake factory before and I totally agree, after about one, maybe two you are like "okay, that was good, but I've had enough"- they are a bit filling and the avocado is overwhelming. Some things there are really good and some have too much butter.

Can't wait to hear about the rest of your time in SF!

blabbermouth

07-29-2009, 03:06 PM

Hi! I have been neglectful. It has just been SOOO hot here for the past week. I barely want to be at home (top floor condo with evening sun!) let alone spending time with my toasty laptop. Lots of hanging out in air conditioned malls/restaurants/movie theaters. After the heat wave I will continue.

casiland

07-31-2009, 01:59 AM

Loving it so far. Wanting more though......

blabbermouth

08-12-2009, 03:31 PM

:rolleyes1 Oh hay guys... guess what!? I decided I'm going to do another update when I get home from work! Jason was giving me crap last night for not finishing it. I've started working on my scrapbook instead. But I now vow to finish something before I start a new project :) So coming up, if anyone is still wanting to read it: Golden Gate Bridge and park, Sausilito and a baseball game.

blabbermouth

08-12-2009, 07:21 PM

I'm back. This morning we got up and trekked down to the Fisherman's Wharf Starbucks for a bite of breakfast. Yum! Then back to our hotel to hop in the car and just go random places. I took out the map and picked out a route to the golden gate bridge. That kinda worked out. It took us pass the famous Lombard zig-zag street.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%2010/IMG_0205.jpg

I love this photo. I wonder what it would be like living in one of those houses?

And I took some pictures as we drove... or as Jason drove.

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Then we drove through Presidio Park:

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And caught our first glimpse of the bridge:

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And we managed to make it to the viewpoint :yay:

Lots of people around and it was windy and cold but sunny. There is one photo of me where my hair is just not post-worthy. And I'm really not that picky about appearance.

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And then we drove across the bridge. J didn't want to walk or bike or anything adventurous. We popped into Sausalito to walk around and do a bit of window shopping.

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And we bought some taffy, soooooo good.

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And J got a red bull COLA, it tasted a lot like those little coke bottle candies.

We also had some lunch here. It was good, but nothing very memorable. So far San Fran wasn't really doing us good for food.

Then we hopped back in the car at about 1 and headed over to Golden Gate Park. It was starting to get really cold now and the sun was gone. I wasn't smart enough to bring a hoody even though I knew better. We wandered around pretty aimlessly.

Took some photos in between the museum and the kid's science museum.

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And at the rose garden:

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We kind of did a bad job of estimating time, so at this point we hustled back to the hotel and didn't have much time to find some dinner before heading to the A's game. I knew there was a In N Out down at the wharf, so we headed in that direction. And then we saw it..... Hooters. :rotfl2: :worship:

So we had a beer and I had boneless wings (SO GOOD!) and J had a philly cheese steak. It was our first time there, but it was the best meal we'd had in SF so far.

We kind of forgot about rush hour and figured it wouldn't be too bad by 6:30 when we left for the game, but it was pretty busy. Anyway, we arrived in Oakland just as they were throwing out the first pitch. (That wasn't this photo)

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We had some pretty good seats, third row just past third base. Right by where the pitchers warm up.

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It was pretty fun and I'm glad we had such good seats.

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The ended up losing, which sucks because the won the games the night before and the night after!

After the game we headed back to our hotel and wanted to go for a drink, so we headed across the street to Kennedy's Irish Pub/Curry House. It was great! It was neat to be somewhere that wasn't packed full of tourists. It was happy hour so we each bought a pint for $5 and got a token for another free beer anytime. So that's $2.50 pints of beer, yay! And they had about 30 different kinds on tap. The bartender was fabulous too. It was a great end to a fun day.

cinderella-princess

08-14-2009, 06:18 PM

It looks like you guys had a full day in SF! It's too bad you didn't get tickets for a Giants game - their ballpark is so beautiful! I love going to games there just for the park and the view. And the Irish coffee at Momo's across the street aren't bad either! :woohoo:

Here is the outside of the park:
http://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs093.snc1/4675_557825002360_29906113_32972367_513148_n.jpg

You get a great view of the Bay Bridge and McCovey Cove:
http://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs113.snc1/4675_557825042280_29906113_32972375_2057885_n.jpg

Sorry to hijack your thread - I just thought you might want to keep it in mind if you ever make it back to SF. :goodvibes

Sarah84

08-14-2009, 08:12 PM

Another great update, your SF pictures are lovely :)

blabbermouth

08-14-2009, 10:48 PM

Oh yeah. I saw a Giants game on tv and thought the stadium was wayyy nicer. But they weren't in town when we were there, and also tix there are wayyyy more expensive for their games. Oh well, next time! yum, I LOVE coffee drinks, it's funny I was just thinking I'd get one tonight with my dessert! We're goin out for dessert with some friends.

Wow Sarah, you're sooo close to your trip!!

I should get to another update this weekend.

blabbermouth

08-16-2009, 03:23 PM

This morning we went to downtown SF to do some shopping. We stopped at a little coffee shop near our hotel for breakky. Then we went to some random big mall. Jason was very brave driving in the crazy traffic not really knowing where we were going!

We mostly just window shopped, but I bought a few cheap shirts at H&M and J bought a jersey. Just as we were about to leave I was thinking about how much I spent at H&M and realized they overcharged me by $10 - doh! So we had to trek all the way back across the mall to get it fixed. Oh well, the girl who helped us was super nice, so she made up for it.

We went back to our hotel to drop off the car and headed down to In N Out (yum!) for a quick lunch before hustling all the way down to Pier 33 for our Alcatraz Tour. This is a pretty far walk, I'm not going to lie. I'm pretty good with directions and gauging distance etc, but we probably should have taken some sort of wheeled transportation!

We really enjoyed this! If you've never done the tour before, I definitely recommend it. If only for the neat scenery. I'll just add the photos we took, not much to say about them.

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I think we got back to the pier at about 4 o clock and walked back to the hotel. We vegged out for awhile because we were pretty tired after all the shopping and touring! That night we went to dinner by our hotel at a Belgian restaurant, La Trappe. We had some huge pots of really yummy mussels and tried some Belgian beer.

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Bavik, the Belgian Budweiser. *shrug* I hate Bud (except the new bud lite lime) but this wasn't too bad. And I think it was only about $3 a glass.

It was really dark in there! But it was pretty funky; very dungeon-like. Felt funny when we left at about 8 because it was still so light outside.

We were now starting to be sad that our trip was almost over. We still weren't homesick yet.

That night we went back to the bar across the street to use our free beer tokens. And then we headed to bed early for the long drive the next day :sad2:

blabbermouth

08-16-2009, 03:54 PM

We woke up at a reasonable hour on Thursday morning and checked out of our hotel. We decided to drive til we got hungry before stopping for breakfast.

Lucky for us, we found a.... Mimi's! In Fairfield (I think). It was a nice goodbye to our trip, and reminded us of Disneyland. EXCEPT they nearly ruined my good memories of Mimi's. I ordered my same favorite thing I had eaten about a bazillion times by that point, but it was 1/2 the size, AND COLD! Grr. I never ever complain at restaurants, but I was so disappointed I asked for a fresh warm one. Then it was much better :cloud9:

I thought of the jellybelly factory, but we had a long drive to make it up to Portland.

This day actually went by pretty quickly, we were getting used to the long drives. We actually saw a few neat things too, so that helps.

Look how close this plane was to the highway, it was crazy!

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Then we saw a truck for something we never even knew existed. (Sorry, and no offense, but this just seems so American!)

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The boredom induced artistic foot photo:

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We really enjoyed seeing this, although I forget where it is... Northern Cali or Southern Oregon?

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It was just so pretty for a change. Oh wait, if I'd look at my photos I'd figure it out. It's North Cali because the pic came before my photos of Mt Shasta. Ta-da.

Saw some puppies in the back of a truck:

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And here it is. So pretty!

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We stopped in Weed for a potty break. And then stopped in Medford for more Taco Bell, whee!

After some confusing directions, we finally made it to the Fairfield Inn in North Portland. Right on the river, nice.

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Really funky room! Nice tv, the pool looked nice although we didn't use it.

We're actually thinking about taking a short trip down to Portland this fall. See a basketball game and explore a bit. It's only about a 5 hour drive from the ferry, so it's reasonable for a long weekend.

We were starving, so asked the desk guy for a recommendation to a nice pub. It took us over the bridge to Vancouver, WA to a place called McMenamins. It's apparently a pretty big "local chain" in OR/WA. It was really good! We both had burgers (veggie for me!) and they were super cheap and yummy. No pics due to my starvingness. But I did get a pic of this:

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%2012%2013/IMG_04852.jpg

Our Beer Fleet. Yum! The raspberry one was really good.

And we managed to make it to dessert tonight, we had a black and tan brownie. Yum again!

We headed back to the hotel stuffed and sleepy. It was a really nice way to spend the last night of our trip!

-------------------------

The next morning we got up fairly early just because we wanted to get home at a reasonable hour.

We had some free continental breakfast and headed out across the bridge and into Washington.

I didn't take any pics during the drive this time. I forget where we ate lunch today... hmm. Maybe we just snacked? I will ask Jason.

We had a great time at the border. The guy was super helpful in directing us to the line where no one was waiting! But we did get asked a lot of questions. For some reason he couldn't quite get his head wrapped around the fact that yes, we did drive our car down to California AND back. No, we didn't get the car down there after we flew down. No, we also didn't make any modifications while we were there. Seriously, my car really just looks stock. Oh well, we were still only there for about 10 minutes.

At this point is was probably about 20 after 3 and we were expecting to get on the 5 o clock ferry. However, when we drove past the sign at 3:40, it said the 4 was only 50% full! Wow! So we arrived at 10 to 4 and drove right on the ferry. We were so excited, because waiting in line for an hour is always annoying when all you want to do by this point is just get home!

Some views from the ferry.

http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv285/blabbermouthkelsey/honeymoon/hm%20day%2012%2013/IMG_04872.jpg

I forget what mountain that is. It's in the states though... Mt St Helens maybe? Sorry.

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That's a whale! A real live wilderness whale. Heh. We were pretty excited. Sorry that J didn't capture and better photos.

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A passing ferry.

And the last photo of the trip. Our sad faces because we don't want to go home.

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It was windy, hence the hair :eek:

And an hour and a half later, we were back on the island.

Thanks for reading our fabulous honeymoon trip report! Two and 1/2 months since the wedding yesterday and we keep talking about the trip we're going to take next!