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| Derek relaxing at our hotel in Marina Del Rey Our hotel was just barely okay. I booked it using Expedia's Hotwire-like feature where you choose the general area and price without knowing the actual hotel. I hate paying the price for a nice hotel when we're not doing much more than sleeping. When I pay for a nice place I feel like I should show up before check-in time and stay past check-out time to get my money's worth. Sometimes I think we should be staying at the cheapest hotels when we're not taking full advantage of the amenities. But, cheap hotels are so...cheap. It does feel good to stay at a nice place - even if you're only there to sleep (and maybe eat breakfast). We're trying to see the sites and not the hotels, but we like nice hotels. It's always a conflict. Photo album for this post All photo albums |
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| We couldn't get near the LA beaches during the Memorial Day weekend when we arrived because of the crowds, but mid-week was much better. |
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| Venice Canals |
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| The canal district was so nice - yet another place Helen said she could live |
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| We all laughed at the world's smallest front yard in front of this home |
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| Venice Pier |
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| Venice |
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| Muscle Beach |
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| Venice was...interesting |
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| Derek became infatuated with long boards and started researching a board to buy. It was just a phase that seems to have passed. |
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| Zoltar |
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| Santa Monica Pier |
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| Route 66 end |
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| This guy was pretty good. What a great venue. |
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| Mariasol Mexican Restaurant |
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| It was touristy, but my seafood cocktail was really good |
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| What happened to kid's meals? Derek now routinely orders food that costs more than ours. |
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| Would have liked to have checked out Third Street Promenade across the bridge. We read that it's really nice. |
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| We drove up into the hills to Topanga Canyon and stopped at the library |
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| Pepperdine University |
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| Malibu |
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| Point Dume |
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| Leo Carillo State Park |
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| This Coast Guard helicopter and a bunch of Coast Guard boats were searching for a long time and didn't appear to have found what they were looking for |
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| Santa Barbara Once again we didn't have time to see all we had planned. We drove around Santa Barbara some, but didn't really have time to visit much. It looked really nice. We would have loved to visit Channel Islands National Park (or at least the visitor center). And we really wanted to see Solvang and the surrounding area. |
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| We weren't really feeling like fast food so we stopped at the Whole Foods in Santa Barbara for dinner |
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| Another midnight arrival |
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| I was bummed about arriving so late and not being able to fully enjoy our hotel, the Fogcatcher Inn, in Cambria. I was really looking forward to it. When Helen saw how cute the hotel was, she was irritated that we spent so much time with the dregs of society in Venice Beach when we could have been enjoying romance at the Fogcatcher. |
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