Cali-Cali-California~~
Short vacation was short but it was soooo packed in that it sometimes felt way longer than a 13-day trip. I definitely didn't get as much sleep as I wanted to. But that's okay! I have no pictures yet since a) most of mine are stuck in Kevin's laptop and b) I used his G12 the majority of the time so they're still in raw format. Going to be a lot of work narrowing down my photos.
After not posting much in a while, prepare for a BIG one! If you can handle it. x_X
This is the first real "vacation" I've taken since going to the Maritimes 2.5 years ago. That trip was before I started working full time at work4 and I could not really take any vacation days when I was there. After I started working at my current place, I didn't have a substantial amount of days (4) for a vacation so I let those carry over for this year's conventions.
solartempest and I booked our flight back in March. So the sudden possibility of an Air Canada flight attendants strike wasn't good news. It was averted, thankfully. Kevin and I made 2 banana bread loaves and 2 batches of Rice Krispie squares as snacks/food for the trip. Also watched more movies on the roundtrip flights than I have this past year alone.
I played navigator to Kevin's driver. Had a GPS, my prepared Google maps, and my common sense in my arsenal and we both fared fairly well. :) Admittedly, the streets are really confusing at times and it was really easy to miss a turn or even a traffic light (they're sooo discreet and unobtrusive looking).
Thursday, September 22
Mum dropped us at the airport and after we dropped off our 3 suitcases, we went through security. Randomly, I was chosen for the full body scan. The guy looked really surprised when I said "no". :p Then told me that the only other option was the patdown, which I said was fine. Then he added that it wasn't going to be from him but by a woman. I almost laughed. I don't like the scanners and would never use them when given a choice (not to mention that the one time Kevin got chosen for the scanner, they gave him a patdown before and after using the scanner; that's stupid). And I was kind of curious on what the patdown was like. It wasn't actually that intrusive? For some reason, we also had to go through US customs at Pearson. Our guy was really annoying. He kept asking why we'd stay in Woodland Hills instead of downtown LA and told us places he thought would be better. They would have been better if you like being stuck in traffic all the time!!
Watched Thor, which was rather amusing at times. :) The guard was my favourite! And loved the music. Started watching X-Men: First Class but got a bit bored, fell asleep, and wasn't able to resume it afterward. Lunch was the dinkie Timmies sandwich I bought before boarding with our banana bread and squares as snacks. It wasn't too long before we arrived in sunny Los Angeles! Yay!
Our car rental place decided they didn't have the full size we requested and made us get an SUV. I was kind of skeptical about that. Didn't really want to use an SUV at all. Plus it wouldn't have fit/hidden our 3 suitcases. One of the mecs recommended that we give a full size car in the lot a shot and it fit alllll of our stuff in the trunk. Including Kevin's suitcase-sized camera bag and our backpacks. I could've fit in there with them! Score! Downside: it was actually a luxury car parked in the wrong place so it costs the same as the SUV. Still way better. We ended up taking the Ford Taurus SEL. It was huge! Biggest trunk I've ever seen.
No real plans for this day so we randomly checked out Venice Beach (felt a bit sketchy), Santa Monica's pier (cute area, what we thought Venice Beach would be like), before heading into LA's downtown (traffic! x__X) to see Little Tokyo and Union Station. We bought random, unique-sounding/looking goodies from 2 bakeries there, then ate dinner at a place recommended by one of the bakery guys. After dinner, we fought more traffic to our Hilton hotel in Woodland Hills, which is northwest of LA. We chose that place because of its location. Outside of LA, near highways, north of the city so it's easier for our eventual drive up the coast.
Friday, September 23
We woke up earlier to head down to Bolsa Chica beach for Kevin's surfing lessons. Unfortunately, because of crazy normal morning traffic, we got there late and they had left, with no time that day for another lesson. Kevin was pretty crushed. D: Driving into Huntington Beach, we stopped by a surf shop and asked if they knew of any instructors. They did! Gave us his business card. Locating a pay phone was a different matter, however. No one seemed to know where to find one. We located one, called the guy, and he was free in the afternoon for a lesson! Yay! He also told us about this strange thing happening at Newport Beach with the squids and we had to check that out.
Squids!! Seriously! Lots of them! Everywhere! Newport Beach wasn't originally on our list of places and we skipped Huntington Beach entirely for it but it was worth it. On the pier, fishermen were just catching lots and lots of squids. After snapping a few shots, we had lunch at a place the surfer guy mentioned. Oakville has better gelato. :p Anyway, we met him and Kevin went for his lesson. I hung out on the beach with the full intention of making sand castles and only occasionally taking photos of surfing!Kevin but I didn't want to get any sand on the camera and just did that. It was really hard! Kevin was just a speck in the distance, hard to focus on, and the telephoto lens is really, really heavy. I think most turned out blurry. D: D:
Unfortunately, we overran our time and got dinged with a big parking ticket. >_< It didn't help that we were parked outside of a bar with frequent traffic. :/ After fighting some more traffic on the way back to our hotel, we enjoyed a tasty dinner at the Cheesecake Factory right next to our hotel (that was one of the hotel's listed selling points, lol).
Saturday, September 24
One place in California that I was dying to go to again is Magic Mountain. Heck, if I lived in the LA area, I'd get a seasons pass. It's just amazing!! *_______* There are so many rides I'd go on over and over. It was a super awesome day for me, a mostly awesome day for Kevin. I'll get back to that in a sec.
Unfortunately, it doesn't open that early and closes kind of early. 10:30 - 20:00. We headed to the back of the park right away and started big: Green Lantern: First Flight (would have started with Batman but it wasn't open yet). It's like nothing I've ever been on and was a ton of fun. Batman the Ride followed next (surprisingly a relaxing ride for me), The Riddler's Revenge (the most comfortable standing ride I've ever been on), Scream (too relaxing, didn't feel like screaming), Colossus (shame it wasn't double car running), and then Kevin felt queasy. I think the baked goods we had for breakfast was too plentiful and too sweet and, coupled with the rides, he didn't feel so good. We did the Kevin-sitting-and-relaxing ride for a short while until he felt better and then moved on to Goliath.
Up until that ride, the lines were good, but there were problems with the ride (twice) so we waited over an hour. That said, it was worth the wait. Lots of launches and it was really quite tall. Thinking we'd hit Superman before lunch, we passed by/went on Gold Rusher first (it was way better than expected! not the mild ride we thought it'd be; awesome for the park's first coaster), then did Superman: Escape from Krypton. Now, I was bracing myself for a ride like Dragster......and then it went backwards!! I was so surprised, lol! Ninja followed (relaxing) and, still before lunch, we went for Tatsu. That was another time-killer ride. There was a problem before we got on it, then flashpass people chose our line 4(!!!) different times, and when our ride ended, we were stuck in a 45 degree angle. *facepalm* I guess it was interesting but the ridiculously long waits made it immemorable.
On the way to getting some extremely late lunch, I saw a sign that I wanted to take a photo of and never got a chance to. D: It said "If you're still standing in the lamppost line, you're probably hungry." It was really cute. We had a measly, not that tasty, grossly expensive "lunch" from Johnny Rockets. After a short wait, we headed to Apocalypse. The park only has two wooden coasters but I found my most favourite wooden coaster in the world here. Not to mention the most comfortable seats ever! If Spinebuster had these seats, no spines would be busted at all. XP Déjà vu (a way better version of Wonderland's The Bat) was right after, then we ran like crazy for the (hopefully) last 3 rides of our night. It was already 7ish by this point and we had 3 coasters left. We went on Viper first. I always remembered it as the most intense ride the 12-year-old me had ever been on and it sort of was. Except it was intensely painful! I don't think I'd ever go on that ride again unless they change the "pads" (or decent lack thereof) on the restraints.
X2... Oh, man, what can I say about X2. What a way to end the night. We got into X2 before the park officially closed. Us and a ridonkulus amount of other people. We hung out with a cool, fun group from LA before the ride. Although it was late and they didn't play the extra effects (like fire and...fog?), this was definitely one of the most amazing rides I've ever been on. I've never actually screamed so much, lol.
My favourites are definitely Green Lantern, Superman, and X2 (no specific order). It's like the other rides felt too tame for me now, haha. But those were simply amazing. We missed one coaster due to time, Revolution, and I'm a bitty bit sad about that. So close! We ended off the evening with another dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Yumyum~ We need one here.
Sunday, September 25.
And so begins the days of too much driving in too little time. We headed up the coast toward the Guadalupe sand dunes. If I ever wanted to do a desert photoshoot not far from civilization, this would be the very place! On the way there, we took Hwy 154 instead of Hwy 101 and that gave us our first taste of California's twisty/lots of elevations roads on their many mountains. Those roads were tame compared to what we would hit later! Anyway, we checked out two parts of the dunes and then continued north to Hearst Castle (with a McDonald's woman messing up my order in between). Unfortunately, all the tours were sold out for that day! D: DX Not so happy about that. We bought tickets for a tour the next morning, watched the movie (I was watching more for the architecture), and then dejectedly headed back to Morro Bay. There, we fulfilled our promise of watching a sunset on the beach. Afterward, we continued further south to San Luis Obispo and the Embassy Suites before heading out for dinner at a cute place in the main city area.
Monday, September 26
Woke up early for free breakfast and so we could get to Hearst Castle earlier. That is one long bus ride up the mountain. Really twisty, too. There's 3 tours, all $25 each and we chose the Upstairs tour which included several bedrooms, the library, and his office. The castle is like nothing else. So gorgeous. After the tour, you can wander around the outside grounds so we did so for a while. We picked up some bottles of wine from the Hearst Castle winery (the guy was really nice and offering lots of different ones to try, though we were in a hurry) before continuing our drive up toward Big Sur. One quick stop was a viewing point where you could see a ton of elephant seals lounging on the beach. It was pretty cool!
Originally, when I thought of "driving along the coast", I kind of pictured a flat, probably curvy road near the water/shore. I did not expect curvy, ridiculous elevations up in the mountains! The Maritimes and their roads have nothing on this place! Hwy 1 was even twistier than that portion of Hwy 154. Because we had so much driving to do, we only did two trails in Big Sur. The overlook trail in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park and the waterfall trail in the Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park. Finished the day by driving to Monterey where we stayed in the Monterey Hotel, a really old hotel with a really nicely renovated, modern bathroom. We stayed on the 4th floor: there were no elevators. The suitcases were a bit of an ordeal.
We had dinner at a place recommended to us in Fisherman's Wharf. It was both really expensive and only so-so. :/ However, on the way there and back, we could hear lots of sea lions. We walked around trying to find/see them (they were LOUD), but it was a little difficult.
Tuesday, September 27
Began the morning with breakfast at the hotel, then headed back south toward Garrapata State Park. The name is Spanish for ticks. :/ So we were on an extreme tick watch. Walked about 4 of the trails there and then returned to Monterey and the Fisherman's Wharf to see the sea lions. Boy, did we not miss them! They were lots of fun. And loud! So loud, lol. We had lunch at a cute place frequented by locals.
Continuing our trek up north, we went to Santa Cruz because Kevin wanted to stop by a surf clothing shop he saw. After leaving there, we went on toward Ukiah but were stuck in the San Francisco Bay Area traffic for a good part of the afternoon. By the time we got out of there, it was getting late, Ukiah was still far, and we had dinner at IHOP in Santa Rosa. It was...okay. I wasn't terribly enthused with my dinner. The rest of the drive was in the dark. The roads were curvy many a time and there was a bit of elevation, but since it was so dark outside with little light (if any), I could see the stars as we drove (when they weren't hidden by mountains). Thank goodness for the reflectors on the road dividers. They were a serious godsend.
Checked into the Days Inn when we reached Ukiah. After all the places we stayed in thus far, I wasn't particularly impressed, lol. But it was clean and safe enough and that's what's important. :)
Wednesday, September 28
Beginning with a tasty, cheap, and super friendly service at the McDonalds in Ukiah, we made our way to Fort Bragg, mostly through Hwy 20. Another twisty, elevation-prone road. Seeing a pattern? Unfortunately, we didn't start early enough to check out Glass Beach and, with the amount of people we were seeing, we bought our tickets for the Skunk train and lined up earlier. The route took you through a forest of redwood trees. The train was fun~ Maybe too relaxing because Sakura was sleepy from not enough sleep (I never sleep when Kevin drives: the navigator needs to stay awake, too!) and wanted to doze off many a time. The seats were the kind where you can move the backs of them so we claimed two and made them face each other (because Kevin's kid photo backpack took up so much space. There's 2 normal passenger cars, 1 dining car, 1 completely open car (standing only), and 1 private car where they dropped/picked up random army guys. I have no idea what was happening. Training, maybe?
The train takes about an hour and a half to get to Northspur, where we lunched. There's some cottages/homes along the way that could only be accessible by this very train! After we got back, however, we jetted out as fast as we could because we wanted to go to Point Arena's lighthouse and they closed at 3:30. It was almost 2:30 when we left Fort Bragg and, according to Google, which is usually fairly accurate with this, it would take an hour fifteen. o___O And the roads on Hwy 1. Worse than Hwy 20, worse than Hwy 1 in Big Sur area. Kevin drove like crazy. We made it...3:30 on the dot. But! Their last tour was actually at 3:15 so they could close up at 3:30. D: DX We had kind of expected this to happen. We asked the lady at the gift shop if there was anything at all we/they could do and, after saying no many a time, eventually she turned to someone else that came by and asked him what he thought. He was the tour guide. He okayed it and we actually got our own personal tour!
The lighthouse is one of the tallest in California that you're allowed to climb up and the only one you can go outside (at the top). The original, gigantic light was moved down to where the gift shop was and replaced with a 35-watt bulb, lol. The way the light shone out was effective enough that they didn't need anything more. We stuck around for some photos of the coast then headed down toward the San Francisco Bay Area. The drive on Hwy 1 to Bodega Bay was the most difficult of our entire trip. Really hard on both of us. We stopped there for dinner and tried finding the place our tour guide recommended but since we forgot the name, we went to a place a fisherman recommended. He's been going there since before either of us were born!
We continued the drive to the Bay Area in the dark (and stars!) and eventually made it to my work3 boss' home in Fremont. I stayed there the last time I went to San Francisco back in 2003 and their place is gorgeous! Not to mention exclusive feeling. Gated community on a mountain and all that jazz. We crashed there for the night (and ended up eating dinner #2, which I thought was tastier than dinner #1) since getting to Yosemite that night would have been impossible for us.
Thursday, September 29
work3 boss and his wife took us to a nice breakfast place nearby before we headed toward Yosemite. That was a long drive. And also very twisty/elevation-y. About on par with Big Sur Hwy 1 driving (so hard but not as tiring compared to Hwy 1 north of San Francisco). It was a fairly long drive. We stopped by our campsite area, set up camp, then drove down to Yosemite Valley to check it out. We did the Lower Yosemite Fall trail, Bridleveil Fall trail, and a few vista stops before getting on the Yosemite Valley shuttle and finding out it was the longer way of getting back to our car because it hit stops in/near Curry Village before going back toward Yosemite Village area. We had dinner at the cafe in Yosemite Lodge. Also brushed our teeth there since they had running water, lol. I had to laugh when Kevin said there was a rock climber in his restroom doing the same. Drove back to our campsite after, put everything of scent (food, toiletries, et cetera) into the bear box, and went to bed early.
Sleeping was a little hard for me. The sleeping bag I borrowed this time wasn't as comfortable as the one I borrowed for our Maritimes trip and I kepr waking up and shifting a lot. One of the times I woke up, I heard the creepiest sounds. It was like a pack of animals were screaming/shrieking! And while it didn't seem like they were in our campsite area, they didn't sound that far away either. I was soooo creeped out. Even woke Kevin up to see if he knew what it was. He didn't but we think, after talking to some people, that it may have been Coyotes. Kevin was going to take a video of the sound but they stopped by the time he got his camera out.
Friday, September 30
Since we weren't able to get a permit for the Half Dome trail, Kevin chose a different long trail for us to do: Panorama trail. It takes about 6-8 hours to complete. We took 7. A bus drove us to the top of Glacier Point where we'd begin our hike. I was told it was mostly downhill but there were times when the trail went back uphill. Kevin's trail guide called it moderate but the Yosemite site calls it strenuous. I agree with the latter! It's 8.5 miles (one way) from Glacier Point to Happy Isles in Yosemite Valley, including a 3200 feet descent. It was gorgeous to be sure and included 3 great waterfalls. The trail started off all right but after the first big uphill, my right knee was aching like I never knew on the way down again.
It wasn't so bad until after we hit the second waterfall. That's where the start of the Half Dome trail is and it was a steep descent down. Even though there were (uneven) rock "steps", I was having a pretty difficult time. I have a hard time going down a normal set of stairs, much less than steeper, uneven, crooked, twisty ones. DX And my knee continued to hurt more and more. Mostly I went down as fast as I possibly could because I just wanted to be out of that sort of area. Just after the third falls, we encountered more rocky steps like this and, thinking Kevin and Woody were checking out a vista point with a tough walk down, I was going to wait. I chatted with a couple resting in the same area and then found out that it wasn't a vista point and was actually part of the trail still. >_< I hurried down after the guys and we continued on. The last part along the less-stairs-more-slopey part of the Mist Trail (the last part of the Panorama Trail), my knee was just dying. Mostly just hurried/hobbled as quickly as I could because I wanted to be over and done with this hike. >___>
I'm so glad we didn't try for Half Dome. If I was having a hard time with this hike, then the Half Dome trail, which shares some of the same trails as Panorama (the rocky steps...but in reverse! going up instead of down), not to mention the main trail itself, would have just killed me. I was lacking in strength, energy, and stamina. Considering the hike's difficultly, not this time.
We hiked most of the trail with an older (I pegged him at 50s), way-more-fit-than-me guy and I was really happy for it. A lot of times, I had a hard time seeing where the trail was and accidentally veered off. He's done the trail before and knew where it went. He was really nice and we learned a lot from him.
After a failed attempted at finding a bouldering route in the dark, we had dinner at a really popular pizza place (long lines!!) in Curry Village. We shared a table with a couple from Switzerland on their honeymoon. Since I was saving a table while Kevin was in the long line, this random guy just sat down and started eating his food without a word to me at first. I was kind of annoyed because a) he didn't ask (I would have said it was fine), b) there were other tables recently emptied at the time, and c) he didn't ask. He made conversation at some point but I found him to be rather pretentious and even a bit rude when Kevin and the couple returned to our table.
Saturday, October 1
I didn't know how much that hike destroyed my legs until the morning after. I was quite sore in other places, too, like my back and shoulders, but the pain in my legs was unbelievable. I could barely walk on flat ground and I needed to hold on to anything to get up/sit down. We drove to the Mariposa Grove to see the giant sequoias/sierra redwoods there. There were two sections: upper and lower groves. The lower grove was a relatively easy hike (EASY!) but my legs hurt so much that there was absolutely no way that I could do the upper grove. Kevin and I went separate ways that time as he wanted to see the upper grove and I hobbled back down toward where the shuttle buses were. Took a photo/video of a cute squirrel eating from a pine cone, then storing some of it.
Unfortunately, due to the recommendation from the visitor centre person, we left our car there and took a shuttle to the grove. Mistake. I sat on various tree stumps by the shuttle area (various because the shade positions changed over time) as I waited for Kevin and realized when I told him it would take about an hour, it was an hour one way. I got really hungry by this point and bought crappy food from the gift shop. Kevin came back around when I finished and we took the shuttle back where he got lunch from the golf shop. Admittedly, he didn't find the upper grove areas to be that much more fantastic than the lower groves. :x
We took a different route back to work3 boss' place that was waaaaaay less twisty, though still with some elevation. Dinner was at Macaroni Grill which was okay but the wait was ridiculous (even moreso when you saw totally empty tables around you but knew there were still long lines outside).
Sunday, October 2
Slept in for the first time in a while and had dim sum. First in a while~ We headed to San Francisco immediately after that and stopped at so many places in a ridiculously short time. Oh, and traffic. And construction. Roads closed aren't great for newbie tourists. We started off by going (near) Cliff House for some views. Seal Rock was more like Seagull Rock. Continued to the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park that was really lovely. I wish we could have gotten tea there but we were so short on time. This was followed by a stop at Japantown (can you tell that I really, really, really, really, really miss Japan? I've been dying to go there since what feels like forever). After a failed attempt at finding the hotel with supposedly pretty views from the viewing platform on the top floor, we paused at the Transamerica Pyramid and Chinatown for quick photos, then hurried to the vista point north of the Golden Gate Bridge in time for sunset. We lingered there for a brief time before heading back into the city.
Since we had missed the twisty section of Lombard Street earlier on, we were in the area and Kevin wanted to give it a shot. It was nothing compared to the roads we had previously driven on. :p But he had fun driving this one nonetheless. This was followed up with a stop at the Ferry Building which was pretty nice. Only a shame it was so dark when we got there.
Now, work3 boss once mentioned that restaurants close at 9pm in San Francisco. He wasn't kidding. We had an intensely tough time finding a restaurant that was still open (and wasn't grossly expensive like the ones in most hotels). A nice lady at the Westin looked up the area for us and found a bistro that was opened until 11 so we went there. Happy birthday, solartempest! ♥
Unrelatedly, San Francisco seems to instantly become the city of supremely sketchy people the moment it turns dark. ^^; Even in some of the nice areas. And if there's one lesson we learned about the city in general, it's this: if you don't immediately find road parking, just take the parking garage. It's usually not even expensive (just not free). Bleh. Wasted too much time in too many areas trying to find parking.
Monday, October 3
We began this morning with the grand estate tour of the Winchester Mystery House. It's the house that didn't stop being built until its owner passed away. 24/7! The tours didn't allow photography, though it was understandable. It's also one of the few homes that is more accommodating for someone of my height: Sarah Winchester was around 4'11". ^^ Also one of the few places I can easily get lost in without time to navigate it. The house was cool, as was the gardens, but the Halloween thing they had set up was really annoying. :/ It just didn't really work with it. The grand estate tour comprised of the mansion tour and the behind the scenes tour. Both had different guides and both were very entertaining, the latter a little more so. Pretty much every room that could be viewed was seen (110/160 for the mansion tour, an extra 10 or so in the behind the scenes, plus the basement).
Following the tour, I called up uncle Peter and visited him and auntie Julie at their clinic. We had lunch with uncle Peter. :) Afterward, we went to Valley Fair mall and visited our very first LEGO store! ...we were probably there for a while. The staff were all supremely nice and helpful, too. They also didn't seem to mind that I spent some time checking through lots of the "random" minifigures, trying to find the ones I was looking for. XD Unfortunately, couldn't buy the big set I've been wanting for a while since it wouldn't fit in a suitcase.
There's a North Face outlet in Berkeley so that's where we went. Kevin probably enjoyed it more than me. ^^ I didn't find anything much. We then went to Target (but ended up getting it from Sears) to find a new suitcase for Kevin. Kevin, who began this trip with 0 suitcases, returned home with 2! A big one and a little one that can pass as a carry on (it was "my" carry on on the way home).
Dinner was at the aptly named "Home Kitchen", by work3 boss' wife. Her cooking is really quite delicious! Better than some of the restaurants we went to. She made us linguini pasta with clams. I'm not much of a clam eater, but this was really good! ^_______^
Tuesday, October 4
Last day... Was feeling a little sad. We couldn't waste much time since we had to be at the airport early (and there was morning traffic to deal with). After returning our car, us and our 4 suitcases and 4 carry ons, dropped off our suitcases and waited for our plane. Saaaaaaaaaad. Didn't sleep on the way back but watched the movie Unknown, an episode I haven't seen of the Rick Mercer Report, and then left the screen on "where is the plane now" (one of my favourite things).
This was likely the fastest I've ever gotten through Canadian customs. Not the line up part, of course, but the seeing-the-customs-officer part. The man looked at my forms and asked me if I came from San Francisco. I said yes. Then he wrote on the form and handed everything back to me without another word. I almost stared too long. Kept wondering when he was going to ask anything more. Confused, I walked through. Kevin came soon after. His was also short. The man looked at his forms and asked Kevin if he was with me. Kevin responded affirmatively and the guy said he guessed correctly. That was it! The customs officer across from him was drilling some guy about cigarettes and even how much was in a carton. I'm not complaining or anything. Just surprised. o___O It took a while for our suitcases to arrive since the flight on the claim before us was still rolling out. Mum picked us up from the airport and we ate dinrar at home. So ends our trip.
I picked up a bit of a tan but mostly on the outside of my arms and my face. First tan since.........I was 14? Those 2 Europe trips? I don't think I picked up much of a tan on my Japanese trips since I avoided the sun when I could. I usually sunburn instead of tan.
It took a long time for my legs to heal after that Yosemite hike. The 2 days after, I was just hobbling, could barely walk on flat ground. By the third day, I could get up and down without holding onto anything. By the fourth day, going up stairs was all right, but down was still a bit hard. I was mostly all right by the fifth day, my first day back at work.
This is the longest I've been away from work and I figured I wouldn't be as efficient as I usually am. Fell right back into the rhythm of things almost immediately. I like my job sometimes (though it could never be a dream job; seriously, accounting?). Was also able to wear heels again without stumbling too much. :p
Now, Ontario roads feel too tame for me. XD But at least highway on/off-ramps are clearly marked here. Freeway entrances were often in the most random, hidden areas, or plunked in an area surrounded by homes, looking like nothing more than a mere driveway (excepting the tiny "freeway entrance" sign).
Also thankful that we missed Pearson Airport's security's work-to-rule. It was a long wait already and I can't imagine how much longer that would have made it. I can understand being stuck on the tarmac for over an hour because of lightning. This one...not so much.
After not posting much in a while, prepare for a BIG one! If you can handle it. x_X
This is the first real "vacation" I've taken since going to the Maritimes 2.5 years ago. That trip was before I started working full time at work4 and I could not really take any vacation days when I was there. After I started working at my current place, I didn't have a substantial amount of days (4) for a vacation so I let those carry over for this year's conventions.
solartempest and I booked our flight back in March. So the sudden possibility of an Air Canada flight attendants strike wasn't good news. It was averted, thankfully. Kevin and I made 2 banana bread loaves and 2 batches of Rice Krispie squares as snacks/food for the trip. Also watched more movies on the roundtrip flights than I have this past year alone.
I played navigator to Kevin's driver. Had a GPS, my prepared Google maps, and my common sense in my arsenal and we both fared fairly well. :) Admittedly, the streets are really confusing at times and it was really easy to miss a turn or even a traffic light (they're sooo discreet and unobtrusive looking).
Thursday, September 22
Mum dropped us at the airport and after we dropped off our 3 suitcases, we went through security. Randomly, I was chosen for the full body scan. The guy looked really surprised when I said "no". :p Then told me that the only other option was the patdown, which I said was fine. Then he added that it wasn't going to be from him but by a woman. I almost laughed. I don't like the scanners and would never use them when given a choice (not to mention that the one time Kevin got chosen for the scanner, they gave him a patdown before and after using the scanner; that's stupid). And I was kind of curious on what the patdown was like. It wasn't actually that intrusive? For some reason, we also had to go through US customs at Pearson. Our guy was really annoying. He kept asking why we'd stay in Woodland Hills instead of downtown LA and told us places he thought would be better. They would have been better if you like being stuck in traffic all the time!!
Watched Thor, which was rather amusing at times. :) The guard was my favourite! And loved the music. Started watching X-Men: First Class but got a bit bored, fell asleep, and wasn't able to resume it afterward. Lunch was the dinkie Timmies sandwich I bought before boarding with our banana bread and squares as snacks. It wasn't too long before we arrived in sunny Los Angeles! Yay!
Our car rental place decided they didn't have the full size we requested and made us get an SUV. I was kind of skeptical about that. Didn't really want to use an SUV at all. Plus it wouldn't have fit/hidden our 3 suitcases. One of the mecs recommended that we give a full size car in the lot a shot and it fit alllll of our stuff in the trunk. Including Kevin's suitcase-sized camera bag and our backpacks. I could've fit in there with them! Score! Downside: it was actually a luxury car parked in the wrong place so it costs the same as the SUV. Still way better. We ended up taking the Ford Taurus SEL. It was huge! Biggest trunk I've ever seen.
No real plans for this day so we randomly checked out Venice Beach (felt a bit sketchy), Santa Monica's pier (cute area, what we thought Venice Beach would be like), before heading into LA's downtown (traffic! x__X) to see Little Tokyo and Union Station. We bought random, unique-sounding/looking goodies from 2 bakeries there, then ate dinner at a place recommended by one of the bakery guys. After dinner, we fought more traffic to our Hilton hotel in Woodland Hills, which is northwest of LA. We chose that place because of its location. Outside of LA, near highways, north of the city so it's easier for our eventual drive up the coast.
Friday, September 23
We woke up earlier to head down to Bolsa Chica beach for Kevin's surfing lessons. Unfortunately, because of crazy normal morning traffic, we got there late and they had left, with no time that day for another lesson. Kevin was pretty crushed. D: Driving into Huntington Beach, we stopped by a surf shop and asked if they knew of any instructors. They did! Gave us his business card. Locating a pay phone was a different matter, however. No one seemed to know where to find one. We located one, called the guy, and he was free in the afternoon for a lesson! Yay! He also told us about this strange thing happening at Newport Beach with the squids and we had to check that out.
Squids!! Seriously! Lots of them! Everywhere! Newport Beach wasn't originally on our list of places and we skipped Huntington Beach entirely for it but it was worth it. On the pier, fishermen were just catching lots and lots of squids. After snapping a few shots, we had lunch at a place the surfer guy mentioned. Oakville has better gelato. :p Anyway, we met him and Kevin went for his lesson. I hung out on the beach with the full intention of making sand castles and only occasionally taking photos of surfing!Kevin but I didn't want to get any sand on the camera and just did that. It was really hard! Kevin was just a speck in the distance, hard to focus on, and the telephoto lens is really, really heavy. I think most turned out blurry. D: D:
Unfortunately, we overran our time and got dinged with a big parking ticket. >_< It didn't help that we were parked outside of a bar with frequent traffic. :/ After fighting some more traffic on the way back to our hotel, we enjoyed a tasty dinner at the Cheesecake Factory right next to our hotel (that was one of the hotel's listed selling points, lol).
Saturday, September 24
One place in California that I was dying to go to again is Magic Mountain. Heck, if I lived in the LA area, I'd get a seasons pass. It's just amazing!! *_______* There are so many rides I'd go on over and over. It was a super awesome day for me, a mostly awesome day for Kevin. I'll get back to that in a sec.
Unfortunately, it doesn't open that early and closes kind of early. 10:30 - 20:00. We headed to the back of the park right away and started big: Green Lantern: First Flight (would have started with Batman but it wasn't open yet). It's like nothing I've ever been on and was a ton of fun. Batman the Ride followed next (surprisingly a relaxing ride for me), The Riddler's Revenge (the most comfortable standing ride I've ever been on), Scream (too relaxing, didn't feel like screaming), Colossus (shame it wasn't double car running), and then Kevin felt queasy. I think the baked goods we had for breakfast was too plentiful and too sweet and, coupled with the rides, he didn't feel so good. We did the Kevin-sitting-and-relaxing ride for a short while until he felt better and then moved on to Goliath.
Up until that ride, the lines were good, but there were problems with the ride (twice) so we waited over an hour. That said, it was worth the wait. Lots of launches and it was really quite tall. Thinking we'd hit Superman before lunch, we passed by/went on Gold Rusher first (it was way better than expected! not the mild ride we thought it'd be; awesome for the park's first coaster), then did Superman: Escape from Krypton. Now, I was bracing myself for a ride like Dragster......and then it went backwards!! I was so surprised, lol! Ninja followed (relaxing) and, still before lunch, we went for Tatsu. That was another time-killer ride. There was a problem before we got on it, then flashpass people chose our line 4(!!!) different times, and when our ride ended, we were stuck in a 45 degree angle. *facepalm* I guess it was interesting but the ridiculously long waits made it immemorable.
On the way to getting some extremely late lunch, I saw a sign that I wanted to take a photo of and never got a chance to. D: It said "If you're still standing in the lamppost line, you're probably hungry." It was really cute. We had a measly, not that tasty, grossly expensive "lunch" from Johnny Rockets. After a short wait, we headed to Apocalypse. The park only has two wooden coasters but I found my most favourite wooden coaster in the world here. Not to mention the most comfortable seats ever! If Spinebuster had these seats, no spines would be busted at all. XP Déjà vu (a way better version of Wonderland's The Bat) was right after, then we ran like crazy for the (hopefully) last 3 rides of our night. It was already 7ish by this point and we had 3 coasters left. We went on Viper first. I always remembered it as the most intense ride the 12-year-old me had ever been on and it sort of was. Except it was intensely painful! I don't think I'd ever go on that ride again unless they change the "pads" (or decent lack thereof) on the restraints.
X2... Oh, man, what can I say about X2. What a way to end the night. We got into X2 before the park officially closed. Us and a ridonkulus amount of other people. We hung out with a cool, fun group from LA before the ride. Although it was late and they didn't play the extra effects (like fire and...fog?), this was definitely one of the most amazing rides I've ever been on. I've never actually screamed so much, lol.
My favourites are definitely Green Lantern, Superman, and X2 (no specific order). It's like the other rides felt too tame for me now, haha. But those were simply amazing. We missed one coaster due to time, Revolution, and I'm a bitty bit sad about that. So close! We ended off the evening with another dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Yumyum~ We need one here.
Sunday, September 25.
And so begins the days of too much driving in too little time. We headed up the coast toward the Guadalupe sand dunes. If I ever wanted to do a desert photoshoot not far from civilization, this would be the very place! On the way there, we took Hwy 154 instead of Hwy 101 and that gave us our first taste of California's twisty/lots of elevations roads on their many mountains. Those roads were tame compared to what we would hit later! Anyway, we checked out two parts of the dunes and then continued north to Hearst Castle (with a McDonald's woman messing up my order in between). Unfortunately, all the tours were sold out for that day! D: DX Not so happy about that. We bought tickets for a tour the next morning, watched the movie (I was watching more for the architecture), and then dejectedly headed back to Morro Bay. There, we fulfilled our promise of watching a sunset on the beach. Afterward, we continued further south to San Luis Obispo and the Embassy Suites before heading out for dinner at a cute place in the main city area.
Monday, September 26
Woke up early for free breakfast and so we could get to Hearst Castle earlier. That is one long bus ride up the mountain. Really twisty, too. There's 3 tours, all $25 each and we chose the Upstairs tour which included several bedrooms, the library, and his office. The castle is like nothing else. So gorgeous. After the tour, you can wander around the outside grounds so we did so for a while. We picked up some bottles of wine from the Hearst Castle winery (the guy was really nice and offering lots of different ones to try, though we were in a hurry) before continuing our drive up toward Big Sur. One quick stop was a viewing point where you could see a ton of elephant seals lounging on the beach. It was pretty cool!
Originally, when I thought of "driving along the coast", I kind of pictured a flat, probably curvy road near the water/shore. I did not expect curvy, ridiculous elevations up in the mountains! The Maritimes and their roads have nothing on this place! Hwy 1 was even twistier than that portion of Hwy 154. Because we had so much driving to do, we only did two trails in Big Sur. The overlook trail in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park and the waterfall trail in the Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park. Finished the day by driving to Monterey where we stayed in the Monterey Hotel, a really old hotel with a really nicely renovated, modern bathroom. We stayed on the 4th floor: there were no elevators. The suitcases were a bit of an ordeal.
We had dinner at a place recommended to us in Fisherman's Wharf. It was both really expensive and only so-so. :/ However, on the way there and back, we could hear lots of sea lions. We walked around trying to find/see them (they were LOUD), but it was a little difficult.
Tuesday, September 27
Began the morning with breakfast at the hotel, then headed back south toward Garrapata State Park. The name is Spanish for ticks. :/ So we were on an extreme tick watch. Walked about 4 of the trails there and then returned to Monterey and the Fisherman's Wharf to see the sea lions. Boy, did we not miss them! They were lots of fun. And loud! So loud, lol. We had lunch at a cute place frequented by locals.
Continuing our trek up north, we went to Santa Cruz because Kevin wanted to stop by a surf clothing shop he saw. After leaving there, we went on toward Ukiah but were stuck in the San Francisco Bay Area traffic for a good part of the afternoon. By the time we got out of there, it was getting late, Ukiah was still far, and we had dinner at IHOP in Santa Rosa. It was...okay. I wasn't terribly enthused with my dinner. The rest of the drive was in the dark. The roads were curvy many a time and there was a bit of elevation, but since it was so dark outside with little light (if any), I could see the stars as we drove (when they weren't hidden by mountains). Thank goodness for the reflectors on the road dividers. They were a serious godsend.
Checked into the Days Inn when we reached Ukiah. After all the places we stayed in thus far, I wasn't particularly impressed, lol. But it was clean and safe enough and that's what's important. :)
Wednesday, September 28
Beginning with a tasty, cheap, and super friendly service at the McDonalds in Ukiah, we made our way to Fort Bragg, mostly through Hwy 20. Another twisty, elevation-prone road. Seeing a pattern? Unfortunately, we didn't start early enough to check out Glass Beach and, with the amount of people we were seeing, we bought our tickets for the Skunk train and lined up earlier. The route took you through a forest of redwood trees. The train was fun~ Maybe too relaxing because Sakura was sleepy from not enough sleep (I never sleep when Kevin drives: the navigator needs to stay awake, too!) and wanted to doze off many a time. The seats were the kind where you can move the backs of them so we claimed two and made them face each other (because Kevin's kid photo backpack took up so much space. There's 2 normal passenger cars, 1 dining car, 1 completely open car (standing only), and 1 private car where they dropped/picked up random army guys. I have no idea what was happening. Training, maybe?
The train takes about an hour and a half to get to Northspur, where we lunched. There's some cottages/homes along the way that could only be accessible by this very train! After we got back, however, we jetted out as fast as we could because we wanted to go to Point Arena's lighthouse and they closed at 3:30. It was almost 2:30 when we left Fort Bragg and, according to Google, which is usually fairly accurate with this, it would take an hour fifteen. o___O And the roads on Hwy 1. Worse than Hwy 20, worse than Hwy 1 in Big Sur area. Kevin drove like crazy. We made it...3:30 on the dot. But! Their last tour was actually at 3:15 so they could close up at 3:30. D: DX We had kind of expected this to happen. We asked the lady at the gift shop if there was anything at all we/they could do and, after saying no many a time, eventually she turned to someone else that came by and asked him what he thought. He was the tour guide. He okayed it and we actually got our own personal tour!
The lighthouse is one of the tallest in California that you're allowed to climb up and the only one you can go outside (at the top). The original, gigantic light was moved down to where the gift shop was and replaced with a 35-watt bulb, lol. The way the light shone out was effective enough that they didn't need anything more. We stuck around for some photos of the coast then headed down toward the San Francisco Bay Area. The drive on Hwy 1 to Bodega Bay was the most difficult of our entire trip. Really hard on both of us. We stopped there for dinner and tried finding the place our tour guide recommended but since we forgot the name, we went to a place a fisherman recommended. He's been going there since before either of us were born!
We continued the drive to the Bay Area in the dark (and stars!) and eventually made it to my work3 boss' home in Fremont. I stayed there the last time I went to San Francisco back in 2003 and their place is gorgeous! Not to mention exclusive feeling. Gated community on a mountain and all that jazz. We crashed there for the night (and ended up eating dinner #2, which I thought was tastier than dinner #1) since getting to Yosemite that night would have been impossible for us.
Thursday, September 29
work3 boss and his wife took us to a nice breakfast place nearby before we headed toward Yosemite. That was a long drive. And also very twisty/elevation-y. About on par with Big Sur Hwy 1 driving (so hard but not as tiring compared to Hwy 1 north of San Francisco). It was a fairly long drive. We stopped by our campsite area, set up camp, then drove down to Yosemite Valley to check it out. We did the Lower Yosemite Fall trail, Bridleveil Fall trail, and a few vista stops before getting on the Yosemite Valley shuttle and finding out it was the longer way of getting back to our car because it hit stops in/near Curry Village before going back toward Yosemite Village area. We had dinner at the cafe in Yosemite Lodge. Also brushed our teeth there since they had running water, lol. I had to laugh when Kevin said there was a rock climber in his restroom doing the same. Drove back to our campsite after, put everything of scent (food, toiletries, et cetera) into the bear box, and went to bed early.
Sleeping was a little hard for me. The sleeping bag I borrowed this time wasn't as comfortable as the one I borrowed for our Maritimes trip and I kepr waking up and shifting a lot. One of the times I woke up, I heard the creepiest sounds. It was like a pack of animals were screaming/shrieking! And while it didn't seem like they were in our campsite area, they didn't sound that far away either. I was soooo creeped out. Even woke Kevin up to see if he knew what it was. He didn't but we think, after talking to some people, that it may have been Coyotes. Kevin was going to take a video of the sound but they stopped by the time he got his camera out.
Friday, September 30
Since we weren't able to get a permit for the Half Dome trail, Kevin chose a different long trail for us to do: Panorama trail. It takes about 6-8 hours to complete. We took 7. A bus drove us to the top of Glacier Point where we'd begin our hike. I was told it was mostly downhill but there were times when the trail went back uphill. Kevin's trail guide called it moderate but the Yosemite site calls it strenuous. I agree with the latter! It's 8.5 miles (one way) from Glacier Point to Happy Isles in Yosemite Valley, including a 3200 feet descent. It was gorgeous to be sure and included 3 great waterfalls. The trail started off all right but after the first big uphill, my right knee was aching like I never knew on the way down again.
It wasn't so bad until after we hit the second waterfall. That's where the start of the Half Dome trail is and it was a steep descent down. Even though there were (uneven) rock "steps", I was having a pretty difficult time. I have a hard time going down a normal set of stairs, much less than steeper, uneven, crooked, twisty ones. DX And my knee continued to hurt more and more. Mostly I went down as fast as I possibly could because I just wanted to be out of that sort of area. Just after the third falls, we encountered more rocky steps like this and, thinking Kevin and Woody were checking out a vista point with a tough walk down, I was going to wait. I chatted with a couple resting in the same area and then found out that it wasn't a vista point and was actually part of the trail still. >_< I hurried down after the guys and we continued on. The last part along the less-stairs-more-slopey part of the Mist Trail (the last part of the Panorama Trail), my knee was just dying. Mostly just hurried/hobbled as quickly as I could because I wanted to be over and done with this hike. >___>
I'm so glad we didn't try for Half Dome. If I was having a hard time with this hike, then the Half Dome trail, which shares some of the same trails as Panorama (the rocky steps...but in reverse! going up instead of down), not to mention the main trail itself, would have just killed me. I was lacking in strength, energy, and stamina. Considering the hike's difficultly, not this time.
We hiked most of the trail with an older (I pegged him at 50s), way-more-fit-than-me guy and I was really happy for it. A lot of times, I had a hard time seeing where the trail was and accidentally veered off. He's done the trail before and knew where it went. He was really nice and we learned a lot from him.
After a failed attempted at finding a bouldering route in the dark, we had dinner at a really popular pizza place (long lines!!) in Curry Village. We shared a table with a couple from Switzerland on their honeymoon. Since I was saving a table while Kevin was in the long line, this random guy just sat down and started eating his food without a word to me at first. I was kind of annoyed because a) he didn't ask (I would have said it was fine), b) there were other tables recently emptied at the time, and c) he didn't ask. He made conversation at some point but I found him to be rather pretentious and even a bit rude when Kevin and the couple returned to our table.
Saturday, October 1
I didn't know how much that hike destroyed my legs until the morning after. I was quite sore in other places, too, like my back and shoulders, but the pain in my legs was unbelievable. I could barely walk on flat ground and I needed to hold on to anything to get up/sit down. We drove to the Mariposa Grove to see the giant sequoias/sierra redwoods there. There were two sections: upper and lower groves. The lower grove was a relatively easy hike (EASY!) but my legs hurt so much that there was absolutely no way that I could do the upper grove. Kevin and I went separate ways that time as he wanted to see the upper grove and I hobbled back down toward where the shuttle buses were. Took a photo/video of a cute squirrel eating from a pine cone, then storing some of it.
Unfortunately, due to the recommendation from the visitor centre person, we left our car there and took a shuttle to the grove. Mistake. I sat on various tree stumps by the shuttle area (various because the shade positions changed over time) as I waited for Kevin and realized when I told him it would take about an hour, it was an hour one way. I got really hungry by this point and bought crappy food from the gift shop. Kevin came back around when I finished and we took the shuttle back where he got lunch from the golf shop. Admittedly, he didn't find the upper grove areas to be that much more fantastic than the lower groves. :x
We took a different route back to work3 boss' place that was waaaaaay less twisty, though still with some elevation. Dinner was at Macaroni Grill which was okay but the wait was ridiculous (even moreso when you saw totally empty tables around you but knew there were still long lines outside).
Sunday, October 2
Slept in for the first time in a while and had dim sum. First in a while~ We headed to San Francisco immediately after that and stopped at so many places in a ridiculously short time. Oh, and traffic. And construction. Roads closed aren't great for newbie tourists. We started off by going (near) Cliff House for some views. Seal Rock was more like Seagull Rock. Continued to the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park that was really lovely. I wish we could have gotten tea there but we were so short on time. This was followed by a stop at Japantown (can you tell that I really, really, really, really, really miss Japan? I've been dying to go there since what feels like forever). After a failed attempt at finding the hotel with supposedly pretty views from the viewing platform on the top floor, we paused at the Transamerica Pyramid and Chinatown for quick photos, then hurried to the vista point north of the Golden Gate Bridge in time for sunset. We lingered there for a brief time before heading back into the city.
Since we had missed the twisty section of Lombard Street earlier on, we were in the area and Kevin wanted to give it a shot. It was nothing compared to the roads we had previously driven on. :p But he had fun driving this one nonetheless. This was followed up with a stop at the Ferry Building which was pretty nice. Only a shame it was so dark when we got there.
Now, work3 boss once mentioned that restaurants close at 9pm in San Francisco. He wasn't kidding. We had an intensely tough time finding a restaurant that was still open (and wasn't grossly expensive like the ones in most hotels). A nice lady at the Westin looked up the area for us and found a bistro that was opened until 11 so we went there. Happy birthday, solartempest! ♥
Unrelatedly, San Francisco seems to instantly become the city of supremely sketchy people the moment it turns dark. ^^; Even in some of the nice areas. And if there's one lesson we learned about the city in general, it's this: if you don't immediately find road parking, just take the parking garage. It's usually not even expensive (just not free). Bleh. Wasted too much time in too many areas trying to find parking.
Monday, October 3
We began this morning with the grand estate tour of the Winchester Mystery House. It's the house that didn't stop being built until its owner passed away. 24/7! The tours didn't allow photography, though it was understandable. It's also one of the few homes that is more accommodating for someone of my height: Sarah Winchester was around 4'11". ^^ Also one of the few places I can easily get lost in without time to navigate it. The house was cool, as was the gardens, but the Halloween thing they had set up was really annoying. :/ It just didn't really work with it. The grand estate tour comprised of the mansion tour and the behind the scenes tour. Both had different guides and both were very entertaining, the latter a little more so. Pretty much every room that could be viewed was seen (110/160 for the mansion tour, an extra 10 or so in the behind the scenes, plus the basement).
Following the tour, I called up uncle Peter and visited him and auntie Julie at their clinic. We had lunch with uncle Peter. :) Afterward, we went to Valley Fair mall and visited our very first LEGO store! ...we were probably there for a while. The staff were all supremely nice and helpful, too. They also didn't seem to mind that I spent some time checking through lots of the "random" minifigures, trying to find the ones I was looking for. XD Unfortunately, couldn't buy the big set I've been wanting for a while since it wouldn't fit in a suitcase.
There's a North Face outlet in Berkeley so that's where we went. Kevin probably enjoyed it more than me. ^^ I didn't find anything much. We then went to Target (but ended up getting it from Sears) to find a new suitcase for Kevin. Kevin, who began this trip with 0 suitcases, returned home with 2! A big one and a little one that can pass as a carry on (it was "my" carry on on the way home).
Dinner was at the aptly named "Home Kitchen", by work3 boss' wife. Her cooking is really quite delicious! Better than some of the restaurants we went to. She made us linguini pasta with clams. I'm not much of a clam eater, but this was really good! ^_______^
Tuesday, October 4
Last day... Was feeling a little sad. We couldn't waste much time since we had to be at the airport early (and there was morning traffic to deal with). After returning our car, us and our 4 suitcases and 4 carry ons, dropped off our suitcases and waited for our plane. Saaaaaaaaaad. Didn't sleep on the way back but watched the movie Unknown, an episode I haven't seen of the Rick Mercer Report, and then left the screen on "where is the plane now" (one of my favourite things).
This was likely the fastest I've ever gotten through Canadian customs. Not the line up part, of course, but the seeing-the-customs-officer part. The man looked at my forms and asked me if I came from San Francisco. I said yes. Then he wrote on the form and handed everything back to me without another word. I almost stared too long. Kept wondering when he was going to ask anything more. Confused, I walked through. Kevin came soon after. His was also short. The man looked at his forms and asked Kevin if he was with me. Kevin responded affirmatively and the guy said he guessed correctly. That was it! The customs officer across from him was drilling some guy about cigarettes and even how much was in a carton. I'm not complaining or anything. Just surprised. o___O It took a while for our suitcases to arrive since the flight on the claim before us was still rolling out. Mum picked us up from the airport and we ate dinrar at home. So ends our trip.
I picked up a bit of a tan but mostly on the outside of my arms and my face. First tan since.........I was 14? Those 2 Europe trips? I don't think I picked up much of a tan on my Japanese trips since I avoided the sun when I could. I usually sunburn instead of tan.
It took a long time for my legs to heal after that Yosemite hike. The 2 days after, I was just hobbling, could barely walk on flat ground. By the third day, I could get up and down without holding onto anything. By the fourth day, going up stairs was all right, but down was still a bit hard. I was mostly all right by the fifth day, my first day back at work.
This is the longest I've been away from work and I figured I wouldn't be as efficient as I usually am. Fell right back into the rhythm of things almost immediately. I like my job sometimes (though it could never be a dream job; seriously, accounting?). Was also able to wear heels again without stumbling too much. :p
Now, Ontario roads feel too tame for me. XD But at least highway on/off-ramps are clearly marked here. Freeway entrances were often in the most random, hidden areas, or plunked in an area surrounded by homes, looking like nothing more than a mere driveway (excepting the tiny "freeway entrance" sign).
Also thankful that we missed Pearson Airport's security's work-to-rule. It was a long wait already and I can't imagine how much longer that would have made it. I can understand being stuck on the tarmac for over an hour because of lightning. This one...not so much.