California - February 2017 - Day 5 & 6

February 12, 2017 (Sunday)

Nike Missile Control Site LA-96

LA View 

Our last full day of soaking up the CA sunshine took us back towards LA. We stayed at one of Mike’s friend’s house in Sherman Oaks. The afternoon was spent chit-chatting and hiking.  We hiked up to the old Nike Missile Control Site LA-96 at the San Vicente Mountain Park. It was really clear so we were able to get nice views of both the ocean and downtown LA.  For dinner we walked to Mel’s Drive-In. The atmosphere is 50’s diner and they serve large portions. The food was okay.

February 13, 2017 (Monday)

The flight back home was at 11:45 am.  We cut it kind of close on time – the airport was mega busy! The drive to drop the rental car off was not too bad, when getting the rental they said to be back 2 hours before the flight, which we were pretty close to that amount of time.  It took us 25 minutes to get from the rental drop off to the terminal drop off!!!  By the time we got the luggage checked in it was about an hour to the scheduled departure.  The security line was so long they were holding people downstairs and then allowing 10-15 people at a time to go to the main security line upstairs. The line upstairs was of course really long. I asked one of the workers if we were going to make it thru the line in time for our flight and she directed us to a different line. Luckily that line was short and we made it to our gate just before the flight started boarding. Somehow we once again got stuck in the back row of the plane, this time the flight attendants were not as nice and did not provide us with anything for being stuck in the back row.

We did have a semi-famous person on our return flight – Rory Feek from the county star duo of Joey + Rory.   He boarded the plane a few people behind us and was very friendly.

All-in-all it was a nice getaway. It would have been nice to have clear weather in San Diego and more time at the park at the top of the aerial tramway. Apparently there is also a waterfall that we missed in an Indian Reservation in Palm Springs. Until next time – Happy Travels!

California- February 2017 - Day 1

February 8, 2017 (Wednesday)

Trip time!! CA here we come…again! We had a morning flight out to LAX. The flight was good other than for some reason we ended up in the very last row on the plane – we did not pick those seats when we booked our flight. On the positive note the flight attendants were very nice and let us pick a meal for free. Amazingly we still had to wait for our bags at the luggage carousal.

The car rental location was pretty far from the airport (we booked with Alamo). Luckily there was not a line and we were able to get the car pretty fast. Mike selected a Dodge Dart, which was not bad other than the lack of charging capabilities (no USB charging ports).

Beach at Dana Point

We headed to Capistrano Beach, it was quite foggy so we did not get great views.  After the beach we headed to Dana Point for lunch at The Shwack Beach Grill. The food was just okay, which was kind of disappointing since the place had a really good trip advisor rating (#2 for Dana Point).

Continuing down the coast we stopped at the visitor center in Oceanside. We checked out the harbor and the strand. The pier in Oceanside is supposed to be really neat also, but since it was still very foggy we did not walk it.

It was getting to be late afternoon so we decided to just go check-in to the place we were staying – Riviera Oaks Resort and Racquet Club, which was up in the hills of Ramona. The place was really nice and it was very quiet.