South Bay Day
March 21, 2025
Man, was I looking forward to a great chill day in the South Bay. And if I didn’t need to venture any further than Palos Verdes: hog heaven.
Whatta shot. Wish the resolution was better, but you get the idea.
Janet and I started the day with an Esplanade walk, and coffee at a different cafe, the Hi-Fi on Catalina. Lovely. Then ambled around the village and wandered into a boutique called Fringes, where it turns out the proprietor knows Chris (that was a fun discovery), and I chatted up an artist whose bracelet I decided I should have (one of many that were on display).
We then headed to the Plaza to meet Dave and Alicia for lunch followed by a tour of their massive home renovation project (they acquired Dave’s parents’ old house on La Selva).
The pic doesn’t do justice to what was a pretty eye-popping home.
I took Janet on a tour of PV, trying to locate some of the monster houses at the top of the hill. We returned to our respective cottages for a bit before heading out on another walk, this one down to the pier. After that we sat on one of mom’s benches — I’ll just call all the benches along the Esplanade Mom’s Benches because she sat in them all, even as she preferred the one closest to Ave I — and watch the sun setting…
We ended up at a new restaurant (this was their fifth night of operation) called Il Posto, next to Turquoise. We had a glass of wine while waiting for Chris to show up:
Dinner was great. Will def go back.
Old Ladies Do Disneyland
March 20, 2025
No, I don’t feel like an old lady. But we did get compliments (compliments??) and righteous fist bumps from some Disneyland staffers and line-mates for being old ladies doing Disneyland like a buncha kids.
Well… so be it.
We spent over 12 hours there, arriving to the Toy Story parking lot at about 10:00am, entering the park by about 10:30 to meet up with Lundie, and leaving the park about 10pm, pulling out of the Toy Story lot by about 10:45pm. Dat’s a long day.
And I have to say, Disneyland knows how to manage crowds…. from parking, to the entrance protocol, to general crowd control, to bathrooms, to water stations, to restaurants and food carts, to tidiness… they’ve pretty much got it down. I do think they let too many people in, however. I’d appreciate smaller crowds and shorter ride lines, even if it meant greater difficulty in booking a visit. I can’t imagine what those lines do to younger children who just don’t have that kind of patience and endurance. Or what those waits are like for folks who don’t pay extra for the Lightning Pass and can successfully manage their apps for maximum ride scheduling efficiency (yes, you have to schedule your rides to guarantee shorter wait times, and book in advance your meals if you want to sit in a restaurant). Who’d know all that?
We traveled with experienced Disneyland goers, which made all the difference. Betsy and Lundie both have annual passes (approximately $1000/year), which gives them, more or less, unlimited entry all year round. It also confers a level of savvy that makes it really easy for us once-a-decade (or less) visitors, who can sit back and let the pros manage the day. Which they did.
Because I’m an obsessive documenter, these are the boxes we checked on the day!
Rides (in order):
Fantasyland: King Arthur’s Carousel
Tomorrowland: Star Tours
New Orlean’s Square: Pirates of the Caribbean
Frontierland: Mark Twain River Boat ride around Tom Sawyer’s island
Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge: Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run
Mickey’s Toontown: Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Train
Adventureland: Jungle Cruise
Frontierland: Thunder Mountain
Fantasyland: Mr Toad’s Wild Ride
Fantasyland: Matterhorn
Meals:
Lunch at Cafe Orleans
Candy break
Popcorn break
Brat sandwich dinner
New stuff:
Star Tours
Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge
Oga’s Cantina (in Galaxy’s Edge)
Smuggler’s Run (in Galaxy’s Edge)
Toontown
Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Train
Best of show:
Lunch at Cafe Orleans with mint juleps and decent-enough food
Mark Twain River Boat
Seeing Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge and Toontown
Thunder Mountain
Matterhorn
Fireworks show!
Here are some pics:
As seen at the park entrance… this very lovely woman dressed just like Minnie Mouse. And, new to me, all the mouse ears! A huge, huge percent of folks don mouse ears of all types, as well as princess costumes and Minnie Mouse outfits (it’s mostly women and girls who do these things). But this woman wins the prize for me… she was very elegant and dignified in her Minnie wear, right down to the white gloves and yellow crocs.
Here’s another example.. this is a woman who was in line with us for the Jungle Cruise.
Let the adventures begin…
Spring’s a nice time as the azaleas are in bloom.
This was just before getting seated at the Cafe Orleans:
And here we are with our juleps (and other stuff). Full disclosure, we are on a very busy promenade but I removed some passers by from the photo for max cafe vibe.
The beautiful Mark Twain River boat…
.. and the view of New Orleans Square.. see, lots of folks. LOTS of folks. Our cafe is just to the right of that tree… good things Betsy booked advanced reservations. Lundie took off after lunch (annual pass holders can do that sort of thing).
A few more views from the boat (and this is why the boat ride was so enjoyable… peaceful, relaxing, removed from the mania… remote, even.
Candy and ice cream time…
A few looks at Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge. This area was impressive, dominated by a large scale Millennium Falcon, but very dark for Disneyland.. probably a huge hit with the laser saber gang, much of it lost on me. I did get a kick out of the Oga’s Cantina, which a staffer escorted us in to see. It sometimes pays off to ask!
It helps to know the storyline, as Star Wars characters circulate, act out stuff, and engage you, in character. I think she was part of the resistance??
Then Toontown, which was colorful and aimed at younger kids. Speaking of which… it was stunning how many kids were rolled around in strollers (appropriate!) and how much stroller parking there was. Huge stroller parking lots everwhere (part of one can be seen in the lower left of this pic).
Colorful and cute. That backdrop on the left was incredibly disorienting, but very cool.
An old standby .. the Jungle Cruise..
Us on Thunder Mountain, super fun!
An early evening shot of the castle and its moat…
After we scored a ride on Thunder Mountain (which had closed earlier in the day, after we’d book a time slot.. involved story), it was getting late. We were able to book a ride on the Matterhorn, which we rode in the dark and was even more violent than Thunder Mountain (both very fun, but wow.. they can do that to people’s bodies?), we got a great (really!) dinner at a German food stall (brats, mustard on bagel buns.. so good), then headed for the fireworks.
The fireworks are absolutely amazing and worth staying until 9:30 to view. They light up the castle, the Matterhorn, Main Street with all manner of images.. it’s cool, and then blast fireworks at a stunning rate.
And this is a great during and after.. right at the end….
Finally, on the way out, we stopped in a gallery and looked at vintage art and drawings. That was worth it. Plus got to see this young (early 20s?) artist at work at an animator’s drawing table. She sharpened her pencils after nearly every stroke and rotated the drawing as needed. Nice.
And that was our day.
Not sure how soon I need to return, but if Betsy says sometime, ‘let’s go!’, I’ll probably go.
South Bay Tour Day
March 19, 2025
Part of the reason for this trip is to go to Disneyland, and part of it is to show Janet some of my old haunts. Today was a chill day in the South Bay.
We met in the alley behind both of our places at 10:00 and hiked down the Esplanade to the Riviera Village for coffee at Offset.
I’d planned a walking adventure from Torrance beach to RAT to Malaga Cove to the Plaza to our old house and back… but that was not to be, as Janet’s back was acting up, so: shopping instead, then lunch at Turquoise (had a great Kaboudeh wrap).
We each chilled for a bit in our respective cottages then took a driving tour that included my old house, Via Campesina, the Plaza, Malaga Cove, the gazebo, the Neighborhood Church, Bluff Cove, PVHS, the E-ticket portion of PV Dr. West, and then a nice walk at Pt. Vicente
From the Pt. Vicente trail:
A nice view of Catalina.
We then headed to Chris’s. Betsy showed up and then Chris took us all on a great cliff-side walk. Definitely doing that walk again. He got to show me the trail to Indicator (a surf spot) that includes a gnarly hands & knees section that he named Kari’s Corner because it’s the most “alpine” part of the trail.. which he said reminds him of me. Flattered! He’s been wanting to show me that spot for years, so I was glad to see it (though the trail was steep and slippy and I didn’t want to go all the way down to the famous corner, LOL).
My finger’s not exactly pointing to the correct spot. Continue along the trail from where Chris is, then just beyond the spot where the trail seems to vanish is a ledge.. that ledge Kari’s Corner and you have to scooch down — probably on your butt — to rejoin the trail (not visible here). It’s quite a ways yet to the beach.
Here are some shots from the walk along the cliff adjacent to Paseo Del Mar.
Look at these old geezers….
A nice view of downtown LA…
The turnaround spot.. up at the junction of PV Dr. N and Paseo Del Mar. The viewpoint for the submarine races.
We left the Paseo Del Mar trail and headed quickly to Lunada Bay to catch the sunset. And made it!
A beeeeautiful day.
Janet and Kari Hit the Road
March 18, 2025
Here we go! A short little turnaround between trips (which made packing easy!), and by 10:00am, I was honking the horn at 305 Norte Ave, summoning Janet so we could begin our six-day trip to SoCal! (Not really: I walked up to the door because I’m polite that way.)
We stopped at the South Davis Starbs for road coffee, then hit the road. We hit the usual traffic in LA and had a couple stops along the way, arriving to our Redondo beach cottages by 5:30. Seven-plus hours, not horrible.
I was able to book one of my standby cottages on Avenue A (Tiana’s place) and, super-fortunate, Tiana made me aware that the family next door has now added an airbnb to their property and we were able to book that one for the same days. So… we had adjacent cottages, giving us space and alone time as needed, which turned out to be quite brilliant. Both cute, clean, tidy, adequately appointed. And a block from the beach!
We dropped our stuff and headed right to the Esplanade!
We took a good long walk, called Chris, made a quick reservation for dinner, and then caught a beautiful sunset:
No pics, but our dinner at Bettolini’s with Chris was fabulous.
Here Come the Daffs
March 17, 2025
I’ve been in the cold, cold midwest, for nine days, and tomorrow I head to warm Southern California. And in the meantime, Spring done sprung in Davis. We planted probably about 50 new bulbs last fall, so the mound should be sporting a lot of color this season. Here’s the start:
I’ll keep y’all posted as other stuff comes in.
Happy
March 16, 2025
Here’s to being all caught up on one’s vacation blogs.
That said: I haven’t yet blogged vacations from last year. And I missed vacation blogs from the year before that, as well. Fear not, all past vacation blogs are on my to-do list(s). LOL.
Note: For those reading in the far future, I wrote a week’s worth of [so-called] daily blogs about this most recent trip to Ann Arbor in a single sitting.
Note: That is not my photo.
Intact Sauerkraut
March 15, 2025
Nothing to this day but travel. Peter and Maya picked me up at 10 to take me to the airport .. so nice they both came. A little lateness here and there, but got off in time to make the connection in Salt Lake City (barely, the plane was fully loaded by the time I boarded… last!). I left my book (Leah’s Count and the Saint) on the Det –> SLC plane. We had to wait for last minute baggage to be loaded (probably mine), so the flight attendant said I had the time to run to the other plane to see if they’d found it. The gate agent gave me a very narrow time window to conduct this recovery effort, but in the end it was not successful. Damn… my signed copy of the Count and the Saint!
I got a window seat for my last flight (and my own row) so got to take some pictures. Here’s leaving SLC:
Here’s the Great Salt Lake, just outside of the city:
Here’s our arrival in Sac (mmmm, green!)
On the way home from the Sac airport, I ordered a new Count and the Saint. Arrives next week. I also got some great news upon opening my suitcase at home: the jar of sauerkraut that L&C gave me 1) was still cold (wrapped in an ice pack and bubble wrap) and 2) did not break on all my clothes!
Why sauerkraut? L&C eat one spoonful a day, for a healthy gut. Imma gonna try it.
Our intact jar of sauerkraut:
Last Day of Spring Trip to A2
March 14, 2025
Damn.. last day. I could stay weeks more. I love Ann Arbor and all it offers (like, you know, Peter and Maya for starters). Don’t like last days.
It was a great one, though!
Started at oh, dark, 6:10. That’s a full moon setting. Don’t be fooled by the brightness of this photo.. it was dark. I’m on Sarah’s porch waiting for Lisa to pick me up.
Lisa and I are joining MJ for their thrice weekly walk (Mary Jo, who she’s been running — now walking — with several times a week for 28 years!). They are both marathon runners. I enjoy joining them when I’m in town (not for marathons, not for runs). This day, Stephanie joined as well.
We parked at Sweetwaters in Kerry Town and walked down to the same river access point across from Casey’s Tavern. Their route is slightly different than my other river walks this week, but it’s still a 3-4 mile fast walk in 30-degree weather. INVIGORATING.
MJ and Steph then left for work, Lisa and I had coffee & a scone at Zingerman’s. I was back at the BT by 8:00am. Nice way to start a day!! (Remember that, Kari.)
I had to wait an hour for breakfast, so got cleaned up, then joined all those cute prospective grad students again and heard about their various wooing events from the day before.
Today’s cafe experience was a new one — Avalon — on Main, near Liberty. Sat for hours there, then met Lisa at the BT. We had some time to kill before heading off to a Tesla protest .. so went first to a very nice gallery, run by the local artists’ guild…
… where an artist friend of L&C’s had some pieces. Hard to see bc of all the reflection, but here’s an example of her water colors.. this one of the Nichols Arcade (a well known shopping area in A2) that won first place in this most recent exhibit:
Then we sat at the TeaHaus for an hour or so drinking unusual teas (I had chocolate chili, subtle but pretty good).
and THEN, it was time to go protest at the Ann Arbor Tesla dealership! I’m guessing there were about 300 people there. Each week the number grows, having started with one woman and a sign a few weeks ago.
Some pics.
We basically marched back and forth in an elongated circle the length of the very long Tesla property. It was quite satisfying. Some chants, mostly just pissed off white senior citizens. Not all old people, but that sure seems to be what makes up a lot of the opposition these days. Educated boomers. Some signs:
And a dog, just to show it’s not all retired white people.
Lisa and I, after all our marching and chanting, then headed over to Bill’s Beer Garden to meet P&M, but because it was a sunny, warm (70-degrees by late afternoon!) Friday, and because there were thousands of prospective grad students in town, Bills’ line wrapped around the block and we couldn’t get in. When P&M arrived, we decided instead on Grizzly Peak (a bar/restaurant). We hung out for about an hour before Peter had to head out for a department reception (an event also related to wooing new students to the Mech E department.
Lisa had to run off to another gathering, so Maya and I got to have an evening together. We hung out at Literati for a long time looking at books, then had dinner at the Pacific Rim .. probably Peter and Maya’s favorite A2 restaurant:
Peter dropped by after his event and helped us eat this….
… Pacific Rim’s famous hot chocolate cake with cherries and vanilla ice cream.
And that’s a wrap on another great day.
River, Cafe, Dinner Redux
March 13, 2025
If it’s Thursday in Ann Arbor — day four of my visit — it must be a good day for a river walk, time in a cafe and dinner with my peeps.. on this, another sunny, cold day.
Today’s version of the perfect day: another warm and wonderful breakfast at Sarah’s, this time with a crop of prospective grad students here to evaluate if Ann Arbor is the place they want to spend the next 6-7 years of their academic careers. These kids were German studies and comparative lit students, whose prospective departments put them up at the Burnt Toast (lucky them, much more charming than a hotel). They were impressive, passionate kids. I (of course) thought about Peter who lost out on the wooing aspect of grad school selection due to Covid. He’d been scheduled to fly in during the annual March university-wide grad school evaluation process and go through exactly what these students were going through, but for the Covid breakout of 2020. Instead, he accepted U of M, sight unseen. He’d gotten to visit U of Colorado (Boulder) and loved that experience, before everything shut down that year. There were more besides, but U of M checked all the boxes. Glad it did!
I wrote about all that here: https://lifeofwry.com/2020/03/20/umich/ It’s about as accurate and prescient a post as could be written!
After breakfast, I set out on what I thought would be the same river walk as yesterday, but I got a bit lost (I know, hard to do when following a river). I couldn’t find the spot where we’d crossed the river, so retraced my steps and crossed in a different location. It was about the same distance, as it turned out, as I missed the crossover spot by mere feet (just around a corner). Today’s walk was equally beautiful..
As you can see, the sun is melting the ice. It was a lot less solid than just yesterday. So sunny, a guy was running in shorts. It was definitely not that warm.
I headed over to (again!) the Lowertown Bar & Cafe.. this time for coffee and reading. Starting Leah’s book again (Maya’s mama)…
I got all bogged down in “an” vs “a” historian. The cover, as you can see, uses “a,” while the text within the book uses “an.” I’d just argued (online) the day before with Marty, in a photo I’d posted on FB about my staying in “an” historic hotel in Grinnell, about the proper article (he favors “a”), so this was most amusing to me! (And distracting.. as I didn’t get very far in the book.)
Headed back to the BT and then off to meet Lisa and Claire in Loch Alpine. We logged into the weekly Indivisible zoom at 3:00… always incredibly rich in current political info, brilliant in strategy, and totally inspiring. Completely admire and respect founders Leah and Ezra; they are a staple in my activism these days.
Claire then had a meeting, so Lisa and I took Scout for a (3.7 miles) walk. Yet another part of the Huron and more riverside parks…
Good ol’ Scouty.
We returned and got started on dinner (they did, I just sat and watched).
Then the kiddos came over.. more talking..
More hanging out with Scouty…
More wonderful times with these two..
Returned home, not too, too late.. hoped to run into Sarah and Gus.. but no… so headed up to bed.
Wintry River Walking and More
March 12, 2025
More Ann Arbor comfort time.. a leisurely get up, another lovely breakfast with and by Sarah, and then Lisa and Claire picked me up and we headed down to the Huron River. As a defining town feature, the Huron River is pretty nice. There are countless parks along its shores, a just tons of trails that follow it. This day we parked in front of Casey’s Tavern on Depot and joined the river for about a 3-4 mile walk.
It was cold (like in the low to mid 30s at about 11:00).
Still smiling, though!
Some nice wintry, icy shots of the Huron… (that near surface is solid)..
I love all the browns and grays of a midwestern winter day:
This was cool.. the city of Ann Arbor makes available Narcan (naloxone), which can be accessed easily and used free of charge if you are experiencing an opioid drug overdose.
After an hour or so of brisk (both temps and pace) walking, we had a great lunch at Casey’s Tavern. First time for me. Love finding new places. Enjoyed a reuben sandwich, fries and a dark beer. Yum.
After they dropped me back at the Burnt Toast, I headed out again in search of a new cafe. Tried, but couldn’t find a new one with good wifi and enough seating (where I could hang out for a couple of hours), so ended up at the Sweetwaters at Washington and Ashley. Just fine.
Headed back to the BT and turned right around to pick up Maya at work (Quinn-Evans on Main Street), then Peter at work, and off we went to Lowertown Bar and Cafe again. Beers, cocktails, and I had a spiked hot chocolate. Not my photo, but it’s the table we sat at, so I grabbed it off the website:
They were supposed to then go to a string quartet concert at the Hill Auditorium and I was going to drink with Sarah (LOL), but they decided to blow off the concert and spend the evening with me. Lucky mom! We decided on the Earle for something quieter than Mani the night before. Old style restaurant with a piano accompanist.. we were probably there well over two hours. Such a nice time.
Life of Wry 