California Dreaming 2012 Part 1

We took a little trip this month.  Christy asked what I wanted for my birthday, I told her that I wanted my feet in the ocean on October 13th, and she made it happen.  We had to beg, borrow and steal, and the kids even chipped in a little, but on October 11th, after I went to my doctor in Salt Lake, we all piled in the Tahoe and headed south.  The weather was decent as we left Orem, but quickly turned dreadful.  Traveling through the Virgin River Gorge was a bit precarious as the clouds decided to open up and let drench the earth.  Unfortunately, the road was part of the earth and driving was a bit dicey.  We arrived in Mesquite to a drizzle and got our bags into the hotel room.  We could not go swimming, so we decided to go bowling.  There was a bowling league there that night and they told us there would be no open lanes until 8:45, so we hit the arcade and played there for about an hour.  Christy and I decided to pass on the bowling as there is no IHC office in Mesquite.  Anna hurt herself when she accidentally crossed the line onto the lane and slipped on the slick floor.  I decided to try to knock a few pins down and made it ok, but my knee has not yet recovered.  While bowling, Christy decided to try her hand at Keno, which pay off in the form of $135 which paid for our hotel and bowling.  The next morning Jake paid for breakfast and we again headed south.  The GPS told us where to turn and we ignored it because we thought it was wrong.  The resulting backtrack cost us about 30 minutes of drive time, and would be the first of many arguments that we would have with the GPS on this trip.  We arrived in Calabasas in the early afternoon and after unloading the Tahoe, we headed down to Malibu Beach.  There was some construction at the state beach, so we had to walk a short distance to the beach, but it was worth the walk because it was beautiful and there were very few people there.  I ran on the beach for the first time in years.  We took some pictures and played in the surf.  It was a great time.  Anna bought us dinner and we took Christy back to the hotel because she was not feeling well.  The rest of us headed back to L. A. and up to the Griffith observatory.  This was the second time that we had GPS issues and it took us on and off the same freeway several  times and it took us well over a hour to get there. There was a concert at the Greek Theater(near the Observatory) and we almost turned back, but Anna made us go on and we made it there safely.  We all got to see Neptune through the most looked though telescope in the world and we made it back to the hotel fairly quickly without the GPS.