Day 13: Laguna Beach & San Diego, CA

Today was the most exciting day for Klay. Like my day yesterday, he got his "Buffy" moment. We arrived in San Diego, got situated in our hotel and headed to Qualcomm Stadium, where the San Diego Chargers play (Klay's favorite NFL team and mine too). So he was excited to finally see in person the city of San Diego and of course the stadium!

The team shop was closed, so we will hit that up tomorrow, so we drove around the stadium looking everything over. I could really tell he was so happy to see it, but I know he was disappointed that the team fan shop was closed and it wasn't football season. He's dying to go to a game.



After looking at the stadium, we went to eat at Dave and Busters and play some games. We were just enjoying ourselves as much as possible. It's gotten to the point now where it's really hard to leave the dogs in the car (because it's hot) and having dogs on the trip has hindered us on our options for things to do. And the dogs are getting more and more restless in the car. I think they're ready to be back at home.

But it was nice to chill out and joke around for a while!

With it being our last night on the California coast, Klay and I took the dogs to a nearby beach for a walk. We were going to watch the sun set, but we couldn't find a parking spot (I guess everyone had the same plan we did) so we caught just the tip of the sun as it finally set. Then we sat on a bench looking at the ocean and enjoying the view. It was so pretty and definitely makes us question moving back to Texas.

So not too much happened today, we'll probably do some more cruising around San Diego tomorrow. Supposed to head to Vegas tomorrow too!

I'll be hearing the sound of slot machines in my sleep!

P.S. We also passed through Laguna Beach! It was a pretty cool town with houses everywhere. The beach was crazy crowded too! But it was neat to finally pass through it after watching the show so much. =)

Stay tuned for more "From the Road..."

Laguna Beach on Dwellable

Day 12: Malibu, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills & Hollywood

Before we left sunny Santa Barbara, Klay and I decided to take a nice walk on the beach. It was beautiful and relaxing! Klay really loved Santa Barbara and says he likes southern California better than northern Cali. But we just took our time and walked along the beach, soaking in the sun and fun, before heading to the city.

After seeing how beautiful Santa Barbara is on the beach , we definitely weren't ready to go to chaotic Los Angeles. But to fit in the basic tourist attractions in LA we had to take off.

We traveled down Hwy 1 (the Pacific Coast Highway), going through Malibu, passing Neptune's Net (the place seen on "Fast and the Furious" and a few other TV shows and movies like "The Hills"). Traveling on a Saturday in Malibu and Los Angeles was terrible--at least it was for us, and perhaps this is why we enjoyed Oregon so much. For one, there were way too many people and cars in Malibu and LA. When we finally got to Santa Monica, we just rolled on through because it was crazy busy and packed with no parking anywhere. So, we headed toward Hollywood and Beverly Hills. I'd been to LA before (in 2006) so I'd seen all of this, but of course I wanted to show Klay the 'touristy' type attractions.

We went down Rodeo Dr (of course) and headed to Hollywood Blvd to park and walk down the 'Walk of Fame.' We walked down looking at all the stars w/ celeb names lined along the street.


Apparently, there was an event happening Grauman's Chinese Theatre (it was some kind of film festival) so it was packed.

We didn't get to do too much walking around there because it was 80 degrees and we had to leave the pups in the car (we cracked the windows), so we didn't stay long.

We spent the next hour and a half trying to find somewhere to eat (our GPS was messing up), and then we would go to a place and it wasn't there or didn't look very good. The one thing really stupid thing I will say about LA is that there are NO, and I mean NO, green left arrow lights. So with all of the people in the city and with every street packed and busy, you have to gun it when the light is yellow to turn left; it's awful and left turns take forever because of it. And, once again we have pedestrians and bicyclists flying out in front of the vehicle at their own will. A couple of them almost got hit--not by us, but some other people!

Overall this was one of those frustrating days where every place we turned had construction, we kept spilling things or knocking things over (which created more problems and frustration), and had trouble with virtually everything. We were still having some fun, but it was too busy out for us to really enjoy ourselves.

The one thing that I'd always dreamed of doing was visiting the school where "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," my favorite TV show, was filmed (along with other shows/movies like "Beverly Hills 90210," "She's All That," "Bring It On," "Not Another Teen Movie," among many others). And today, my dream finally came true!

I'd googled it's location (along with a couple of other Buffy filming locations, which we didn't go to), and Klay and I found it! I flipped when I finally saw it.

Luckily, Torrance High School (the name of the actual school), was having an event and they had the school not completely gated off. So, Klay and I walked around and I was citing lines from "She's All That" and "Buffy" showing him where they filmed what scene and what episode it was in, etc.  Then, we found the Sunnydale HS courtyard (Sunnydale is the fictional town Buffy lives in)!

I seriously had  a few tears come out! I know, I know I'm lame! But imagine this, people: I've watched this show since the 4th grade.

I've seen every episode, and the first couple seasons are my absolute favorites--I might possibly be the biggest Buffy fan ever (check out my old Facebook photos for proof; pics of my old Buffy room are on there). I think I know most of the words to every show, so seeing this literally made be the happiest Buffy fan on the planet.

This day definitely ended on a high note--at least for me! Klay kept joking that we needed to be careful and watch out for all the demons because we were on the hellmouth! Just an FYI--I'm kicking some vampire butt in the picture to the right! This was definitely one of the coolest things I've done. Now, I just want to get my DVDs of the show and watch them for the millionth time!

Tonight we're staying at the Ramada Inn in Newport Beach. This hotel is completely booked (no joke) along with the rest of the hotels in Newport. We're lucky enough to have the laundry room right next to us (that was sarcasm) and it's midnight and the housekeeping staff is still working. So that's sort of annoying because the dogs flip out when they hear people talking and walking. It's now 1:20 a.m. and I'm still not asleep.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this post! Tomorrow's destination: San Diego! Gooooo Chargers! Whoop!

Thanks for reading "From the Road..." and stay tuned for more posts!

Day 11: Santa Barbara, CA

Ok, I apologize for not posting last night! I'll explain all that happened...

We got off to a late start to the day not leaving the hotel til around 10 a.m. Then, we went to an urgent care center (called 'Doctors on Duty') to find out what was wrong with my eye and get medicine (it started to get worse overnight). Luckily, the place we went to took Tricare (our insurance) and we sat and waited for about 45 minutes until I was seen by a doctor.

The doctor came in for a 2 WHOLE minutes, looked at my eye, told me it was infected and prescribed me some antibiotic eye drops. We spent another hour and half talking to 8 people on the phone with our insurance and Elmendorf (our base in Alaska) to make sure that we wouldn't have to pay for the visit. It's hard to explain, and it's boring, so basically we were annoyed with talking to so many people who all told us several different things to do. It was frustrating and took up the bulk of our day.


We arrived in Santa Barbara (about a 3 1/2 hour drive) around 4 p.m. and ate late lunch. I wanted to go to Santa Barbara Winery (a winery I visited in 2006) and do a tasting. We made it just in time, a little before 5 p.m. (which is when it closed), to do a tasting. The tasting cost $5 and we got to taste six wines (they actually gave us a free one, and I asked to try two more, so we tried nine). Klay and I tend to sway more toward white wines instead of reds, and we already had bought three white wines, so we were trying to find a red we liked. We ended up buying two red wines at the Syrah and a ZCS.

Then, we walked across the street to do another tasting at Oreana Winery. It was $6 for six wines and was a really cool place! In the photo of Klay and I, we were about to drink the "Eliminator" which has 20% alcohol content. It was a little strong for me, but wasn't too bad.



A block away from Oreana, was another winery, which gave a whopping 11 tastings for $8. Their wines we weren't to crazy about. But we met some friendly folks who suggested some places to stop at in Los Angeles.

Our hotel was right around the corner and I'd already started getting a headache. I thought about blogging, but when Klay got out the computer, we apparently had to pay money for Wifi! I went ahead and went to sleep (although I probably wouldn't have blogged any way; the wine got the best of me). I woke up with a massive migraine, took some medicine, went back to sleep and woke up just peachy (literally no headache or anything)! Needless to say we didn't stop at any more wineries before leaving Santa Barbara.

But Klay and I really had fun and have learned a lot more about wine on our trip!



Stay tuned for more "From the Road..."

Santa Barbara on Dwellable

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Day 9: Sonoma & Healdsburg, CA

After a horrible night's sleep, I couldn't wait to leave Fort Bragg. We left bright and early and entered wine country. Of course, we couldn't resist another 11 a.m. wine tasting!

We pulled into Saracina Winery in Mendocino County. We walked into a wine tasting cave (I guess that's what you would call it) with another group of people. The cave was pretty big and really cool.

We discovered that they were big winos, and the eight of them were really cool. They plan a trip to wine country every year. They had a spreadsheet with wineries to visit (on each day of their 5-day trip), with the phone numbers and addresses, cost of the wine tastings, etc. And they were nice enough to give Klay and I copies of their spreadsheets and maps for places to stop.



During the tasting, Klay didn't like any of the red wines. I used to not like them, but I thought some of them were pretty tasty (or perhaps after the sixth one). We ended up buying another bottle of wine (which makes three so far) at Saracina.

Then, we headed to Francis Ford Coppola Winery (the guy who directed "The Godfather." Yes, he has his own winery (actually, I think he has two). And this place was huge! He had a restaurant, bar, pool and memorabilia from his movies. They had they desk from "The Godfather" and costumes from "The Dracula."

We ate lunch at the Coppola winery, and it was pretty awesome. Then, we wanted to go to a nice hotel and just relax some more. Yesterday wasn't very relaxing, and I really need some sleep!



Both wineries were pretty neat, we might hit up a couple of more on the way to San Francisco tomorrow.

Hope you like the videos! Keep reading "From the Road..."

Healdsburg on Dwellable

Day 6: Forks, WA and Astoria, Cannon Beach & Lincoln City, Oregon

Every morning we leave our hotel, Klay starts off the trip with a beautiful serenade of "On the road again..." which reminds me much of Donkey in "Shrek"--if that tells you anything. And yes, I still love him!


We had an exciting day ahead, going to Forks, Washington (even though Klay might not admit it, he seemed excited
for it too). My dreams of seeing Edward chase after me in the Olympic National Forest were on the verge of coming true...except that was only my imagination, and the closest I'd get to Edward would be a cardboard version of that glittering beauty! Klay wanted to see Alice--he loves Ashley Greene; so I guess we were both ready to go after our dream vamps.

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We drove (well, he drove) in rainy weather (perfect, it's Forks, right?) and I anxiously awaited getting to Forks and seeing those signs I've seen so many times in the movies. It was fun and Klay was a trooper--telling me to take all the time I wanted--and he was excited to see "Tru Blood" stuff in the stores (we both love that show) and really enjoyed himself too. It was a fun morning.



Because it was Easter today, some of the Twilight stores were closed. But we went to Dazzled by Twilight in Forks and the owner really put some effort into the place. Fake trees were in the store everywhere with red ribbon flowing through them. The store has grass turf floors, the Cullens' school lockers, wedding invites, diplomas, maps, gazebo--this store had everything! It was pretty awesome and intense.



After our Twilight adventure and after Klay helped Bella out with that dent in her truck, we headed south down hwy 101, jamming to none other than the Twilight soundtrack. We saw our first beach on the trip (Ruby Beach). It was gorgeous.



We continued on into Oregon (and I started driving right before the border) through Astoria where another favorite movie of mine, "The Goonies," took place and was filmed. I wished we would have stopped in there because I wanted to find a shirt that said "Goonies Never Say Die" with Astoria, OR on it (I know I'm a nerd). But we drove and hit Cannon Beach when I realized and shouted "Those are the rocks on the beach from 'The Goonies' movie!" So I, of course, pulled off and we stopped to take pictures and enjoy the beach for a bit.

We took the dogs out on the beach with us (they were beach virgins), and they loved it! We cracked up at them enjoying the sun (the only sunny spot today), the wind and the smell of the salty Pacific Ocean. The dogs ended up taking us on a quick jog because they were pulling us down the beach! We didn't want to leave the place. But our destination was planned for Lincoln City and we're here and made it safe and sound! And we have a room with an ocean view!

Klay and I stopped to get gas in Tillamook (whose mascot is the cheesemakers; that's where the Tillamook cheese comes from) and thankfully we knew about a quirky law of theirs due to  a Travel Oregon magazine. Here are a couple of funfacts:

• Oregon has no sales tax (like Anchorage)


• All Oregon gas stations are required to pump their gas for you


• Oregon's population is 3.7 million with half living in Portland Metro area


• Oregon is the tenth-largest state, covering 97,073 miles


• The highest elevation point is Mt. Hood at 11,245 feet, and the lowest is at sea level


• Oregon contains more than 5,900 registered campsites along with 230 state parks and 13 national forests


• There are more than 6,000 lakes and 112,000 miles of rivers and streams


• There are 16 known hot springs in Oregon


• There are nearly 800 vineyards in Oregon, planted on about 17,400 acres

Yes, a guy came out at the gas station and pumped our gas for us. He said Oregon and New Jersey were the only two states that did that (not sure how accurate that is).

So far Oregon is a gorgeous place. It's so green right now and we're loving it. Can't wait for tomorrow, lots more exciting things on the way!

Remember to check back for updates "From the road..."

Astoria on Dwellable