I Hath Returned!
Sep. 19th, 2025 11:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickWell, I hath returned last night, but so late that I didn't really have the time or inclination to make a journal post about it. But I'm slowly settling back into the swing of things here, with today spent catching up on some things online (tumblr stuff, mostly), helping my parents with chores (putting away groceries and doing the laundry from our trip), and writing up a little "travel diary" of our trip! Since I know you're all aching for details. :P So let's get that up right now:
Friday, 9/12:
->We all got up at 2 AM, then spent the morning flying to California (because time zones meant we arrived there around 11 AM) – started with a two hour flight to Chicago, then a four hour one to San Jose, which were both pretty rough. After a certain amount of sitting, you REALLY want to get up and move around, I’ve found!
->We had trouble figuring out where the hell the rental car place was because the airport didn’t have great signage; eventually found the place and got a very modern car with all the fancy bells and whistles which had a weird habit of stalling out briefly whenever we stopped – Dad openly hated it, and frankly I don’t blame him
->Traffic was pretty miserable heading to Santa Cruz (road work), and even worse in Santa Cruz – figuring out where the fuck we could park was a constant battle during the trip; in this instance we found our way to the hotel and asked if we could park there since we’d be checking in later, and they happily allowed it
->Right before that, though, we had a bad experience at a local CVS trying to get hotel essentials, as we couldn’t find the damn travel-size stuff as they’d moved the section but not the sign, and there was all sorts of other drama happening in the store. *grimacing* We did at least get shampoo and conditioner, toothpaste, and a little stick of Banana Boat Kid’s Sports Sunscreen (it looks like a deodorant and was so fucking useful), along with a “California” baseball hat for me and sunglasses for both me and Dad
->We had lunch at 1:30 PM at the Santa Cruz Diner down the street from the hotel after we parked there, which had decent enough food (HUGE burger, lots of friends) – I had trouble enjoying it though because I was exhausted (only got about 2 ½ hour’s sleep the previous night despite my best efforts), had a sinus headache (from the plane rides – had trouble getting my ears to pop, and I was wearing one of my stiff headbands, which I think didn’t help matters), and was just generally miserable from all the bullshit
->After lunch, the hotel was nice enough to let us check in early (around 2:30 PM), and I was able to go into my room, take some headache meds, chill out on my phone, then lay down on my bed and nap for a bit
->Eventually we went out and drove down West Cliff Drive, which was very pretty – we got out and walked a stretch (down to the Surfing Museum, a converted lighthouse), looking at the pretty rock formations (including a natural bridge) and the crashing waves on one side, and the cool-looking trees on the other – then we had to drive home and everything went to shit again because obviously we were having trouble finding our way around
->We ended up having pizza from Pizza My Heart delivered to Mom and Dad’s hotel room with the help of DoorDash for dinner – despite the reviews claiming it was the best pizza in Santa Cruz, we found it merely fine (like, it wasn’t bad, it just also wasn’t SPECTACULAR)
Saturday, 9/13:
->I woke up around 5:30 AM and couldn’t get back to sleep – admittedly I passed out pretty early, but bleh. This proved to be a repeating pattern throughout the trip – I generally had no trouble FALLING asleep as I was so freaking tired, but almost inevitably I’d wake up early needing to use the bathroom or because I was hot, and I’d have real trouble going back to sleep because I didn’t have any of my usual plushies or blankets (I was reduced to cuddling a pillow). I think I got a solid eight hours exactly ONE night, hmph
->I went down to the hotel’s complimentary breakfast around 8:30 AM – turned out they had “make your own waffle” stations (with griddles for both one regular-sized waffle and four mini-waffles), so I ended up having a waffle for breakfast pretty much every day there (a blueberry batter one the first day, then a strawberry batter every day after because that’s what they had, always with some Reddi-Whip and some syrup and a cup of apple juice)
->We all went downtown for a quick browse around the Santa Cruz Bookshop (a VERY quick one, as the only parking we found was for 30 minutes or less) – nobody got any books, but hilariously I was able to find of all things a fancy Corpse Bride magnet (picture of the poster in a purple frame on thick foam), so I grabbed that; we also walked around a little bit nearby and found a cool metal sculpture of hammerhead sharks swimming around in a swirl
->Main activity of the day? Visiting the Santa Cruz Boardwalk! Things didn’t start out great – we arrived about an hour before the Boardwalk opened, so there wasn’t much to do other than walk around and watch everything open; when we visited the indoor arcade and pirate mini-golf course, we couldn’t get our wristbands to work with the games; and it was a very cold and cloudy morning, meaning I – who had dressed for warmer weather in my capris and Smiler shirt – was freezing – and when we tried visiting the local gift shops as they opened, we found all the hoodies and sweatshirts were absurdly expensive (Mom ended up lending me her light long “beach shirt” instead) – but once the place opened up at 11 AM, things got better:
I. We were some of the first riders on the historic Giant Dipper coaster (an old wooden coaster that’s 101 years old! National Historic Monument and everything), and the ride operators were nice enough to let us go around twice! It’s a very rattly old coaster, but a lot of fun – a surprisingly long and twisty ride for such an old coaster! We got some souvenir magnets of the experience
II. We did a trip on the sky ride (you know, those chairs that travel through the air and let you see more of the park), which was nice – though, annoyingly, you only to go from one “station” to the other instead of doing a complete loop, meh
III. We rode on the local pirate ship rocking ride (you know the kind that swings like a big pendulum – went pretty high up!
IV. Mom and I watched Dad go on Typhoon, a two-armed swinging ride that goes totally upside-down (both of us were like “bit too much for us!” XD), as the weather FINALLY started clearing up
V. We all went on Shockwave, a round ride that you sit around the edges of that spins as it slides up and down a half-pipe track (think a spinning disc version of a skateboard) – it was terrifyingly fun, but made poor Mom nauseous
VI. We all went on the Haunted Castle dark ride, which as you might imagine was a ride full of goofy scares and animatronics jumping out at you from the darkness and whatnot – surprisingly good special effects in spots, but as I am not good with jumpscares, I spent a good portion of the ride hiding under my hat
VII. We then all went on the Ferris wheel (in front of an Indian family with a couple of cute kids – son was celebrating his 1st birthday :) ), which let us stay on for a long time – got some nice views of the surrounding scenery up there
VIII. And we finished things off with a ride on the Sea Swings, one of those spinning swing rides that makes you feel like you’re flying :D
So that was all very fun! One of my favorite parts of the trip, honestly. :) Love a good theme park~
->After that, we hiked over to the nearby Santa Cruz Wharf for lunch, hitting a few gifts shops along the way – including a “Sock Shop” selling Socksmith socks (I got a pair of bat-and-candy-themed Halloween socks and a pair of “Santa Cruz Lighthouse” socks; Mom also got a pair of “Santa Cruz Lighthouse” socks as a present for my aunt for coming over and keeping an eye on our house, but when we unpacked them, we saw some big rips in the back of them. :( So Mom had to e-mail the company to go “hey” – fortunately, after getting a picture of the receipt and the damage (which looks like someone accidentally slit them with a razorblade getting them out of packaging), they’re sending us some new socks), and another gift shop with lots of hippie stuff (Mom got a magnet showing one of the beaches; Dad got a magnet showing a psychedelic hippie guy). We ended up eating at Stagnaro Bros. Restaurant and Fish Market – which, I am pleased to say, also does a very tasty chicken sandwich for those of us who don’t like seafood. :) After that, we went to the very end of the wharf, where we could hear some sea lions barking – and after squeezing past someone fishing on one of the lookout areas (and his two cute dogs), we were able to see a few basking under the far end of the wharf! Mom took some dangerous pictures while I used my zoom, then we headed back up the other side of the wharf trying to see if we could spot any sea otters floating around – no luck, though we did find another bunch of sea lions lounging around on another platform off the side of the wharf. So that was fun.
->After the wharf, we decided we were done with the Boardwalk (all the rest of the rides looked better suited for little kids) and headed back to the hotel to chill for a bit, then went out to get ice cream. Which, unfortunately, turned into a disaster – the place that we were going to go, Donnelly’s (advertised as having the “best ice cream bar”), did not have an obvious parking lot, which led to Dad going over the curb trying to get in (I was seriously terrified we’d blown at least one tire) – and then the lot was blocked by a whole bunch of trucks. Cue Dad screaming and swearing and me wondering why the fuck we’d ever come here again. *sigh* Eventually we ended up going to Ice Cream by Marianne’s, which actually wasn’t far from the hotel – and was also packed. I was so stressed out by the whole experience I ended up just getting a chocolate shake – Dad did the same, and we headed back to the hotel and drank them at the outdoor tables by the parking lot. Good shakes, just – fucking hell. It’s rare that I don’t enjoy ice cream, but that whole experience was bad enough to make it so I barely tasted the damn thing. :(
->After that we went over to Natural Bridges State Beach (which has another one of those “bridge” rocks with an arch, as you might expect) – however, when we first arrived, we couldn’t find the regular parking lot, just the parking lot for the little “outlook point” overlooking the beach and the natural bridge. Which had a 20 minute parking time limit. AND was at the wrong angle for us to get a good shot of the natural bridge thanks to the time of day we’d visited at (you couldn’t get a good look THROUGH the gap). We took a couple of pictures anyway, then went on a search for the regular parking lot – which ended up leading us down some nearby roads to University of California Santa Cruz and its Marine Lab, which wasn’t open to the public and didn’t have access to the beach anyway – but DID have a cool half-a-whale-skeleton outside. That was neat. So we just returned to the hotel up West Cliff Drive, figuring we’d try again tomorrow
->Ended the day by getting some wings from another local pizza place with DoorDash – the mild BBQ wings my parents got were apparently fine, but everybody liked my garlic parmesan wings and the garlic cheesy bread twists were delicious, yay
Sunday, 9/14:
->After breakfast at the hotel (which was way busier than I would have liked and resulted in me very poorly making my strawberry waffle), we went out for a drive looking for Dad’s house and one of the local flea markets – we didn’t find either, but we did stumble across a farmer’s market (mistaking it for the flea market) and took a look around there. I ended up getting a brownie and Dad a mini apple pie from the Companion Bakeshop stall for later after another customer hyped them up – sadly, while my brownie proved to be delicious, Dad was very disappointed in the apple pie when he tried to eat it (apparently it was all crust and crumble and barely any apples)
->After dropping off our snacks at the hotel, we tried and again failed to find the flea market (just not there, I guess), then went up West Cliff Drive back to Natural Bridges State Beach. THERE we found the regular parking lot (turns out it was just the other side of the lookout point lot) – but as it was pay, and nobody seemed to be manning the pay station, we decided to go and visit the beach on Wednesday instead, and just went back to the hotel to hang out until it was time to go to the Main Event of the day
->Said Main Event? Visiting the Mystery Spot! This is a fun little attraction up on the side of a steep hill where – thanks to the peculiar tilt of the house constructed on the spot and the fact that you can’t look at the horizon properly (because, you know, all the trees) – everyone appears to lean at impossible angles while standing straight up, two people of different heights standing on two blocks on apparently level ground will, if they switch places, suddenly find themselves eye-to-eye, and balls will appear to roll uphill. Apparently it’s something called a “gravity hill” as per Wikipedia, and it’s a fairly neat optical illusion. :D We arrived early for our reserved tour and poked around the local “redwood cathedral” (a group of redwoods growing in a little ring) and the gift shop (my parents got another magnet of the back of a car going to the Mystery Spot, and Mom got a temporary tattoo from the machines outside; I was tempted by a banana slug plush but was pretty sure I’d never fit it in my bag), then hung around until our tour started. Our tour guide was a pretty funny guy with all the cheesy jokes, and he did a good job demonstrating the mystery of the Mystery Spot – I managed to get a little bit of video of a ball seeming to roll up a grooved board, for example. I unfortunately didn’t get a chance to hear everything because Dad and the family right in front of us insisted on messing around with some of the demonstration stuff (like some bars above a doorway that, if you hang from them, make you hang at a weird angle) halfway through the presentation), but I did actually get to volunteer for one of the demos (walking along a tilted board behind the house while blocking my view of the roof to see if I could see things as they really were – I could not and totally screwed up where my eyeline should be while walking toward his level XD), which was fun. We even got free bumper stickers at the end of it, which was nice – and a chance to see a banana slug in a little terrarium at the end. Good times~
->And then we went looking for lunch and everything became miserable again. *sigh* Mostly because the restaurant we wanted to visit, The Crow’s Nest, was attached to a giant pay parking lot for the nearby harbor that both a) was packed and b) had no visible way to get out! It took us quite a while to find our way back out again, and we just could not find another restaurant to save our lives. Meaning we once again ended up eating at a place within walking distance of our hotel while heading back there – a fast food burger joint called Habits, which had decent food (though given it was 3 PM before we ate, I was hungry enough to eat ANYTHING) and great shakes – my chocolate shake was really thick and tasty. :) Still would have preferred to eat EARLIER, but – well, us having trouble finding places to eat was another theme of the trip, sadly…
->After that, we dropped the car at the hotel, then went and walked around Downtown, looking for anything that might strike our fancy – popped into one antique shop, but there was nothing in there that Mom and Dad wanted that they could actually take back, and the rest of the shops weren’t to our fancy. Though there was some nice art and architecture – like a fun dinosaur made partly out of a little crane, and a beautiful clock tower. Mainly, though, we just all ended up very hot, sweaty, and disappointed, and everyone had to take a shower to cool down once we got back to the hotel
->Day ended with some more DoorDashed dinner – Mom got a salad, while I got what was SUPPOSED to be a personal pepperoni pizza, but was instead a plain cheese. :( I was too tired to argue about it, though, and ate as much as I could before putting the final two pieces in my minifridge for later. Also had one bite of my brownie (as I was too stuffed for much else), which – as previously noted – was tasty
Monday, 9/15:
->After my usual too-early wake-up and usual hotel breakfast (though I had the mini-waffles instead of the big one as the singular waffle griddle was in use), we all piled in the car to head to our Main Event for the day – a trip on Roaring Camp’s little railroad, going through the local redwoods! We ended up getting there a little after 9 AM –
Which proved to be waaaaaay too early, as nothing was open yet. XD So we headed up the road, stopped by a much-nicer-than-the-first-one CVS for some essentials (bandaids for my toes, as I was developing some blisters; gum for me; and toothpaste for Mom and Dad, who naturally were going through their tube faster than I was mine), then drove around the town of Felton before visiting a local thrift store. Where Mom talked me into trying to get a bathing suit so we could go in the hotel pool later. However, none of the bathing suits on offer fit me (the ones that were big enough simply did not have enough support in the boob area), so instead she picked up some shorts made of the right material and told me to wear a sports bra and she’d lend me a tank top
->With shorts acquired, we headed back to Roaring Camp, which was now properly open, took a little stroll through the fake Western town they’d built (complete with a blacksmith’s shop and two telegraph booths that you could use to tap out messages to a friend in the other booth), then hopped on the Big Trees train for the ride up Bear Mountain and back! Which was absolutely gorgeous, let me tell you – redwoods are extremely pretty as well as being almost terrifyingly tall, and this place had PLENTY of them. The little train itself was very cute and fun, and we got a lot of fun trivia on the ride from our conductor Carlos and brakeman Colin – including some facts about why the redwoods thrive so much near Santa Cruz (it’s because the area gets a load of fog in the morning, and redwoods need a LOT of water, so they happily suck that shit up); a story about how they discovered that one of the local “mother” redwoods, upon falling over having spawned a bunch of saplings, was caught by her own “children” and is slowly being lifted back to vertical as the younger redwoods grow (which was very neat); and a scary moment in the railroad’s history when a group bombed their old line thinking they were a lumbering operation (they were not), stranding the train up on the mountainside for six months (fortunately no passengers were hurt, though I imagine it was a scary hike down the mountain) until they could get a new track built (you can still see the remains of the old one in the trees). It was a very interesting and enlightening trip, and we all enjoyed standing among the redwoods during the stop near the top of the mountain and just soaking in the majesty of the trees. Good stuff, would recommend!
->And then – you guessed it – we went looking for lunch (after dropping some stuff off at the hotel) and had to spend longer than we wanted searching for a restaurant we could actually GO to after the place Mom initially wanted to try, Zelda’s in Capitola, was packed (absolutely NO parking anywhere around it). Fortunately, this time we stumbled across a local place near a strip mall, Jeffery’s, around 1:30ish, and managed to have a pretty nice meal there – Mom and I both got giant salads (Cobb in her case, Chicken Caesar in mine), while Dad went for a breakfast option and had a shot stack of blueberry pancakes. Tasty food that wasn’t too terrifyingly expensive OR too late in the day, yay~
->Oh, and you know what else we stumbled on while looking for a restaurant? Where Dad used to live! Or, rather, the general area, as the neighborhood is now a LOT more built up and the shop he used to live behind is now just an abandoned building. But yeah, we found where his house at least USED to be. Which was nice – we were hoping to figure out where it was! Even if we couldn’t find the house itself
->After lunch, we returned to the hotel and went swimming for about an hour (the pool was JUST the right temperature, though bees kept drowning themselves in it trying to get a drink; my parents also tried the jacuzzi, though I wasn’t keen on getting in anything hot), then showered and hung out until suppertime. Mom decided she wanted to try getting some food from the local Safeway grocery store instead of ordering DoorDash again, so we headed over there and got some meatballs, potato wedges, and some salad for Mom, plus a six-pack of water and a six-pack of root beer so we’d have drinks for the remaining couple of days. Then we went back and warmed everything up, along with my two remaining cheese pizza slices –
Aaand proceeded to have a pretty terrible dinner. Like, the potato wedges weren’t too bad, but the meatballs were icky, and the cheese pizza notably NOT good the next day. We ate as much as we could and then went back to our rooms, where I finished off the day eating my brownie (which was nice and fudgy and delicious, at least)
Tuesday, 9/16:
->After my usual early awakening and hotel waffle, we hit the road for Big Sur – a very rugged chunk of coast where the mountains basically go right down to the sea – shortly after 9 AM. However, on the way, Mom suggested we stop at Monterey, so we swung by there and – after figuring out the parking situation – walked around Old Fisherman’s Wharf there, looking at the boats and all the shops (most of which weren’t open at the time – everything seems to open at 10 AM or later in all the touristy spots). Nice little side detour which inspired us to come back the next day for a more proper walk around!
->After that, it was off down the highway and to Big Sur and the surrounding coastline! Most of the drive up there was worryingly foggy, but fortunately we got there during a break in the weather and got to enjoy some absolutely GORGEOUS views. :D Like, this entire stretch of coast is just SO pretty, with super-blue water and rocks jutting out of the water and little beaches in between the mountains – we stopped multiple times to take pictures at the various little lookout spots, and in one spot to do a little hiking down a trail for a better look at one of the beaches and nearby rock formations. Granted, it was also a bit of a scary ride, as the road along the coast is VERY winding, and not all of the spots have proper guardrails! (Though it is safer than Dad remembers it being when he lived there back in the 70s.) Plus there was some really high bridges here and there – including Bixby Bridge, which is 280 feet up in the air according to Wikipedia. Mom was VERY nervous when we drove over it, despite it being made of pretty solid concrete! XD But the views were more than worth it – the scenery there is something else. I can see why people come to look at it so often! :)
->And then, of course, we turned around and went looking for lunch, and again ran into the problem of “there are fewer restaurants around here than you think and ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE TO PARK.” *sigh* After once again heading to Zelda’s and finding it mobbed with no parking spaces anywhere, we tooled around hopelessly until Mom decided we ought to hit Safeway’s again. So we swung by the grocery store; got four big chicken tenders, a bag of chips, and some mixed fruit; went back to the hotel to grab some plates and drinks, then headed over to West Cliff Drive to eat because Mom really wanted to eat up there at some point –
Aaaand it proved to be really freaking windy and miserable up there. :( Like, sunny, but cold and my chips kept trying to blow away. *sigh* What was it about us and food there, seriously…
->After that, we couldn’t figure out anything else to do, so we headed back to the hotel, sat around outside comparing the pictures we got of the various locations in Big Sur for a bit (Mom got some good snaps, and she and Dad were both very complimentary about mine), then hung out in our respective rooms until dinner. Mom ordered Chinese via DoorDash this time, getting wonton soup, sweet-and-sour chicken, and fried rice – and while the food itself was pretty middling (like the pizza on the first night – it was fine, but not amazing), there was a lot more of it than expected. In fact, there was enough for two nights! Making it easily the best deal we’d gotten on food all trip. *shrug* You take your wins where you can!
->And then we ended the night on a better note by taking hike up to Ice Cream By Marianne’s as the sun went down to have some ice cream sundaes – hot fudge for Mom and Dad (Mom with coffee ice cream, Dad with vanilla), brownie for me (with “Malt Ball Fudge” – aka chocolate with bits of Whoppers in it; I have fond memories of that flavor from the Wakefield Brickley’s). We happily caught the shop during a quieter moment, and had some lovely sundaes. :) Nice to know that we finally found ONE place that was truly good!
Wednesday, 9/17:
->After my usual early awakening and waffle breakfast, we set out for Monterey on a very foggy morning shortly after 9 AM. Fortunately the fog cleared up not long after we arrived back on Old Fisherman’s Wharf, and we had a nice stroll up and down the place. Our first stop was the general store for souvenirs – Mom and Dad both got some nice shirts (Mom with an octopus on hers, Dad with a VW bus on his), while I got a reversible windbreaker jacket (you can wear it plain or soft-side out) with an otter inside. I desperately needed a new jacket like that, so I was glad to get it. We then went up the wharf, looking at the various restaurants and seeing where we wanted to eat later (mostly, which places served both fish AND chicken, as my parents like seafood but I’m not a huge fan). We also stopped by the Carousel Fine Candies shop for a pre-lunch treat, with Mom and I getting two “turtles” (chocolate, caramel, and pecans in a vaguely turtle-ish shape – I got milk chocolate, she got dark chocolate) and Dad getting a piece of plain fudge –
And we all ended up pretty damn disappointed, as my and Mom’s turtles were mostly just nuts with a little bit of chocolate and caramel, and Dad’s fudge was so sticky he couldn’t even really eat it. And when he let Mom and me share it, it was more sugary than chocolately. *sigh* Definitely should have tried one of the OTHER candy stores on the wharf!
->We then directed our steps along the nearby rec trail to look at the harbor and check out the various animals and whatnot hanging out on the rocks in the water – mostly pelicans and some harbor seals. Mom was REALLY HOPING to see an otter, but despite all the kelp floating in the water, there were none to be found. :( Sorry Mom – I really looked hard for you! After reaching the end of the trail at Cannery Row, we headed back and past Custom House (first government building in California, according to Wikipedia – also a museum of the history of the place) and into downtown. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to see there – just the usual collection of restaurants and regular old shops that didn’t appeal to us. (Though we were able to duck inside a Walgreens to get some Kleenex for Mom, whose kept sneezing, and some more sunscreen for me.) *shakehead* The problem with visiting cities in California – they’re not really SIGNIFICANTLY different from cities over here!
->With our downtown dreams dashed, we headed back to the Wharf for our lunch – and after considering our options, we went with Abalonetti’s Bar & Grill, as they had stuff like personal pizzas (plus a sign outside saying that little kids were welcome, in direct contrast to one of the other restaurants having a sign forbidding them). We sat outside on the little patio to the side – and while we had to deal with a lot of pigeons, the food was pretty tasty! My parents both had fish and chips, which they said was good, and I had a personal Sicilian Sausage pizza, which was quite nice – very creamy cheese! AND, amazingly, it was one of the cheapest meals we had too – much cheaper than Habits or the Diner! So yeah, if you’re ever in that area, I TOTALLY recommend going to Abalonetti’s! And avoiding Carousel Candies. Seriously, don’t, I’m sure the other candy places are better
->Once we’d eaten (at a decent time, no less – about 12:30 PM!), we headed back to the hotel to drop off our stuff and have a little sit, then went to Natural Bridges State Beach! This time someone was there, so we paid the parking fee, parked the car, and headed down onto the beach to get some pictures of the natural bridge from the RIGHT angle –
And to go into the Pacific Ocean! Sort of – Mom and Dad planned to jump straight in, but as they waded out into the surf, it proved to be WAAAY too cold, so they just stood around at the edge and got splashed while asking me to take some pictures. XD Me, I never planned to put more than a foot in (as Dad had previously warned us it was likely to be chilly), so once they were out of the water, I shucked my sneakers and went toward the tide, retreating from a particularly aggressive wave before putting my feet in the retreating water. And yes, it was fucking cold. XD Mom got a few pictures of me touching the Pacific with my toesies, and then we headed over to the bathrooms so Mom and Dad could get changed out of their wet bathing suits, then back up to the car so I could rub off my feet before we headed back to the hotel
->Day ended with me hanging out in my room rereading my own fanfics on my phone while my parents sat in the jacuzzi for a bit; us finishing off as much of the leftover Chinese food from the day before at 6:30 PM (look at that, a normal time for dinner too), then everyone heading back to the rooms to pack up the bags and get airport outfits ready and whatnot before turning in – I personally hit the sack a little after 10 PM, setting alarms for 6 AM on both the clock radio and my phone
Thursday, 9/18:
->Naturally, I woke up at 2:45 AM needing the bathroom and really struggled to get back to sleep. *sigh* Fortunately I did eventually drift off again, and woke up to the sound of my phone alarm going off at 6:02 AM (clock radio never went off). I got dressed, finished packing (giving a few items I couldn’t fit in my bag, like my gum and band-aids, to Mom), then we all went down for a quick final breakfast before we left – feeling like a waffle might take too much time, I opted instead for a banana muffin, then followed it up with strawberry yogurt, while Dad had a blueberry muffin and Mom had part of a bagel. *shrug* Not the worst breakfast to leave California on, I suppose!
->After breakfast, we hit the road, and had a relatively smooth drive to the airport...right up until we tried to get into the car rental place’s parking garage so we could return our car. First, Siri took us around the front of the building, where there was no place to actually return it (we’d gotten the car from the fifth level, and were expected to return it up there because the building was used by multiple car rental places and they all operated on different levels); then, when Mom tried to call the 800 number to get directions from the rental place, Fox, while Dad angrily circled around and around, she first got a guy who – after realizing he didn’t know what he was talking about, judging by how she described the conversation to me afterward – swore in her general direction and hung up, then a guy who simply had no idea where we were. Fortunately, Dad managed to find the correct path into the garage by chance, and we were able to return the car without issue after that. But still – just figures that would be our final experience with the rental car and California traffic!
->Once the car was returned, it was into the airport, where we made our way through security (Mom’s bag was briefly searched because some of her collectibles came up a little weird on the scanner – fortunately the TSA agent who poked through was very nice about it), then found our gate and settled in for a long wait until boarding…
And, as we waited, we started hearing announcements asking people to check their roller bags, especially if they were in C section, like we were. It soon came out that the flight was 100% full, and the plane was an older model, meaning they needed people to check their luggage to make sure they had enough space in all the overhead bins for carry-ons and whatnot. Now, we actually had carry-ons, but Mom said we should check our bags so we didn’t have to fight for overhead space and to give the staff a break, so I dug out my book for the flight (along with a little notebook I THOUGHT I might use for creative thoughts – never did, I was just too annoyed/wiped whenever I was in the hotel), and we checked the bags. Which really did make me nervous, since a lot of my favorite fandom t-shirts were in there, but fortunately they made it to Providence with us just fine. Whew!
->While all that was going on, we also had a struggle with the online boarding passes on our phones, as neither Mom nor Dad seemed able to bring theirs up – fortunately, once everyone got on the WiFi and renewed their sessions and such, we were able to get the QR codes. Had a second struggle at Chicago with Dad’s pass specifically, but as he made it home with us, we got it resolved
->As for the flights themselves – the one from San Jose to Chicago was REALLY bumpy in spots, while the one to Chicago to Providence was smoother, if no less packed. Both flights were also slightly shorter, for mysterious reasons possibly relating to the jet stream. The real issue with both, though, was that, thanks to time zones working against us and a slight delay in our second plane taking off, we didn’t reach Providence until almost 10 PM. And then hiking to the baggage claim, finding an Uber driver, waiting for said driver, and finally being driven home took another hour, meaning we arrived back at the house around 11 PM. By which point I was tired, annoyed with all the long flights, and really hungry (as I didn’t take advantage of snack service on the planes, because, well, I didn’t want to remove my mask in an enclosed space with all those people), so you can see why I wasn’t online then! Instead, I hopped in the shower while Mom made us all some breakfast for supper (as pancakes and bacon was pretty much the only meal she could cook with what was left in the fridge), then I bummed around and caught up on a few things online while she and Dad went to bed. Ended up going to bed myself around 2:30 AM because I was tired and didn’t want to stay up all night. Felt good to finally sleep with all my plushies again!
TL;DR version: We had some fun moments on the trip – going up West Cliff Drive and looking at the scenery; visiting the Santa Cruz Boardwalk and riding the rides; visiting the Santa Cruz Wharf for lunch and seeing the sea lions; visiting the Mystery Spot; visiting Roaring Camp and taking the train ride through the redwoods; visiting Big Sur and looking at the scenery; and visiting Monterey and checking out Old Fisherman’s Wharf – but I’m not sure it was FULLY worth all the aggravation we suffered trying to get around and find places to eat and park. And the long plane rides were pretty fucking miserable. *sigh* Personally, I think it would have been a lot better vacation if:
A) We’d gotten a different rental car (one that Dad would have found less irritating) and had a better sense of what Santa Cruz traffic was like going in
B) We’d gotten a better idea of what there was to eat, and maybe gone to Safeway more often to pack “picnic” lunches or something
C) We’d gone for a shorter stay – I feel like we could have done the Roaring Camp “Big Trees” train ride and the Mystery Spot in one day (as they were both fairly close to the hotel), then Big Sur and Monterey in another, which would have lopped two days off the whole mess and maybe made it so we had slightly better rides on less full planes going home
*shrug* But that’s hindsight for you. Not sorry we went, but I don’t think I’ll ever want to go back. (And I’m still considering if I really want to do a plane ride across the whole fucking Atlantic now to go to Alton Towers next year...is my love of The Smiler enough to make me want to go through that...) Anyway, I plan to do some photo posts on tumblr tomorrow, which I will link over here so you can see the snaps I took of the trip – but here's a few teaser images so you don’t feel cheated:
Nice, huh? :) Hopefully you like the full photo posts coming tomorrow! In the meantime, here's a quick sum-up of the other things I got done today:
FreeTube: Spent a little time this evening after finishing the Trip Diary and uploading a bunch of vacation pictures from my phone watching the latest from C. M. Alongi and CaFae Latte/Heart Of Iron – “Scenes & Out of Context Quotes!” Which was two collections of out-of-context quotes from the upcoming Heart Of Iron novel (which I’d already seen on TikTok thanks to Gigs linking the videos to me earlier – notable quotes included an angry Nicole going “if you tell me to leave you behind, I will paint a penis on your face with glitter!” and JC and Cyrus joking about how someone might get a choice between “a decade in prison or sitting through your [Cyrus’s] kidnapping is wrong class,” with Cyrus saying he’d make sure there was a test at the end so the perp couldn’t just sleep through it – JC: “And people say justice reform is too complicated” XD), along with a couple of skits illustrating specific scenes from the book:
I. Nicole and JC riding in a car with Cyrus, and Nicole trying to tell JC that they like them for who they are now by saying how she thought Superman was overrated (as JC had said previously they felt like Superman while they were high); JC countered with a list of all of her good qualities (college-educated, artist, witch, clairvoyant, teacher at a fancy academy), but Nicole refused to back down, saying that they’d never made fun of her for covering up even in summer, made excellent hot chocolate and conversation, and that they were honest, and she appreciated that. JC was like “well, sweet of you to think that” –
And then Cyrus was like “what, I don’t get a list of good qualities?” JC was like “nope, not unless you’re as cute as Nicole WITHOUT relying on glamour.” XD Cyrus was like “fuck me then,” causing JC to go “yeah, fuck you” with a shit-eating grin. XD I love their friendship~
II. The three in cuffs in the back of a police car, having been arrested for something, with JC commenting that they weren’t surprised CYRUS had been arrested before, giving his general annoyingness and his skill with “cutlery” (Cyrus protested that most of his arrests had been in the 50s and 60s during the Fae Rights era, with his latest one being in the 90s when he foolishly tried to outdrink a werewolf pack, then complained his nose itched – JC was kind enough to let him scratch it on their jacket), but they were puzzled why NICOLE had a record – Nicole simply said “George Floyd protests.” *sigh* JC then admitted they’d lost count of how many times they’d been arrested, saying the police just loved to see them in handcuffs – Nicole said that they did look good in them, and ace Cyrus was like “ew, no more talking – especially with the cops in earshot; let’s wait for our lawyer.” Skit ended with JC being like “Cyrus, YOU’RE our lawyer” XD Whoops!
III. The three plus an additional character, Rachel the mercenary, being put in cells, and the cop being a bit of a dick about JC being nonbinary, saying that since they went to a men’s prison before, they would be going in the men’s cell now – prompting Cyrus to tell said cop that, if he was dividing them up by penises and vaginas, fairies were all unisex. Apparently they can all both impregnate people and get pregnant barring medical issues – “like sea slugs” Nicole put in calmly. (Rachel, to JC: “Sea slugs can do that?” JC: *baffled shrug*) JC then asked if they should have been using different pronouns, but Cyrus assured them it was fine – apparently fairies picked up some human gender stuff when the Realms first met ages ago, and they’ve kept them around like a fashion trend that’s never gone out of style. Though of course different kingdoms see gender different ways, with one to a dozen different genders being recognized depending on where you are – cue the cop loudly announcing that the “snowflakes” were going in the men’s cell together. XD Interesting stuff – and I’m not sure if this is actual fairy biology from Cyrus, or him fucking with the cop. I would fully believe either!
IV. And a final darker skit of Bob in some mercenary’s basement with the main villain of the book, Red Wolf, asking what fate he has planned for her when he gets her back to the Fae Realm – torture, memory wipe, servitude, disabling her and throwing her into the wilds? Red Wolf asked what SHE would have done to a traitor who caused the kind of damage she did before leaving (she incited a rebellion of human slaves), and she said that depends on when in her “career” you asked her, citing that when she fought under one specific commander, she just straight-up killed them, but that she tried to find other solutions these days. Though she admitted it was effective and – compared to whatever Red Wolf had in store for her – merciful. Red Wolf’s response?
“What happened to ‘Mercy is a tool that must be used carefully and sparingly?’” *wince* Bob was like “...I regret holding that belief now and I strongly urge you to give it up yourself.” Red Wolf retorted that it sound like she was asking him to be cruel and merciless ALL the time, causing a disgusted Bob to go “My current protege is a third your age and already so much more original.” Which, yeah, I think we can all agree Cyrus is pretty original. :P
Good stuff! Like I said, I’d seen the out-of-context quotes before, but they were fun to rewatch, and the skits were great. :D I do enjoy this series a lot! And I hope I can get the time and attention span to enjoy the book once it’s officially out.
Other: It being a very nice day today, we did play some beanbags this afternoon – though only three rounds, as the gnats and mosquitoes were out in force. I had a poor start, but managed to work my way up to a couple of wins in the second and third rounds, while Dad went from top to bottom to middle, and Mom manged a couple of seconds before crashing in the third game, aw. (Though it’s worth noting tonight was Game Night, and she DID end up winning twice at Clue, so…) Final scores were me 3-W-W; Dad W-3-2; Mom 2-2-3 – we’ll see if we play tomorrow, and how that goes if we do!
...yeah, most of the day was spent writing the above "travel diary." ^^; I wanted to get it out of the way! But I hope to get some more done tomorrow. Obviously I have to get the photo posts done on Victor Luvs Alice, and catch up with any messages and asks on both my tumblrs -- but I'm also hoping that I can squeeze in some video gaming -- maybe some Fallout 4 and an update to the FO4 Playthrough Progression. And I have to catch up on the episode of Jon's F:NV YOLO Remastered series that I missed too...we'll see what happens tomorrow! Night all!
Friday, 9/12:
->We all got up at 2 AM, then spent the morning flying to California (because time zones meant we arrived there around 11 AM) – started with a two hour flight to Chicago, then a four hour one to San Jose, which were both pretty rough. After a certain amount of sitting, you REALLY want to get up and move around, I’ve found!
->We had trouble figuring out where the hell the rental car place was because the airport didn’t have great signage; eventually found the place and got a very modern car with all the fancy bells and whistles which had a weird habit of stalling out briefly whenever we stopped – Dad openly hated it, and frankly I don’t blame him
->Traffic was pretty miserable heading to Santa Cruz (road work), and even worse in Santa Cruz – figuring out where the fuck we could park was a constant battle during the trip; in this instance we found our way to the hotel and asked if we could park there since we’d be checking in later, and they happily allowed it
->Right before that, though, we had a bad experience at a local CVS trying to get hotel essentials, as we couldn’t find the damn travel-size stuff as they’d moved the section but not the sign, and there was all sorts of other drama happening in the store. *grimacing* We did at least get shampoo and conditioner, toothpaste, and a little stick of Banana Boat Kid’s Sports Sunscreen (it looks like a deodorant and was so fucking useful), along with a “California” baseball hat for me and sunglasses for both me and Dad
->We had lunch at 1:30 PM at the Santa Cruz Diner down the street from the hotel after we parked there, which had decent enough food (HUGE burger, lots of friends) – I had trouble enjoying it though because I was exhausted (only got about 2 ½ hour’s sleep the previous night despite my best efforts), had a sinus headache (from the plane rides – had trouble getting my ears to pop, and I was wearing one of my stiff headbands, which I think didn’t help matters), and was just generally miserable from all the bullshit
->After lunch, the hotel was nice enough to let us check in early (around 2:30 PM), and I was able to go into my room, take some headache meds, chill out on my phone, then lay down on my bed and nap for a bit
->Eventually we went out and drove down West Cliff Drive, which was very pretty – we got out and walked a stretch (down to the Surfing Museum, a converted lighthouse), looking at the pretty rock formations (including a natural bridge) and the crashing waves on one side, and the cool-looking trees on the other – then we had to drive home and everything went to shit again because obviously we were having trouble finding our way around
->We ended up having pizza from Pizza My Heart delivered to Mom and Dad’s hotel room with the help of DoorDash for dinner – despite the reviews claiming it was the best pizza in Santa Cruz, we found it merely fine (like, it wasn’t bad, it just also wasn’t SPECTACULAR)
Saturday, 9/13:
->I woke up around 5:30 AM and couldn’t get back to sleep – admittedly I passed out pretty early, but bleh. This proved to be a repeating pattern throughout the trip – I generally had no trouble FALLING asleep as I was so freaking tired, but almost inevitably I’d wake up early needing to use the bathroom or because I was hot, and I’d have real trouble going back to sleep because I didn’t have any of my usual plushies or blankets (I was reduced to cuddling a pillow). I think I got a solid eight hours exactly ONE night, hmph
->I went down to the hotel’s complimentary breakfast around 8:30 AM – turned out they had “make your own waffle” stations (with griddles for both one regular-sized waffle and four mini-waffles), so I ended up having a waffle for breakfast pretty much every day there (a blueberry batter one the first day, then a strawberry batter every day after because that’s what they had, always with some Reddi-Whip and some syrup and a cup of apple juice)
->We all went downtown for a quick browse around the Santa Cruz Bookshop (a VERY quick one, as the only parking we found was for 30 minutes or less) – nobody got any books, but hilariously I was able to find of all things a fancy Corpse Bride magnet (picture of the poster in a purple frame on thick foam), so I grabbed that; we also walked around a little bit nearby and found a cool metal sculpture of hammerhead sharks swimming around in a swirl
->Main activity of the day? Visiting the Santa Cruz Boardwalk! Things didn’t start out great – we arrived about an hour before the Boardwalk opened, so there wasn’t much to do other than walk around and watch everything open; when we visited the indoor arcade and pirate mini-golf course, we couldn’t get our wristbands to work with the games; and it was a very cold and cloudy morning, meaning I – who had dressed for warmer weather in my capris and Smiler shirt – was freezing – and when we tried visiting the local gift shops as they opened, we found all the hoodies and sweatshirts were absurdly expensive (Mom ended up lending me her light long “beach shirt” instead) – but once the place opened up at 11 AM, things got better:
I. We were some of the first riders on the historic Giant Dipper coaster (an old wooden coaster that’s 101 years old! National Historic Monument and everything), and the ride operators were nice enough to let us go around twice! It’s a very rattly old coaster, but a lot of fun – a surprisingly long and twisty ride for such an old coaster! We got some souvenir magnets of the experience
II. We did a trip on the sky ride (you know, those chairs that travel through the air and let you see more of the park), which was nice – though, annoyingly, you only to go from one “station” to the other instead of doing a complete loop, meh
III. We rode on the local pirate ship rocking ride (you know the kind that swings like a big pendulum – went pretty high up!
IV. Mom and I watched Dad go on Typhoon, a two-armed swinging ride that goes totally upside-down (both of us were like “bit too much for us!” XD), as the weather FINALLY started clearing up
V. We all went on Shockwave, a round ride that you sit around the edges of that spins as it slides up and down a half-pipe track (think a spinning disc version of a skateboard) – it was terrifyingly fun, but made poor Mom nauseous
VI. We all went on the Haunted Castle dark ride, which as you might imagine was a ride full of goofy scares and animatronics jumping out at you from the darkness and whatnot – surprisingly good special effects in spots, but as I am not good with jumpscares, I spent a good portion of the ride hiding under my hat
VII. We then all went on the Ferris wheel (in front of an Indian family with a couple of cute kids – son was celebrating his 1st birthday :) ), which let us stay on for a long time – got some nice views of the surrounding scenery up there
VIII. And we finished things off with a ride on the Sea Swings, one of those spinning swing rides that makes you feel like you’re flying :D
So that was all very fun! One of my favorite parts of the trip, honestly. :) Love a good theme park~
->After that, we hiked over to the nearby Santa Cruz Wharf for lunch, hitting a few gifts shops along the way – including a “Sock Shop” selling Socksmith socks (I got a pair of bat-and-candy-themed Halloween socks and a pair of “Santa Cruz Lighthouse” socks; Mom also got a pair of “Santa Cruz Lighthouse” socks as a present for my aunt for coming over and keeping an eye on our house, but when we unpacked them, we saw some big rips in the back of them. :( So Mom had to e-mail the company to go “hey” – fortunately, after getting a picture of the receipt and the damage (which looks like someone accidentally slit them with a razorblade getting them out of packaging), they’re sending us some new socks), and another gift shop with lots of hippie stuff (Mom got a magnet showing one of the beaches; Dad got a magnet showing a psychedelic hippie guy). We ended up eating at Stagnaro Bros. Restaurant and Fish Market – which, I am pleased to say, also does a very tasty chicken sandwich for those of us who don’t like seafood. :) After that, we went to the very end of the wharf, where we could hear some sea lions barking – and after squeezing past someone fishing on one of the lookout areas (and his two cute dogs), we were able to see a few basking under the far end of the wharf! Mom took some dangerous pictures while I used my zoom, then we headed back up the other side of the wharf trying to see if we could spot any sea otters floating around – no luck, though we did find another bunch of sea lions lounging around on another platform off the side of the wharf. So that was fun.
->After the wharf, we decided we were done with the Boardwalk (all the rest of the rides looked better suited for little kids) and headed back to the hotel to chill for a bit, then went out to get ice cream. Which, unfortunately, turned into a disaster – the place that we were going to go, Donnelly’s (advertised as having the “best ice cream bar”), did not have an obvious parking lot, which led to Dad going over the curb trying to get in (I was seriously terrified we’d blown at least one tire) – and then the lot was blocked by a whole bunch of trucks. Cue Dad screaming and swearing and me wondering why the fuck we’d ever come here again. *sigh* Eventually we ended up going to Ice Cream by Marianne’s, which actually wasn’t far from the hotel – and was also packed. I was so stressed out by the whole experience I ended up just getting a chocolate shake – Dad did the same, and we headed back to the hotel and drank them at the outdoor tables by the parking lot. Good shakes, just – fucking hell. It’s rare that I don’t enjoy ice cream, but that whole experience was bad enough to make it so I barely tasted the damn thing. :(
->After that we went over to Natural Bridges State Beach (which has another one of those “bridge” rocks with an arch, as you might expect) – however, when we first arrived, we couldn’t find the regular parking lot, just the parking lot for the little “outlook point” overlooking the beach and the natural bridge. Which had a 20 minute parking time limit. AND was at the wrong angle for us to get a good shot of the natural bridge thanks to the time of day we’d visited at (you couldn’t get a good look THROUGH the gap). We took a couple of pictures anyway, then went on a search for the regular parking lot – which ended up leading us down some nearby roads to University of California Santa Cruz and its Marine Lab, which wasn’t open to the public and didn’t have access to the beach anyway – but DID have a cool half-a-whale-skeleton outside. That was neat. So we just returned to the hotel up West Cliff Drive, figuring we’d try again tomorrow
->Ended the day by getting some wings from another local pizza place with DoorDash – the mild BBQ wings my parents got were apparently fine, but everybody liked my garlic parmesan wings and the garlic cheesy bread twists were delicious, yay
Sunday, 9/14:
->After breakfast at the hotel (which was way busier than I would have liked and resulted in me very poorly making my strawberry waffle), we went out for a drive looking for Dad’s house and one of the local flea markets – we didn’t find either, but we did stumble across a farmer’s market (mistaking it for the flea market) and took a look around there. I ended up getting a brownie and Dad a mini apple pie from the Companion Bakeshop stall for later after another customer hyped them up – sadly, while my brownie proved to be delicious, Dad was very disappointed in the apple pie when he tried to eat it (apparently it was all crust and crumble and barely any apples)
->After dropping off our snacks at the hotel, we tried and again failed to find the flea market (just not there, I guess), then went up West Cliff Drive back to Natural Bridges State Beach. THERE we found the regular parking lot (turns out it was just the other side of the lookout point lot) – but as it was pay, and nobody seemed to be manning the pay station, we decided to go and visit the beach on Wednesday instead, and just went back to the hotel to hang out until it was time to go to the Main Event of the day
->Said Main Event? Visiting the Mystery Spot! This is a fun little attraction up on the side of a steep hill where – thanks to the peculiar tilt of the house constructed on the spot and the fact that you can’t look at the horizon properly (because, you know, all the trees) – everyone appears to lean at impossible angles while standing straight up, two people of different heights standing on two blocks on apparently level ground will, if they switch places, suddenly find themselves eye-to-eye, and balls will appear to roll uphill. Apparently it’s something called a “gravity hill” as per Wikipedia, and it’s a fairly neat optical illusion. :D We arrived early for our reserved tour and poked around the local “redwood cathedral” (a group of redwoods growing in a little ring) and the gift shop (my parents got another magnet of the back of a car going to the Mystery Spot, and Mom got a temporary tattoo from the machines outside; I was tempted by a banana slug plush but was pretty sure I’d never fit it in my bag), then hung around until our tour started. Our tour guide was a pretty funny guy with all the cheesy jokes, and he did a good job demonstrating the mystery of the Mystery Spot – I managed to get a little bit of video of a ball seeming to roll up a grooved board, for example. I unfortunately didn’t get a chance to hear everything because Dad and the family right in front of us insisted on messing around with some of the demonstration stuff (like some bars above a doorway that, if you hang from them, make you hang at a weird angle) halfway through the presentation), but I did actually get to volunteer for one of the demos (walking along a tilted board behind the house while blocking my view of the roof to see if I could see things as they really were – I could not and totally screwed up where my eyeline should be while walking toward his level XD), which was fun. We even got free bumper stickers at the end of it, which was nice – and a chance to see a banana slug in a little terrarium at the end. Good times~
->And then we went looking for lunch and everything became miserable again. *sigh* Mostly because the restaurant we wanted to visit, The Crow’s Nest, was attached to a giant pay parking lot for the nearby harbor that both a) was packed and b) had no visible way to get out! It took us quite a while to find our way back out again, and we just could not find another restaurant to save our lives. Meaning we once again ended up eating at a place within walking distance of our hotel while heading back there – a fast food burger joint called Habits, which had decent food (though given it was 3 PM before we ate, I was hungry enough to eat ANYTHING) and great shakes – my chocolate shake was really thick and tasty. :) Still would have preferred to eat EARLIER, but – well, us having trouble finding places to eat was another theme of the trip, sadly…
->After that, we dropped the car at the hotel, then went and walked around Downtown, looking for anything that might strike our fancy – popped into one antique shop, but there was nothing in there that Mom and Dad wanted that they could actually take back, and the rest of the shops weren’t to our fancy. Though there was some nice art and architecture – like a fun dinosaur made partly out of a little crane, and a beautiful clock tower. Mainly, though, we just all ended up very hot, sweaty, and disappointed, and everyone had to take a shower to cool down once we got back to the hotel
->Day ended with some more DoorDashed dinner – Mom got a salad, while I got what was SUPPOSED to be a personal pepperoni pizza, but was instead a plain cheese. :( I was too tired to argue about it, though, and ate as much as I could before putting the final two pieces in my minifridge for later. Also had one bite of my brownie (as I was too stuffed for much else), which – as previously noted – was tasty
Monday, 9/15:
->After my usual too-early wake-up and usual hotel breakfast (though I had the mini-waffles instead of the big one as the singular waffle griddle was in use), we all piled in the car to head to our Main Event for the day – a trip on Roaring Camp’s little railroad, going through the local redwoods! We ended up getting there a little after 9 AM –
Which proved to be waaaaaay too early, as nothing was open yet. XD So we headed up the road, stopped by a much-nicer-than-the-first-one CVS for some essentials (bandaids for my toes, as I was developing some blisters; gum for me; and toothpaste for Mom and Dad, who naturally were going through their tube faster than I was mine), then drove around the town of Felton before visiting a local thrift store. Where Mom talked me into trying to get a bathing suit so we could go in the hotel pool later. However, none of the bathing suits on offer fit me (the ones that were big enough simply did not have enough support in the boob area), so instead she picked up some shorts made of the right material and told me to wear a sports bra and she’d lend me a tank top
->With shorts acquired, we headed back to Roaring Camp, which was now properly open, took a little stroll through the fake Western town they’d built (complete with a blacksmith’s shop and two telegraph booths that you could use to tap out messages to a friend in the other booth), then hopped on the Big Trees train for the ride up Bear Mountain and back! Which was absolutely gorgeous, let me tell you – redwoods are extremely pretty as well as being almost terrifyingly tall, and this place had PLENTY of them. The little train itself was very cute and fun, and we got a lot of fun trivia on the ride from our conductor Carlos and brakeman Colin – including some facts about why the redwoods thrive so much near Santa Cruz (it’s because the area gets a load of fog in the morning, and redwoods need a LOT of water, so they happily suck that shit up); a story about how they discovered that one of the local “mother” redwoods, upon falling over having spawned a bunch of saplings, was caught by her own “children” and is slowly being lifted back to vertical as the younger redwoods grow (which was very neat); and a scary moment in the railroad’s history when a group bombed their old line thinking they were a lumbering operation (they were not), stranding the train up on the mountainside for six months (fortunately no passengers were hurt, though I imagine it was a scary hike down the mountain) until they could get a new track built (you can still see the remains of the old one in the trees). It was a very interesting and enlightening trip, and we all enjoyed standing among the redwoods during the stop near the top of the mountain and just soaking in the majesty of the trees. Good stuff, would recommend!
->And then – you guessed it – we went looking for lunch (after dropping some stuff off at the hotel) and had to spend longer than we wanted searching for a restaurant we could actually GO to after the place Mom initially wanted to try, Zelda’s in Capitola, was packed (absolutely NO parking anywhere around it). Fortunately, this time we stumbled across a local place near a strip mall, Jeffery’s, around 1:30ish, and managed to have a pretty nice meal there – Mom and I both got giant salads (Cobb in her case, Chicken Caesar in mine), while Dad went for a breakfast option and had a shot stack of blueberry pancakes. Tasty food that wasn’t too terrifyingly expensive OR too late in the day, yay~
->Oh, and you know what else we stumbled on while looking for a restaurant? Where Dad used to live! Or, rather, the general area, as the neighborhood is now a LOT more built up and the shop he used to live behind is now just an abandoned building. But yeah, we found where his house at least USED to be. Which was nice – we were hoping to figure out where it was! Even if we couldn’t find the house itself
->After lunch, we returned to the hotel and went swimming for about an hour (the pool was JUST the right temperature, though bees kept drowning themselves in it trying to get a drink; my parents also tried the jacuzzi, though I wasn’t keen on getting in anything hot), then showered and hung out until suppertime. Mom decided she wanted to try getting some food from the local Safeway grocery store instead of ordering DoorDash again, so we headed over there and got some meatballs, potato wedges, and some salad for Mom, plus a six-pack of water and a six-pack of root beer so we’d have drinks for the remaining couple of days. Then we went back and warmed everything up, along with my two remaining cheese pizza slices –
Aaand proceeded to have a pretty terrible dinner. Like, the potato wedges weren’t too bad, but the meatballs were icky, and the cheese pizza notably NOT good the next day. We ate as much as we could and then went back to our rooms, where I finished off the day eating my brownie (which was nice and fudgy and delicious, at least)
Tuesday, 9/16:
->After my usual early awakening and hotel waffle, we hit the road for Big Sur – a very rugged chunk of coast where the mountains basically go right down to the sea – shortly after 9 AM. However, on the way, Mom suggested we stop at Monterey, so we swung by there and – after figuring out the parking situation – walked around Old Fisherman’s Wharf there, looking at the boats and all the shops (most of which weren’t open at the time – everything seems to open at 10 AM or later in all the touristy spots). Nice little side detour which inspired us to come back the next day for a more proper walk around!
->After that, it was off down the highway and to Big Sur and the surrounding coastline! Most of the drive up there was worryingly foggy, but fortunately we got there during a break in the weather and got to enjoy some absolutely GORGEOUS views. :D Like, this entire stretch of coast is just SO pretty, with super-blue water and rocks jutting out of the water and little beaches in between the mountains – we stopped multiple times to take pictures at the various little lookout spots, and in one spot to do a little hiking down a trail for a better look at one of the beaches and nearby rock formations. Granted, it was also a bit of a scary ride, as the road along the coast is VERY winding, and not all of the spots have proper guardrails! (Though it is safer than Dad remembers it being when he lived there back in the 70s.) Plus there was some really high bridges here and there – including Bixby Bridge, which is 280 feet up in the air according to Wikipedia. Mom was VERY nervous when we drove over it, despite it being made of pretty solid concrete! XD But the views were more than worth it – the scenery there is something else. I can see why people come to look at it so often! :)
->And then, of course, we turned around and went looking for lunch, and again ran into the problem of “there are fewer restaurants around here than you think and ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE TO PARK.” *sigh* After once again heading to Zelda’s and finding it mobbed with no parking spaces anywhere, we tooled around hopelessly until Mom decided we ought to hit Safeway’s again. So we swung by the grocery store; got four big chicken tenders, a bag of chips, and some mixed fruit; went back to the hotel to grab some plates and drinks, then headed over to West Cliff Drive to eat because Mom really wanted to eat up there at some point –
Aaaand it proved to be really freaking windy and miserable up there. :( Like, sunny, but cold and my chips kept trying to blow away. *sigh* What was it about us and food there, seriously…
->After that, we couldn’t figure out anything else to do, so we headed back to the hotel, sat around outside comparing the pictures we got of the various locations in Big Sur for a bit (Mom got some good snaps, and she and Dad were both very complimentary about mine), then hung out in our respective rooms until dinner. Mom ordered Chinese via DoorDash this time, getting wonton soup, sweet-and-sour chicken, and fried rice – and while the food itself was pretty middling (like the pizza on the first night – it was fine, but not amazing), there was a lot more of it than expected. In fact, there was enough for two nights! Making it easily the best deal we’d gotten on food all trip. *shrug* You take your wins where you can!
->And then we ended the night on a better note by taking hike up to Ice Cream By Marianne’s as the sun went down to have some ice cream sundaes – hot fudge for Mom and Dad (Mom with coffee ice cream, Dad with vanilla), brownie for me (with “Malt Ball Fudge” – aka chocolate with bits of Whoppers in it; I have fond memories of that flavor from the Wakefield Brickley’s). We happily caught the shop during a quieter moment, and had some lovely sundaes. :) Nice to know that we finally found ONE place that was truly good!
Wednesday, 9/17:
->After my usual early awakening and waffle breakfast, we set out for Monterey on a very foggy morning shortly after 9 AM. Fortunately the fog cleared up not long after we arrived back on Old Fisherman’s Wharf, and we had a nice stroll up and down the place. Our first stop was the general store for souvenirs – Mom and Dad both got some nice shirts (Mom with an octopus on hers, Dad with a VW bus on his), while I got a reversible windbreaker jacket (you can wear it plain or soft-side out) with an otter inside. I desperately needed a new jacket like that, so I was glad to get it. We then went up the wharf, looking at the various restaurants and seeing where we wanted to eat later (mostly, which places served both fish AND chicken, as my parents like seafood but I’m not a huge fan). We also stopped by the Carousel Fine Candies shop for a pre-lunch treat, with Mom and I getting two “turtles” (chocolate, caramel, and pecans in a vaguely turtle-ish shape – I got milk chocolate, she got dark chocolate) and Dad getting a piece of plain fudge –
And we all ended up pretty damn disappointed, as my and Mom’s turtles were mostly just nuts with a little bit of chocolate and caramel, and Dad’s fudge was so sticky he couldn’t even really eat it. And when he let Mom and me share it, it was more sugary than chocolately. *sigh* Definitely should have tried one of the OTHER candy stores on the wharf!
->We then directed our steps along the nearby rec trail to look at the harbor and check out the various animals and whatnot hanging out on the rocks in the water – mostly pelicans and some harbor seals. Mom was REALLY HOPING to see an otter, but despite all the kelp floating in the water, there were none to be found. :( Sorry Mom – I really looked hard for you! After reaching the end of the trail at Cannery Row, we headed back and past Custom House (first government building in California, according to Wikipedia – also a museum of the history of the place) and into downtown. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to see there – just the usual collection of restaurants and regular old shops that didn’t appeal to us. (Though we were able to duck inside a Walgreens to get some Kleenex for Mom, whose kept sneezing, and some more sunscreen for me.) *shakehead* The problem with visiting cities in California – they’re not really SIGNIFICANTLY different from cities over here!
->With our downtown dreams dashed, we headed back to the Wharf for our lunch – and after considering our options, we went with Abalonetti’s Bar & Grill, as they had stuff like personal pizzas (plus a sign outside saying that little kids were welcome, in direct contrast to one of the other restaurants having a sign forbidding them). We sat outside on the little patio to the side – and while we had to deal with a lot of pigeons, the food was pretty tasty! My parents both had fish and chips, which they said was good, and I had a personal Sicilian Sausage pizza, which was quite nice – very creamy cheese! AND, amazingly, it was one of the cheapest meals we had too – much cheaper than Habits or the Diner! So yeah, if you’re ever in that area, I TOTALLY recommend going to Abalonetti’s! And avoiding Carousel Candies. Seriously, don’t, I’m sure the other candy places are better
->Once we’d eaten (at a decent time, no less – about 12:30 PM!), we headed back to the hotel to drop off our stuff and have a little sit, then went to Natural Bridges State Beach! This time someone was there, so we paid the parking fee, parked the car, and headed down onto the beach to get some pictures of the natural bridge from the RIGHT angle –
And to go into the Pacific Ocean! Sort of – Mom and Dad planned to jump straight in, but as they waded out into the surf, it proved to be WAAAY too cold, so they just stood around at the edge and got splashed while asking me to take some pictures. XD Me, I never planned to put more than a foot in (as Dad had previously warned us it was likely to be chilly), so once they were out of the water, I shucked my sneakers and went toward the tide, retreating from a particularly aggressive wave before putting my feet in the retreating water. And yes, it was fucking cold. XD Mom got a few pictures of me touching the Pacific with my toesies, and then we headed over to the bathrooms so Mom and Dad could get changed out of their wet bathing suits, then back up to the car so I could rub off my feet before we headed back to the hotel
->Day ended with me hanging out in my room rereading my own fanfics on my phone while my parents sat in the jacuzzi for a bit; us finishing off as much of the leftover Chinese food from the day before at 6:30 PM (look at that, a normal time for dinner too), then everyone heading back to the rooms to pack up the bags and get airport outfits ready and whatnot before turning in – I personally hit the sack a little after 10 PM, setting alarms for 6 AM on both the clock radio and my phone
Thursday, 9/18:
->Naturally, I woke up at 2:45 AM needing the bathroom and really struggled to get back to sleep. *sigh* Fortunately I did eventually drift off again, and woke up to the sound of my phone alarm going off at 6:02 AM (clock radio never went off). I got dressed, finished packing (giving a few items I couldn’t fit in my bag, like my gum and band-aids, to Mom), then we all went down for a quick final breakfast before we left – feeling like a waffle might take too much time, I opted instead for a banana muffin, then followed it up with strawberry yogurt, while Dad had a blueberry muffin and Mom had part of a bagel. *shrug* Not the worst breakfast to leave California on, I suppose!
->After breakfast, we hit the road, and had a relatively smooth drive to the airport...right up until we tried to get into the car rental place’s parking garage so we could return our car. First, Siri took us around the front of the building, where there was no place to actually return it (we’d gotten the car from the fifth level, and were expected to return it up there because the building was used by multiple car rental places and they all operated on different levels); then, when Mom tried to call the 800 number to get directions from the rental place, Fox, while Dad angrily circled around and around, she first got a guy who – after realizing he didn’t know what he was talking about, judging by how she described the conversation to me afterward – swore in her general direction and hung up, then a guy who simply had no idea where we were. Fortunately, Dad managed to find the correct path into the garage by chance, and we were able to return the car without issue after that. But still – just figures that would be our final experience with the rental car and California traffic!
->Once the car was returned, it was into the airport, where we made our way through security (Mom’s bag was briefly searched because some of her collectibles came up a little weird on the scanner – fortunately the TSA agent who poked through was very nice about it), then found our gate and settled in for a long wait until boarding…
And, as we waited, we started hearing announcements asking people to check their roller bags, especially if they were in C section, like we were. It soon came out that the flight was 100% full, and the plane was an older model, meaning they needed people to check their luggage to make sure they had enough space in all the overhead bins for carry-ons and whatnot. Now, we actually had carry-ons, but Mom said we should check our bags so we didn’t have to fight for overhead space and to give the staff a break, so I dug out my book for the flight (along with a little notebook I THOUGHT I might use for creative thoughts – never did, I was just too annoyed/wiped whenever I was in the hotel), and we checked the bags. Which really did make me nervous, since a lot of my favorite fandom t-shirts were in there, but fortunately they made it to Providence with us just fine. Whew!
->While all that was going on, we also had a struggle with the online boarding passes on our phones, as neither Mom nor Dad seemed able to bring theirs up – fortunately, once everyone got on the WiFi and renewed their sessions and such, we were able to get the QR codes. Had a second struggle at Chicago with Dad’s pass specifically, but as he made it home with us, we got it resolved
->As for the flights themselves – the one from San Jose to Chicago was REALLY bumpy in spots, while the one to Chicago to Providence was smoother, if no less packed. Both flights were also slightly shorter, for mysterious reasons possibly relating to the jet stream. The real issue with both, though, was that, thanks to time zones working against us and a slight delay in our second plane taking off, we didn’t reach Providence until almost 10 PM. And then hiking to the baggage claim, finding an Uber driver, waiting for said driver, and finally being driven home took another hour, meaning we arrived back at the house around 11 PM. By which point I was tired, annoyed with all the long flights, and really hungry (as I didn’t take advantage of snack service on the planes, because, well, I didn’t want to remove my mask in an enclosed space with all those people), so you can see why I wasn’t online then! Instead, I hopped in the shower while Mom made us all some breakfast for supper (as pancakes and bacon was pretty much the only meal she could cook with what was left in the fridge), then I bummed around and caught up on a few things online while she and Dad went to bed. Ended up going to bed myself around 2:30 AM because I was tired and didn’t want to stay up all night. Felt good to finally sleep with all my plushies again!
TL;DR version: We had some fun moments on the trip – going up West Cliff Drive and looking at the scenery; visiting the Santa Cruz Boardwalk and riding the rides; visiting the Santa Cruz Wharf for lunch and seeing the sea lions; visiting the Mystery Spot; visiting Roaring Camp and taking the train ride through the redwoods; visiting Big Sur and looking at the scenery; and visiting Monterey and checking out Old Fisherman’s Wharf – but I’m not sure it was FULLY worth all the aggravation we suffered trying to get around and find places to eat and park. And the long plane rides were pretty fucking miserable. *sigh* Personally, I think it would have been a lot better vacation if:
A) We’d gotten a different rental car (one that Dad would have found less irritating) and had a better sense of what Santa Cruz traffic was like going in
B) We’d gotten a better idea of what there was to eat, and maybe gone to Safeway more often to pack “picnic” lunches or something
C) We’d gone for a shorter stay – I feel like we could have done the Roaring Camp “Big Trees” train ride and the Mystery Spot in one day (as they were both fairly close to the hotel), then Big Sur and Monterey in another, which would have lopped two days off the whole mess and maybe made it so we had slightly better rides on less full planes going home
*shrug* But that’s hindsight for you. Not sorry we went, but I don’t think I’ll ever want to go back. (And I’m still considering if I really want to do a plane ride across the whole fucking Atlantic now to go to Alton Towers next year...is my love of The Smiler enough to make me want to go through that...) Anyway, I plan to do some photo posts on tumblr tomorrow, which I will link over here so you can see the snaps I took of the trip – but here's a few teaser images so you don’t feel cheated:
Nice, huh? :) Hopefully you like the full photo posts coming tomorrow! In the meantime, here's a quick sum-up of the other things I got done today:
FreeTube: Spent a little time this evening after finishing the Trip Diary and uploading a bunch of vacation pictures from my phone watching the latest from C. M. Alongi and CaFae Latte/Heart Of Iron – “Scenes & Out of Context Quotes!” Which was two collections of out-of-context quotes from the upcoming Heart Of Iron novel (which I’d already seen on TikTok thanks to Gigs linking the videos to me earlier – notable quotes included an angry Nicole going “if you tell me to leave you behind, I will paint a penis on your face with glitter!” and JC and Cyrus joking about how someone might get a choice between “a decade in prison or sitting through your [Cyrus’s] kidnapping is wrong class,” with Cyrus saying he’d make sure there was a test at the end so the perp couldn’t just sleep through it – JC: “And people say justice reform is too complicated” XD), along with a couple of skits illustrating specific scenes from the book:
I. Nicole and JC riding in a car with Cyrus, and Nicole trying to tell JC that they like them for who they are now by saying how she thought Superman was overrated (as JC had said previously they felt like Superman while they were high); JC countered with a list of all of her good qualities (college-educated, artist, witch, clairvoyant, teacher at a fancy academy), but Nicole refused to back down, saying that they’d never made fun of her for covering up even in summer, made excellent hot chocolate and conversation, and that they were honest, and she appreciated that. JC was like “well, sweet of you to think that” –
And then Cyrus was like “what, I don’t get a list of good qualities?” JC was like “nope, not unless you’re as cute as Nicole WITHOUT relying on glamour.” XD Cyrus was like “fuck me then,” causing JC to go “yeah, fuck you” with a shit-eating grin. XD I love their friendship~
II. The three in cuffs in the back of a police car, having been arrested for something, with JC commenting that they weren’t surprised CYRUS had been arrested before, giving his general annoyingness and his skill with “cutlery” (Cyrus protested that most of his arrests had been in the 50s and 60s during the Fae Rights era, with his latest one being in the 90s when he foolishly tried to outdrink a werewolf pack, then complained his nose itched – JC was kind enough to let him scratch it on their jacket), but they were puzzled why NICOLE had a record – Nicole simply said “George Floyd protests.” *sigh* JC then admitted they’d lost count of how many times they’d been arrested, saying the police just loved to see them in handcuffs – Nicole said that they did look good in them, and ace Cyrus was like “ew, no more talking – especially with the cops in earshot; let’s wait for our lawyer.” Skit ended with JC being like “Cyrus, YOU’RE our lawyer” XD Whoops!
III. The three plus an additional character, Rachel the mercenary, being put in cells, and the cop being a bit of a dick about JC being nonbinary, saying that since they went to a men’s prison before, they would be going in the men’s cell now – prompting Cyrus to tell said cop that, if he was dividing them up by penises and vaginas, fairies were all unisex. Apparently they can all both impregnate people and get pregnant barring medical issues – “like sea slugs” Nicole put in calmly. (Rachel, to JC: “Sea slugs can do that?” JC: *baffled shrug*) JC then asked if they should have been using different pronouns, but Cyrus assured them it was fine – apparently fairies picked up some human gender stuff when the Realms first met ages ago, and they’ve kept them around like a fashion trend that’s never gone out of style. Though of course different kingdoms see gender different ways, with one to a dozen different genders being recognized depending on where you are – cue the cop loudly announcing that the “snowflakes” were going in the men’s cell together. XD Interesting stuff – and I’m not sure if this is actual fairy biology from Cyrus, or him fucking with the cop. I would fully believe either!
IV. And a final darker skit of Bob in some mercenary’s basement with the main villain of the book, Red Wolf, asking what fate he has planned for her when he gets her back to the Fae Realm – torture, memory wipe, servitude, disabling her and throwing her into the wilds? Red Wolf asked what SHE would have done to a traitor who caused the kind of damage she did before leaving (she incited a rebellion of human slaves), and she said that depends on when in her “career” you asked her, citing that when she fought under one specific commander, she just straight-up killed them, but that she tried to find other solutions these days. Though she admitted it was effective and – compared to whatever Red Wolf had in store for her – merciful. Red Wolf’s response?
“What happened to ‘Mercy is a tool that must be used carefully and sparingly?’” *wince* Bob was like “...I regret holding that belief now and I strongly urge you to give it up yourself.” Red Wolf retorted that it sound like she was asking him to be cruel and merciless ALL the time, causing a disgusted Bob to go “My current protege is a third your age and already so much more original.” Which, yeah, I think we can all agree Cyrus is pretty original. :P
Good stuff! Like I said, I’d seen the out-of-context quotes before, but they were fun to rewatch, and the skits were great. :D I do enjoy this series a lot! And I hope I can get the time and attention span to enjoy the book once it’s officially out.
Other: It being a very nice day today, we did play some beanbags this afternoon – though only three rounds, as the gnats and mosquitoes were out in force. I had a poor start, but managed to work my way up to a couple of wins in the second and third rounds, while Dad went from top to bottom to middle, and Mom manged a couple of seconds before crashing in the third game, aw. (Though it’s worth noting tonight was Game Night, and she DID end up winning twice at Clue, so…) Final scores were me 3-W-W; Dad W-3-2; Mom 2-2-3 – we’ll see if we play tomorrow, and how that goes if we do!
...yeah, most of the day was spent writing the above "travel diary." ^^; I wanted to get it out of the way! But I hope to get some more done tomorrow. Obviously I have to get the photo posts done on Victor Luvs Alice, and catch up with any messages and asks on both my tumblrs -- but I'm also hoping that I can squeeze in some video gaming -- maybe some Fallout 4 and an update to the FO4 Playthrough Progression. And I have to catch up on the episode of Jon's F:NV YOLO Remastered series that I missed too...we'll see what happens tomorrow! Night all!
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Date: 2025-09-20 03:14 pm (UTC)Yanno I could let you "borrow" my copy of the book since it is a pdf file...Some of the formatting is wonky but the story is intact.
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Date: 2025-09-21 03:21 am (UTC)Aw, thanks, but I have no guarantees I'd find the time to read it, and I suspect the wonky formatting would annoy me/make it harder for me to get through some sections. I'll wait for the official release and try to figure out where to find time to read while waiting!
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Date: 2025-09-20 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-21 03:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-21 12:26 am (UTC)Edit: Also, also...she's announced the towns for her book signing and she will be 40 minutes from me on Veteran's Day and you bet your boots I am going!
Unfortunately nothing in RI. :(
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Date: 2025-09-21 03:31 am (UTC)Ooooh, damn, that's great! :D I hope it goes well! And yeah, I'm not surprised -- we're a small state and I don't think most people bother with us -- not when they can get the RIers to come to Massachusetts or Connecticut instead.
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Date: 2025-09-21 05:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-22 03:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-22 12:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-09-23 03:47 am (UTC)