Honeymoon Day 9:

Disneyland!!!

We got up with the sun, grabbed our free coffees at the terrible little hotel breakfast nook, and walked to the main gate with a few minutes to spare. All things considered, the crowds weren't that big. We knew there was a good chance of rain, but I layered quite a bit, and we weren't giving up that easily.

The first part of the day was wonderful. We dashed to Adventureland and went into Tarzan's Treehouse and then on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Then we got into a short line for the Indiana Jones Ride, which wasn't open the last time Alan went to Disneyland.





We stayed for a while in New Orleans Square, checking out merchandise to souvenir later, and finding the restaurant that had crepes mentioned on a cooking show on the Food Network. We went to the Haunted Mansion ride next. I usually love that ride, but at Christmas it becomes the "Nightmare Before Christmas" Mansion. I've never loved that movie for starters, and the last time I was on it at Christmas, the ride stopped for ten minutes next to a set of deranged "feed-me-seymore" plants singing the nightmarish theme. LAA la la LA LA LA. LA LA la la LAAAAAAAAA. LA la la LA LA LA. LA la LA la LAAAAAAA! Over. And Over. And Over. I'm over it.

Next we went up to Pooh Corner to go on some kiddy rides before the place packed out. We went on Pooh's Honey Pot, a silly little ride, but a fun one. We bypassed Splash Mountain, opting not to get wet that early in the day.

We made our way to Toon Town, looking for (Please, God!) an espresso stand as we went. We felt like true Seattle-ites wandering Disneyland in an increasing drizzle, searching for "real coffee." We finally found a stand next to Sleeping Beauty's Castle. I got a latte and a gingerbread cookie, Alan had a Mocha. We walked through the castle diorama to get a break from the rain for a moment.



In Toon Town, I love touring Mickey and Minnie's houses! The line for Minny's house was the longest line we saw all day. Minnie was greeting guests at the front door. Little girls with Mouse ears were lined up around the outside. Mickey's welcome sign said he was greeting, too. We went to Mickey's, and pulled the things that said "pull," pushed the things that were meant to be pushed, and sat in the dog bed. At the end of the walk, there was a Disney Cast Member who invited us to meet Mickey. So we did.




We stayed in Toon Town, doing all the walk throughs, playing with the zany cars, and then went on the Roger Rabbit Ride. It's one of Alan's favorite movies. There we hit our first snag of the day. The ride broke down right as we made it past the first corner. The announcement told us to remain seated until a cast member released us. We stayed. And stayed. They had to get the people furthest away, and then walk us all out in a line. We would have made out, but there was one more car in the room with us. I took pictures of the stilled characters.








We opted for It's A Small World. I LOVE that ride at Christmas! All the little bobble head puppets sing Jingle Bells with It's a Small World. YAY!!! Alan would have been happier had the ride been a shooting gallery.

Next we took a left to the newly remodelled "Finding Nemo" Sub Ride, which was our personal longest wait of the day. The Star Wars Ride was being repaired, but we spent time in the gift shop anyway. Then we went into the Toy Story shooting gallery. I sucked. Alan rocked!

Then we went back to Adventureland to take the Jungle Cruise. The second-oldest ride at Disneyland, and still one of the best! Our guide was really quite funny. As we left the boat, it began raining in earnest. We began regretting the Seattle mentality that had prevented us from purchasing ponchos at the first sign of trouble.



We went across the lot to the California Adventure. Alan had never been. It isn't that great, in my opinion, on a good day. Mostly it's a water park, which is useless when it's raining. As the rain worsened, I voted for spending some time in the Aladdin show, which is very good, and all indoors. We dried our coats on the seats next to us as we watched their production, lamenting the size of their budget and the coolness of the special effects. Then we braced ourselves for the outdoors and went to the Muppets, but it was broken down for the moment. We went on the Monsters, Inc ride. We went into the almost identical Toy Story shooting gallery, and this time, I. Kicked. Alan's. Ass.

We made the circle of the boardwalk, which was mostly closed in the rain, and then went into the Bug's Life 3-D show. It was cute, but so scary for a little kid! Outside, there were Bug Musical Posters which were pretty cute. We decided that we were tired of being wet with nothing to do, so we left the park after dashing back to see if Miss Piggy was "over her tantrum" and caught the Muppets in 3-D.



It was dark, now. As long as we were out of the park, we decided to head into Downtown Disney to let Alan have a look around. We ended up eating dinner at the Blues Brothers Restaurant, and watching part of the Seahawks game. We went into a few gift shops on the way back - including the Disney one. I bought some Shortbread with a picture of Mickey in a Kilt for Alan's parents.

We went back into Disneyland. The rain had turned into torrential downpour with sideways driving rain. We barely made it into the park before we had to turn into the Abraham Lincoln show to get out of it. We, and a handful of other people also escaping, watched Abraham Lincoln's lifesize sculpture come to life and deliver a stirring patriotic speech with bald eagles flying across a screen behind him. We gift shop hopped our way back up main street, and then hit some kiddie rides with no waits. Our second snag of the day - Snow White broke down on us as soon as we got into the first room. Once again, we were the last people extracted from the ride.

Wet and miserable, but determined not to wuss out now, we ran to Adventureland. On the way we stopped in at the Saloon and had tea.



At Indiana Jones we could run up and get onto any car, any row we wanted. At Pirates of the Caribbean, they asked us if we'd like to stay on for a second turn. As we left, we decided that we'd eeked out enough fun from the day, and it would be nice to be dry again. At my insistence, we hopped a bus instead of walking, which turned out to be the wrong bus. Which meant we had to take the whole route, then return to Disneyland and catch a shuttle, which didn't go to our hotel, but one down the street. Alan was right. We should have just walked.

We picked up our car and drove to Burbank to find a hotel, found a really shady one, and fell asleep after draping our clothes over the heater to dry.

Honeymoon Day 8

Well everyone, rehearsal was delayed today due to snow, so I have a moment or two!

Day 8 was our last morning in Palm Springs. We woke up early (for us) and tidied up, then dropped by Grandma and Ken's place to give them the keys and garage door opener. We had a lovely time!

We stopped by the Brighton Outlet one more time on our way out of town. I bought a lovey pendant necklace I'd loved, which was marked down to less than $10. Alan won brownie points when he found the same necklace marked down lower in another section of the store. YAY!

Our goal for the day was to hit several of the movie filming sites that Alan had researched, beginning the with Vasquez Rocks, where Kirk fought the Gorn, and more than 500 films have shot. The mapquest directions sent us out and around the back side of the mountain range instead of through the city. Since the Rose Parade and Bowl were on in Pasadena, we thought skipping L.A. is a great idea.

Three hours of driving through the absolute middle of nowhere later, we were wishing we'd risked the town way. Not only were we on a two lane highway where even the scrub brush was giving up the will to live, but traffic leaving Pasadena on highway 2 backed up traffic on the one left turn off my highway. We crawled through the desert for several miles trying to bypass.

Eventually we stopped in Peachtree (population 500) for gas and a restroom. The guy with one eye standing next to the man with no teeth told us that the "bathrooms is broke. You might try the likker store." We passed. I turned to Alan, who was passed out in the passenger seat with a migraine, and told him that these had better be pretty damn cool rocks.

Finally, just as we were worrying about losing the light, we pulled into the Vasquez Rocks. They were cool. Not three and a half hours of driving cool, but cool. After all that driving, it took us 20 minutes to get back into L.A. Stupid Mapquest.





Next we went into Hollywood, but didn't stop, then took the longest possible way to the Pacific Coast Highway to go down to Long Beach. There, we found the bar they filmed "True Blood" - Alan's favorite Vampire drama. We chatted with the bartender about the filming and local area attractions. If we'd had more time, we would have stopped at the section of Long Beach with Vintage Clothing Stores and Restaurants. However, it was late, and we needed to find our hotel in Annaheim.





We stopped at a Starbucks to use our new laptop and find a hotel. Then we drove to Annaheim. After much driving around (Disney Way cuts off most of the streets around Disneyland, leaving us circling the park trying to find our street again), we checked in. Then we went to Dennys for an 11pm breakfast, then went to sleep, dreaming of Disneyland!

Honeymoon Day 7:

Today started low key. I turned on the hot tub first thing and spent the morning reading while drinking coffee. I woke Alan up at 10.

We decided on a plan of action for New Years. We'd eaten at every place that had been recommended to us, plus a few more that we found on our own. We picked our favorite pizza for lunch, and while we were there, made reservations for a late dinner at the Hog's Breath Inn. We'd gone there for appetizers earlier in the week, and thought their menu looked really tasty.

After Pizza we bummed around a bit more, then headed back home to nap and relax.

That evening we got dressed up and headed to Hog's Breath. We sat in the lounge and had a dirty martini and a lemon drop martini and listened to the piano player while we waited for our reservation. We were escorted to our table. Alan was in the mood for steak, and I wavered between the pork chop and the crab stuffed sole - but the waiter sold me on the pork chop over butternut squash with apple au jus. I had a salad, and even that was the best I've ever eaten. Alan switched over to the house wine, and I sipped champagne. We sat watching the glittering restaurant. Literally. The waitstaff had "Happy New Year" tinselly headbands, and most of the patrons were in their flashiest. One young man was wearing a silver paper top hat, and his sister had a sparkly black boa. As our meal came to a close, we decided to splurge and split the cheesecake and a glass of 20-year port. It was a lovely evening and a perfect New Year.

At home, we warmed up the hot tub again, and sipped champagne waiting for the ball to drop. We had our first New Years kiss, and then I went off to bed.

What a great end to an old year.

And a woman stopped me to compliment me on my wedding shoes, and another on my sparkly silver dress. Even better! (And Alan wore his three piece wedding suit with his white tie and a pocket watch, and looked extremely handsome - like an English Country Gentleman out on the town!)

Honeymoon Day 6:

After such a busy day in LA, today was a low key one. I warmed up the hot tub first thing in the morning and spent the day getting in and out of it, reading. Alan went for an adventure to check out Indio - the last town we hadn't been in. He ate lunch at an In-N-Out Burger, and found a Barnes and Noble to buy a book. I napped a bit.

At 3:30 we went over the Grandma and Ken's and got a tour of their housing community, then went to Burgers and Jeans night at their clubhouse. Best. Burger. Ever! Then we went back to their house for ten rounds of Rummycubes over wine and chocolates.

I fell asleep at 10.

One funny picture - the only other place besides Seattle that I've seen one of these:

Honeymoon Day 5:

Today we got up at 7, and left at 8 for our Warner Brothers Backlot tour in Burbank, California. It was raining the whole drive, but let up once we got into L.A.

The studio tour was great! The most raw entertainment for our buck was watching a very snooty, entitled woman raise hell at the manager's desk because part of her large party had shown up late, and their spaces had been given away. We were glad to discover that none of them would be in our group.

The first portion of the tour was driving through the back lots. The studio has built several generic city sets - New York, Chicago and "Midtown, USA" that can be dressed up or down depending on the period needed. The guide pointed out several key filming locations, like the front facade of Mrs. Hannigan's Orphanage from Annie, the alley where they filmed the famous Spiderman kiss, and the theater from the Drew Carey opening. We also saw the last remaining facade from the Casablanca filming, and their "Central Park" which was used in the Phoebe and Rachel running scene from Friends.

The Spiderman Alley
Mrs. Hannigan's Orphanage

The second part of the tour was my favorite! They took us to a museum that housed collections from Hollywood films of the past. The upstairs housed memorabilia from the Harry Potter Films. I was THRILLED to discover a sign thanking Colleen Atwood (among others) for her contribution, but sadly, none of her costumes were on display that day. We did see costumes from Willy Wonka, The Matrix, and the latest Batman. They also had Sam's Piano from Casablanca. We wandered upstairs to check out the Harry Potter display - but having just seen the touring exhibit in Seattle, it wasn't quite as neat. But we did see the statue of the petrified Hermione - which looked GREAT! They had Harry's under-the-cupboard set. We saw several books and letters with greenscreened portions on the cover where the moving pictures would be added in post-production, and the Dursley's fireplace with hundreds of letters pouring out. We also were sorted into houses - Alan into Hufflepuff, and for me the hat said, "Ah, another Weasley" and sorted me into Griffindore. Sadly, we were not allowed to take pictures, but we got to see ever so many great costumes up close.

I looked at the work, and thought the construction wasn't better than mine, but the budget for materials was astronimically cooler. We saw two suits made for the Twins, and they'd obviously paid someone to weave the pinstriped material for the suits. They were exactly the same color, but the two-toned pinstriping was at different widths on each suit. Color on color and multi-layered patterns appear to be the way to go in filming. It was fascinating!

Next we saw the set for Two and a Half Men. For theater people, it was interesting to see how high the audience sits, and how low the rigging comes. The set itself looked like any set, but there were bare areas off the main set where secondary sets could be brought back in, or built if needed. The backdrop was a 30' by 100' poster of Malibu. The studio is the only studio with the machinery to build posters that bid, so most of the building sized billboards in LA are made there, as well.

We were escorted through the props department - where many props were on hold for the filming of "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" beginning in January. In one corner, behind a flat, they'd left the "Central Perk" set from Friends! A pushy German family sat on the couch to take a picture, so our tour guide kindly allowed Alan and I to take our picture there too. YAY!!!!!




Next, we toured the transportation department's display of famous cars from the movies. Alan saw two Batmobiles and the Grand Torino, and I saw the Ford Anglia from Harry Potter.

I asked the tour guide if there was any way to see the costume department, but he said that they don't allow them in there - and he's never even seen it. I bought a postcard at the gift shop, and went online to see if there were any job postings.

After the tour we went to Big Boy Burgers for lunch, then went on a two-hour trek to find the location of the "Batcave" in Griffin Park. After several wrong turns (It's a big park!) we made it, and Alan was made a very very happy man.


We did go into Hollywood for a while, to spend a couple of hours before meeting a friend of Alan's for dinner. We wandered Groman's Chinese, but being a holiday, it was a freakin' zoo. So we ducked into the Hollywood Wax Museum, because I had never been to one. For unexpected bang for our buck, the Hollywood Wax museum is right up there with the Robotic Dinosaur Museum. It was fun and totally chintzy - but we had a great time!





After some more wantdering and getting lost, we met Mark and Sarah for dinner at a Mexican Restaurant in Beverly Hills. It was lovely - no menus - but five courses. Alan played with their son for a while, and got to catch up with his old roommate. After dinner, Alan and I headed for home.

Honeymoon Day 4:


At Cafe des Beaux-Arts

Today was was restaurant heavy. We woke up rather early (for us) and drove back to El Paseo to eat brunch at a lovely French Bistro. I knew I was in heaven when I walked in an the waitstaff were all speaking French. I had a really real Croque Monsieur, and Alan had the ham and cheese crepes. It was the perfect beginning to the day.

Next we popped down the road a bit and went to Boomers to play mini-golf. I was doing very well, coming out ahead after the first nine holes. But an unfortunate 6-stroke hole meant Alan won by four points. And now won't stop gloating, since that puts him ahead 2-1 on our running mini-golf talley. I interjected that the previous games have been on 9-hole courses, so since I was ahead in the first nine, and he won the back nine, it's technically 2-2. He's not buying. There were lovely little houses all over the course to play through or around, and we ran about taking pictures with all of them. (We also spent a really long wait in line to buy tickets checking out the ENOURMOUS rock on the finger of the woman in front of us; and wondering what her husband does for a living.)






That morning, on our way to brunch, we stopped by Grandma's to check in, and she recommended that we take the tram tour while the weather was still nice. The tram is an 80-person lift that goes up the side of the mountains near Palm Springs, and rotates, showing a view of the valley. After mini-golf, a quick trip to the store and some frozen yogurt, we headed west of Palm Springs. (On the way we stopped by a local resale shop and found two Tommy Bahama shirts for Alan.)

We wound our way up the side of the foothills to the named parking lots. We wanted to park in the grey weasil lot, but ended up in the hawk lot. We waited for the bus to the lobby. Upon entering, a driver not chosen for his people skills informed us casually that the earliest we'd be getting on a tram would be 4:30. It was 2:50. We hung in there, and made it to the lobby, walked in, saw the line, and decided that if we were going to wait for two hours in that kind of crowd, there had better be a pirate or Indiana Jones at the end of it. We walked back down the hill and left.

We stopped into a little Antique Mall - the first we've seen in Palm Springs that wasn't so ritsy that we were afraid to go in, and enjoyed our usual routine of bopping around. I bought a stack of outdated decor magazines for some hottub side reading.

With time to kill, and options running out in Palm Springs, we decided to Happy Hour Hop our way back home. Alan had a disastrous "British Pub" experience the day before. (When you walk in, and the bartender had never heard of Smithwicks - and when asked what kind of lagers they have and replies 'Bud' - you might consider yourself clued in) So, for him, we stopped into a "Tilted Kilt" - a Scottish Themed Pub. What we didn't know was - Tilted Kilt is the equivalent of a Scottish Themed Hooters. We walked into a charming pub with stained glass windows of busty girls in mini-kilt bikinis. When our eyes adjusted to the gloom, I realized that both our hostess and bartender were in the same outfit. We did stay, when they had Smithwicks, Harp and Guiness, and had a happy hour black-and-tan and some onion rings. There were some really great posters on the walls and ceiling, and authentic scottish highland dress prints in the bathrooms. I took pictures of all the ones in the girls side. I couldn't muster the guts to walk into the men's bathroom for the others.

Next we drove back to El Paseo for the Tommy Bahama happy hour. THAT one was great. Alan had a mojito, and they made a Strawberry Daquiri for me. All the waitstaff were wearing identical shirts (we were wondering if they let the employees wear Tommy Bahama, or if they mass order knockoffs). The atmosphere was great, the staff pleasant, and we saw some really nice entrees go by. We popped through the Tommy Bahama Store and Anthropologie on our way out.

Grandma and Ken had recommended a place called Jackalope for appetisers, so our last stop was there. It was a huge restaurant that for some unknown reason had giant pig statues everywhere. (We thought they'd fit in better at the Hog's Breath Inn) There was one jackalope behind the bar. I had their corn and shrimp chowder and Alan tried their Potato Skins and the Jackalope Ale. They were advertising for a New Years Menu, so we may be back again.

After all the excitement, we went back home, heated up the hot tub, and had some wine and champagne and another romantic night. And watched the new "What Not To Wear." Poor Alan is overwhelmed sometimes by how many lucid fashion comments he's now capable of dolling out - after several years of forced Project Runway viewing. When the words - "She just needs a belt to accent her figure" came out - he whimpered a little.

Tomorrow, off to Warner Brothers!

Honeymoon Day 3:

Without meaning to, day 3 became a shopping day. On the way into town, I noticed a Brighton Outlet at the side of the road. Alan thought that we might be able to stop there sometime during our week. Yesterday the sun came out, and since my old pair of sunglasses (also Brighton) had died, and the Brighton Retail Store in El Paseo had discontinued my favorite pair, we decided that this would be the perfect day to start at the Outlets and work our way back into Palm Springs for lunch.

We started the day with Starbucks. Four people gave us coffee cards for Christmas and the wedding, so between them all we had around $80 to spend during this trip. Alan began the day with a quad shot venti mocha, and I had a vanilla bean frappaccino with an added espresso shot. Yum!

We drove to the outlets, realizing upon entering the parking lot that this MAY have been a mistake two days after Christmas. The lot was packed. Inside, though, it wasn't too bad. We found a Levis outlet and bought Alan two pairs of much-needed jeans ($15 per pair), then we worked our way around the complex searching for Brighton. We stopped in Gucci, Jimmy Choo, and Prada just for fun. After making our way to the opposite corner, where the Brighton sign appeared to be, there was no store in sight. We checked the mall map, and No Brighton! Disappointed, we went into Banana Republic for a top I loved last season (I have three of them, and they're all wearing out), and then into Esprit (a store I used to love, which we no longer have in the Northwest) where Alan found me a really cute peasant blouse for $9. We decided that we had shopped enough, and left for Palm Springs.

As we got on the highway, I looked back, and there were several shops on the South side of the mall that we hadn't seen from the inside. One of them was...hooray!....Brighton after all! I told Alan we could go back later, he insisted that we'd made it this far, so we ought to turn around. We took the next exit and found ourselves pulling off the highway towards a large statue of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. A huge sign proclaimed the existence of the "World's Largest Robotic Dinosaur Museum." Of COURSE we had to stop. We climbed up the Brontosaurus' butt into a gift shop and purchased tickets. Then we went into the museum. It was great. The dinosaurs were REALLY old. Some of them conveniently had wooden signs propped up on their stubby arms proclaiming what kind of Dinosaur they were. Since the museum was run by some seriously humor-free creationists, the dinosaurs were pictured alongside modern animals, with signs explaining why humans and dinosaurs had co-existed, and not realizing how funny it looked to have a little innocent white lamb laying quietly next to a T-Rex, or a not-to-scale frog sitting nearby while three velociraptors (one carrying his sign) hunted. It was great! We climbed all the way up the T-Rex and took pictures posing in his mouth. Finally, we made it back to another gift shop. I bought postcards. At the back was the best statue yet. A knight on a horse fought a rampaging Allosaurus! We're SO glad we missed Brighton!







We did make it back to Brighton. I ran inside while Alan circled in the car. Inside was heaven. I could go on for ages, but I'll demure. I did find one of my favorite pairs of sunglasses in a discount bin for $9.99. YAY!

We headed into Palm Springs by way of Route 111. It became downtown Palm Springs. We beelined for a Mexican Restaurant that looked promising, and had a lovely lunch on the patio. I had the seafood burrito (lobster, shrimp, and scallops in a spicy lime sauce) and Alan the Mole Enchiladas. It was so good. I didn't mean to leave with a doggy bag, but I couldn't let it go to waste. We wandered up on side of the street and headed back down the other. Alan got his picture taken with Sunny Bono.



At sunset we drove the rest of Route 111 to La Quinta, California, to find Clint Eastwood's restaurant, "The Hogs Breath Inn." I had one of their specialty rum spritzers, Alan the Hog's Breath Ale. We ordered happy hour Calamari - which were excellent! We've noticed an overabundance of excellent places to eat in this town. Each meal we take is better than the last. There's not much shopping, but plenty of golf here. Great theater at one performance center in the middle of the valley. We decided NOT to see the ancient dancing showgirls (agest 55-81!), even though it was recommended to us.

After a few drug store and grocery stopoffs, we headed back to the house to relax, put our feet up, and watch tv until the wee sma's. It was a lovely, if tiring day.

Honeymoon Day 2:

Amazingly, after the exhausting day of travel, we woke and were moving at 10. By 11 we'd checked emails and called Grandma and Ken to have them show us how to work the speaker system, pool and hot tub. Ken offered to take us on a 45 minute tour of the area, and we accepted. They drove us to their other house (#3) then out and around La Quinta, CA - the town our house is in. They showed us a lovely pizza place in the Old Town, showed us the grocery stores and excellent restaurants nearby, then took us back to our resort for lunch at the Clubhouse. I had an excellent "everything-but-the-kitchen-sink salad."

Alan and I popped back home to pick up our car. Then, we drove Route 111 - the old highway that cuts through all the towns in the desert. We are staying at the far east end, and the far west end of the highway is Palm Springs.

Before the trip began, while Alan was researching movie filming sites to visit in LA, I was finding thrift stores and the Tommy Bahama restaurant in Palm Springs. Both (coincidentally) area along Route 111. We popped into a few thrift stores on our way. We looked at Tommy Bahama shirts for Alan and found a Vera Wang blouse for me. It was missing its tag, so the saleslady gave it to me for $2.49. YAY! We hit a few antique stores. Goodwill. Then we beelined to Palm Springs. We decided that we'd like to go miniature golfing at Boomys, and walking along the Palm Springs shopping strip.

On our way home we made another attempt to find Tommy Bahama, and found it - along with a shopping complex that has similar shops to Paseo Nuevo in Santa Barbara, or U Village in Seattle. Only better. The Anthropologie is next door to Tommy Bahama. How did they know we were coming? We popped into both, then upstairs to the restaurant, but the bar was crammed full for some football game involving a California team (Not the 49ers. They'd already played), so we decided to try again later. We meandered the mall, walking up to the Brighton to look for sunglasses for me. They'd discontinued my favorite pair, but that gives me hope. There's a Brighton outlet on the way back out of town. Maybe I'll find them there. We walked back to a lovely Cafe des Beaux Artes, but decided after all that the breakfast and brunch menus were more exciting than dinner. So we drove back to the pizza place Grandma and Ken had recommended.

The pizza was excellent! We had the Napa. Ham, bacon, mushrooms, apples, gouda and mozzerella cheese, topped with a mango drizzle. YUM! Gouda should ALWAYS go on pizza.

On the way home we ran into Trader Jos for some munchies and coffee. Then went home and heated up the spa. Alan sat outside and smoked a cigar he'd bought at a shop across from Tommy Bahama (it smelled SO good. I hate cigarette smoke, but the occasional pipe or cigar smells heavenly!). I drank champagne and read a new collection of "Anne" stories I found at Powells. Alan called John to gloat about our spa and putting green, and then read a Dr. Laura book about keeping men happy. We neither of us like her delivery AT ALL, but some of the advice was pretty good. I took the book when he put it down and read a chapter myself.

Once the hot tub was warm, we had a lovely glass of wine, and a romantic evening under the stars which finally showed up! What a lovely end to the first real day of your honeymoon!

Honeymoon Day 1

Honeymoon Day 1:

Hello all from lovely Palm Springs, California!

Yesterday was our travel day, and a very busy one at that! Alan and I started the morning in Vancouver, having Christmas with his family. We woke, had breakfast and opened presents with his Sister and Brother-in Law. Then we packed and shuffled off to his parents' house to say goodbye. Alan took his mom on a quick trip to find an open grocery store for a veggie tray, and then we were off - back to Seattle for a 3 hour break to wash and repack our suitcases.

We caught the 5:54 bus to Seatac from Renton (a mere 10-minute drive) and found ourselves checked in with plenty of time to spare. So we went to the Alaskan Amber restaurant for a pre-flight-pre-honeymoon drink. There we booted up our new laptop (thanks Dad and Mom) to try out the airport's free Wifi. Alan looked through the photos that we'd developed from the disposable cameras we had at the wedding. Many turned out very well!

When it came time to board, we made our way to the terminal, but no boarding was happening. I hunkered down for a wait, and Alan went off to find mints. A few minutes later the PA system came on calling for "The Wilkies" - the whole plane was boarded and waiting for us to take off. I called Alan, and we boarded sheepishly. Flying on Christmas is definitely the way to go. The airport was nearly empty. There were few lines anywhere. The only downside was a rather surly flight attendant who was clearly unhappy to be working Christmas. I finished my book and amused myself by color coding my next two months in my new Brighton dayplanner (Thanks Alan!). Alan read, too.

The flight landed right on time and our checked bag was on the carousel before we got there. A shuttle drove us to the boonies to our rental car dealer. We picked up a very loud Electric Blue Ford Focus (easy to find in a lot), and after a few wrong turns trying to find the right highway from a location several miles from our mapquest directions starting point, we had an easy drive from Los Angeles to the desert.

At 2:30am we finally rolled into the housing complex. Well, we found the front gate. There two very sleepy guards checked our identities and asked if we needed directions to the house. We did. "Paco" handed us a slip of paper with the following: 8L, 1R, 1L. We drove for ages in the dark past identical houses. We counted 8 lefts - but were unsure whether we should count every left arrow in the road, or only legitimate stop signs - and did the left turn into the clubhouse count? We turned into the 8th left. We wound through a neighborhood full of Avenidas - but none of them were ours. The perpendicular streets were all Calles. After exhausting that culdesac, we decided we must have miscounted, and went one section back. Another identical culdesac. Nary an Avenida anything in sight - all Calles and something else that means street starting with a "C" as well. We went across the street - and found the right numbers, but the wrong Avenida. Finally we gave up and drove all the way back to the gatehouse. There was "Paco" and a new guard, "Rusty." We told them the safe combination we'd been given was not helping us at all, and could we please see a map with some street names on it. They didn't have a portable one, but allowed us into their booth to show us the site map on the wall. Sure enough, we were one complex off, and had I gone the "just one more" we would have lucked into the right house.

At 3:15 we finally navigated our way to the house, wandered around the endless rooms for a few minutes commenting on how beautiful it was, picked a bedroom, and fell asleep. A successful, if exhausting, first day.

Here's the link to our wedding registry, for those who were confused by our invitation!

Visit our honeyfund at Honeyfund.com, the free honeymoon registry