Beaches and Baseball three-peat

We apologize for being a few weeks behind on our postings, we have been on the go, non-stop for the past few weeks.

The 1st weekend in June we went back to Orange to spend the weekend with a college teammate of Tim's (Lawren) and his family.   On Sunday we went to Newport Beach where we ate lunch at the end of the pier and Tim gave surfing a try.  He almost got up a few times, but stopped trying after about 20 minutes because he was too cold to stay in the water without wearing a wet suit.

A few nights later Tim returned to Orange County to see the Rays play the Angels at Angels Stadium with Lawren.  Tim is happy he successfully completed the Southern California MLB trifecta.

The next day we flew to North Carolina to attend Daniel and Rebekah's High School Graduation.  It was great spending time with family and friends throughout the weekend.  We returned from North Carolina on Monday.  Wednesday evening Tim's Aunt Louisa and Cousin Elizabeth came into town for a long weekend of sight seeing in Southern California.  Yesterday we made stops at The Rose Bowl Stadium, The Pasadena Chalk Festival, The LA Farmers Market, and The Santa Monica Pier.  It was so nice to be with family, we had a great time visiting and being tourists with Louisa and Elizabeth.

Here are the rest of the pictures.

Central Coast

The Lone Cypress

We took the long Memorial Day weekend to tour California's Central Coast.  After work on Friday we headed north to Monterey.  Our route took us past James Dean Memorial Junction, (the site of James Dean's fatal car accident).  Before we began touring the Monterey Peninsula Saturday morning, I (Tim) went down the street from our hotel to take pictures of the house where my Aunt and Uncle lived during the 19-early-70's.  My Father also lived in that house, after he decided to turn what was supposed to be a visit into a permanent stay.

Once I returned we loaded up the car and headed into Monterey.   After a quick drive through Cannery Row, we headed to the infamous 17-mile drive at Pebble Beach, where we weaved along the coast, around spectacular golf courses and mansions.  The highlight of the drive for me was obviously stopping at the Pebble Beach Golf Links.  After eating a picnic lunch on the beach of Spanish Bay we got back in the car and headed south to Cambria on the Pacific Coast Highway.  The drive was as amazing as expected, until we came upon a small stretch of the highway (20 miles north of Cambria) which was closed due to a massive rockslide that washed the road into the Pacific. The good news was that only a small portion of the highway was closed, the bad news was that the only detour is 100 miles long.  During this 2-hour detour we quickly learned the Central Coast is as stunningly remote as it is beautiful.  After a full day of taking in some of the most beautiful views and sights that we had ever seen, we finally arrived in Cambria as the sun was setting over the Pacific.

We spent Sunday bundled up walking around the coast and the funky little beach town of Cambria.  Although it was clear and sunny, the high temperature on the coast was only in the 40's but felt much colder as there was a steady 20-30 mph breeze.  Jodi and I both agreed this was the coldest weather we had ever been a part of during Memorial Day Weekend.  We spent the rest of the day touring the former residence of Mr. W.R. Hearst at the Hearst Castle.  Luckily it was a clear day, the views of the coast from the Castle were amazing, and the property itself was not to shabby either.

On our way home on Monday we made a stop at the quaint Danish village of Solvang, which was complete with Danish windmills, shops and bakeries.  After strolling around the town we ended our time there by sharing some of Arnie's Famous Aebleskiver.  Apparently aebleskiver is to Solvang what beignets are to New Orleans (except for no one has ever heard of either Solvang or an aebleskiver).   The line for the Arnie's Famous aebleskiver was down the sidewalk, which is how we found out about these delicious gems.  We figured if everyone was waiting in a long line them, then they had to be a Solvang must do.

Don't forget to check out the rest of the pictures.

More beaches and baseball

This past weekend we headed to San Diego to visit some friends and see some of the sites we missed the first trip down.  Saturday we spent the day in Coronado.  We headed to Ferry Landing to eat lunch and walk around some of the shops.  From there, we took Bogey to the dog beach which is located right next to the Naval Base.  Bogey enjoyed running through the sand and along the water chasing the waves, and Tim enjoyed watching the F 18 jets take off and land.  We enjoyed watching him until Bogey decided that he wanted to run through the fence and check out the base  on his own (see exhibit "A").  You would think the fence separating the dog beach and the base would be doggie proof. When Bogey did not return after Tim repeatedly called his name, Tim had to crawl through the fence to retrieve our dog from the Base.  As he climbed back through the fence the speakers began shouting, "Warning, you are trespassing on Government property."  We quickly left after that incident.

On Sunday, we ventured out to see a Padres baseball game.  They played the Mariners that day and neither team has a great record, so we saw a lot of hits and a lot of errors.  Luckily we had great seats to view it all from.  Tim was thrilled to check another Major League Baseball stadium off of his list.

Here are the rest of the pictures.

Doc Visits

Back in March when I turned 30 Jodi gave me this:

Thanks to Jodi and Doc's parents, the golfing extravaganza and visit came to fruition this past weekend when Doc flew in from North Carolina.  Since Doc had to take the red-eye back on Sunday night, we made sure to fit in as much as possible every hour that he was here.  The first stop on Friday after picking him up from the airport was to a local golf course to play a warm-up round before we attempted to conquer Torrey Pines.  Friday night we loaded up the car and headed south to San Diego.  Doc got a taste of the Southern California traffic while on our way to San Diego, as we were stop and go through L.A. at 10:00 pm.   After checking in to the hotel around Midnight we set the alarm for 4:00 am to make sure we could secure our spot in the cue to get on to Torrey Pines.

For those of you who don't know, Torrey Pines is a municipal golf course on the Pacific Ocean in San Diego which hosted the 2008 US Open.  Since this course is along the cliffs of the Pacific Ocean in San Diego, as well as hosted a US Open and is not only affordable but also accessible to the general public; it is a popular place every day of the week let alone the weekend.  To ensure you are able to get on the course the day you want to play, you have to arrive at the course before daylight to get in line. Since the course doesn't open until daybreak the line-up occurs in the parking lot and is run by the honor system.  The last person to arrive leaves their headlights on in whatever parking spot they choose.  Once you arrive you knock on the window of the car with its lights on and ask them what number they are.   You then get back in your car and keep your headlights on until the next person arrives.  When the golf course opens just before dawn, everyone lines up in front of the pro shop in the order they arrived in the parking lot.  You then either pay the greens fee to get on the course immediately or you make a tee time for later on that day.  Doc and I chose the latter and made a 2:30 tee time not only to save some money (since the rates in the afternoon are almost half of what they are in the morning) but to also go back to the hotel to try and get some sleep.

Doc and I knew the basics of how the pre-dawn line up works, but we learned most of this on the fly as we were #5 in line with our 4:15 arrival.  We didn't learn of the whole keeping the headlights on rule until the #6 person rudely pointed this out to us.  When we arrived the guy parked next to us, pointed to a car behind and said "they have the sign in sheet."  As you can see the sign in sheet that day was a piece of cardboard.  These nice Asian gentlemen handed us the piece of cardboard to us and said that they were #4.  So we got back in the car with the piece of cardboard and waited for the next person to take it from us.  About 10 minutes later the next patron arrived, so I opened the door told him we were #5 and offered him the sign in sheet, to which he quickly and rather angrily responded "I don't need it, this is why you leave your lights on."  It was at this point Doc and I realized the sign in sheet was worthless and was most likely just used by the guy who arrived at midnight so he didn't have to wake up and tell the next person what number he was.

We got back to the hotel around 6:15 am and got right back into bed.  Before we headed back to the course for our round we made our way to La Jolla to see the Seals.  Since we knew that we wouldn't be able to adequetly capture our once in a lifetime round, Doc and I convinced Jodi to join us as our official photographer.   Doc and I had a great time playing a US Open course with breathtaking views. Thanks to Jodi we have amazing pictures to remember it all by.

Doc felt it would be crazy not to pay homage to Wally World, so Sunday morning we went down the street to ride some roller coasters at Six Flags Magic Mountain.  That evening on our way to LAX we made a stop at the Griffith Observatory to take in the views of LA and the coast at Sunset.  It was great laughing and golfing our way around Southern California with Doc.  As usual the weekend went by too quickly, but it is one that will never be forgotten.

Disneyland & Tributefest

Last Saturday and Sunday we celebrated our 3rd Anniversary with a weekend at Disneyland.  Thankfully Disney has a kennel located at the entrance of the park so Bogey was able to join us for our festivities.  Every few hours we stopped by the kennel to take Bogey out for a break.  We had a great time hopping back and forth between the Disneyland and California Adventure parks.  We rode the Tea Cups, Alice in Wonderland, the Matehorn, Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, It's a Small World, Space Mountain, Tower of Terror, Soaring over California and many more.  We made sure the ride the ones that were specific to Disneyland.  We both agree the most amazing part of the weekend was the World of Color show at California Adventure on Saturday night.  That show alone was worth the price of admission for the entire weekend.  Both parks have a lot to offer, but it is easy to tell that, unlike Disney World in Florida, property is at a premium here in Southern California as they pack a whole lot in a very small space.

This Saturday (thanks to Mom & Dad Friedberg) we did something local and went to the Santa Clarita Tributefest.  There we heard tribute bands play the likes of Elton John, Johnny Cash, Tom Petty, Journey, Dave Matthews and The Who.  Journey was the best band and they sounded exactly like the "real thing."  We enjoyed both the live music and the unlimited premium draft beers!

As always the rest of the pictures are on Picasa.  

Beaches and Baseball

This week we had our 3rd Wedding Anniversary.  To celebrate we went out to a nice dinner, and scheduled plans for a weekend at Disneyland at the end of the month.

Saturday we drove up the coast to spend the day in Santa Barbara.  We walked along the beach, down the pier and along the State Street Historic Downtown shopping area.  We have heard that Santa Barbara is a nice place, but we were surprised by how much we loved this quaint beach town - Bogey included.

 

Sunday we decided to catch an afternoon game at Dodger Stadium.  For you Baseball buffs you may find these factoids as interesting as I (Tim) did: Dodger Stadium is currently the third oldest ballpark in Major League Baseball (behind Fenway Park in Boston and Wrigley Field in Chicago) and is the largest ballpark by seating capacity.  Since the game started right around lunchtime we purchased tickets in the "all you can eat" Right Field Pavilion.  Despite no respite from the California sun, our 1st row seats in the outfield were almost as fantastic as the unlimited Dodger Dogs.  The game was uneventful (offensive wise) until the 9th inning where the Dodgers won by a walk-off home run. It was a great ending to a wonderful day at the ballpark.

As usual, here are the rest of the pictures.

Here and There

We have had a couple of pretty laid back weekends since our last posting.  Two weeks ago we went to the neat town of Orange CA to visit one of Tim's former teammates from Greensboro College.  We spent the day walking around Historic Orange and visiting with Lawren, his Wife and their 3 children.  Last weekend we headed down the street to Six Flags  to ride a few roller coasters before the Final Four.  

Yesterday we went to The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley.  The Museum was quite remarkable, it definitely exceeded our expectations.  Unknown to us, we ended up timing our visit to the Library very well, as it was the last weekend the Miniature White House exhibit would be on display.  Unfortunately flash photography is not allowed, so our pictures will not do justice to this phenomenal replica. But I was able to track down more in-depth pictures of the model here.  One of the highlights of The Museum is the pavilion that hosts President Reagan's Air Force One, Marine One and his motorcade.  We were able to board the Air Force One, but have no pictures since photography is not allowed while on the plane.  The 80's state of the art communication center on Air Force One is now laughable, but it was really cool seeing President Reagan's Nuclear Football sitting in between the seats of the communication center.   Also featured at The Museum is the suit worn by President Reagan when he was shot, a section of the Berlin Wall, a full-sized replica of The Oval Office and President Reagan's final resting place. 

For our Sunday outing we went hiking at Runyon Canyon Park in the Hollywood Hills.  This 4 mile hike had amazing views throughout its 1000 ft. of elevation change.  

As usual, for the rest of the photos visit our Picasa page.  

For those of you who are interested, the folks at Google have created new ways to view blogs.   For a dynamic look at our entries visit the following link - Dynamic Views for Readers.