A Valentine Adventure
About a year ago, I met a brilliant photographer on a crazy trip with a bunch of my friends, on a cruise to Ensenada.
He's the nicest, awesomest, most fun person I'd ever met, and we started dating. I've mentioned him in my journals a lot- his name is Dave.
So I wanted to make Valentine's Day awesome by putting together an adventure. I had all these plans laid out since Christmas, and then the oddest thing happened.. it rained. So instead, I woke up early and made a special Valentine's Day card. for roadtrip food i made some heartshaped pink riceballs (and cooked the rice in coconut milk).
Then I took him two hours east into the desert, where it wasn't raining, and we went to see the giant dinosaurs from Pee Wee's Big Adventure. There was a museum exhibit with robotic dinosaurs, too, with a weird Christian twist on them. Next, I wanted us to go on a gondola ride that would take us from the desert to the snow, but when we got there, we found tons of people and a two hour wait. So instead, we took off in another direction and drove towards a cute mountain forest town called Idyllwild in search of snow. And snow we found, lots of it, piled up everywhere.
A Valentine's snowball fight ensued; the best one ever, with a snowbank on high ground to use as a fort. We went to a pizza place and ate a really yummy pizza, and we played mew mew tower on my iphone til we beat all of the high scores. and got candy at a candy shop!
we drove back, and just cuddled and caught up on all of our tv shows. dave wanted me to make food, instead of going to a fancy restaurant, so i wanted to at least do fancy food for him. but we ate too much pizza. so the next night i made valentines dinner.
appetizers were lemon stilton stuffed dates wrapped in bacon
fettucine alfredo (with the sauce homemade), bacon wrapped scallops cooked in wine and lime, lemon rosemary salmon fillets, and garlic-lime shrimp. on the side were oven roasted asparagus (supposedly an aphrodisiac)
But the next weekend rolled around and i still wanted to take him on the original adventure. The weather looked clearer, so I set up the reservations. We had to wake up REALLY early to get to Long Beach, and "take a special kind of boat." Dave thought we were going whale watching, when he first started guessing, but he did guess the Catalina Island part of the trip.
I drove us out to the Queen Mary, and we walked up to the Helipad, and got on a helicopter. Neither of us had done anything like this before, and I was prepared to be terrified. It was only scary for 30seconds, then felt like an airplane after that. And it was really really really awesome. We saw dolphins and shared the ride with another couple.
Then we took a taxi to the cute little beach town of Avalon, where they were doing a scuba-diver beach cleanup. Some dude found an octopus in a bottle and was showing it off. Then we found the best minigolf course in the world. It was built by hand, by an old couple that rescues cats. It had some of the most ingenious mazes I'd ever seen, along with crazy ramps and turns and tiers.
After that, we hopped into a yellow submarine. It had torpedo buttons that released fish food and we got to see TONS and tons and tons of fish. We walked all over Avalon and took a zillion pictures, and played with this neat little iphone app called Photoswap where you take a picture of something and a random person gets it, and has the ability to reply with another photo. We ate fish and chips and a buffalo burger, and went to an amazing candy store with handmade truffles and saltwater taffy. One of the best candy shops I'd ever been to. Dave got tired and tried to take a nap so I chased seagulls around with my camera for an hour.
Then we took a big ferry back, and it was my turn to take a nap. We drove out to Hollywood and partied at our friend's apartment that overlooks the Oscars, and watched the traffic pile up around Hollywood. And that was our two-part Valentines Adventure.
Dave has his pics up. I am slow and haven't posted mine. http://flickr.com/photos/dmertl/sets
He's the nicest, awesomest, most fun person I'd ever met, and we started dating. I've mentioned him in my journals a lot- his name is Dave.
So I wanted to make Valentine's Day awesome by putting together an adventure. I had all these plans laid out since Christmas, and then the oddest thing happened.. it rained. So instead, I woke up early and made a special Valentine's Day card. for roadtrip food i made some heartshaped pink riceballs (and cooked the rice in coconut milk).
Then I took him two hours east into the desert, where it wasn't raining, and we went to see the giant dinosaurs from Pee Wee's Big Adventure. There was a museum exhibit with robotic dinosaurs, too, with a weird Christian twist on them. Next, I wanted us to go on a gondola ride that would take us from the desert to the snow, but when we got there, we found tons of people and a two hour wait. So instead, we took off in another direction and drove towards a cute mountain forest town called Idyllwild in search of snow. And snow we found, lots of it, piled up everywhere.
A Valentine's snowball fight ensued; the best one ever, with a snowbank on high ground to use as a fort. We went to a pizza place and ate a really yummy pizza, and we played mew mew tower on my iphone til we beat all of the high scores. and got candy at a candy shop!
we drove back, and just cuddled and caught up on all of our tv shows. dave wanted me to make food, instead of going to a fancy restaurant, so i wanted to at least do fancy food for him. but we ate too much pizza. so the next night i made valentines dinner.
appetizers were lemon stilton stuffed dates wrapped in bacon
fettucine alfredo (with the sauce homemade), bacon wrapped scallops cooked in wine and lime, lemon rosemary salmon fillets, and garlic-lime shrimp. on the side were oven roasted asparagus (supposedly an aphrodisiac)
But the next weekend rolled around and i still wanted to take him on the original adventure. The weather looked clearer, so I set up the reservations. We had to wake up REALLY early to get to Long Beach, and "take a special kind of boat." Dave thought we were going whale watching, when he first started guessing, but he did guess the Catalina Island part of the trip.
I drove us out to the Queen Mary, and we walked up to the Helipad, and got on a helicopter. Neither of us had done anything like this before, and I was prepared to be terrified. It was only scary for 30seconds, then felt like an airplane after that. And it was really really really awesome. We saw dolphins and shared the ride with another couple.
Then we took a taxi to the cute little beach town of Avalon, where they were doing a scuba-diver beach cleanup. Some dude found an octopus in a bottle and was showing it off. Then we found the best minigolf course in the world. It was built by hand, by an old couple that rescues cats. It had some of the most ingenious mazes I'd ever seen, along with crazy ramps and turns and tiers.
After that, we hopped into a yellow submarine. It had torpedo buttons that released fish food and we got to see TONS and tons and tons of fish. We walked all over Avalon and took a zillion pictures, and played with this neat little iphone app called Photoswap where you take a picture of something and a random person gets it, and has the ability to reply with another photo. We ate fish and chips and a buffalo burger, and went to an amazing candy store with handmade truffles and saltwater taffy. One of the best candy shops I'd ever been to. Dave got tired and tried to take a nap so I chased seagulls around with my camera for an hour.
Then we took a big ferry back, and it was my turn to take a nap. We drove out to Hollywood and partied at our friend's apartment that overlooks the Oscars, and watched the traffic pile up around Hollywood. And that was our two-part Valentines Adventure.
Dave has his pics up. I am slow and haven't posted mine. http://flickr.com/photos/dmertl/sets