Disneyland!

So while we were in the area, we decided to go to Disneyland. I hadn't been there in ages! Much of Disneyland was exactly as I remembered, everything is adorable & very detail oriented, the food is expensive & delicious (I did pack snacks as I am often peckish), & you really need to wear good walking shoes! I've got a few snapshots to share with you:

Walking down Main Street

A Finding Nemo ride

Spinning teacups!

In the very long line for Indiana Jones

On the Jungle Cruise ride

Anyway, I had a really great time, Disneyland is a lot smaller than I remember & luckily there wasn't much in the way of lines so it was really easy to pack in the full experience in one day. I totally want to go once a year!

I Still Like You, Priceline

I clearly remember one summer when I was about twenty years old & was planning on visiting San Diego with some friends of mine. When I informed my parents of the hotel we had booked, my dad basically said, "No, you are not staying there". Because it was kind of gross & probably not safe, but we didn't really have money to spend on a hotel, we wanted to use our money for more fun & exciting things!

Even now, I still get restless. Being in one place too long gets me all fidgety so I am usually in a state of feeling like I've got to go somewhere.

Tired driving is undesirable nor do I have many friends, especially not any who live in other cities. So hotels save the day, but here is another fun fact, I am not rich.

This is why I have come to really enjoy using Priceline's, "Name Your Own Price" thing when I need to find a hotel & I would definitely recommend this method. Basically, you tell the website where you want to stay, how many stars you would like your hotel to be, it gives you a map of which areas you might like, you give it a price, & it comes back either telling you to try changing something or that your offer has been accepted.

The catch is that you have no idea what hotel you just bid for, but you have to agree to follow through with your offer.

I've used Priceline's hotel bidding about three or four times & have been really happy with it. I used it for this recent quick trip to Los Angeles & was quite pleased at the hotel I ended up getting a reservation with, the Westin Bonaventure.

The room was clean, not the quietest but nothing intolerable, & the staff were all very friendly. The hotel is made up of window-walled towers so there were plenty of nice views.

On one of the upper floors, there was a revolving lounge which again, gave us really nice views of various city lights.

As with every time I use this method of finding a hotel, I keep thinking, "Maybe this will be the time they give me a horrible hotel & I never want to use Priceline again!", but that time wasn't this time, I still like you, Priceline.

On the Road

Last weekend I took a little visit to Los Angeles in an attempt to get a better feel for the city that I'll be living in since moving day is approaching faster than I imagined it would.

Anyway, one thing that really amazes me about California is the fact that so much of it is essentially empty space. Somehow people stretched roads, telephone poles, & wires over these really vast spaces, connecting every city & that idea really appeals to me.

Because I so love the romance of the open road & did not have to drive on this one (thanks so much, Becca!!!), I ended up with a zillion blurry snapshots of the hills & fields we passed on our way south. Here are a few of my favorites:

This was not long after we took off. We found this port-a-potty with toilet paper attached to be quite hilarious until the toilet paper actually flew off & hit our car. In retrospect, we should have seen that one coming.

So cliche, but doesn't everyone need to take a picture like this once in their lifetime?