Day 9 -- Home Again

Fiona Says:
After a frenzy of last-minute packing in the morning, we headed to the Ontario (?) International Airport for our flight to SFO. Because of some sort of "weather problems" in San Francisco (hmm), we were able to see most of the World Cup final. Three of us cheered for the Netherlands and one of us cheered for Spain.

I'm not Pete the Octopus, but I did get this one right.

We were happy to get home, finally, to Vancouver and give Maxi the cat a big hug.

Sophie Says:
at the airport we watched the soccer game and spain won.

Day 8 -- Sea World

Fiona Says:

We had a few problems with the performing animals and the military love, but we liked the rides just fine. Got a bit wet -- it became clear pretty quickly why so many people were wearing rain gear.

It was a long drive between Riverside and San Diego, but -- for part of the time -- we kept ourselves amused by singing songs from our youth with the kids. We managed to come up with a version of "When You're Happy and You Know It" that the kids thought was pretty hilarious but I'm not sure that any other adults would enjoy for long.

Sophie Says:

i loved the ride ''journey to atlantis''

Day 7 -- Disneyland!

Fiona Says:
I had been avoiding Disneyland with enormous success for 39 years, but the time had come to face the mouse. All in all, I was pleasantly surprised. A few things struck me: the cleanliness (a far cry from the PNE), the friendliness of the staff (a far cry from the carnies at the PNE), and the ability to jump the queue using "fast track" tickets (a far cry from.... oh, never mind).
We just had a few hours, so we focused on the priorities: Space Mountain, Pirates of the Carribean, Indiana Jones, and the giftshop(s). There were way many more of these than I expected, but we managed to get out of there without spending toooo much money.

Then home to Riverside and another lovely dinner with our hosts.

Sophie Says:
Disneyland is awesome! i love it! in the castle gift shop i got a puffle.

Day 6 -- Hollywood and Riverside

Fiona Says:

No luck spotting the big Hollywood sign (haze), but we did visit Mann's Chinese Theatre to see the stars' handprints and the Walk of Fame. The kids are pissed off that we don't take them to see Toy Story 3 (promise given and retracted in the interests of time), but fortunately don't hold a grudge for too long.

Then, Riverside. Our ultimate destination. We are staying with Freya and Alessandro, Jon's friends from Duke. The kids are happy because they have a 3-year-old daughter, Cassandra, a friendly dog, Zito, and bouncy entertainment, a trampoline.

Jon Says:

Riverside at last, and it's hardly even hot. A fine rum is waiting for us.

Sophie Says:

i saw donald duck's footprints!

Day 5 -- Santa Barbara and Los Angeles

Fiona Says:

Left the Madonna Inn without an early morning swim because we were late late late. This was a busy day, chock-a-block with visits to Jon's friends, and it was our longest driving day. First, Santa Barbara and Other Jon, who is a librarian at UC Santa Barbara. We waited for him at the university library where we looked through large colonial atlases and found California on a globe. Jon arrived and showed us his 1970s-era chronometer (??). Lunch, where we discovered that Spain had defeated Germany for a spot in the world cup final, and put questions to Other Jon about monkdom, engagement rings, and career changes, then off to our next meeting.

Tara. Oxnard. Dexter. Two other rather hyperactive eight-year-olds. A dizzy bird. The Pacific Ocean, untamed by any outlying islands. Dolphins close to shore. Wet jeans. A hose down. And then we broke their garage door.

Next. Marta! Sophie and Marta immediately bonded, helped by Marta's sweet dog, Cora. We went to an amazing Mexican restaurant, which - sadly - didn't serve alcohol. Kids were exhausted after so much visiting.

Jon Says:

What I liked best was playing in the surf at Oxnard. I jumped in with my clothes to prevent young Theo from being carried off by the undertow, but was soon almost sucked under myself. Fun!!

Sophie Says:

the beach was very wavy, and we all got wet.

Day 4 -- Hearst Castle and Madonna Inn

Fiona Says:

The day started out foggy, so we were glad we'd got some good vistas the day before. Even so, when we came to lower elevations on Route 1, we got below the fog and were able to see some of the ocean. At one point, the need for a bathroom break helped us find a road down to the waterfront where we found some incredible cairns and saw some surfers.

We then made our way to Hearst Castle where we had a guided tour and took about a million pictures. Our favourites were the Neptune (pictured) and Roman pools, the carved ceilings, and the guest houses. But, gorgeous though it all was, I felt a bit funny about seeing so many European antiquities relocated to a Californian mountaintop by a man with more money than he knew what to do with. At least his family donated the place to the State of California where it is all maintained as a museum open to the public.

Jon Says:

I liked Hearst Castle, but the best thing was the hot tub at the Madonna Inn.

Sophie Says:

The Madonna Inn is so pink!

Day 3 -- Boating and Big Sur

Fiona Says:

We had breakfast with Amelie after a bit of a search through downtown Santa Cruz for a place that had space.

We then went back to Santa Cruz to meet my friends Deb and Donnie and had a ride in their boat. We saw sea lions, otters, and pelicans. Theo had a dip, despite being warned about Matilda, the great white shark rumoured to cruise Capitola.

Day 3 was the only night for which we hadn't already made prior sleeping arrangements. After a couple of unsuccessful inquiries at Big Sur motels, we managed to get a suite at the Big Sur lodge, where we learned that Big Sur isn't really a town but rather is 93 miles of coastline. It was incredible! We stopped many times along the way to take pictures.

Jon Says:

Finally we got a halfway-decent map! Our first, plastic one, was on a scale of around 1:5 quadrillion; fortunately it was soon lost. Now we can at least judge our approximate position, give or take thirty miles or so.

Sophie Says:

We saw so many otters!

Day 2 -- Monterey and Santa Cruz

Fiona Says:

We checked out of the Hotel Boheme at 9 am and picked up breakfast at a little Italian bakery in North Beach.

The Facebook friends of mine among you will recognize this account of what happened next.

The sweet old Italian lady working the till gave Sophie and Theo each a spinkle-encrusted cookie. As we were leaving, Sophie accidentally dropped hers on the pavement where it broke in half. We cited the 5-second rule and gave her the OK to pick it up and eat it. At which point, Theo cried "No fair!" and rather forcefully flung his cookie to the ground where it shattered. He immediately crouched down and began picking up the crumbs and popping them into his mouth.

We said, "Noooo!" and dragged him up the hill, toward the car. Theo said, "No fair" over and over again. I think he cried a little. But I stand by our actions. I am pretty sure it was the right place to draw the line.

We started our journey on Day 2 by overshooting Santa Cruz (where we were to end up later) and so we could get some time in at the Monterey Aquarium. Sophie and Theo remembered it fondly from our 2008 trip there. (Nearly as exciting as the aquarium was a black Ferrari that we saw parked nearby.) We enjoyed the jellyfish most of all, as we suspected we might, but also good were the seahorses and the penguins.

Sophie spent some of her report-card money on a manta-ray toy at the gift shop, whom she has named Fluffy. I'm pretty sure that he is the only Fluffy in his class at manta-ray school. I'll bet there are lots of Scaleys and Slimeys and a few Cartilageys, but -- and I'm quite certain of this -- no other Fluffys. Theo bought a stuffed eel who is yet unnamed. And a sort of plastic bitey hammerhead shark on a stick that Jon and I looked at doubtfully and immediately ruled that it could not be used to bite the driver. Theo looked at it closely for awhile and then said, "Hey did you know that hammerheads only have bottom teeth? None on the top at all!" and showed us his new toy as scientific evidence. "Theo," we said, "that was $3.99."

We stayed with Jon's friend Amelie at her place at UC Santa Cruz (she put us up even though she was in the middle of packing up all her possessions to move across the country -- that is true friendship!), and the kids thought it was pretty cool that she's an expert on television. As Jon pointed out, when she wastes time washing the dishes or doing her taxes, she is Procrastinating. When she turns on the telly and sits back with an icy drink, she is Hard at Work. Theo is thinking hard about how to best enter this field; I think he likes this better than his previous career aspiration ("I want to be a fat man that eats.")

We went to a rather odd restuarant for dinner but had lots of fun despite the disturbing decor, slow service, and plastic-wrapped tables. Sophie demostrated her Jon impression (sort of a Queen of England wave and a funny face), which sent me into hysterics. Theo, not to be outdone, started banging himself on the head with a bottle and said "Look! I'm Jon!" which was also very funny and rather unexpected.

Jon Says:

It was truly lovely to see Amelie again. Not to mention her fancy muscle car!

Sophie Says:

fluffy's a girl!

Day 1 -- San Francisco

Fiona Says:

We left for the airport at 7:30 am and had no trouble getting on our flight to San Francisco. Upon arrival we had a long long wait waiting for our Hertz rental car and then headed for our hotel in North Beach: The Hotel Boheme, which is a pretty cool boutique hotel (only one room big enough for the four of us). We were all starving and so went to the pizza place adjacent to the hotel and ate masses of pizza while keeping an eye on the car, which was parked illegally.

After lunch, we headed to Coit Tower, where the stairs were out of order (!!!) so our only choice was to take the elevator (big line up).

In the late afternoon, we met my friend Vittoria and her kids for dinner at a Spanish Restaurant.

Jon Says:

I snuck out after hours to the Café Trieste, to hang with the domino players; it was pretty cool!

Sophie Says:

Can we do this later? I want to go to bed and when are we doing the pictures?