Sheri mentioned this, but we truly had to shed our preconceived notions about the State of California. There's gorgeous meadows of hills with cattle wandering about. There's mountains, valleys, oceans, cities, old closed prisons...just about everything.
Monterey Bay was where we began, and we're finding that, with the kids, we're not a "walk around and shop" kind of family. Therefore, what little we saw of Fisherman's Wharf was nice, but the Aquarium is the best we've ever been to. Great exhibits with hands on items that can't be beat (seriously, you're not allowed to beat the hands on stuff). A must see!
The drive on Highway 1 was amazingly beautiful...just beware. If you're driving to a destination...it takes forever. This is a road to take for enjoyment.
We had several great conversations at the Reagan Library. I'd encourage you to ask questions - some of these folks were involved in the administration and you'd be surprised what you can learn. My favorite story was how Reagen used to broadcast baseball games, but NOT from the park. He would get the info from someone at the ballpark. During the middle of one at bat, his communications to the park went down so Reagan did the only thing he could...he had the batter foul off SEVEN minutes of foul balls until he could get back in touch with the ballpark. Nice.
Our first California beach was in Oceanside and the kids loved it! It was still too cold for us old people, but we still were able to play a bit and enjoy the the lapping waves on the beige sand.
Alcatraz is one of California's highlights. This was the first tour I was interested in the entire way through. Fascinating...especially the escapes...if there were any. We continued from there to San Francisco where you cannot help but fall in love with the trolley cars (unless you're driving). Little scary to watch my daughter hanging onto the outside of a trolley car going uphill at an enormous angle, but I survived. San Francisco is a place my wife and I need to return to, sans children, to enjoy the food and a stroll throughout more of the city.
The redwoods were big, but my expectations ruined it. I thought I would be walking around a forest of all giant trees and I would feel like Mario in Giant Land. Instead there are some huge trees next to some normal trees so I never got that tiny feeling I expected. Big trees, though, and worth the drive. I wood see them again...
California is BIG and not meant to be toured in a week. It really deserves several vacations, and perhaps several blogs instead of the overview you've just read. In addition, you can see several diverse landscapes depending on where you stay and what you do. Not too many states can boast the dramatic differences in both environment and culture available in California. Let us know if we can help find the right places for you in the state.
Best Hotel: Holiday Inn Express, Marina. Not just because we had a nice big room upgrade, but the person that checked us into the hotel spent a ton of time with us planning our CA trip. It was rough planning with so little time and so much ground to cover, but her help was invaluable!
Worst Hotel: Holiday Inn Express, Fortuna. Nice people, but old and our stay was very noisy because of a variety of factors. This is where we learned the new "H" logo for Holiday Inn means there was a remodeling.
Best Restaurant: Jelly Belly! Man these things are good! We bought 100 (exaggeration) pounds of "Belly Flops" which are ones not good enough to be sold as a Jelly Bellys. Cheaper, but not as good. No restaurant really was awe inspiring in CA so I'm going to have to choose the Jelly Belly Factory as the restaurant winner for the joy those little things bring.
Best Memory: Walking through the Nixon library with Levi. He was intrigued and so was I. There was enough information to get a feel for Nixon's psychology ("I'm am not a crook") It was fun learning and chatting with Levi. A close second is walking around beautiful San Fransisco.
Worst Memory: We were running out of time in San Francisco before our Alcatraz Ferry and were really looking forward to a wonderful San Francisco meal...we only had time for Subway Ouch.
Mini-Golf Winner: Sheri, again...
Possible state to live in: California with all its beauty and attractions has a number of issues including (like most government entities - but worse) the inability to stop increasing their budget. While we met a bunch of wonderful people in CA, we met even more people in neighboring states complaining about the mass exodus from California into their state. We'll give them some time to get things figured out before we think about living there. (Of course the last time we said we wouldn't live somewhere...we were there for 5 years.)
-mike
We had several great conversations at the Reagan Library. I'd encourage you to ask questions - some of these folks were involved in the administration and you'd be surprised what you can learn. My favorite story was how Reagen used to broadcast baseball games, but NOT from the park. He would get the info from someone at the ballpark. During the middle of one at bat, his communications to the park went down so Reagan did the only thing he could...he had the batter foul off SEVEN minutes of foul balls until he could get back in touch with the ballpark. Nice.
Our first California beach was in Oceanside and the kids loved it! It was still too cold for us old people, but we still were able to play a bit and enjoy the the lapping waves on the beige sand.
Alcatraz is one of California's highlights. This was the first tour I was interested in the entire way through. Fascinating...especially the escapes...if there were any. We continued from there to San Francisco where you cannot help but fall in love with the trolley cars (unless you're driving). Little scary to watch my daughter hanging onto the outside of a trolley car going uphill at an enormous angle, but I survived. San Francisco is a place my wife and I need to return to, sans children, to enjoy the food and a stroll throughout more of the city.
The redwoods were big, but my expectations ruined it. I thought I would be walking around a forest of all giant trees and I would feel like Mario in Giant Land. Instead there are some huge trees next to some normal trees so I never got that tiny feeling I expected. Big trees, though, and worth the drive. I wood see them again...
California is BIG and not meant to be toured in a week. It really deserves several vacations, and perhaps several blogs instead of the overview you've just read. In addition, you can see several diverse landscapes depending on where you stay and what you do. Not too many states can boast the dramatic differences in both environment and culture available in California. Let us know if we can help find the right places for you in the state.
Best Hotel: Holiday Inn Express, Marina. Not just because we had a nice big room upgrade, but the person that checked us into the hotel spent a ton of time with us planning our CA trip. It was rough planning with so little time and so much ground to cover, but her help was invaluable!
Worst Hotel: Holiday Inn Express, Fortuna. Nice people, but old and our stay was very noisy because of a variety of factors. This is where we learned the new "H" logo for Holiday Inn means there was a remodeling.
Best Restaurant: Jelly Belly! Man these things are good! We bought 100 (exaggeration) pounds of "Belly Flops" which are ones not good enough to be sold as a Jelly Bellys. Cheaper, but not as good. No restaurant really was awe inspiring in CA so I'm going to have to choose the Jelly Belly Factory as the restaurant winner for the joy those little things bring.
Best Memory: Walking through the Nixon library with Levi. He was intrigued and so was I. There was enough information to get a feel for Nixon's psychology ("I'm am not a crook") It was fun learning and chatting with Levi. A close second is walking around beautiful San Fransisco.
Worst Memory: We were running out of time in San Francisco before our Alcatraz Ferry and were really looking forward to a wonderful San Francisco meal...we only had time for Subway Ouch.
Mini-Golf Winner: Sheri, again...
Possible state to live in: California with all its beauty and attractions has a number of issues including (like most government entities - but worse) the inability to stop increasing their budget. While we met a bunch of wonderful people in CA, we met even more people in neighboring states complaining about the mass exodus from California into their state. We'll give them some time to get things figured out before we think about living there. (Of course the last time we said we wouldn't live somewhere...we were there for 5 years.)
-mike
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