California Dazzling: A Roadtrip Vacation Spectacular - Last Update and Final Thoughts 11/8

[glennbo123]

Hi Magdalene. I just got caught up on the last couple of chapters. Wow, that tea garden is really beautiful. I didn't even know it was there, but it's been a couple of decades since I've been to San Fran. I need to get out there and see the Disney Museum (and eat!) sometime. Thanks for sharing!

 

[franandaj]

Dang! I totally thought I had responded over here. I'm going to have to come back and reply when I'm not so darned tired.

 

[Paula Sedley-Burke]

I am a little late to the party but reading my way through. Loving it so far Magdalene.

 

[Paula Sedley-Burke]

Oh my goodness San Fran! I just adore that city. What amazing photos you took. I loved them. that golden gate bridge. The Ghiradelli square. Boudins! I love that sourdough bread. Your ice creams look lovely. Polly doesn't like to share food either!

I loved the sea lions also and we dined at Mels isn't it fabulous.

You take wonderful photos and your narrative I am really enjoying. Thank you.

 

[Paula Sedley-Burke]

Great views from that observation tower in the museem!

Oh my deep pan pizza. I can't eat this because of my bowel disease but I wish I could. I use to eat it in the past. They serve it at places in the UK.

What a great trip!

 

[rndmr2]

Found your latest update and am now caught up.

Glad you had a nice time at the Disney Family Museum, I really need to get there. I do know a lot about Walt in his younger days as I have read quite a few books about him over the years. I even did a term paper on him in an English class in Nursing School (that I got an A- on ) but it is neat to see all the memorabilia in person.

Looks like a great place for dinner!

 

[Flossbolna]

Looks like I fell a good distance behind!

And that despite my slower than a snail speed at updating this trip report...

That's so disappointing. I would definitely prefer items unique to SF.

Yes, it was really sad. I don't understand why they don't make out of those Disney Stores. It appears they are doing better in the parks now.

Yeah--Chicago-style pizza can really sit heavy in your stomach!

But it is sooooooooo good!

It looks excellent! I would agree with @franandaj though--no olives for me! I know you're shocked.

Yes I am! (Not...)

That's Michael's truck from 1992, isn't it?

Whoa. This I gotta see.

Yes, you have to!

That's incredible! I could stare at this all day!

I am sure the larger part of your family would adore this museum. Drew might be a little too young...

"Enire"?

No! The year: Walt did not start planing WDW in 1956, but in 1966.

Thanks for the tour! I would definitely put this on the must-do list if we ever get there.

I am glad you enjoyed it. I thought I had taken more pictures as there is so much more. But I think I was able to give a good taste and pictures cannot replace a visit to the museum anyway...

 

[Flossbolna]

Hi Magdalena! I don't know how I just stumbled on your trip report, but I'm glad I did. I was on the Panama cruise with you and I enjoyed that report so much, it was like doing the trip all over again.

Hi and welcome to my trip report!! I remember that we chatted before the cruise on the cruise meet thread! And I am happy that you enjoyed my PC trip report! I love reading trip reports from people who were on the same cruise as me as well. So nice to read someone else's similar but different experiences.

I'm so glad you got to go to Lasseter Winery. We did one of the Pixar Cruises that went from San Diego and San Francisco and one of our excursions was to Lasseter. There were about 25 of us and we spent the day with Nancy and had a catered lunch on the lake and it was by far the most wonderful day I've ever had on vacation. The ship stayed in San Fran over night and the next day we took the bus to the Presidio and went to the museum. I was definitely one of the criers, but it was such a great place.

That sounds like an amazing excursion! I remember those cruises and really wanted to do that itinerary (even before they were made Pixar cruises), but it just did not fit in at all for me. I wish they would bring back those cruises as they would be the perfect cruise to combine with a visit to DL.

I know I'm at the tail end, but can't wait to see what else you do in San Fran!

Oh, we really are about to leave San Francisco in the next update... But there are a few days of interesting things in California left over!

 

[franandaj]

Today was the day we finally did what was Michael’s whole reason to want to come to San Francisco: We met a very dear friend of his who lives there and whom he hadn’t seen in a very long time. But the place where we were going to meet her was not too bad either. She said she would meet us at the Walt Disney Family Museum. Which kind of was on our list of things to do in the city anyway…

Nice that you got to meet up with an old friend, and at such a iconic place as the Disney Family museum.

A closer look on Google Maps made us realize that it was actually only 1.3 miles, so about a 30 minute walk there.

I love the way you say, "only 1.3 miles", for me it would be like, "the museum was over a mile from our hotel, so we were definitely taking the car!"

At some point, when Walt just had arrived in Hollywood (so, just when DCA was founded… ;-) ), we caught up with Michael’s friend.

I love the way that they treat the trip Walt and Roy made out west at the museum.

She thinks that you are a very wise woman of incredible intelligence and discerning taste. ... Oh, and I think she thinks we're both nuts, but since she is crazy that is OK.

Does anyone spot the typo in this next picture:

And then you get to the end of the museum – and the end of Walt’s life. And it is so sad. Mickey is crying and I would bet at least half of the people who experience the room do too.

This is very sad. I know I've never made it through without streaming tears.

These were just amazing! At some point we each got a second drink and then we also got a third appetizer to share and went with the Flautas: blue corn masa taquitos filled with braised short rib and bellwether ricotta with ancho mole, crema casera und cotija:

I'm sure they were tasty, but they are the strangest looking flautas I've ever seen. Most of the time they look like taquitos, these look more like sopes.

 

[franandaj]

No! The year: Walt did not start planing WDW in 1956, but in 1966.

OK. That's what I first thought, but then I started to second guess myself.

 

[Flossbolna]

OK. That's what I first thought, but then I started to second guess myself.

I was actually: "Oh, look Walt already started planning WDW one year after he opened Disneyland!" and Michael and his friend laughed at me and said no that was certainly not the case. Especially the drawing showing quite clearly the Florida property layout could never have been drawn up in 1956 as they did not even have a decision to look for land there at that time. But I was willing to believe everything they told me at that museum, it just seemed such great quality all around.

Will be back with more replies later today AND a new update!!

 

[Flossbolna]

Whoops - I sure fell behind! Lots of cool photos - I especially like the Japanese Garden.

And yes, Chicago style deep dish does fill you up quickly!

You fell behind despite my enormous speed?

Yes, the Japanese Garden is such a cute little gem!

And if you are from Chicago, is all the pizza there like that? It is an amazing thing, but seems a bit impractical.

Me, too! I did my junior year of college in Versailles, and spent a lot of time in Paris. I loved all the art nouveau, and wished I had gotten to Belgium to see more. There isn't very much Art Deco or Art Nouveau in the Chicago area, alas.

I once was in Brussels on a business trip and had a free morning. I definitely need to get back there. However, the area of Nuremberg where I live is not too bad even. There are some really interesting houses here. Not comparable with Paris, but pretty neat in itself. Vienna is beautiful as well. And Prague had some really fancy buildings, too!

I always thought Chicago skyscrapers would have a lot of art deco? Or am I wrong in thinking Empire State Building and Chrysler Building to be from the same time period?

 

[Flossbolna]

I found that to be true about most of the houses and streets in Oakland as well. I wanted to take photos of them all! Anod you're right photographing wasn't easy. I would love a cruise someday- even if only for the art and theming!

Sometimes I am wondering if video would be better to catch the atmosphere and a larger area. But then, I am just far too shaky and my videos end up horrible, so why take them...

I did end up researching a bit and found the storyline to be a bit... convoluted. Perhaps a stretch, but workable. I'll see if what I've read jives with the way the author laid it out.

I really don't think that Disney Springs needs any backstory... But if they want it to have one that's ok. Just don't bother me with it...

San Fran is a VERY do-able vacay for me, and there's still a lot to see...

You are lucky!! But then you would say the same when I tell you that visiting Berlin is something I do several times a year.

 

[Flossbolna]

Hi Magdalene. I just got caught up on the last couple of chapters. Wow, that tea garden is really beautiful. I didn't even know it was there, but it's been a couple of decades since I've been to San Fran. I need to get out there and see the Disney Museum (and eat!) sometime. Thanks for sharing!

I am glad that you are enjoying it! And yes, every Disney Fan must go to San Francisco. Maybe you can convince your son to go there for his senior year trip with his parents?

 

[Flossbolna]

I am a little late to the party but reading my way through. Loving it so far Magdalene.

I am happy to have you here!!

Oh my goodness San Fran! I just adore that city. What amazing photos you took. I loved them. that golden gate bridge. The Ghiradelli square. Boudins! I love that sourdough bread. Your ice creams look lovely. Polly doesn't like to share food either!

Well, if I would post a picture of Michael, you would see that he is in a different situation weight wise than you are, so for him sharing might be beneficial!! But, yes, San Francisco is full of amazing food!

I loved the sea lions also and we dined at Mels isn't it fabulous.

The sea lions are fun! And Mels is so cute. Definitely feels like you are in an American movie.

You take wonderful photos and your narrative I am really enjoying. Thank you.

Thank you very much!

Great views from that observation tower in the museem!

It was a tip that I read before the trip and I was so glad that I remembered it. Such interesting views of the city. I really love observation towers.

Oh my deep pan pizza. I can't eat this because of my bowel disease but I wish I could. I use to eat it in the past. They serve it at places in the UK.

My sister can't eat cheese either and I think pizza is one of the things she misses most. She makes her own pizza with goat cheese (which she can eat), but it is not the same. And I will need to ask you for restaurant names when I finally make it back to the UK! This needs to go on my eating list (together with Pret and a few other UK chains!).

What a great trip!

Yes, it was an amazing trip! And it is great fun to relive it again in the trip report.

 

[Flossbolna]

Glad you had a nice time at the Disney Family Museum, I really need to get there. I do know a lot about Walt in his younger days as I have read quite a few books about him over the years. I even did a term paper on him in an English class in Nursing School (that I got an A- on ) but it is neat to see all the memorabilia in person.

Looks like you are quite an expert! Michael knew a lot as well, but this did in no way take away from the experience at all. There was so much material, we could have easily spent more than one day there.

Looks like a great place for dinner!

It was a lucky find!

 

[Flossbolna]

Nice that you got to meet up with an old friend, and at such a iconic place as the Disney Family museum.

Since she is a huge Disney fan as well, it was fitting.

I love the way you say, "only 1.3 miles", for me it would be like, "the museum was over a mile from our hotel, so we were definitely taking the car!"

Different perspectives and lifestyle. I don't even own a car and I walk nearly two miles to work every morning and then back again in the evening. My average step count on my fitbit per day is 14000 steps... That's why Michael just needs to be here in Germany and he starts losing weight without even trying to.

I love the way that they treat the trip Walt and Roy made out west at the museum.

Yes!! Not going to say more...

This is very sad. I know I've never made it through without streaming tears.

I can see how it would hit you again on second and third visits...

I'm sure they were tasty, but they are the strangest looking flautas I've ever seen. Most of the time they look like taquitos, these look more like sopes.

Ok, I read this and was like this: I have no clue what you are talking about! Maybe I wrote down the wrong things from the menu?? I thought I was very careful with this though as I have no knowledge of Mexican cuisine. But I do know that they were very tasty!

 

[Flossbolna]

Google In-N-Out

Thursday, August 27: Salinas, National Steinbeck Center, Pacific Grove

Today was mainly going to be a travel day with a little sightseeing and taking it easy. Some of us wonder whether Germans can truly take it easy when not on a cruise ship! Some might, this not... Or at least this one has a different definition of easy than you, Michael.

We were leaving San Francisco for the last leg of our trip: Driving down to Los Angeles along the coast. We decided to break up the drive and make sure that we had plenty of time for driving through Big Sur, which is a very lovely and remote stretch of coast line, so today we were only driving down to the Monterey area. That allowed us to have a leisurely check out morning. We started out with breakfast at my new favorite coffee chain – Peet’s. We both enjoyed our coffee, but I had a cinnamon pastry that was a bit dry. We then started the drive south and decided that for this first stretch we would take the 101 instead of the 1 in order to save some time. I had a place to visit that had an early closing time. At some point I started searching possible fast food options for lunch and I located an In-N-Out Burger and decided that we should eat there. I also realized that Google Maps also told me that there was something called Googleplex nearly next to it. And then I realized that that Googleplex is actually Google’s headquarters!! So, when we got to the In-N-Out it was busy as they tend to be and we kept wondering if this were all Google people on lunch break.

As someone recently back from Southern California, or the Southland as it was dubbed by locals many moons ago, I have to admit that despite being a card-carrying member of the In-N-Out is Great!!! Club, I can have too much of a good thing. I think we may have on this trip. The food was its usual consistent product, so maybe it was all the six and seven figure geeks (most between 20-34) dining with us or the realization that our amazing trip was coming to a hectic end, but I recall not particularly enjoying this experience. FYI, in my recent visit to SoCal (part business, part pleasure ... everything from a little awards show called the Primetime Emmys to DL to UNI to Halloween Media Events at Knott's and on the Queen Mary!) I had In-N-Out three times in about 2 1/2 weeks.

After lunch we saw the new Levi’s Stadium in the distance, which really is pretty far away from San Francisco… I seem to recall not seeing it and just seeing the exit for it, but maybe I am not recalling? I saw it, you did not. You had to look at the traffic, I forbade you to look.

Our first destination was Salinas. An otherwise unremarkable town, but it is the home town of the author John Steinbeck. Someone once gave me his book Travels with Charley when I was a teenager and it has since been one of my favorite books. I love a lot of his other books as well. So visiting there was rather high on my list of places to visit, especially since there is also the National Steinbeck Center, a museum dedicated to him. It was easy enough to find and there was a large parking garage right next to it. On the way to the museum there were some murals depicting Steinbeck’s books:

The museum is a nice modern building::

The scary thing was how empty it was. I got the impression that this museum was mainly built for visiting school classes and since it was summer vacation time, it was fairly empty.

The museum was trying to guide you through Steinbeck’s life along with his books in chronological order. I found it featured the books more than the life and gave you kind of abridged versions of the books. But it was well done with lots of things to look at that would play a role in the different books.

This here is about East of Eden:

And here is Cannery Row and the laboratory:

And of course for me this was the most important one! A rebuild of Rosinante, the car Steinbeck used for his trip that became the basis for Travels with Charley.

Here is a map of that trip:

However, I kind of recently got a new view on that book because I read a very interesting book by a Dutch author who followed Steinbeck’s route through the USA in 2010 and giving an impression about how America has changed since Steinbeck’s trip, but also about Steinbeck. And there I found out that recent research showed that a lot of Steinbeck’s tales in that book are actually fiction and not a real travel report. I still like Travels with Charley very much, but will just view it as fiction from now on… And in case anyone is interested in the new book, it is called “In America: Travels with John Steinbeck” by Geert Mak.

I wasn't informed we were visiting here until late in our planning. And while Steinbeck was an incredible writer, I wasn't high on visiting. But I think I got more out of visiting than M did. Or maybe it's just that she likes to pick and choose what exhibits to pay attention to in a museum and I like to approach one like a book, meaning no skipped pages or chapters.

After the visit to the museum we explored Salinas a little. The museum is at the one end of Main Street, so we walked down there. There were some really pretty buildings, but it was so dead there! A lot of shops were closed or rather cheap places. It was really sad! What a contrast to Main Street at Disneyland!

Like a lot of small towns in the USA, Main Streets largely died between the 50s-80s and this is the vibe I got here. Lots of places people used to shop, watch movies, dine, drink etc that were no longer, with some hipster new places trying to gain footing.

We then continued to Pacific Grove which is next to Monterey. This whole area is really expensive for decent hotels in the summer time and I had a lot of issues to find something nice. I finally found this place, the Best Western Inn & Suites Pacific Grove. It was hidden away a bit in a more residential area and seemed to look more like a condo development than a hotel. We checked in and got to our room that was quite nice:

It had one rather bizarre feature though: A massive closet that had a kitchenette in it!

And the balcony had two chairs on a platform:

It also lacked air conditioning. Which was fine for the weather there during the night, but during the day it got quite hot. All in all it was fine for one night and I would have stayed a little longer. But this area is really expensive and therefore I felt that the hotel was not really good value overall.

I would not advise a stay here. It fit our needs for a night. But the no AC deal is something I won't accept in a modern facility, even one on the CA coast. The place also had a strange vibe because it was tiny and wedged between residential development. I was shocked we were there when we pulled up. ... and that closet space was just plain bizarre. Terrible layout. Two people (or more) could have slept in there, but would have no ventilation at all.

One nice feature was that the are was so quiet that we saw quite a lot of wildlife. Here is a deer that we passed:

For dinner we decided to drive into the town of Pacific Grove properly and look at our possibilities there. It is quite a nice town, but felt very quiet!

We came across a travel agent’s office and liked the Disney Cruise Line stuff they had in the window there:

And they had Minnie for Europe and Donald for Miami, so that was the perfect match for Michael and me with our favorite characters each.

Looking around we came across one restaurant that I had already checked out online and found a bit too pricey, but then it looked so nice and the menu looked good, so we decided to go there. That’s how we ended up at Fandango fandango pacific grove:

I think we shared the salad which was just mixed greens:

And then we both went with the filet mignon which was served with a peppercorn sauce:

The food was all wonderful and when the server told me that their specialty for dessert was a Grand Marnier soufflé I could not resist and ordered one… However, only after at first saying that I did not want dessert and then changing my mind…

So, this was one of the very rare meals where I ordered dessert, but Michael did not!

It was a wonderful meal!

It was. We weren't really sure of where to go and it was getting late. I also felt under dressed because I had shorts on. But the food and service were top notch. Quite glad we went.

Up Next: A Dream in Pink!

 

[irene_dsc]

You fell behind despite my enormous speed?

Yes, the Japanese Garden is such a cute little gem!

And if you are from Chicago, is all the pizza there like that? It is an amazing thing, but seems a bit impractical.



I once was in Brussels on a business trip and had a free morning. I definitely need to get back there. However, the area of Nuremberg where I live is not too bad even. There are some really interesting houses here. Not comparable with Paris, but pretty neat in itself. Vienna is beautiful as well. And Prague had some really fancy buildings, too!

I always thought Chicago skyscrapers would have a lot of art deco? Or am I wrong in thinking Empire State Building and Chrysler Building to be from the same time period?

There are definitely lots of different kinds of pizza in Chicago! We would all be huge if we ate deep dish all the time!

As for architectural styles, Chicago mostly skipped Art Deco. The 1896 World Fair cemented the Beaux Arts style as the mainstream style. Louis Sullivan had his own style that was a lot closer to Art Nouveau. Then you had Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie Style.

I loved Vienna when I was there, but didn't get to Nuremberg or Prague.

 

[dolphingirl47]

Some of us wonder whether Germans can truly take it easy when not on a cruise ship!

You maybe on to something there.

And then I realized that that Googleplex is actually Google’s headquarters!!

That is pretty neat.

So visiting there was rather high on my list of places to visit, especially since there is also the National Steinbeck Center, a museum dedicated to him.

How nice that this fitted in your plans.

The scary thing was how empty it was.

That is a real shame.

It was really sad! What a contrast to Main Street at Disneyland!

From the photos, it looks pretty nice.

The food was all wonderful and when the server told me that their specialty for dessert was a Grand Marnier soufflé I could not resist and ordered one

I could not have resisted this either. Was it nice?

Corinna