Days 18 to 22 - Los Angeles Metro Area

Days 18 to 22 - Los Angeles (June 12 to 17)

It took forever for us to get out of Las Vegas.  After we packed up the car, we headed to Fazoli's for lunch.  Fazoli's is our favorite fast food Italian restaurant from Kentucky, but we didn't know there were any more in the country.  So, we were very excited when we found out there were more of them!  Then we headed to Walmart to try to replace essentials (for Daniel he "required" 5 boxes of Little Debbie cakes -- so I finally gave in and bought two).  We got more shampoo, soap, new sunglasses for David (his broke), and a new water bottle for me (mine leaked).  After that we tried to go to Radio Shack to return the second extra camera battery that I had lost after I bought the first replacement battery (see the saga of the camera batteries in past posts).  However, the first Radio Shack didn't have active internet, so they couldn't do returns.  Then we had to drive 4 more miles to find a second Radio Shack which was essential back where we started (we drove in a loop).  By then I had to go to the bathroom because it had been several hours and so we stopped at a Krispie Kreme Doughnut Store and bought a dozen doughnuts.

Then we finally got on the road to LA and had to drive across the Mojave Desert.  It was 107 degrees in the desert, but dropped down to about 75 by the time we got to Los Angeles.  We stopped for dinner at a Wienerschnitzel which we thought might be a German fast food restaurant, but it turns out it was a hot dog restaurant.  Slightly disappointing, but it was okay food.  We stayed at Radisson Inn in Beuna Park, CA, which is about a block from Knott's Berry Farm amusement park.  When I was a kid Knott's Berry Farm was still owned by the Knott's family and wasn't quite as big of park as it is now.  My favorite ride of childhood was the log ride and I was looking forward to riding it again.

Our first day in LA we drove over to Hollywood and saw the Hollywood sign, Walk of Fame (with the stars -- I saw Bob Newhart's star), and the Griffith Observatory.  Then we drove to Thai Town and ate lunch at a Thai restaurant called Thai Patio.  It was good food!  Then we drove through Koreatown and went to the LaBrea tar pits on Wilshire Blvd.  The tar pits smell bad!  It was fun to see what they were excavating and what they had found so far.  They found a bunch of fossils near the tar pits when they were excavating for a near parking garage.

Then we drove over to Venice Beach and played in the sand. After collecting sea shells and playing in the cold water (big shock to the kids that the water wasn't warm) we tried to play beach volleyball.  They had nets set up there which was great because we had a volleyball with us.  The problem was that the elevation had changed so much over the course of the trip that the ball was flat.  It was plenty full when we were at 7000 feet, but by sea level it was very soft and squishy.  So, we tried to play for a bit, but it hurt our arms to hit the ball.  Then we stopped to get gelato and look at a specialty jerky store.  We bought a variety pack of exotic jerky (alligator, buffalo, wild boar, kangaroo, and venison jerky) along with some regular beef and turkey jerky.  We thought we'd try a different pack each day we are in the car.

The second day in LA we headed to Knott's Berry Farm  This was an interesting day for Jaeyong because he hadn't been to a theme park since he'd had his heart surgery to correct his arythmia.  He seemed to do okay, but I think it was a little overwhelming for him.  Bow and Daniel were gung-ho and wanted to do everything over and over.  Knott's Berry Farm is more of a typical amusement park now (like a 6 Flags), but they still had the Timberline Log Ride I remembered from childhood.  I rode on it three times and was excited every time.  The kids liked the faster roller coasters more (the Silver Bullet was their favorite).  David likes the one where it takes you way up in the air (like 300+ feet) and drops you.  I had been on the Tower of Terror at Disney which is similar, but it isn't outside, so you can't see how much you are dropping.  I must say that it is really scary to be hauled up that high and then dropped.  After the first second when your body adjusts to the free-fall, it is fine.  I think it did it twice, but David and the other kids (minus Jaeyong) did it around 4 times.  We had a Fast Pass which let us cut to the front of the line on any of the major rides, so that allowed us to do a lot more in the park than other people.  It wasn't real warm (around 73 degrees), so the skinny kids were slightly chilly after doing some of the water rides, but it wasn't too bad.

After Knott's Berry Farm closed at 8, we headed back to the hotel to change into warmer/dryer clothes and then went to eat at a Korean BBQ restaurant that was close to our hotel.  It was one of those places where you order a full meal for the table to share and then cook the meats at the table.  Jaeyong had to order for us because everything was in Korean and he was having a hard time trying to do all of that because his parents had always taken care of that in the past.  But, it was good experience for him.

What the heck?

On Ferris Wheel

Gangsta?  Sorta???

The next day we headed to Disneyland's California Adventure which has some of the same rides as Epcot.  When we arrived we thought that it was when the park was opening for the day, but apparently it had opened an hour earlier because it was it's grand reopening (after being closed for 1 day) to introduce a new section of the park called "Carsland" which was based on the movie "Cars."  They had a new speedway racetrack similar to Epcot's Test Track, but we never got the chance to ride on it because by the time we found that section, the wait time for a ride was 6 hours!  We weren't going to wait that long for any ride!  The other ride in that section that looked neat was like a hover bumper cars, but the line for it was around 2 hours any time we checked.  So, we just looked around and went to other sections.  The Paradise Pier roller coaster called California Screamin' was a whole lot of fun and had all of the elements of a great roller coaster.  The best part was that it was built to look like a wooden roller coaster, but it is all steel.  So it doesn't do the "clackety-clackety" of a wooden roller coaster.  It has one loop and some of the fun up-down sections and some tight turns.  The Ferris wheel was also fun because the cars on it rolled and weren't stationary.  So, as the wheel turned your car rolled back and forth on a loop.  That made it a lot of fun.  We also did Tower of Terror twice and even Jaeyong did that with us.  It was great fun!  The one thing I really like about Disney is that the rides all have storylines.

It was much cooler the day we went to Disney -- about 65 degrees and cloudy.  So, we decided to skip the water ride (Grizzly River Rapids) and wear long pants and take polar fleeces (except Daniel who always says he's "fine" no matter how mismatched his clothing is for the weather -- he wore a long sleeve shirt and jeans in Vegas when it was 110 degrees and shorts and a t-shirt to play cards at night when it was 45 degrees at the Grand Canyon).  One thing that California Adventure boasted was a really nice water show.  We wanted to have good seats for it, so we bought a lunch at a nice restaurant which included a pass to have center stage seating (really standing) for the 9 pm show.  When we got there we go ushered to the very center section with the best viewing points for the show (which we should for the price we paid for lunch).  The show was awesome!  I'll try to upload some of the video to YouTube and put it on here (when I have better internet).  I was surprised at how they were able to project video onto a wall of water and then show colors all over the top of it.  It was called "The World of Color" and it was a great show.

Ferris Wheel with World of Color Water in Front

We stayed until they closed and then bought some souvenirs on the way out.  David and I both got t-shirts that had the date of the reopening on it.  We got Katlin a surprise as well!

The day after Disney we were beat.  We decided to take a day of rest and just sleep in as long as possible (noon for us and the girls -- the boys on the pull-out couch could only sleep until 9 am).  Then we went to Ihop for brunch and then the kids went swimming at the pool for several hours and I caught up on coursework and the blog.  After lounging around for a while and watching "Mall Cop" on the TV (because it was on) we headed to McDonald's for dinner.  They had model trains running all throughout the McDonalds, so it was more interesting than most.  Then we walked back to the hotel and played cards for a couple of hours.  We bought Skip-Bo at the last Walmart because Jaeyong wanted to play a game where he got to Skip Bow on a regular basis (I think he was disappointed by the actual game).  Erin won the first game we played.  We then switched to poker because Daniel had taught Jaeyong to play, but neither of the girls had played before.  So we played a few rounds of it before everyone got tired.  Then we tried to go to sleep but the people next to us were noisy (kids screaming and running around until 4 am).  David was just mad all night and alternated between beating on the wall and calling the front desk to complain.  It was a long night!