A Little Vacay

My last day of work was Friday July 31st and I couldn't find a better way to celebrate it than taking a short trip, but where should I go? My husband and I decided to go down to southern California where the weather is nice and hot and different from northern California. Plus we stayed and slept for free at a friend's home. Yes, that was the defining factor. That and my sister lent us her hybrid. One tank of gas all the way down to LA from San Jose and a second tank for the drive up! Talk about one cheap happy vacation with my favorite person in the whole world, my husband!

Here's a really brief overview of what we did. You can click here to view all the photos I took with captions.

We drove down through the central valley and arrived just in time for the infamous LA traffic. Thank goodness for 24 hour carpool lanes.

Our first full day there we checked out downtown LA and went with a friend to check out a new condo high rise.

Followed by a great ramen lunch and mochi-lato's. Ramen's a hot Japanese noddle soup. I ordered the deconstructed version which is not piping hot. The small restaurant was hot and humid from all the people inside and the boiling noddles. Mochi is this great little Japanese dessert. It's rice pounded into a paste and used to form a dough. Traditionally it's filled with a sweet red bean paste (really yummy) or with ice cream. In a new twist this little ice cream parlor in Little Tokyo filled it with gelato! Talk about uber-yummy! I had pistachio and cookies and cream flavors, my husband had kona coffee, and our friend had chocolate. I regret not buying more and bringing them home with me. So sad but now I have a great reason to go back. I'm so serious.

We also went to the the La Brea Tar Pits, Universal Studios, and the Santa Monica Pier. Santa Cruz's Boardwalk is superior compared to Santa Monica's Pier but it's warmer in Santa Monica.

This was all fun and dandy but I really enjoyed our drive back up home on US-101. On the way up we meandered into Santa Barbara to see Old Town and the Mission Santa Barbara. Further north we stopped for lunch in Solvang, a small Danish town where the movie Sideways was filmed, Mission Santa Ines and a really small town called San Ardo near the oil fields and farmlands of the central coast.

We set out to have four stress free unplanned days and accomplished it. I loved it so much I think I'll take another short road trip again the week before my classes start. I'm thinking Yosemite. It's only four hours away and I've never been, can you believe that? One of the nations greatest National Parks in my backyard and I've never been there. Yes, I think that's where I'll go.