After a long day up in the high country it was really nice not to have to drive all the way back home but stop at a hotel nearby. As guests of Country Inn & Suites we were able to relax and spend an evening in downtown Salt Lake City. The children enjoyed a quick dip in the pool, while we relaxed. We all went to bed pretty early. Breakfast was delicious; It was not the typical hotel wrapped danish…
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After our marvelous adventures in Huntington Beach we headed to San Diego. I love all the jokes the movie Madagascar makes about San Diego. It really does seem like a surreal place, all gorgeousness and ocean and warm weather. We stayed at the Blue Sea Lodge, which is another Pacifica Hotel like the Sandcastle Inn where we stayed in Pismo Beach. And just like the Sandcastle, the Blue Sea Lodge is right on the beach. So close to the beach…
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We travel to Southern California on a regular basis and Huntington Beach is my absolute favorite. The actual beach, I mean. I went as a little kid with my family and have glowy, sunny, happy memories of watching professional surfers and thinking incredulously “they get paid to play in the ocean all day?” Fast forward 20-some odd years {emphasis on the some odd} to my early days of marriage and motherhood. Ten or eleven years ago we started traveling as…
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If you ever wanted to see what it is like to live the life of the rich and/or famous without the Paparazzi and without reading about your latest exploits in the grocery checkout line go stay at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza, Los Angeles. Only a short sprint from downtown Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and all points in between, the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza offers not only a central location to all points in the greater LA area, but also…
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Los Angeles is one of those places where you can spend a lifetime, and yet fail to see it all. Having been invited as guests of the Beverly Garland Holiday Inn, we were excited to have an opportunity to spend time in an area of Los Angeles that I have not been to in probably twenty years. The Beverly Garland Holiday Inn located in Studio City and the Hollywood buzz can be felt in the air. So close were we…
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As we drove down from Monterey to Pismo Beach, through Big Sur and Morrow Bay, it suddenly dawned on us how desolate and far removed we really were from the rest of the world. With ocean on the right and massive mountains on the left, we were destined to remain on the one small, skinny, and very windy right-of-way that civilization carved out and paved over; altogether noticing how with every slide and rock chute nature fought hard to reclaim…
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While in Monterey we stayed at the Victorian Inn. And we loved it. The Victorian Inn is a charming hotel just a couple of streets up from Cannery Row and the Monterey Bay Aquarium and only a few walking blocks from Fisherman’s Wharf. It was a great location. Not too crowded or noisy, but close enough to the center of it all. What a welcome to the hotel! There were some chocolates in the basket that didn’t even make it…
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Day 2 in San Francisco: we checked out of The Argonaut and headed across town to the Americania Hotel in the SOMA district, a great place a little out of the touristy bottleneck. The Americania has the coolest, laid back, hipster vibe to it. When you check in there are free Jelly Belly’s for the kids and a chair in the lobby that spins! Exhibit A: The whole hotel has a really fun, eclectic, hipster vibe to it, with board…
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We drove into San Francisco from a hot mid-’90’s at Lake Berryessa to a cold and rainy 50 degrees in San Francisco. You’ve all heard that quote: “The coldest Winter I spent was a Summer in San Francisco”? Totally true. Very, very cold this time of year. Honestly though, San Francisco is at its prettiest {in my opinion} when it’s foggy and damp. So it’s pretty much beautiful all the time. Our hotel, The Argonaut, was right on the wharf,…
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