Big Boy Bezek Blog!

Honeymoon Day 12: It's been a nice place to visit, but there's no place like home!

We definitely got off to a slow start today, since we didn't have to check out until 11am.  After loading up the car, we went over to the park to get one more ride in of both Pirates of the Caribbean and Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye.  Of course then I needed a chocolate covered frozen banana...hey...it's kinda breakfasty..!

After a snack, we headed for Downtown Disney where I did some damage at Sephora, and we had our first 'official' meal of the day at a taco place.  We grabbed it to-go and headed to the movie theatre in the complex to see Jet Li's Fearless.

After the movie, we stopped in to the Lego shop and visited with a few familiar faces.

It was then around 4pm, and the parks had become super crowded, being that it was Friday.  As much as I hated to do it, I agreed we should probably head off to the hotel in Culver City.  Dan agreed we'll just have to come back and see the fireworks on another trip. ;)

Culver City is 5 minutes away from LAX, but there's not a ton around here to do.  There was a mall across the street, and when I saw this sign in the food court I couldn't resist taking a picture.  We didn't eat there, but it sure sounded Pretty Hot And Tempting. =)

Finally we found a sushi place in a plaza that had miso soup ON TAP.  It was like a giant coffee dispenser you just plunked your bowl under and filled away.  Tofu and onions are added to your liking.  Of course after making two fabulous bowls, I dumped mine all over the ground as soon as I sat down.  Nerf.  Here's Dan with the last meal of the honeymoon!

We've gone 3,010 miles on the trip, and have been to Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Montana, Washington, Oregon, and California.  It's only about 2,600 miles if you drove straight from Rochester to LA!  Crazy!  Here are a few other random facts we learned while on our trip that may have not made it into the blog.  In no particular order:

• It's against the law to pump your own gas in Oregon.  I'm totally serious.
• In Seattle and Portland if you order 'a small coffee' they'll say 'do you mean drip coffee?'
• In Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana and Washington the expressway speed limit is 75 mph
• The Carl's Jr. breakfast burrito has 830 calories and 49 grams of fat.  Ouch.
• Portland doesn't have any sales tax.
• A matinee movie in Downtown Disney costs $10
• Wyoming is in the middle of a 'gas and oil boom' and there's a housing shortage, this means no hotel rooms are available without major advance reservations.
• In Montana what they call 'scones' are what I would call 'fried dough' and they're served with soup and salad at lunch.  YUM.
• The Jelly Belly jelly bean became famous thanks to President Reagan.  He ate them all the time.
• They only time we paid a toll on the entire trip was to cross the Bay Bridge to San Fran.  $3.
• Rain in the Pacific Northwest smells different than when it rains in Rochester.
• Chairman of the Coors Brewing Company, Pete Coors, was busted for DUI in May and now rides a bike to work.
• Egg whites are used by most commercial wineries that make red wine.  They cause all the impurities and grape bits to stick together and sink to the bottom of the barrel.
• Chevy Impalas due have a cupholder in the center console, but it takes the average driver 3 days to find it. ;)
• The Testicle Festival (or Testy Festy for short) happens annually in Missoula Montana in the middle of September.  We drove through and it looked like a rockin' good time....eep!

Last but not least, here's a photo collage put together by Chris Murtaugh, based on a goofy wedding photo of me.  Who knew I had some brightly colored cousins?!

Our flight leaves LAX at 6:05am tomorrow, so we're getting up at 3:30am.  Ew. 

Thanks so much for following along with us on our trip.  It truly has been an adventure!!!!!

Honeymoon Day 12: A fine picnic at the Hollywood Bowl

Our morning started out with a room service breakfast, after which Dan lounged on our balcony for a bit. 

Though the Disneyland park opened early at 9am for hotel guests, we took our time and left around 11am for the California Adventure park.  We rode that big coaster 'California Screamin' and it was a darn good ride!

After going through the entire Boardwalk themed area of the park, we got FastPass tix for Soarin' which is also in Epcot in DisneyWorld.  It's a simulator where you feel like you're flying over California, and now that we've seen so much of it, riding it again was going to be a whole different experience!

FastPasses allow you to come back at a certain time and ride right away, but our time slot was a whole hour away.  What to do?  Well first, have a lunch...er snack...er dessert...=)

Then we went to a pavilion that only one part of is in Disney World.  Turtle Talk with Krush is where everyone watches the sea turtle (from FInding Nemo) swim around and interact with the audience, kinda talk show style.  They use voice recognition (or something) to have someone backstage voicing Krush, but his mouth moves realtime on the screen.  Very cute.

Also in the same building were a couple of interactive digital exhibits.  One was where Ursula from the Little Mermaid steals your voice and puts it into the Disney film clip of your choice.  Another is with Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast and he gives you a quiz and takes your picture and tells you what Disney character you're most like.

Lastly was an exhibit on animation, and they had big wallsize art of cartoon backdrops.  We couldn't resist!

It was finally our turn for Soarin' so we did that, then headed over to Disneyland.

I was thriiiiiilled that Mr. Toad's Wild Ride still exists out here, since in Florida they took it out and put in a Winnie the Pooh ride.  BOO!  So after waiting 10 years, I got to go on it again.  Yay!

We were disappointed the haunted mansion was closed, but it was for a good cause.  They're decorating it Nightmare Before Xmas style for Halloween!

Next it was off to Mickey's Toontown for the Roger Rabbit themed ride.  There were all sorts of fun things to pose next to while waiting in line.

Now that it was almost 4pm, we knew we had to head back to gather up our things and head out to the Hollywood Bowl.  The drive was only about 35 minutes on a map, but with rush hour traffic we were prepared for much longer.  It took twice that, which was okay by me, as the concert didn't start until 8pm.  We had gotten tickets for a park and ride lot, and got a little turned around finding it.  I think that's just because this place was nearby and someone in particular was pulled towards it.....

LA has an insanely good system when it comes to shows at the bowl, and we hopped on the bus no problem, and arrived around 6pm.  What do do in that time?  Well our seats were in what you call a 'box' and there were 2 sets of 2 seats.  Each had a table you could extend or collapse for eating.  And not just the typical stadium food was available!  We got a bottle of wine, a box of assorted dim sum, some sushi, and brie and crackers.  It was awesome!  You could also order in advance and have a 3 course meal delivered to your seat.

It really was very laid back as in NY they would have wanted to give you a wrist band saying you were 21, searched you, then had security guards at every row.

After our bountiful picnic, it was time for the show to start.  Here's the view from our seats.

The concert started with a few numbers from the group BT, and then moved into the symphony orchestra, and a great group of vocalists, playing the scores/themes/soundtracks to over 30 games.  On the screens (there were 3) they'd show montages, and onstage they had a few characters come out.

Games included: Halo, Medal of Honor, Mario Bros, Zelda, a medly of old Nintendo stuff like Duck Hunt, Frogger, etc, Final Fantasy, Myst, Advent Rising, God of War, World of Warcraft, and probably a bunch more I'm forgetting.  Dan again wanted me to stress 'BEST CONCERT EVER!' so I think he had fun. =)

The bus system got us out of there right away, and the drive home took the 35 minutes it was supposed to, but that made it about midnight.

Today is our last full day, and even though we have to check out of the hotel, we're going to stay at Disney and go to the parks, and maybe see a movie (and shop at Sephora) in downtown Disney.  There are only fireworks on Fridays and Saturdays since it's off-season, and we really want to stay for those.

After that, it's off to our hotel in Culver City, which is only 3 miles from LAX.  Our flight leaves at 6:05am, which means in order to return our rental car and stuff we'll probably arrive around 4:30am.  I don't want to even think about how early that means we'll have to get up.

We've had an amazing time, but we're both looking forward to coming back home!  =D

Sleeeeeepy...

Today's post will be up tomorrow morning by 11am PST...

Tonight was the Video Games Live concert at the Hollywood Bowl, and Dan rates it as his 'favorite concert of all time.'  Needless to say it's really late and I'm pooped so I'll post tomorrow.  Night!

Honeymoon Day 11: Mickey has internet!

We left San Fran at 7:45am and began the 7ish hour drive to Disneyland.  Around 10am we decided to stop for 'breakfast' at a Wendy's.  They actually started serving food at 9am, and it was all lunch stuff.  Not my favorite for breakfast, but it got the job done.

As we got closer to LA, we started to see signs of the wildfires that were going on.  It was really shocking to see that they were so huge and so close.

We got to Disneyland around 2:30, and found our way to the Grand Californian resort, where we were staying.  After a quick check-in, we hauled up to our room to find that our balcony had an awesome view of the pool, and the secondary park called Disney's California Adventure.  Our hotel even has it's own private entrance directly into that park!  Disneyland sure has changed in the 10 years since I've been here!

After getting our park tickets, we went to the park next door and went on a new Monster's Inc. ride, as well as the Tower of Terror.  They even have their own version of the Hollywood backlot area.

Unlike Disney World in Florida, the California Adventure park was a 2 minute walk from Disneyland.  We went to that park next and went on the Indiana Jones ride, the newly revamped Pirates of the Carribbean, and Big Thunder Railroad.  I also nicely asked Dan if we could get the bride/groom Mickey ears, as this was kind of our one shot at it.  I knew he wasn't a fan. He said okay, and it was incredible how people started to smile at us and offer to take our picture!  We seriously had people every couple of minutes!  He slowly warmed up to the idea of being a mini-celebrity I think =).  Here's us in front of the main gardens.

After the long drive and a couple of hours at the parks, we went in search of dinner.  We went to Downtown Disney, again a 5 minute walk, and saw there was a Japanese restaurant in another Disney Hotel.  After walking there, we found the restaurant was closed for renovations, so we went back to our hotel.  Lucky for us, our hotel was home to many restaurants, one called Napa Rose.

We were seriously underdressed, but the hostess said 'who cares, it's Disneyland!' and seated us right away.  I think the ears helped =)  Our dinner was amazing, and Dan scored a copy of the menu.  The couple next to us was really friendly, and we chatted for a bit about Napa, and their hometown of San Francisco.  Another couple nearby was celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary, and they congratulated us too.

Here's a picture of us with our desserts.  Dan's is a grape buckle with grape sorbet, and mine is a cheesecake banana split.  A small slice of carmel cheesecake in the middle, with carmelized banana on the side, with 3 teeny scoops of ice cream.  The best dessert of the trip!!!  The fact that it, along with a glass of prosecco, was on the house didn't hurt either!

Today was a really neat day and we're looking forward to hanging out at Disney tomorrow, and going to a concert at the Hollywood Bowl tomorrow night.  Here's a another goofy photo of us in the ears.  I have no clue how we'll get that top hat on the plane!  'Night!

Honeymoon Day 10: Jellybeans and sea lions...only in California!

When I had learned the Jelly Belly Factory was only 30 miles from Napa, I booked us a hotel that was closeby.  Sure enough we were the 2nd couple in line when they opened their doors at 9am this morning!  Though they don't let you take pictures of the factory floor during the 45 minute tour, we took plenty all around the building itself.  And yes, we had to wear the hats for food safety reasons. ;) There was even a tasting section with every flavor imaginable, in addition to a cafe that served jelly belly 'shaped' foods!

After stocking up on candy and 'belly flops' which are the reject jelly beans (too big, too small, stuck together, etc) we headed to San Francisco.  It only took us 45 minutes, and it was a nice clear day so we got a cool shot of the Bay Bridge.

Our hotel was the Hotel Argonaut, and it gave us some great views of a park right on the water nearby.  The whole place had a nautical theme, and our room reminded me of being on a ship.

We were able to check in early, and after dropping off our stuff we headed down the street towards pier 39 and all the touristy stuff.  Here's us with a certain island prison between our heads in the distance!

I was very excited to see the sea lions, and they didn't disappoint!  They sure were stinky and loud, and fun to watch!

By this time we were hungry for lunch, as our jelly bean sugar buzz had worn off.  We stopped at one of the restaurants on the pier and I had halibut tamales, and Dan had a dungeoness crab melt.  We of course decided we had to walk a bit to work off lunch. 

We soon found ourself at a place called "The Marketplace" which housed all sorts of fancy shops and eateries.  There was a bakery called Miette that I'd seen on the Food Network that had the most perfect cupcakes imaginable.  We also stopped at Ciao Bella gelato and got a scoop of Blackberry Cabernet.  I'd scoped them out online, but this was much better than the $60 to have a pint shipped across country!  See if you can spot the pigeon...

Once we got to the bridge again, we decided to turn around and head towards Chinatown and North Beach/Little Italy.

After another half hour of walking, we got sucked into a little cafe on a corner for a glass of wine, some people watching...and oh yeah...some bruschetta.  As Dan demonstrates, it was highly delicious.

We got back to our hotel and after walking about 40 blocks total, we decided it was time for a nap!  We woke up to see the sun set, and took a picture of the Golden Gate from the park next to the hotel.

The hotel concierge told us of a great local seafood place 'down an alley' called Scoma's that didn't take reservations.  We scoped it out, and while a lot of the big touristy restaurants were half full, this place had an hour wait.  We put our names in and wandered the strip watching all the spray paint artists.

When our table was ready, we were astounded by the variety of seafood available.  Dan got crab ravioli, and I got salmon, and we filled ourself with the sourdough bread and an appetizer of firecracker shrimp, mini crab cakes, and calamari.  Dan was hesitant when he ordered his ravioli as he had never heard of the sauce before, but he recalled it as "two french words."  I said "Was it buerre blanc?" and he said "yup."  I told him that literally was white butter and his eyes lit up! 

Dan got this shot as we left, and they're not joking when they say it's right off the boat!  The seagulls think it's good eats too!

Tomorrow we head to Disneyland, and I'm not sure what the internet situation will be like.  So if my posts are late, don't think Mickey kidnapped us. ;)  It's a longer drive than I had thought, but we're looking to get there in the early afternoon.  4 days til we're home!

Honeymoon Day 9: Vines and sunshine!

While we slept in a little bit today, we were on the road by 9am, with a target time of arriving at Robert Mondavi vineyards for noon.  I had no idea the wine country really encompassed several areas, like Sonoma, Oakville, Calistoga, Yountville, and more.  We took the route mapquest suggested, and wound around Lake Hennessey, and got some nice pictures. While most of it was expressway driving, the last part was through was seemed like mountainside wilderness. The last 15 miles felt like a roller coaster ride, and I was thrilled when we finally arrived as my stomach was doing loopdeloops!

Mondavi was a really beautiful place, and the weather couldn't have been better.  We went to the desk and were just about to get on the 12:20 tour, when another couple who was being wishy washy changed their minds right next to us, and bumped us off to the 12:40.  That gave us time to take pictures, so we weren't miffed for too long.  There were lots of marble sculptures around just begging to have their pictures taken with me! ;)

The tour and tasting was very informative, and though I knew it was coming, it was weird to pay $25 a person.  Additional pours of wine (2 oz) started at $8!  They explained a lot about why grapes grow well in the valley, and even let us wander out to some vines that were there just for tasting.  I had no problem roaming the rows sampling about 8 different kinds! It was also crazy to think that 300 bottles of wine come from each of these barrels....!

After all that, we were bummed to find that Mondavi had no restaurant.  So we drove 15 minutes to town and ate at a local place on the water.  I had pork chili verde and Dan had fish tacos.  All super yummy!

After that, we went to our hotel in Fairfield, which is about 20 minutes away.  It took us 45 minutes, as it was rush hour and I didn't do such a good job of navigating. ;)

Later that evening, we went back to downtown napa for dinner at a restaurant called Celedon.  I tried to take pictures of the sunset on our drive.  Our windshield was really buggy!

Celedon was a little hidden, but it was a really neat and cozy place.  It prides itself on 'international comfort food' and we were huge fans.  We ate outside and were glad we had made reservations.  My heirloom tomato salad was to die for, and Dan's lamb t-bone was so good he was literally pained that he couldn't pick up the bones and gnaw them clean!

There may have been some gingerbread with huckleberry sauce for dessert.  Mmmmm!

Alrighty, I'm sleepy.  Goodnight!

Honeymoon Day 8: I had no idea a town called Chico existed!

So this morning we left Portland at 6am, and caught the sunrise over the Oregon countryside.  Sure it's a bit blurry, but you get the idea! ;)

As the sun came up, some neat fog came out.  In the valleys there was no visability, and it was spooky at times!

Today our destination was Chico, CA and that was a good 8 hour drive.  I took pictures of goofy roadsigns to amuse myself while Dan was a trooper and drove the whole way.  Matt, this one's for you!

At around 10am, we were hungry for 'lunch' and stopped at a Carl's Jr., which neither of us had eaten at before.  I got a breakfast burrito, and Dan had a breakfast burger.  After looking at the nutritional info, I understood why I had sudden chest pains...I gained 2lbs right on the spot...but it was obscenely tasty!  Here's Dan digging in, and me cautiously reviewing the inside of the burrito to see what could possibly be responsible for the artery clogging stats.

Upon departing Carl's, we continued our trek to the Oregon/California border.

I was really excited to see Mt. Shasta in the distance, and took a bunch of pictures, here's a sequence taken over an hour, including the lake near its base.  It's definitely somewhere we'd like to spend some time at!

At this point, we were an hour and a half away from Chico, and still hadn't heard from Dan's friend.  We had made reservations at a hotel, so we just kept on going.  Chico is off of the main expressway by about 45 minutes, and we must have driven through 25 fruit orchards to get there.

Our room was nice, and Dan settled in to have a snack upon arrival.

Still no answer on Dan's friend's phone, so we went to play mini golf nearby.  It was 85 degrees here so it was nice to get out in the sunshine.  The course was kinda beat up, but it had water hazards, with nets so you could retrieve your ball without getting wet.  They came in handy!

After golf we decided on some dinner, with still no response from Dan's friend.  We bopped into town and ate at a mexican restaurant with the biggest 'glasses' of sangria I had ever seen!  Quite a deal for $5!

We're now back at the hotel and still nothing from Dan's friend.  So our trip to Chico wasn't as intended, but we had fun anyways.  Tomorrow we're heading to Napa Valley for the day, and Tuesday we'll be going to take a tour of the Jelly Belly jelly bean factory (thanks for the idea mom, and I'll bring you a souvenir!), and spending the night in San Francisco.  So weird to think that there are only a few more days left to figure out!!!

Honeymoon Day 7: Recovering in Portland

Due to our crazy evening last night, getting up this morning was a struggle!  It's only a 2.5 hour drive from Seattle to Portland, but we hit some traffic, and the speed limit was in the 55 to 60 range, rather than the 75 we've enjoyed for most of the trip.

We stopped in Tumwater Washington to have lunch at a Dairy Queen.  I was excited about this as there are no DQ's in Rochester, and the ones in Buffalo don't serve food.  I've determined that there's nothing like a 'flamethrower' burger to make a hangover belly feel better!

We arrived in Portland around 1pm and dropped our bags at our hotel.  It's called the 'Hotel Vintage Plaza' and it's an old building that's been recently renovated.  We wandered around the city for a bit and stopped at a bookstore that took up an entire city block!  Called Powell's City of Books, Dan was in heaven.

I scouted out a gelato shop up the street, and we feasted on TWO dishes.  One was sorbet (a scoop of banana and a scoop of triple berry).  The next was gelato (scoop of pistachio, white chocolate, and creme de caramel).  Here's Dan and the gelato tower.

There were a ton of shops nearby, and the lure of NO SALES TAX on anything was very appealing.  However after 2 hours we were ready to go back to the hotel, empty handed aside from some books and a t-shirt.

Going back to the hotel, we made dinner reservations, but decided to stay in and take a nap.  In our closet we found some robes which were quite different from the usual hotel standard.  We fought over who would get which one! ;)

Walking to dinner, there were a whole bunch of neat sculptures that had fountains as bases.  Some had ducks in them, some beavers, and some with seals. 

We ate at the Red Star, which was just a couple of blocks away.  Dan had grilled salmon on an adler plank, and I had mahi mahi on jalepeno spoon bread. YUM!  Dessert was an amaretto plum buckle, which I couldn't say no to.

Tomorrow we'll head through the rest of Oregon and end up in Chico CA.  Dan has a friend who lives there who we're hoping to meet for dinner.  It'll be an 8 hour drive, so we're starting early tomorrow morning.  Downtown closes at 6:45am for a charity race until 11am, so we have to be out before then.  We'll hopefully be more photogenic tomorrow! ;)

Honeymoon Day 6: Pinball Overload!

Today we reserved a spot on the hotel shuttle at 8am to take us to the Pike Place Market.  We hadn't realized however, that most stuff at the market got going around 10am.

So we wandered around and found a place that was open and serving crepes.  Can you say breakfast?

Dan ate the one with ham and spinach, while I ate the one meant for dessert, which contained bananas, nutella, almonds, and whipped cream.  SO GOOD! 

After leaving there, I still smelled something tasty.  I followed my nose to find a donut shop.  Yes, I forced myself to eat 6 mini donuts that were freshly made.  So rough ;)

We wandered around a little more, and were blown away how cheap the flower bouquets were.  $10 for a ton of gorgeous flowers! We also took  walk down by the water while we waited for more shops to open.

I pretty much wanted to eat everything in sight!  We did stumble across a cheese shop, and sampled some of their homeade mac and cheese.  OUTSTANDING!

We then went to a couple of shops, and then found ourselves by the Space Needle and the Experience Music Project, which is also home to the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.  Guess which Dan liked most?

After that, we headed over to Shorty's, which was a dive bar with 12 pinball machines and hotdogs.   We stayed there for several hours and had a blast! Dan finally gave in to the 'cylindrical' menu and I had to take pictures!

After bar hopping with some locals, we decided to call it a night and get some takeout from the seafood place across the street.  Tomorrow we head to Oregon, and begin week 2 of the trip!

Honeymoon Day 5: Seattle is home to free laundry and yummy sushi

With 6 hours of driving to get to Seattle today, we weren't so excited to see it was raining when we woke up this morning.  However, it just meant that fewer bugs exploded on our windshield! ;)

The drive through Montana, through the tip of Idaho, and into Washington was beautiful.  I feel like a dork saying that so many times, but never having been out here before, both of us were really in awe.  Despite the rain, we got some nice shots.

We stopped at a rest stop on the Idaho/Washington border, and someone was nice enough to take a picture of us, and our car.  We've since named the car 'Blurple' as it's blue and purple, and it's kinda bad karma to not have a name for your car when you're in it for hours on end!

When we got to Spokane Washington, we were halfway to Seattle, and we hit PST, thus giving us an extra hour.  Because we'd seen signs for a 'real casino' we decided to stop for some gambling and lunch.

We left behind some $ at the roulette table (since when do 0 and 00 come up in a series of 3 spins?!) and the Wheel of Fortune slot machines, but we feasted on buffalo meatloaf and a salmon scramble.  Yes, we can't stop photographing our food.  We're nerds!

Getting back on the road, we arrived at our hotel around 5pm, which was also rush hour.  After getting settled in, we did a load of laundry, as there were machines on each floor that you can use for free.  Our room overlooks Lake Union, and Dan got a picture of me in front of the french doors.

For dinner we wandered across the street and found a restaurant called 'I <3 Sushi.'  That's supposed to be a heart.  Hee. =)  We sat at the sushi bar and were blown away by the sheer variety of seafood available.  The master chef served us and it was great!  Pictured below is a caterpillar roll with Dan, and a 'special' roll he made for us.  We asked for something he'd recommend, and he put tempura'd shrimp and asparagus inside, and crab salad on top which he crisped with a blowtorch.  Again, the close up for you sushi fiends like us ;)  We had green tea tiramisu for dessert.  The place was so good we may go back for lunch tomorrow!

After sushi, we bopped on over to a pool hall/microbrewery down the street and had a few cocktails.  Of course, upon returning to the hotel we thought taking some goofy pictures would be a good idea.  And yes, that statue is in our hotel lobby!

Tomorrow we're catching the hotel shuttle at 8am to spend the morning at the market to watch the fish fly!  It might be a little rainy here, but I don't think we'll mind. =)