California

Prince Michael and I are recently back from what I would describe as a particularly successful trip to California. If I'm being totally honest with you - we dominated. Seriously. We were out there for a friend's wedding but since California is a hike we took the whole week off and packed a lot in. I kept telling Mike how lucky we are that we're not Pioneers since it would have taken forever to get to California and we can just take a flight! Actually I kept saying pilgrims. Which is funnier yes?

I want to make a little note of what we did so I can remember for our next trip. Which I hope will be soon.

1) The Griffith Observatory - Hello, how had I not been here before? Such great views of the city and it's free! There appeared to be lots of nice hikes up to the Observatory which I think would have been pretty sweet but someone, and I'm not naming names here, didn't want to get overheated. Ahem. This same someone also nerded out and made us actually look at the science exhibits inside the observatory. He also insisted we see the planetarium show. Which actually turned out to be pretty entertaining.

 

2) The Getty Center. I think probably even better than the Griffith Observatory. Also cool views but mostly you're there for the exhibits and the ARCHITECTURE. I wanted to make sure to emphasize that because really the architecture is pretty incredible.

 3) Angel City Brewery.- We loved it so much we went twice! On the weekend there's food trucks outside and every day there's corn hole, ping pong, and jenga inside.

4) Arts District - this is the neighborhood in LA where Angel City brewery is which is how we ended up there. Very trendy with lots of loft apartment buildings and arty shops. I pretended I was in New Girl while in the hood. It's pretty close to the...

5) Dodgers Stadium - Guys this stadium is everything. I'd been as a teenager but I did not at all appreciate at the time how retro the stadium is and how awesome the views are from the upper level. Also ice cream in a plastic Dodgers hat. Nothing wrong with that. Amirightoramiright? Also I've decided I'm a Dodgers fan. Also Matt Kemp is my favorite player.

6) Gjelina - This was a restaurant I saw on a bunch of LA based bloggers' guides to LA so I sweet talked the little prince into taking me there. It was so so so so so so good. Really. If I have any regrets from the trip it's that I only went once! Honorable mention goes to Bottega Louie for Macarons and Farm Shop for a delicious brunch.

7) YOSEMITE!!!! - I had been a couple of times as a kid/teenager but had severely unappreciated how spectacular it was. The park was having some major fires when we arrived so we weren't able to stay in the White Wolf Lodge where we'd initially booked. This was going to be a huge bummer but we got extra lucky and were able to snag the last tent cabin in Camp Curry (located right in the valley) which I think just happened to get freed up due to a cancellation. Yosemite is unbelievably scenic and the park itself is just really well run. Maybe all national parks are? We loved the food, and had a great time biking around the park, and we saw a bear! 

8) Frozen Bananas on Balboa Island. Clearly this was an Arrested Development dream come true. And look there's George Michael himself in the yellow polo enjoying a frozen banana! For those of you who might be looking to do some further reading on the subject I did find this article.