"Bad boys, bad boys whatcha gonna do?
Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?
Bad boys, bad boys whatcha gonna do?
Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?"
---Inner Circle, "Bad Boys"
I've been bad...I'm not a boy but I have been bad...I've missed FOUR days of blogging! But I warned you, my dear blog readers! And I have a very good excuse. I'm going to go with...my boyfriend was here and I was on total vacation mode and it was AMAZING!!! The last few days I have been playing tourist with Adam. On Friday we explored the Nixon Museum and Nixon's Boyhood Home in Yorba Linda, California. We learned a lot about the life of former president Richard Nixon and saw many artifacts.
It was beautiful California weather, although a little warmer than we expected. This is a photo of the house that Nixon grew up in and in the bottom left corner is Nixon's final resting place. After the Nixon Museum, we traveled about twenty minutes to Anaheim where we attended the Anaheim Angels v. Los Angeles Dodgers game. We made friends with two of the ushers (we were early and the only one's in our section for awhile) and one of them reminded us of Dad and Pop Pop. I think those two have a triplet in California! The game was interesting since it was very much a rivalry game of the two LA teams. There was lots of friendly rivalry between fans. I loved the view from the stadium as the sun was setting especially the mountains in the background...
It makes me miss living somewhere where there are actual HILLS and mountains. Indiana is just too flat for me. On Saturday, we journeyed the opposite direction on the 5 to San Diego. We visited the USS Midway and took a tour. I don't know if I could ever live on a ship like that. It was so confusing to get around I never knew what level we were on or how to get to different parts of the ship. While on the flight deck, we witnessed another part of history. Docked across the harbor, in Coronado, was the USS Carl Vinson. This ship recently returned from deployment. It was the ship that Osama bin Laden was taken to before being buried at sea.
The banner behind us in this picture was hung on the the Midway when the Carl Vinson came back to port about two weeks ago. It says "Welcome Home." After our adventures on the Midway, we traveled to Old Town San Diego to eat some authentic Mexican. We found a restaurant called Casa Guadalajara and it was SOOOOOOO yummy!!
I ate a chimichanga and Adam had a burrito. We also had a yummy shrimp appetizer and some much needed margaritas after a hot day. We wandered around the rest of Old Town for a bit before heading back up to Carlsbad to catch a movie. We went to see Transformers 3. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed it even though I never saw the first two movies. I have decided that I need to see the other two now.
Day three was full of more fun. We actually slept in, which was nice, then heading down to San Diego again to visit the world famous San Diego Zoo. The zoo was extremely crowded. So crowded, in fact, that we couldn't even park in the normal parking lot. We ended up parking in the extended parking which is actually a track for a middle school down the road from the zoo.
Once we were inside the zoo, it was equally as busy. We tried to start at one end of the zoo and make our way to the other end without too much repetition. It took us a while to figure out the pathways but I think we hit everything we wanted to see (except the pandas which had an extremely long line). I love the San Diego Zoo but MAN do you get a workout wandering up and down and all around those hills. We decided to call it an early evening and made dinner at home, went on an evening walk, and called it an early night. Oh yeah...we also rented Yogi Bear and watched that. It may have gotten bad reviews but I found it pretty funny! Gotta love Yogi and his pic-i-nick baskets.
Monday, the 4th of July, was our busiest day. We were up and on the road by 7AM to make it up north, past Los Angeles, by 10AM when the Reagan Museum opened. We ended up making it there with almost an hour to spare. I don't know where everyone was on Monday morning but the roads to, through, and out of LA were completely traffic free. I don't think I could get that lucky again if I tried! After making a donut stop, we heading to the Reagan Museum about 20 minutes before it opened. Little did we know that there would be TONS of people there. We weren't even allowed to park in the parking lot...we had to park going downhill on the road leading up to the museum. It was INSANE the amount of people that were there. We found out they were having a 4th of July celebration with many free events for kids and families. This museum was very different than the Nixon museum. It was obvious that the Reagan's had more money to work with. There was a lot of interactive elements in the galleries and everything was very well put together. Some of the most memorable parts was being able to tour Air Force One, seeing a portrait of Reagan made out of Jelly Bellys, seeing a beam from 9/11, seeing a note written to Nancy Reagan by Queen Elizabeth after President Reagan passed away, and seeing a portion of the Berlin Wall...
Adam and I then traveled down to Los Angeles to eat at Phillipe's for some French Dipped deliciousness...
And finally finished our 4th of July festivities at Dodgers Stadium to see my Amazin' Mets play!!!!!! It was a great game and OF COURSE the Mets won which made it simply the best. The fireworks after the game were amazing and the cherry on top of the sundae came when I met and took a picture with Justin Turner, a Mets player originally from Long Beach, California, who's family was sitting in the section just over from us.
It was a great weekend with a fantastic boyfriend!! I am so glad that we were able to take a mini vacation together. Again, I am sorry that the blog wasn't written for a few days but I am hoping that these extra pictures and text about my adventures make up for it. I could probably go on forever about this weekend but I think it is time for bed. For more pictures from the weekend, check out facebook tomorrow or Thursday.
Good night world!