on the road again...

Today we started our drive back home. We started in sylmar,ca about 10am & ended in Gallup,nm around 10ish pm.  I took a lot of landscape pics along the way. There wasnt a lot to report about, pretty un eventful. there was a lil bit of rain, not too much though.

We took a detour to meteor crater,az. We saw the sign at 6:37 pm & within the mile saw the exit, but it said it closed at 7pm. we decided to drive the 6 miles & see what it was about. We were hoping they werent gonna charge admin fees to get in with it being so close to closing time, but no luck we didnt even get a discounted fee. they charged full price & told us we had til 7:30pm to look around. they showed us a video about the crater. it ws the 1st & most perfectly perserved crater from an meteor. it helped give info & reserach for over 200 other craters world wide/ it was caused by a meteor that came in at 26,000 miles per hr, which if on a plane leaving from los angeles,ca to new york city would be a 5 min flight. it left a hole in the ground that could house 20 football games at once with 2 million watchers. we were taking pics of the setting sun in the parking lot at 7:32pm & the gate keeper was hollering at us to hurry up so he could lock the gate. Outside of the gate we took some more pics of the sunset. We didnt have a lot of time to actually look at the museum but it was still pretty cool. we said it was worth the detour.

other than lunch, which was in Needles,ca at the wagon wheel cafe & 115 degrees, a pitstop & a gas stop, &dinner at taco bell in Holbrook,az we were in the car the whole day, looking at the beautiful america along rte 66.

If we can cancel hotel res for tommorrow we may arrive TX late tues after a detour to Roswell,nm to see the alien museum, if not we will stay in roswell tues night & be in TX wed afternoon. I hope we have as nice a view as today.

the days after IPOP

The days after IPOP

Well all good things must come to an end. Friday we had to check out of our 5 star hotel. We decided to take a morning swim in the pool & hottub. Drakeston slept in & we decided to do a late check out so we had until 2pm. I was tempted to get back in the pool again, but packed instead.

 We had pizza hut when we left the hotel. We spent some time driving around Beverly Hills looking at the fancy cars & drove down Rodeo Dr. We stopped at The Beverly Hills Garden which has a cool BH sign, & a really big tree that is fun to climb on & carve initials in hearts in. I wanted to show Nana where we had stayed & been on our last visit to CA, that took us to Wilshire blvd in Beverly Hills. We visited the Harry Potter store that is across the st from the original agent we spoke with. So since we were in the neighborhood we went down to The La Brea Tarpits, since there was 4 of us this yr & we didn’t have as much spending money we didn’t pay to go in. We just walked along on the outside. The tarpits are next to the LACMA los angeles county museum. I was trying to be artistic & was taking all kinds of angled building & architect pics. I had told Alex if we ever were back in LA I would show him LA INK. So since we were on LA Brea & that’s where LA INK is we journeyed down to High Voltage Tattoo. I told her to park at the MCDonalds a few blocks from La Ink, & fear of being towed we purchased food, so we would be mcd’s customers, & since we were staying for more than a few mins we decided to connect to the free wifi for a bit. When we were finished walking around & looking at LA INK we drove to our Sylmar, CA hotel. It is only a 1 star hotel. Not bad except its small, only 1 full size bed. We bought a full size airbed for the boys. The bed is a bit uncomfortable, even though we bought the airbed for the boys to share Drakeston has still been sleeping with me & Nana. This place does have a hottub that has eased the back pain I get from sleeping on this bed. We stayed at this hotel for 2 nights before we went to Beverly Hills & have been here since we left BH.

The next day was Saturday we wanted to go to Venice Beach & see where we loved last yr. I didn’t have a specific address, so I kept picking Venice spots on the gps, & I would say it didn’t look familiar so we would drive somewhere else. We kept ending up in Santa Monica & Marina Del Ray, Venice is in the middle of the 2. We stopped for lunch Nana & I had Chinese & Drakeston Had subway, Alex didn’t eat cuz he ate left over pizza in the car. We ended up parking in Santa Monica & walked to Venice which was 3 miles. All of this caused us to get to the beach several hrs later then when I originally wanted to arrive. I wanted to see the midday tide hit the rocks on Venice Beach so we could see the big breaks. We missed that , so the water around the rocks was barely there on the front side. This meant Boo could climb on the rocks & He was crab searching. He collected 16-20 crabs from small to large, he had them in a bucket that we found at Santa Monica. He released them when we left. It was fun to see them scurry off, they left neat little tracks in the sand. I don’t know why there wasn’t as much water where it was the last yr, but there was a lot of seaweed & moss & various other stuff  washed up on the shore, but there were 4 dead stingrays on the beach, there were some big bones from marine animals washed up.  It was kinda gross cuz there were small flys all around. Even with all that Venice is still my favorite beach that Ive  been to.  It has street vendors & artists all along the beach. It’s a bright & colorful place. There are all kinds of music there from mixed cds to bongos & steel drums. The condos & lofts on the beach are all neat to look at. There was one for rent & last yr I said it would be cool to live in that unit. I was tempted to call the # & find out how it was going for but I didn’t want to be sticker shocked so I just let it be. We had to walk back to our car in Santa Monica which was 3 miles down shore, by this time it was dark, & all the st vendors, artists, & musicians were gone. Nana & The boys had walked ahead of me to get to a store before it closed. I was exchanging food we had bought I didn’t like it, & it took forever to get new food. I was taking pics of the sunset while they were eating, so I didn’t know I didn’t like the food when everyone else was eating. I walked almost 3 miles by myself in the dark. Being on the beach at night is a lot different then in the daytime. It was almost scary. We made it back to the hotel just in time to have 10 mins in the hottub before they closed it for the night.             

Today was Sunday we stopped at an In-N – Out Burger which is a famous burger chain in the CA area. It was ok, but not as good as the hype. We then drove to Downtown Disney to shop & look around. Nana & I got some Mickey ears, & the boys built a remote control car at Ride Makerz. I also had a charactercature made up of them. We went back to our hotel decided to find an eating place & ended up at TGIFridays. I hadn’t been there in a very long time. It was pretty good. Then we went swimming in the hottub again. I had checked the temperature before we got in the pool to see if it was gonna be cold, as I have done each time before we swam at a hotel or on the beach. Everytime it had always been around 64-66 & once you get in the water it hasn’t been all that bad, but tonight when I checked it was 84, so I was expecting the pool to be warm. It was 9:15 at night. I jumped right into the pool & quickly got out. It was the coldest water I had been in yet. A guy at BH told us he thought the hotel mustve been heating the water . I guess they were cuz the Sylmar pool was freezing & the pool in BH was warmer, even though the outside air was cooler.  We considered going back to Hollywood after leaving downtown Disney but decided we didn’t want to pay for more parking & just went back to the hotel.

Tommorrow we start the drive back home, we will make it to Gallup,NM.

day 3,4,& 5

Day 3 ,4,& 5

I think I left off with our adventures in the Grand Canyon. Well after visiting the Grand Canyon, we had a 6 hr drive to Barstow,Ca. the last stop on rte 66 before hitting Los Angeles. While in Barstow, we visited the Barstow,Ca train/bus station. The out side is an Mcdonald’s its actually 3 old train cars. The Starbucks was across the st. We ordered 3 frappicinos & they gave us 5. We stopped at a grocery store to get sunscreen & we gave one of the extra drinks to our cashier. We then drove to 6 flags Magic Mountain.  I have been there once before but there were new rides. So it was very exciting. Our 1^st ride out was the X2 for the movie xmen2 . it was incredibly fun & exciting way for the ride. Nana was very nervous. The chair you sit in is like sitting in a rocking chair & then they pull you up the incline backwards. The next ride we rode was probably one of the most fun ive ever been on. Nana even said it was fun & not scary. Its called the tatsu flying at the speed of fear. Its literally almost flying over & through the mountains. The chair you sit in they flip you so you are looking at the ground on take off. Everyone comes off laughing. We rode it once during the sunlight hrs & once during the night hrs. We didn’t get to hit all the rides I wanted to go on but it was still fun. We missed riding the superman, which is different than the superman in Tx, we didn’t get to ride the riddler, & a few others.

The next day we stopped at Ed davis park. We saw it coming home from 6 flags & wondered what it was. My Dad’s name is Ed Davis. It turns out it was a trailwalk in the mountains. We just took a pic of the sign & then headed off to Farrell’s ice cream since our last name is Farrell. At 2 of my jobs Ive worked out we watched a customer service video called give them the pickle, it was based out of the Farrell’s ice cream parlour.  I googled it once & didn’t think I would ever be in a location close enough to visit one, but we were. It was pretty fun. They sound a bell every time its someones bday, all the waiters come out one is beating on a farrells bass drum & they sing a different song for each guest. We had a gold digger sundae. Butter pecan ice cream bananas, pecans, caramel & whipped cream shared 4 ways. After we left Farrell’s we took a scenic drive to Malibu, walked along the pier, then drove down the Pacific Coast Hwy to Santa Monica. We played in the beach for a while then we went on the pier. We were getting Alex & Nana’s faces sculpted. We let someone go in front of us who had a baby, so they gave us their amusement park wristbands. The lines were long & it was dark & 65 degrees so nana was cold. The boys rode the west roller coaster once, then Alex & I rode it once. I wanted to ride the ferris wheel but we didn’t. This was my 3^rd time to Santa Monica, but I have never ridden the roller coaster before. It was something Ive been wanting to do for a long time.

Sunday was the start of our IPOP competiton we had to check in at 3pm, so we didn’t have a lot of time. We took a short trip to Hollywood. We wanted to see a movie at Grauman’s Chinese theatre but all they were showing was a Madea movie & not at the time we were there. We ate at Hard Rock Café instead. Walked around a bit at Grauman’s looking at the handprints, saw a few stars on the walk of fame, then we had to head to Bevrely Hills to check in. It’s a 5 star hotel the hyatt regency century plaza hotel.

Monday we had an IPOP pep rally to get the event started. The boys auditioned for the showcase which is the entertainment for the closing & awards banquets.  They wanted Drakeston to be silly & crazy & sing & dance & he said he wasn’t able to do that, so he wasn’t selected. Later today they will perform there commercials.       That’s it for now, more updates later.