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This is an extended version of a blog post about my honeymoon. Please comment there.

This really started as a dream vacation, not related to the honeymoon. Kelly and I got to talking about vacations, and realized that we hadn't ever taken a real vacation together. We had taken weekend getaways to Disney World two hours away, and we had taken road trips to Illinois and Missouri to visit family and friends over the years, but we had never traveled to a fun new destination and just played tourist for a while, the way we used to do with our families when we were kids. With considerable generosity from my mother, who we can't thank enough for paying for most of the trip as a wedding present, we were able to plan a ten-day vacation to California as our honeymoon, and we sure needed the break after months of anxiety created by planning the wedding and the trip itself.

The trip started as a relaxed drive up the California coastline because it seemed like a way to do a variety of things in a warm climate, but we decided to integrate Los Angeles and San Francisco into the itinerary because we'd be so close to the great tourism options that both cities offered, and soon they mostly took over the trip. We wanted a mix of major headliner tourist attractions (Disneyland, Alcatraz, Hollywood), weird offbeat little places (826 Valencia, Musée Mécanique), attractions that had held a certain fascination for us since we were kids (La Brea Tar Pits, Winchester Mystery House), and lots of great food along the way. It took weeks of research and organizing to come up with a schedule that included the best possible options in the best possible arrangement, but it was worth it to make the dream vacation come true.

Here's breaking down our trip step by step, with some of my favorite photos. Many more images are available in Kelly's album.

Dollar Rent-a-Car

Most of our travel services along the trip were fine: United Airlines, La Quinta, Ramada, and Quality Inn all did well by us. But I want to single out Dollar Rent-a-Car for a major complaint. After arriving exhausted in Los Angeles (I hadn't eaten in twelve hours and we had barely slept the night before), we took a bus from the airport to Dollar's office to pick up our reserved car. They ran a credit check on me and declined me on the spot, refusing to honor the reservation. Ignoring the fact that I have excellent credit so what gives, they couldn't have run a credit check on me three months earlier when I booked the car? They had to do it after I flew across the country and was stranded in an unfamiliar city? What kind of policy is that? We speculated that the manager who served us may have faked it: He was initially very friendly and bent over backwards to help us, and when he heard that it was our honeymoon, he tried to rent me a Mustang convertible for very cheap under the table (he lowered his voice so his staff wouldn't hear). But our fat bodies need a bigger car to be comfortable, so I politely declined his generous offer, and then he turned very icy and unhelpful, and that's when the "credit check" failed, or so he claimed. I'm writing a letter to corporate about the problems: Whether it was a bad manager or a bad credit policy, they owe me an apology.

Anyway, we had no choice but to take a series of buses to other rental car companies and hope that none of them had the same credit policy. We stood in line for an hour at Alamo only to learn that they had no cars available, but National rescued us: A great brand-new Dodge Avenger with just 500 miles on it, and no problems with my credit. But it cost us $500 more than what I had reserved at Dollar, and that was most of the spare money that we had left, and the trip hadn't even started yet! Still, thank you National for saving us when we needed you. Customers for life.

In-N-Out Burger

We had heard Californians rave about their burger chain for years, and wanted to try it for ourselves. But exhausted, starving, pissed off at Dollar, frazzled from a day of traveling, and with throbbing headaches and toothaches, was not the ideal way to give it a fair try. The LAX location was also swarming with people and prone to deafening flyovers every few minutes. But I have to say: We liked the burgers and the fries (not so much the shakes), and we wound up turning to In-N-Out again later in the trip, whenever we needed to eat something in a hurry or to have a late-night treat. We ate there a total of four times, and we'd probably eat there all the time if we lived in California. Consider me a convert.

Disneyland

Originally, it seemed like a no-brainer to skip this: We live two hours from Orlando and can visit theme parks whenever we want. But we reasoned that we really do enjoy Disney theme parks, and this one offered certain California-exclusive attractions that we couldn't get at home, and we didn't know when we might ever get another chance, so we decided to spend one day of the trip here. It was absolutely worth it: We had a fantastic time on the revamped Star Tours, the Mark Twain Riverboat where they let us ride in the captain's wheelhouse, all three rides in the Cars land, the terrific Toy Story midway ride, and more. Unfortunately, the day ended with an argument over whether to get cold and wet for the very disappointing World of Color water spectacle show (I'm so sorry Kelly), and it put us right back into the same godawful mood as the night before. Looking back, we remember the good parts of the day, and Kelly later called this her favorite day of the trip.

Westside Pavilion

We slept in and skipped the Getty (we have enough art museums in Sarasota), and we tried to get to The Apple Pan for lunch, seeking a local landmark. But I got confused and saw a new building being constructed on what I thought was its corner, so we incorrectly guessed that it was out of business. We wound up eating in the food court in the mall across the street. The food was so-so, but it gave us an unexpected chance to people-watch regular Angelenos in a non-touristy venue. One woman seemed to be auditioning for a dancing revue in the hopes that someone nearby happened to be a casting director, while businesspeople in suits took a convenient lunch, and little old ladies sat sipping tea and watching the free television in the mall.

The Queen Mary

This was a treat. The Queen Mary has long been on the list of things we'd like to see someday. Before leaving Florida, we watched old episodes of Unsolved Mysteries and The X Files set on the ship to prepare for the visit. The real thing didn't disappoint: Except for the other tourists, it was like stepping back in time, with neat ghost stories, great views of Long Beach, and surprisingly good shops in the promenade. The haunted-house aspects of the ghost tour were cheesy, but we liked touring deep into the guts of the ship and seeing history from an engineer's perspective. They didn't allow photos inside the ship, but we got a few in the museum and outside.

The Book of Mormon

We're big South Park fans and had gotten very excited by the buzz about this musical, and it lived up to the hype: It's hilarious and lively, especially in the first act, which immediately establishes two very distinctive comic protagonists right from the first scene. Seeing it in the Pantages Theatre was also great: We had heard of the ornate decor carved into this historic building, but we had no idea how beautiful it was until we saw it up close. I could have stared at it for an hour.

Warner Bros. Studio Tour

We heard that the Warner Bros. tour was the best of the various studio tours around town, and I think we chose well. It was neat to see sets from some of our favorite shows and movies, and to hear production stories from the tour guide, and to get a sense of how the post-production is handled in the various offices that we toured. This was well worth the time if you're a movie fan. One thing not pictured below was the Conan set where cameras weren't allowed: I stood on the mark where Conan O'Brien delivers his nightly monologue, and was very pleased to see his whole set up close. Our only confirmed celebrity sighting was a supporting actor from a sitcom we'd never watched (sorry Louis Mostillo), though I think I saw Allison Janney heading into the Mom set.

Bob's Big Boy

I loved this chain as a child back when there were a lot more of them, and the chance to eat at their iconic first location was too good to pass up. (I'm also a fan of the movie Heat, which made this one of its many LA locations.) The food was just what we wanted: Pure comfort.

Los Angeles Zoo

What a pleasant surprise! After days of hurrying along on a fixed schedule and feeling rushed, we spent a few hours leisurely strolling around this very relaxing setting and enjoyed the hell out of it, feeling rested for perhaps for the first time. Who would have guessed that a simple city zoo would turn into a highlight of a trip this full of legendary attractions?

Hollywood & Highland

We didn't get much of a look at downtown Hollywood the previous night, but this was a little better. From the top of the Hollywood & Highland Center, we could people-watch, see up and town the city streets, and have fun too. The highlight was Sweet!, an enormous candy store that seemed to take up a whole floor of the complex by itself, with room after room devoted to different types of candy, all of it looking so good. Thank goodness I was off diet for the trip. We wanted to see a movie in the famous Chinese theater, but the titles just didn't appeal to us (sorry, Divergent).

Venice Beach Boardwalk

We visited this popular destination in the early morning hoping to beat the crowds to the limited parking, but having nobody around us but a few shady-looking and very scuzzy locals made us too worried for our safety to appreciate it. Kelly took a few steps in the Pacific Ocean and we got out of there.

La Brea Tar Pits

This destination had long appealed to Kelly from her childhood, so we were looking forward to visiting it. The tar odor was revolting, worse than any Florida swamp, but the science museum was neat. In the center of the building was a small but pleasant arboretum that we especially liked.

The Museum of Jurassic Technology

The lunch and art gallery that we had planned to see appeared to be out of business when we drove past, so we tried local chain Togo's and formed very different opinions about the sandwiches. Afterwards, we headed to one of the weirdest attractions on our itinerary, the Museum of Jurassic Technology. It sounded great online, but the real thing was a significant let-down. Maybe I was spoiled from other attractions making themselves easy to appreciate, but this one was hostile to visitors and made itself difficult to enjoy, an extremely dry joke of a fake museum with little in the way of interesting exhibits. We looked a few curiosities for an hour, then agreed that we were bored and disappointed, and hit the road. They didn't allow photographs.

Driving the Coastline

We departed Los Angeles early for our next stop in Santa Barbara, which is just as well because we were warned not to drive the coastline in the dark. We agreed before the trip that I would drive in the scary bustling cities while Kelly drove on the scary cliff-hugging coastline. The landscape is probably boring to other people, but to us flatlanders from Illinois and Florida, mountains were a welcome if intimidating sight. These photos are drawn from all three days of driving north.

Whale Watching

We've been on boat tours along the western Florida coastline, but the Pacific Ocean afforded us a very different experience that we couldn't pass up. We booked a two-hour cruise and had a terrific time watching the whales, dolphins, and sea lions do their own private dance at sea. We took many photos, all of them lousy compared to seeing the real thing in person, but there was a professional photographer on the trip who captured some good shots.

La Super-Rica Taqueria

Samir suggested this little taco house made semi-famous by Julia Child. The portions were small but the food was delicious. The bottles of Coke looked like the famous "Mexican Coke" with real sugar, but either they weren't or I couldn't taste any difference.

Mission Santa Barbara

I gather that most of the visitors to this site are Christians on a religious excursion. I was just interested in seeing something historic, since America has few buildings more than two centuries old. Like the LA Zoo, this turned out to be very calming and tranquil, as we strolled slowly and appreciated the hushed reverence that it imposed on visitors implicitly. Added bonus: Bizarre Pacific flora were cultivated on site. Kelly was amused to pick up a genuine blessed rock (it's a Gothic Earth thing).

Solvang

I don't care if it's mostly a put-on for tourists: I was dying to visit this little Danish village ever since I first heard about it. Fun little shops, delicious Danish food, and costumed folk dancing on the sidewalk made us happy.

Hearst Castle

This attraction, William Randolph Hearst's private castle in the mountains (it inspired Xanadu in Citizen Kane), was a mixed blessing. On one hand, it contained some extremely elaborate architectural design and gorgeous European artwork, a scrumptious feast for the eyes. On the other hand, Hearst was a scumbag, and you can't escape the feeling that the fortune that he wasted on this obscenely lavish home could have been put toward countless better uses. Still, there's nothing quite like this place in the world, and it's worth touring for the breathtaking views, outside and in.

Nepenthe

Another suggestion from Samir (thank you!): A mountaintop restaurant with amazing views of the ocean. According to our GPS, we were 13 stories above sea level. The food was so-so, but we were there for the view.

Big Basin Redwoods State Park

We wanted some nature hiking on the trip and to see the redwoods, so this park seemed like a good way to accomplish both. The trail that we walked was short but offered impressive sights, and made for a good calming break after lots of nervous mountain driving. After the long drive back down the mountain, we stopped at a neighborhood pizza joint on the outskirts of San Francisco for a comforting meal.

Chinatown

People warned us about the aggressive drivers in Los Angeles and the seaside cliffs on the coastline, both of which turned out to be fine. Nobody warned us about the nightmarish, white-knuckle terror of driving in San Francisco: The mobs of pedestrians who walk right out in front of you, the bicycles whizzing past on the right and the motorcycles whizzing past on the left (between lanes), and the steep hills that feel like the poster for Inception. Kelly suffered a series of panic attacks in the passenger seat, and my nerves were severely fried after each stint behind the wheel, limiting our enjoyment of the city.

All of this diminished our enjoyment of the first planned stop, Chinatown. We became nervous being surrounded by swarms of people and strange odors and unfamiliar language, on top of already frayed nerves and having to hike several blocks up steep hills. It was not fun. :-( We did stop briefly at a fortune cookie factory recommended by a friend, and had a tasty early lunch at a three-story restaurant recommended by another friend, but mostly our memories of the morning are of quivering anxiety.

Cable Car Museum

This stop on the edge of Chinatown made for a pleasant break. All four cables that carry the cars through the city are kept spinning by giant machines in this warehouse which doubles as museum, so it was noisy, but still fun and an intersting angle from which to learn about the city's history.

The Mission District

We had heard about several weird stores in this neighborhood, and wanted to try them out. First was 826 Valencia, a children's tutoring center that was required by zoning regulations to operate a storefront, so they opted for a "pirate supply store" theme. Next was Paxton Gate, full of taxidermy and artisanal perfume and all sorts of other bizarre, one-of-a-kind collectibles. On the suggestion of another friend, we stopped in Dandelion Chocolate and it was like visiting hipster central: Any of the patrons or employees could have been caricatures from Portlandia. Still, the hot chocolate was tasty. By this point in the day, our nerves were too shot to attempt a drive into Japantown like we had planned, so we drove back to our hotel in the suburbs and ate a comforting meal at a familiar-feeling, Midwestern-style pancake house.

Alcatraz

One of the most popular and famous tourist attractions in San Francisco didn't disappoint. The short film was good, but the self-guided audio tour was the real main event, guiding us from room to room in the cellhouse and letting us hear in the voices of actual guards and prisoners what happened there. Having recently seen Escape from Alcatraz, I was particularly interested in Frank Morris's dramatic escape, but all of the stories from Robert Stroud to Al Capone were intriguing. The building's decay may have looked ugly to some visitors, but to me it held a rugged charm. I liked that they didn't clean it up, including the graffiti left behind from the Indian occupation in the 1970s, a notable event that deserves preservation. The only rain of the trip fell while we were leaving, and we counted ourselves lucky.

Bistro Boudin

Sourdough bread had to be part of our visit to San Francisco. A friend recommended this restaurant, part of the famous bread factory, which we toured afterwards. The dungeness crab macaroni & cheese was delicious.

Musée Méchanique

Simply awesome! This museum of arcade games and collection of nickelodeon-style wind-up exhibits was delightful. We were like kids in a candy store, giddily stuffing quarters into every machine in sight. For me, these were the happiest two hours of the entire trip. So much fun! The static photos below don't do it justice, so see the video on their homepage for a sense of what they're like.

Pier 39

We were probably too tired after a long day to appreciate it, and a seagull pissing all over us didn't help our moods, but we weren't terribly impressed by this tourist complex. The stores were so-so and we had little taste for the restaurants, although the fried donut balls were good. We did really enjoy the 7D Experience, a lively immersive arcade game that kept surprising us. We weren't hungry enough for dinner and we were too tired to stick around, so we headed back to the hotel before long.

Computer History Museum

We spent the next day south of San Francisco, in Mountain View and San Jose. Up first was the Computer History Museum, sponsored by a number of tech companies in the area, located two blocks from the Googleplex (which we drove through even though it offered little to see). The museum was pretty neat, offering a walking tour of computing technology from abacuses to the room-sized mainframes of the mid-20th century to the digital media explosion of today, all presented with a slick newness and a sprinkle of humor.

Winchester Mystery House

Spooky stories about crazy Sarah Winchester's mansion made an impression on me as a child, and it continues to fascinate me to this day (Gothic Earth players can probably detect its influence), so I had to see it in person. It did not disappoint! If you're not familiar with it, supposedly the rich widow of the rifle inventor went mad and thought the only way to ward off the spirits haunting her was to construct a house non-stop, so she built (personally architected herself) this bizarre sprawling mansion with no rhyme or reason to it, with staircases that lead up into the ceiling and windows in the floor and a famous door on the second story that opens right to the outside. I expected the house to be insane, and it definitely was, but I didn't expect Sarah Winchester to be such a genius: Spend some time studying the building up close and it becomes apparent that certain mad quirks were merely unfinished touches when she died, and such a massive complex (nearly 200 rooms across five stories) required some feats of engineering, including several different kinds of elevators, heat and water distribution, and lots more. Winchester's madness gets all of the hype, but she comes across as an unsung genius, entirely self-educated. While Hearst Castle was certainly more ornate than this mansion, it lacked the strange quirkiness and warmer personality of this place, which I ultimately liked more. This was a huge highlight of the trip for us and I recommend a full tour (basement included) to everybody, everywhere. Sadly, they don't allow photographs inside (tours would grind to a halt), but we snapped a few outside.

Golfland USA

Next, we drove over to Sunnyvale -- the name was close enough that we made Buffy the Vampire Slayer jokes -- for some sushi and mini-golf. The food tasted good, but I'm pretty sure it was the cause of my food poisoning for the next three days, so I'm not going to link to it. The mini-golf was nothing spectacular but just fun enough for us to have a few laughs and unwind.

The Spinnaker

The last day of the trip found me sick to my stomach and us both exhausted. We skipped the Disney family museum that we had planned to visit, and drove over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito for lunch at The Spinnaker, which offered views of the bay. The food was great, and the mostly senior clientele reminded us of Sarasota. Unfortunately, the drives there and back were two of the worst, most aggravating drives we'd had in San Francisco, leaving us pissed-off and frazzled. We had plans to play at the Exploratorium and shop at Union Square, but we fled to the suburbs, vowing not to drive another block in that city. We settled for a mall where we could pick up supplies for the trip home and see Muppets Most Wanted, which helped us calm down. Wiped out, we hobbled back to the hotel, packed, and tried in vain to get some sleep despite my illness and the 2am wake-up call to catch our early-morning flight home.

Reflection

The difficulties of traveling to California and back home again were a price worth paying for this wonderful trip, and before long we'll be left with nothing but happy memories and lots of them. We had enough thrilling, delighting, pleasing, and relaxing moments on this trip to make memories for a lifetime. I'm grateful to my mother in particular for this fabulous gift, but also to everyone who helped us with the trip in ways large and small. You spend years hoping to be as happy as Kelly and I were for ten days on this honeymoon.

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