Ups, Downs, and Neutrals of Our California Trip

There were a lot of interesting things about our California trip - mostly positive. I'll do an Ups and Downs post about it (kudos to Bet for the idea of Ups and Downs) for those who are interested in little details.

UP - Great views of the beautiful Pacific Ocean!
I also learned something new from a weatherman out there - There is a high pressure area in the middle of both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and water flows clockwise around that high pressure. Therefore - the Atlantic gets warm water that is coming up from the equator, whereas the Pacific gets cold water that is coming down from the Arctic. That's why people don't swim in the Pacific like they do the Atlantic.

UP - Very easy flights. Four of them - two coming and two going. Granted we didn't face bad weather like some trips, but you hear so much about the awful service of airlines these days. All four flights were on time and there were no delays or headaches.

UP - Bob Hope Airport, Burbank. When we checked the map, and discovered that A)Burbank was much closer to our destination than LA International Airport, and B)flights into Burbank were comparable in price to flying to LA, we took the Burbank route. It is a small airport - smaller than GSP - and has a homey feel to it, much different than a large airport. Getting the luggage and rental car there were both easy to do, and we were only 20 miles from our hotel, with easy on and off the freeway. If we were ever to go out there again, we'd try for that airport if at all possible.

DOWN - Freeways are not well marked. If you miss the sign that says your exit or freeway change is one mile away, you may or may not have a sign at the actual turnoff.

UP - The regular streets are much better marked than the freeways. What I do wonder, however, is why a number of streets in the town where we stayed (Santa Clarita) were named "Avenue Stanton" instead of "Stanton Avenue," for example. Never seen that before.

DOWN - We missed the earthquake! Santa Clarita was hit with a 4.2 quake while we were gone to the Reagan Library, and they said our hotel got a good jolt. If we were going to be in California, it would have been nice to have been in an earthquake. A minor earthquake.

UP - Omelets to order every morning. That was a specialty of our hotel. Your choice of ham, bacon, spinach, tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers, onions, and cheese in an omelet. They were delicious. That was on top of a full breakfast bar, including waffles, breakfast meats, breads, and oatmeal. Every morning.

NEUTRAL - We got a taste of California-style life. I went into a grocery store for a couple of things we needed, went through the self-serve check-out, and there were no bags. Found out you can either pay a dime for a paper bag, bring your own cloth bags, or carry your stuff out bagless. No plastic bags allowed. Welcome to California!!

DOWN - Trash all over the roads!

UP - On Saturday afternoon Mike was about to die to see/hear the USC game (and I'm not talking about the Southern California team). Of course, nobody on the west coast cared a whit about the South Carolina game, so it wasn't on TV out there. We pulled up the local (as in our hometown) radio station on the internet and got the streaming audio, so he got to hear the entire game in our hotel room. He was a happy man, and I thought it's really something that we can get our local radio station in California and hear a game that nobody in that area really cared about. Technology is something.

UP - Beautiful fruit stands all along the road to Ventura. So much good stuff. Strawberries, melons, oranges, avocados. I can't imagine having access to fresh fruit and vegetables (as in not supermarket delivered) year round.

UP - The beautiful views of the desert mountains. Somehow we just weren't expecting the area to be that mountainous. Wherever we went, the view was 360 degrees of mountains. (Well, Mike corrected that - the view was only 180 degrees at the ocean.) All the towns are nestled in valleys between the mountains.

UP - Meeting people from all across the country. We talked Sunday morning with people who had been members at Grace Community Church for twenty years. We met people from Dallas (they had been on the plane with us as well), Tulsa OK, western Alabama, Michigan (same town as my sister, can see her condo complex from their home!), and even from our home area. (Their daughter had even played a volleyball game as part of the away team at our school the previous week.) Met a lovely young woman from Arizona named Lori. I told her on the way out the last night that if we lived in the same area I thought we would be good friends. She started to cry, because we really did have sweet fellowship even if it was brief.

And those are my mostly ups for our great trip!