Disneyland

Yesterday, Friday, Leslie and I snuck off and went to Disneyland for the day. She goes all the time with grandkids and such, and she has always had an annual passport. Hector and I used to go quite often, too, but I had not been in a couple of years. It’s always a thrill, walking up to the entrance gate. I find I always want to start running, just like the 6 year-olds. It was a gorgeous day and since we got there early, we rode a bunch of rides quickly before the crowds made their way back toward Frontierland and New Orleans Square. Got a 10 am drenching at the log ride.

She was pretty set on eating lunch at Blue Bayou, or whatever it’s called, overlooking Pirates of the Caribbean. That place is so over-priced and the food is never great, of course, but it was nice to be out of the sun and away from teenagers for a bit. Why weren’t they all in school? They all seemed to know each other, walking around in giggly throngs. Fortunately, Frontierland is mostly too square for them; they were all congregating in Tomorrowland. Leslie was very entertained by all the teenage girls, with the attitude and cell phones and nonsense, but really I was thinking they all need a good shaking. There were many clumps of 3 or 4 girls; each clump had a sullen younger brother attached to it, who hung off to the side, looking humiliated. My sympathy was entirely with the brother.
By 3pm I was beaten by the sun so we walked back through Downtown Disney toward the parking structure, where we wandered for over an hour until we finally found the car in a different building altogether. Dropped Leslie in Carlsbad, home at 630!

Christmas Over

I suppose we're back in the swing of things now. It always takes me several weeks to get over the holiday comedown. Rush, rush, excitement, travel, parties... hangover. Hector was recovering from pneumonia all of December, but was well enough for us to take a little pre-vacation vacation to Palm Springs for 3 nights. We stayed at the charming Viceroy, a swanky place created from the ruins of a couple of old 1930's Hollywood getaways. Just a block off Palm Canyon Dr, so it was very convenient to walk around. We got an upgrade to a one-bedroom casita with fireplace because the joint was pretty dead. Did a spectacular drive through a snowy Joshua Tree National Park.

Then we left for a week in San Francisco with Mark and Arturo. Our Marriott at Post and Mason was very nice, but the Exec Lounge was closed for the holidays so we didn't get all the free breakfasts we usually do. Lots of walking, San Francisco is such a great city to walk around in, even with all the hills. Let's see...we rented a car and drove up to Napa/Sonoma one day to do some wine research, hiked in Muir Woods, we visited the new Academy of Sciences Museum in Golden Gate Park (along with a million others), ate wonderful Dim Sum in Chinatown, went to a great restaurant for dinner one night, Gary Danko's, which is across the street from Ghiradelli Square. They did a 3-course tasting menu that was out of this world. Great food, wonderful service. After three hours, the 4 of us got poured into a taxi by the sweet hostess, with hugs and little gift bags of cookies each.

Next day we toured a coffee factory that supplies Mark's bakery with coffee and tea. It was wonderful. Big, loud roasting and grinding machines and automated assembly lines, with that heavenly smell everywhere. They made us swear we wouldn't divulge any of the Labels we saw being packaged but one was Trader Joe's.

I had expected the city to be sort of quiet, but because of all the department store sales it was crawling with shoppers from all over the place. In fact, dowtown was gridlocked most of the time we were there. Lots of French and Spanish overheard. People dragging huge shopping bags up the hills. We bought nothing. Came home in time for a relatively quiet New Years Eve, after which we both caught bad colds. Have now gone through 3 boxes of Kleenex with Aloe Vera.