SoCal visitation last week!
For the first time in apparently ages, I'm a home with some free time to write. Why am I home in the middle of the work day?, you may ask. Low-key medical reasons. Basically, I can work just fine, but I'm not supposed to drive on the muscle relaxant (which hasn't kicked in yet) that my doc prescribed this morning. Tomorrow on, it'll be "nighttime plus as-needed", but for the first day? Now. Oh, and there's some PT in my near future, but that seems pretty chill too. I've apparently sprained my lower back, but it's nothing some exercise and time shouldn't cure.
I'm always so optimistic about my health. But it seems warranted this time. We'll see what the PT person says on Friday.
Way more interestingly, xyon and I went down to Southern California for Labor Day week. Yes, week, not weekend. While a very good time, let me not recommend taking a road-trip vacation while also having places to be. The dual nature of the trip ("let's do this today", "we'll find a hotel when we get there" and "omg! we have to be in San Onofre in half an hour") added a layer of unnecessary stress.
Here's a day-by-day breakout of the awesomeness that is SoCal roadtripping with a purpose:
On Saturday, we flew into San Diego directly on Jet Blue. I'd forgotten how nice Jet Blue planes and amenities are since I've been all Southwesty lately. TV screens that play stations you care about, the Terra Chips (as opposed to airline nuts), the shiny planes...
Anyway, we got into San Diego pretty late in the evening and hired a taxi to take us to the Omni Hotel, where we were booked for the first 3 days of our trip. Let me not recommend the Omni. Sure, it's nice that they have free WiFi and a great location in the Gaslamp, but they're otherwise not the greatest hotel ever. (And at 4 stars, I expect things to have a minimum level of acceptableness.) From the dirty windows (nice view, though), to the low pressure showers, to the nice but ultimately unhelpful staff (all I wanted was to get some clothes pressed, and I couldn't even contact housekeeping!!!)--this hotel is on my "do not bother with again" list. Wow.
On Sunday, we started by heading out to Kearney Mesa where we were renting a car. (Way cheaper to rent out of Kearney Mesa than directly from the airport. Who knew?) I, of course, wanted the smallest car on the lot for ease of driving and parking. The attendant, however, wanted to upgrade us. "It's in the same price, so you're not paying anything more." More fool me, I let him upgrade and spent the next day freaking out over being unable to parallel park. (Seriously. I had no idea how big that car was and I couldn't see enough out the tiny back window. I'm not the best parallel parker under the best of conditions, so giving me sub-optimal? Probematic.)
Anyway, we moved on from there to meet a potential wedding planner, and she's now gone from "potential" to "we want her". Sure, she's a bit unimaginative (though we saw one wedding that looked much more interesting than any of her others, so it can happen), but she's also professional, on time, easy to get in touch with, and experienced. Also, we liked her as a person. Score!
Next came looking at a few potential wedding locations. (I did tell you this was a working trip.) For those who are also scouting:
The Estancia Resort Hotel = no - cramped feeling, unnaturally placed. Maybe if it were on the water?
Powerhouse Park = no - might have been nice, but no private parking. Since we went on a beautiful day on a holiday weekend, we saw the damage that 'no parking' can do.
La Valencia Hotel = contender - Hollywood glamour era Spanish construction (tiles, villas). Gorgeous salon, across the street from the beach in La Jolla. This one made our "maybe" list, especially if we can do the ceremony at the beach (across the street), but with the option to go indoors there in case of inclement weather.
On Monday, we took a break from being wedding-y and decided to play tourist. Starting with a trip to San Diego's Old Town, which was a cute Spanish old town and much larger than any others I've visited, we wandered through the museums and the shops. Of note:
* Wells Fargo museum. Sure, the old-school stuff was awesome (including news clippings about the dashing and daring Wells Fargo drivers who fought off bandits and made them pay!), but the museum is up-to-date with a modern ATM. Too bad it doesn't have any cash! It was connected enough to let me log in to see my account, though. Jeremy has pictures of this somewhere.
* Awesome leather vests with more pockets than a pair of cargo pants, in the classic New World style. Jeremy almost bought one, but they didn't have his size. (Apparently, everyone wants one?)
After Old Town, we continued being touristy by heading out to Balboa Park. Wow! The architecture on the buildings! The Spanish-style fixtures! The botanic gardens (complete with Venus fly traps)! We took a million pictures and then thought, "Okay, it's not on the ocean, but we could totally get married here." Balboa Park is now the other contender on our list, even though we haven't seen the whole thing yet.
Oh, on this day we also exchanged the car for a much smaller one: Chevy Aveo in cherry red. (The Car Talk boys always used to ask about the color of your car when you called in, so I still find it important.) The Aveo was a serious improvement. I paralleled that thing, no problem. (Well, no more problems than usual.) Almost as easy to drive as my Corolla, it's a totally doable economy car for rental. Wouldn't buy one, though: horrible gas mileage, ridiculous spoiler, a Chevy, etc.
Tuesday might have been a vacation day as we drove up PCH, except that we had to hit up more locations in Laguna Beach.
Somehow, I ended up doing all the driving on this trip, but that doesn't bother me at all. (xyon just doesn't care one way or the other, and I figured I'd save him from any traffic.) Of course, we tried to detour from PCH and take the 5 when we hit Camp Pendleton, except for the part where I missed the turn. So, we got to go through the checkpoint (the helpful marine at the gate pointed out the entrance and told me to just turn around at the light)anyway.
Ooops.
Anway, we made it up to Laguna Beach in plenty of time to see the three places on our list:
Casa Laguna Inn and Spa = no - on the wrong side of a major road from the beach, so any outdoor locations would be very loud with traffic noise (and couldn't do a beach ceremony); too steep hill to get to the parking area
Surf & Sand Hotel = almost, but no - pretty beach ceremony area is down a flight of stairs (no good for old folks or even people in long dresses) plus no-chairs, all the function rooms are dark and conference room-like. Otherwise, though, the place is very pretty (if a bit dull) and open.
Occassions at Laguna Beach = no - great location and view, but very cookie-cutter. xyon wanted to simply throw out the brochure. So we did. Otoh, it has these kinda neat roman columns to be the base of your arbor.
At this point, I figured we'd just stay in Laguna for the night, but it was still pretty early, so we powered on as far as Newport Beach (a whole 10 miles north?). This was a great idea because we decided to have dinner at the Tommy Bahama's Restaurant in Newport. (I'd been intending to go to the seriously gourmet T.B.'s in Palm Springs if we went out there, but knew there was a location in Newport and figured "Why not?".) Not only was the food great and the atmosphere calming and beachily old-fashioned (I even got Jeremy to dance with me briefly at our patio table!), but our waitress was awesome.
If you ever go to the Tommy Bahama's in Newport Beach, get Natalie as your server. Not only did she do all of the regular things well, but she came up with a list of great hotels that we could call! I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask if she could recommend a hotel nearby for the night, and she really got into it. We even got a room at the first place on her list, a B&B on the peninsula, The Doryman's Inn. A cute little inn, it's located in the village at the Newport Beach pier. Perfect place to go for walks and hit the beach!
Aside: This muscle relaxant is pretty awesome. I feel a bit weird when I walk, and sneezing is still an uncomfortable idea, but way lower on the cramped-up pain scale. Wonder if I should go with the industrial ibuprofen too, or just this one for now.
The downside of the Doryman's Inn is that it's not really a B&B. So, you go for "breakfast", only to find a few stale muffins/scones sitting in a serve-yourself buffet in an empty dining room. We tried the muffins, and then got ready to leave.
Sorta.
After a trip to Rite Aid for heavy-duty sunblock and beach towels (Jeremy's proclaims that he bought it in Newport Beach), and another stop at Peet's for coffee/breakfast, we laid out on the sand of the Newport peninsula. Well, I laid out on the sand and read my book. Jeremy actually got in the water. As ocean water goes, Newport Beach is clean, clear, and warm, so he took the chance. The hour we spent at this beach is the longest we spent apart for the whole week. And we're still together. Rock on.
Playtime over, we found ourselves at a Pita Pit (we go here everywhere!) for lunch. I took advantage of being beachy and only wore my bikini top with shorts. Ah, those are the days. Warmth and the ability to not wear sweaters. Mmmmm.
Anyway, post-lunch, we headed up the coast to Long Beach, my favorite city in the world so far. I figured this drive would take at least an hour since I've always done it by way of other locations (e.g., Long Beach to Santa Ana to Newport Beach), so I was surprised that it took about 20 minutes.
We hit L.B. and I got to pretend I was local again, being all chill and relaxed in my usual ways. We started at the Barnes & Noble for an hour or two, then did a spot of shopping in Seal Beach Old Town (there's this necklace I've been thinking about for a year at $5), and then walked on the beach in Long Beach's Belmont Shores area.
We'd tried to find a vacation rental on craigslist, but the guy we contacted wasn't biting, so we admitted we needed a hotel. Interstingly, we chose the Convention Center Hyatt, and it was the best hotel we stayed in for the entire trip. I say "interestingly" because it's such a chain hotel that I usually wouldn't think of staying there. For this trip, though, I'm glad we did!
Why the Hyatt is awesome.
The Long Beach Hyatt
* water pressure in the showers
* very clean (we heard the inspection checks one morning)
* gorgeous, open lobby with tall ceilings, crazy windows
* location -- across from the convention center shopping, across from the water, a few blocks from shoreline village
* parking for $16
* T-Mobile Hotspot
We met my friend Ken the first night there, and we'd intended to go bowling with him at the Gameworks (right across the way), but they closed at midnight, so we brought him back to the hotel lobby bar. (At $7 per cocktail, btw, this is an extra-nice bar.) Catching up was awesome, and Jeremy got to meet another friend of mine. Yay!
Thursday started out calm, but then we realized that if we wanted to get up to Malibu to check out a location before it closed, we had to hustle.
Without breakfast, without worrying about getting gas for our fuel-eating car, we hit the road.
Locations breakout:
Adamson House = almost, but no - gorgeous house and grounds, built in the Spanish style to resemble either a castle or a ship, with amazing tile everywhere. (The owners also had a tile factory...) Unfortunately for location-y-ness, the cool places are the ones you can't hold an event, and the outdoors are marred by "surfers! keep out!" fencing.
Rancho del Cielo = no - didn't even go. We'd planned to use this as contrast to Adamson House, so it was pointless after deciding against the first.
Starving and tired, at 3:30 pm, we decided to drive back down to LB instead of eating up there. The stated reason was to avoid traffic on the return (very good, very true). My real reason was eating at Open Sesame, my favorite restaurant and possibly the best one in all of Long Beach. See, entree portions are massive, so making it your only meal of the day is the way to go.
On Friday, we had to check out of the hotel because they'd booked up that night far in advance. We'd managed to be in town for a weekend with a boat show, cancer walk, and whatever the convention was. So, we checked out and then we started off at Atlantic Studio where I'd set a hair appointment with my favorite stylist, Cheryl. One of the best parts about getting married in SoCal is going to be timing my visits so that I can have a year of amazing hair.
While I was getting my hair done, Jeremy got his cut at a barber shop down the street. Over lunch at Portfolio Coffee, I got to hear all about the barber's life and times. Local shops are awesome this way.
Now, we were getting pictures taken later that day, and since I know that lots of photographers like doing hand shots (especially when you can see engagement rings), I was determined to get a manicure. Of course, I'd been determined for three days, but hadn't got around to it. Some twisty driving through town found us an $8 manicure shop and we each got one. Ah, the beauty of having neat nails with no cuticles.
Interestingly, my manicurist was planning a trip to Seattle, so we gave her a list of touristy-fun things to do. Yay!
Post-mani, we drove down I-5 again, deep into OC, to get to San Clemente. Our photographers wanted to meet at Starbucks to chat before going over to San Onofre Beach for the two hour session.
Two hours later, we were all dressed up (formals last) and all modeled out. Oh, you want some photos?
Since we were looking fine, we figured we'd go somewhere nice for dinner. But we were tired, so finding a new restaurant (even with Urban Spoon) was too much effort. Hence, we revisited Tommy Bahama's in Newport Beach, making sure to say "hi" to Natalie who was going off-shift.
Here's an observation about formality at Tommy Bahama Restaurant:
* The older generation (grandparents) all dress up. Either by dressing to semi-formal or designer beach/boat wear (e.g., tennis bracelets from Cartier).
* The older-middle aged generation (40s/50s) dress up in a business way. This is their chance to put on finery, but not look like they're trying so hard. Think NYC after-work cocktails.
* The younger set (20s/30s) go casual. Except us. Maybe there was a formal element to this group that my Seattle-trained eye missed, or maybe they just don't care about dressing for dinner.
Then, back to Long Beach where we were hotel-free. To save money, we went downscale and stayed at the Marriot on 1st Street. OMG. Do not bother staying here. Initially, it looked great: fun mural on the outside walls, huge rooms, free WiFi, right across the street from my old apartment building. On the inside, not so much. What with a front desk that couldn't extend our stay until we checked out (thank goodness, or else we'd've been stuck!), a shower whose pressure was so low Jeremy didn't let me use it, and no soundproofing on windows next to a restaurant (loud, breaking bottles constantly -- Jeremy didn't get much sleep; I settled into the noise after a few mintes because I lived across the street and got used to this particular sound)--it's a miserable place to stay. Oh, and the "harbor view" rooms maybe give you a sliver of blue that might be water.
On Saturday, we woke up, checked out, and started to enjoy our weekend. We met up with vicious_kitty and her fiance on the beach, where we rollerbladed for a few miles. We did a spot of shopping at most of the little boutiques I miss. And we rounded out the day by meeting up with my friend Duke at the Auld Dubliner after we checked back into the Hyatt and took showers.
We spent the evening with Duke and his current girlfriend, chatting about life and drinking Strongbow on draft. Oh, and then we went over to the boardwalk and found a restaurant that serves a massive chocolate cake. Duke, Jeremy, and I shared this cake and managed maybe a third of it. It could've worked for two or three tables.
The last day of our vacation, Sunday, was an exercise in doing as little as possible. We checked out, ate lunch at Sharky's (after failing to go back to Open Sesame because there was no parking since the breast cancer walk was going through Belmont Shores), and meandered towards the airport to return our car.
Ah, Long Beach airport. It's all tiny and regional and has charming art-deco lettering on all the signs.
Tired and slightly sunburned, we waited around, boarded our plane, and made it back to Seattle with time to spare. A nice car from the Excel Towncar airport fleet took us home (they used to be "classic towcar", but people kept calling to ask about their 1959 cadillacs, etc.).
All-in-all a good vacation with a bunch of work done. I came back happier and healthier and still in love (and like) with my fiance, and aren't these the most important things?
I'm always so optimistic about my health. But it seems warranted this time. We'll see what the PT person says on Friday.
Way more interestingly, xyon and I went down to Southern California for Labor Day week. Yes, week, not weekend. While a very good time, let me not recommend taking a road-trip vacation while also having places to be. The dual nature of the trip ("let's do this today", "we'll find a hotel when we get there" and "omg! we have to be in San Onofre in half an hour") added a layer of unnecessary stress.
Here's a day-by-day breakout of the awesomeness that is SoCal roadtripping with a purpose:
On Saturday, we flew into San Diego directly on Jet Blue. I'd forgotten how nice Jet Blue planes and amenities are since I've been all Southwesty lately. TV screens that play stations you care about, the Terra Chips (as opposed to airline nuts), the shiny planes...
Anyway, we got into San Diego pretty late in the evening and hired a taxi to take us to the Omni Hotel, where we were booked for the first 3 days of our trip. Let me not recommend the Omni. Sure, it's nice that they have free WiFi and a great location in the Gaslamp, but they're otherwise not the greatest hotel ever. (And at 4 stars, I expect things to have a minimum level of acceptableness.) From the dirty windows (nice view, though), to the low pressure showers, to the nice but ultimately unhelpful staff (all I wanted was to get some clothes pressed, and I couldn't even contact housekeeping!!!)--this hotel is on my "do not bother with again" list. Wow.
On Sunday, we started by heading out to Kearney Mesa where we were renting a car. (Way cheaper to rent out of Kearney Mesa than directly from the airport. Who knew?) I, of course, wanted the smallest car on the lot for ease of driving and parking. The attendant, however, wanted to upgrade us. "It's in the same price, so you're not paying anything more." More fool me, I let him upgrade and spent the next day freaking out over being unable to parallel park. (Seriously. I had no idea how big that car was and I couldn't see enough out the tiny back window. I'm not the best parallel parker under the best of conditions, so giving me sub-optimal? Probematic.)
Anyway, we moved on from there to meet a potential wedding planner, and she's now gone from "potential" to "we want her". Sure, she's a bit unimaginative (though we saw one wedding that looked much more interesting than any of her others, so it can happen), but she's also professional, on time, easy to get in touch with, and experienced. Also, we liked her as a person. Score!
Next came looking at a few potential wedding locations. (I did tell you this was a working trip.) For those who are also scouting:
The Estancia Resort Hotel = no - cramped feeling, unnaturally placed. Maybe if it were on the water?
Powerhouse Park = no - might have been nice, but no private parking. Since we went on a beautiful day on a holiday weekend, we saw the damage that 'no parking' can do.
La Valencia Hotel = contender - Hollywood glamour era Spanish construction (tiles, villas). Gorgeous salon, across the street from the beach in La Jolla. This one made our "maybe" list, especially if we can do the ceremony at the beach (across the street), but with the option to go indoors there in case of inclement weather.
On Monday, we took a break from being wedding-y and decided to play tourist. Starting with a trip to San Diego's Old Town, which was a cute Spanish old town and much larger than any others I've visited, we wandered through the museums and the shops. Of note:
* Wells Fargo museum. Sure, the old-school stuff was awesome (including news clippings about the dashing and daring Wells Fargo drivers who fought off bandits and made them pay!), but the museum is up-to-date with a modern ATM. Too bad it doesn't have any cash! It was connected enough to let me log in to see my account, though. Jeremy has pictures of this somewhere.
* Awesome leather vests with more pockets than a pair of cargo pants, in the classic New World style. Jeremy almost bought one, but they didn't have his size. (Apparently, everyone wants one?)
After Old Town, we continued being touristy by heading out to Balboa Park. Wow! The architecture on the buildings! The Spanish-style fixtures! The botanic gardens (complete with Venus fly traps)! We took a million pictures and then thought, "Okay, it's not on the ocean, but we could totally get married here." Balboa Park is now the other contender on our list, even though we haven't seen the whole thing yet.
Oh, on this day we also exchanged the car for a much smaller one: Chevy Aveo in cherry red. (The Car Talk boys always used to ask about the color of your car when you called in, so I still find it important.) The Aveo was a serious improvement. I paralleled that thing, no problem. (Well, no more problems than usual.) Almost as easy to drive as my Corolla, it's a totally doable economy car for rental. Wouldn't buy one, though: horrible gas mileage, ridiculous spoiler, a Chevy, etc.
Tuesday might have been a vacation day as we drove up PCH, except that we had to hit up more locations in Laguna Beach.
Somehow, I ended up doing all the driving on this trip, but that doesn't bother me at all. (xyon just doesn't care one way or the other, and I figured I'd save him from any traffic.) Of course, we tried to detour from PCH and take the 5 when we hit Camp Pendleton, except for the part where I missed the turn. So, we got to go through the checkpoint (the helpful marine at the gate pointed out the entrance and told me to just turn around at the light)anyway.
Ooops.
Anway, we made it up to Laguna Beach in plenty of time to see the three places on our list:
Casa Laguna Inn and Spa = no - on the wrong side of a major road from the beach, so any outdoor locations would be very loud with traffic noise (and couldn't do a beach ceremony); too steep hill to get to the parking area
Surf & Sand Hotel = almost, but no - pretty beach ceremony area is down a flight of stairs (no good for old folks or even people in long dresses) plus no-chairs, all the function rooms are dark and conference room-like. Otherwise, though, the place is very pretty (if a bit dull) and open.
Occassions at Laguna Beach = no - great location and view, but very cookie-cutter. xyon wanted to simply throw out the brochure. So we did. Otoh, it has these kinda neat roman columns to be the base of your arbor.
At this point, I figured we'd just stay in Laguna for the night, but it was still pretty early, so we powered on as far as Newport Beach (a whole 10 miles north?). This was a great idea because we decided to have dinner at the Tommy Bahama's Restaurant in Newport. (I'd been intending to go to the seriously gourmet T.B.'s in Palm Springs if we went out there, but knew there was a location in Newport and figured "Why not?".) Not only was the food great and the atmosphere calming and beachily old-fashioned (I even got Jeremy to dance with me briefly at our patio table!), but our waitress was awesome.
If you ever go to the Tommy Bahama's in Newport Beach, get Natalie as your server. Not only did she do all of the regular things well, but she came up with a list of great hotels that we could call! I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask if she could recommend a hotel nearby for the night, and she really got into it. We even got a room at the first place on her list, a B&B on the peninsula, The Doryman's Inn. A cute little inn, it's located in the village at the Newport Beach pier. Perfect place to go for walks and hit the beach!
Aside: This muscle relaxant is pretty awesome. I feel a bit weird when I walk, and sneezing is still an uncomfortable idea, but way lower on the cramped-up pain scale. Wonder if I should go with the industrial ibuprofen too, or just this one for now.
The downside of the Doryman's Inn is that it's not really a B&B. So, you go for "breakfast", only to find a few stale muffins/scones sitting in a serve-yourself buffet in an empty dining room. We tried the muffins, and then got ready to leave.
Sorta.
After a trip to Rite Aid for heavy-duty sunblock and beach towels (Jeremy's proclaims that he bought it in Newport Beach), and another stop at Peet's for coffee/breakfast, we laid out on the sand of the Newport peninsula. Well, I laid out on the sand and read my book. Jeremy actually got in the water. As ocean water goes, Newport Beach is clean, clear, and warm, so he took the chance. The hour we spent at this beach is the longest we spent apart for the whole week. And we're still together. Rock on.
Playtime over, we found ourselves at a Pita Pit (we go here everywhere!) for lunch. I took advantage of being beachy and only wore my bikini top with shorts. Ah, those are the days. Warmth and the ability to not wear sweaters. Mmmmm.
Anyway, post-lunch, we headed up the coast to Long Beach, my favorite city in the world so far. I figured this drive would take at least an hour since I've always done it by way of other locations (e.g., Long Beach to Santa Ana to Newport Beach), so I was surprised that it took about 20 minutes.
We hit L.B. and I got to pretend I was local again, being all chill and relaxed in my usual ways. We started at the Barnes & Noble for an hour or two, then did a spot of shopping in Seal Beach Old Town (there's this necklace I've been thinking about for a year at $5), and then walked on the beach in Long Beach's Belmont Shores area.
We'd tried to find a vacation rental on craigslist, but the guy we contacted wasn't biting, so we admitted we needed a hotel. Interstingly, we chose the Convention Center Hyatt, and it was the best hotel we stayed in for the entire trip. I say "interestingly" because it's such a chain hotel that I usually wouldn't think of staying there. For this trip, though, I'm glad we did!
Why the Hyatt is awesome.
The Long Beach Hyatt
* water pressure in the showers
* very clean (we heard the inspection checks one morning)
* gorgeous, open lobby with tall ceilings, crazy windows
* location -- across from the convention center shopping, across from the water, a few blocks from shoreline village
* parking for $16
* T-Mobile Hotspot
We met my friend Ken the first night there, and we'd intended to go bowling with him at the Gameworks (right across the way), but they closed at midnight, so we brought him back to the hotel lobby bar. (At $7 per cocktail, btw, this is an extra-nice bar.) Catching up was awesome, and Jeremy got to meet another friend of mine. Yay!
Thursday started out calm, but then we realized that if we wanted to get up to Malibu to check out a location before it closed, we had to hustle.
Without breakfast, without worrying about getting gas for our fuel-eating car, we hit the road.
Locations breakout:
Adamson House = almost, but no - gorgeous house and grounds, built in the Spanish style to resemble either a castle or a ship, with amazing tile everywhere. (The owners also had a tile factory...) Unfortunately for location-y-ness, the cool places are the ones you can't hold an event, and the outdoors are marred by "surfers! keep out!" fencing.
Rancho del Cielo = no - didn't even go. We'd planned to use this as contrast to Adamson House, so it was pointless after deciding against the first.
Starving and tired, at 3:30 pm, we decided to drive back down to LB instead of eating up there. The stated reason was to avoid traffic on the return (very good, very true). My real reason was eating at Open Sesame, my favorite restaurant and possibly the best one in all of Long Beach. See, entree portions are massive, so making it your only meal of the day is the way to go.
On Friday, we had to check out of the hotel because they'd booked up that night far in advance. We'd managed to be in town for a weekend with a boat show, cancer walk, and whatever the convention was. So, we checked out and then we started off at Atlantic Studio where I'd set a hair appointment with my favorite stylist, Cheryl. One of the best parts about getting married in SoCal is going to be timing my visits so that I can have a year of amazing hair.
While I was getting my hair done, Jeremy got his cut at a barber shop down the street. Over lunch at Portfolio Coffee, I got to hear all about the barber's life and times. Local shops are awesome this way.
Now, we were getting pictures taken later that day, and since I know that lots of photographers like doing hand shots (especially when you can see engagement rings), I was determined to get a manicure. Of course, I'd been determined for three days, but hadn't got around to it. Some twisty driving through town found us an $8 manicure shop and we each got one. Ah, the beauty of having neat nails with no cuticles.
Interestingly, my manicurist was planning a trip to Seattle, so we gave her a list of touristy-fun things to do. Yay!
Post-mani, we drove down I-5 again, deep into OC, to get to San Clemente. Our photographers wanted to meet at Starbucks to chat before going over to San Onofre Beach for the two hour session.
Two hours later, we were all dressed up (formals last) and all modeled out. Oh, you want some photos?
Since we were looking fine, we figured we'd go somewhere nice for dinner. But we were tired, so finding a new restaurant (even with Urban Spoon) was too much effort. Hence, we revisited Tommy Bahama's in Newport Beach, making sure to say "hi" to Natalie who was going off-shift.
Here's an observation about formality at Tommy Bahama Restaurant:
* The older generation (grandparents) all dress up. Either by dressing to semi-formal or designer beach/boat wear (e.g., tennis bracelets from Cartier).
* The older-middle aged generation (40s/50s) dress up in a business way. This is their chance to put on finery, but not look like they're trying so hard. Think NYC after-work cocktails.
* The younger set (20s/30s) go casual. Except us. Maybe there was a formal element to this group that my Seattle-trained eye missed, or maybe they just don't care about dressing for dinner.
Then, back to Long Beach where we were hotel-free. To save money, we went downscale and stayed at the Marriot on 1st Street. OMG. Do not bother staying here. Initially, it looked great: fun mural on the outside walls, huge rooms, free WiFi, right across the street from my old apartment building. On the inside, not so much. What with a front desk that couldn't extend our stay until we checked out (thank goodness, or else we'd've been stuck!), a shower whose pressure was so low Jeremy didn't let me use it, and no soundproofing on windows next to a restaurant (loud, breaking bottles constantly -- Jeremy didn't get much sleep; I settled into the noise after a few mintes because I lived across the street and got used to this particular sound)--it's a miserable place to stay. Oh, and the "harbor view" rooms maybe give you a sliver of blue that might be water.
On Saturday, we woke up, checked out, and started to enjoy our weekend. We met up with vicious_kitty and her fiance on the beach, where we rollerbladed for a few miles. We did a spot of shopping at most of the little boutiques I miss. And we rounded out the day by meeting up with my friend Duke at the Auld Dubliner after we checked back into the Hyatt and took showers.
We spent the evening with Duke and his current girlfriend, chatting about life and drinking Strongbow on draft. Oh, and then we went over to the boardwalk and found a restaurant that serves a massive chocolate cake. Duke, Jeremy, and I shared this cake and managed maybe a third of it. It could've worked for two or three tables.
The last day of our vacation, Sunday, was an exercise in doing as little as possible. We checked out, ate lunch at Sharky's (after failing to go back to Open Sesame because there was no parking since the breast cancer walk was going through Belmont Shores), and meandered towards the airport to return our car.
Ah, Long Beach airport. It's all tiny and regional and has charming art-deco lettering on all the signs.
Tired and slightly sunburned, we waited around, boarded our plane, and made it back to Seattle with time to spare. A nice car from the Excel Towncar airport fleet took us home (they used to be "classic towcar", but people kept calling to ask about their 1959 cadillacs, etc.).
All-in-all a good vacation with a bunch of work done. I came back happier and healthier and still in love (and like) with my fiance, and aren't these the most important things?