Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Socal Day 1: Downtown Disney

Near the end of June, Becks and I flew down south to use the free Disneyland tickets we received from one of my uncles who worked on one of the Disney Cruise ships in Florida. The parkhopper tickets were actually good at any Disney resort for the day, including the Disneyworld resorts, but since a one day pass wouldn't have done us any good for Disneyworld, we went to Socal instead. We arrived in Irvine on Monday night, checked in at our hotel, the Carousel Inn and Suites, which happened to be 2 hotels away from the main crosswalk to the parks, and walked to Downtown Disney for some dinner at the Rain Forest Cafe. Along the way, we explored the various shops, ESPN Sportszone, and one of the Disney hotels. We were even able to catch the fireworks taking place above Disneyland.

Sonoma & Bodega

Back in June, Becks and I decided to spend a Saturday driving in the back country. Our first stop was the beautiful town of Sonoma. This was my first time there, although Becks had been there quite a few times. It reminded me of an old Mexican town, although I've never been to Mexico. Everything centered around the town square, which consisted of a nice park, frequented by picnicers. We went stopped by a local bakery for some pastries, an ice cream shop for some Lappert's ice cream, and then the Sonoma Cheese Factory some free cheese sampling. They had cubes of cheese and toothpicks in front of every type of cheese for sampling.

We then made our way, more like lost our way to Bodega Bay. Although my initial plans were to drive the back roads of Sonoma eventually to Petaluma, I made a couple of wrong turns that took to the halfway point on old Lakeville Road. We attempted to make it to Doran Beach in the Bodega area, which came highly recommended, but were scared off by the line of cars attempting to enter the gate at 3 in the afternoon, which by the way charged a $5 entrance fee. So we turned around and attempted to find somewhere free to get beach access. We eventually found the Bodega point area, which had beautiful views of the ocean, and a small beach area to relax in the sand. After spending our time at the beach, we made our way back to Petaluma to do some shopping at the outlets, which I might add, was pretty nice.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Sorry For the Hiatus

For those of you bloggers out there who frequent my site, do not worry, for I am still alive and kicking. It's been particularly busy for me over these past 4 weeks, so I haven't been able to share our latest exploits with you. But rest assured, they will be coming, in a flurry. Just to give you a taste, here's what the topics will consist of:

  • Sonoma/Bodega Bay Exploration
  • Disneyland
  • The Real O.C.
  • 4th of July at American Canyon
  • The Contest of Champions Volleyball Tournament
  • The Annimonthiversary
  • MLB All-Star Game
  • Comic-Con 2008 (July 25-26)