We happened upon this statue as we wandered into the Los Angeles Farmers Market in search of lunch. The fact that the wings are decorated with maps made me stop and take a closer look. Here’s what the plaque says:

I like the idea of angels getting a vacation – and also that they might be there hanging around when we’re traveling. Certainly I’ve felt blessed many times while on the road. Maybe this is why.

For Photo Friday at Delicious Baby. Hope you’ll check out the other great travel photos. And have a great weekend!

Before our recent trip to Los Angeles I was contacted by Smart Destinations and offered a chance to test drive their Go Cards, which offer free admission to 40 different attractions and museums. I was intrigued by the idea of making one purchase and then having free admission to a number of museums and attractions.

What these cards offer is a certain amount of flexibility. I know that they would make me likely to check a museum or attraction out, even if it’s just for an hour, because I wouldn’t be worried about “wasting” the admission fee. In situations where there are three or four things you’d like to see that charge admission, are close to each other, and don’t take a lot of time to experience, the cards can save you money. They can also work if you’ve got one day where you visit one very expensive day-long activity and then spend the next visiting a couple of attractions, although the savings may not be huge. For example, in Los Angeles, you could purchase 2-Day Go Cards for a family of four for $340. If you spent one day at LEGOLand and then the next day visiting the Los Angeles Zoo and the Autry National Center of The American West (which are across the street from each other in Griffith Park) and then made the relatively easy drive down to the Hollywood Museum, by my calculation you’d save about $30. Obviously, the more you manage to pack into each day, the more you save. But in a city like Los Angeles, which is really spread out, this can be difficult to do.

You might also lose money if you find that your children are too tired or overwhelmed to take in more than one thing. We used our Go Cards to get into the Aquarium of the Pacific. I had thought that we’d also see the Queen Mary and maybe take a Long Beach Harbor Cruise – the cards offered admission to both. But the boys were so tired that we ended up having lunch, walking around the Long Beach waterfront, and calling it a day. If we had purchased the cards, we would have spent $220 just to go to the aquarium. And the tally for the three things I wanted to do was only $183, so the card would only have made sense if we’d also used it to perhaps do something that evening like visit the Santa Monica Pier where we could have ridden the rides at Pacific Park for free. On a different day we might have been able to do all of these things, but even if the kids weren’t exhausted it still would have been a lot to pack in.

For this reason I think that single-day cards don’t make sense for families with very young children (whose admission to museums and attractions may be free anyway) or on trips where jet lag is likely to be a big factor.

You’ll also want to make sure that the attractions you want to see are included with the Go Card; the Smart Destinations website makes this clear; the cards themselves also come with a booklet listing the included attractions. Obviously they are only a value if they get you into the things you want to do anyway. And if you’re not the type of person to do advance planning, they may not be the best investment for you, as my experience shows I think the best way to use them efficiently is to know at least roughly what you will do each day.

With all that said, I will definitely take a look at these cards when I’m planning future trips because now that the boys are getting older we do tend to fit more things into a day than in the past. However, I will be careful to compare prices and make a plan of what I realistically think we can see and do before I make a purchase. Smart Destinations sells cards in 14 locations in the United States and Canada; in some cities (New York and Boston included) they offer what they call an Explorer Pass. Unlike the Go Cards, which are good for admission to dozens of attractions but are limited to a certain time period, Explorer Passes let you purchase admission for anywhere from 3 to 10 specific attractions or museums and gives you 30 full days to see them – you can even customize which ones. If you’ve got three things you know you want to do (for example, in Boston we’d definitely do the Fenway Park Tour, the Museum of Science, and the New England Aquarium), the Explorer Passs could offer both savings and flexibility in terms of when you did what.

Looking for more travel planning tips? Check out this opportunity to download some free travel books – and help donate money to spread clean drinking while you do it. I’d also like to remind you that this week I’m offering a chance for one lucky reader to win a family vacation package in San Antonio, Texas. It’s super easy to enter, I promise. See this post for details.

Smart Destinations provided each member of my family with one 1-Day Go Los Angeles Card, with a combined value of $220.

On Easter afternoon, we loaded up our gear and headed from Los Angeles to Phoenix, where Matt’s parents live. And no, we weren’t on camels. Although we might have been better off if we were.

Here’s my brilliant travel tip of the week: When you’ve been driving through desert for about four hours in a rented Jeep SUV that shifts like a golf cart and smells like oil and you’ve finally crossed the state line and pass a bunch of big signs saying “Gas!” and you look at the dashboard and there’s just over a quarter of a tank left, don’t think idly to yourself that you had better stop the next exit and fuel up and then zip by singing along to whatever your Pandora station happens to be playing, Dionne Warwick for example.

We drove and drove and drove, and the needle continued of course to go down at an alarming rate. Then we passed a sign saying that the next town, Tonopah, was 25 miles away. There was no mention of whether or not there might be a gas station there. I looked around – nothing but saguaros and yellow wildflowers as far as the eye could see.

Casually, I reached over and turned the air conditioning off, hoping that Matt wouldn’t notice and maybe the gage would hold steady. He made no comment, and for a few miles I thought maybe I was OK.

Then the low-gas light flashed on with a loud ding. “What’s that? Oh boy!” Matt exclaimed, playing Bing Crosby to my Bob Hope. “Oh boy! You better slow down.”

So I did, pulling in behind an RV going about 60 miles an hour (the speed limit was 75). And for the next 25 minutes I prayed “don’trunoutofgas, don’trunoutofgas, don’trunoutofgas” while car after car after semi came roaring up behind us, whipping over into the left lane at what seemed always like the last possible safe moment. Matt, meanwhile, was desperately trying to figure out how to get the MapQuest app on my iPhone to tell him where the nearest gas might be. To his credit, he spoke not one word of blame, but I could tell from the set of his jaw that it was taking all of his muscular control not to do so.

Periodically from the backseat one of the boys would ask “Are we going to run out of gas?” Neither of them seemed genuinely concerned that it would happen – I think they were more worried about the tension that suddenly dominated the front of the car. I could barely watch the road, my eyes were so fixed on that needle, willing it with all my power not to sink any lower.

For those of you planning this same journey, I will tell you this: Tonopah does have several gas stations, one of which we coasted into on fumes. And my marriage is still intact. And the boys are unscarred. In fact, sensing my weakness and distraction in the mini-market of the gas station, they each conned a huge soda and then proceeded to get completely drunk on high-fructose corn syrup for the rest of the ride.

I’m not one for making categorical vows, but with the Interwebs as my witness, I promise you that from now on that anything near a quarter of a tank = empty.

So here’s the thing about trying to live blog from the road – sometimes you have days that are so chock full that they really warrant an entire series of posts. I’m finding this to be especially true as my kids get older and have more stamina and longer attention spans. This past Saturday was one of those days – we were going straight out for hours and everything we did was travel-with-kids gold. You should consider the report that follows an abbreviated version, as I will most certainly write more detailed posts about the individual attractions once I return home.

We started our day at the Petersen Automotive Museum. Even if you don’t like cars, this is a great museum. In fact, it may help you gain an appreciation for the mid-twentieth-century automobile, because there are lots of tail-finned beauties there. My favorite car was the 1959 Cadillac, which looked like Don Draper’s car.

We also enjoyed the Hot Wheels exhibit and the display of famous cars that appeared in movies. Included there was Herbie the Love Bug, which was the very first movie I ever saw (I was six, wore a long pink dress and patent leather Mary Janes, and devoured an entire box of Jujubes):

Another exhibit called “What Were They Thinking?” which included submersible cars and a picture of this contraption for keeping toddlers “safe” (note the proximity to the windshield please):

The entire third floor of the museum is dedicated to a big space for kids, with toys, interactive exhibits, and a motorcycle for the kids to climb on à la Ponch and Jon.

After over two hours, we were all hungry for lunch and drove four blocks north – this is L.A., and the blocks were long – to the Farmers Market. Back on the East Coast I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have been much fun to be in a place that crowded on the day before Easter but all of the rumors about the laid-back attitude in Southern California are true. I’ve never been in a busy place where everyone was so calm and happy, glad to stand in line and watch the women teeter past in improbably big sunglasses and high heels. And like the Reading Terminal Market, this is lunch spot where no one has to compromise. The boys ate sushi and Matt and I had Mexican. I especially enjoyed my tapas-like plate of mini tortillas topped with a variety of mystery meats and sauces.

Once we finished eating, we wandered around for a good long time afterward so that the boys could look at all of the vendors and choose their desserts carefully – gummy sharks and jelly beans.

Heading back to Wilshire we made a beeline for the Page Museum, which sits in the middle of Hancock Park, home to the La Brea Tar Pits. Teddy has decided he wants to be a paleontologist when he grows up and was convinced that when we visited the pits themselves he would be invited to join in the excavation. Unfortunately, since it was the weekend, there was no one actually working there or in the fossil lab in the museum, known as the fishbowl for its circular windows. But it didn’t matter too much. Teddy was entranced by the skeletons of mammoths, mastodons, giant ground sloths, and prehistoric camels (to say nothing of teeny, tiny mouse bones).

I loved the entire wall of dire wolf skulls, backlit so as to seem like an art installation.

And we especially enjoyed going out to Pit 91, where we could see (and smell – that asphalt is stinky) where they are excavating. Two very important facts learned and repeated by Teddy: there are no dinosaur bones in the La Brea Pits, which formed millennia after they were extinct. And there is no such thing as a sabre-toothed tiger – it’s a sabre-toothed cat.

We ended the day back in Pasadena where Matt and I watched Butler win the NCAA semi-final over a couple of beers at The Yard House. Then we headed for the Pie ‘N Burger, that redoubtable 46-year-old institution where the menu is small, the portions are big, and the linoleum (possibly original) is brown. This is a place where you can order a glass of buttermilk for a buck eighty five. The only concession to modernity is the two flat-screen tvs behind the counter, one of which was showing Sponge Bob as if they knew we were coming. The burgers come on buttered buns, slathered with Thousand Island dressing, and if that doesn’t sound good to you, perhaps you shouldn’t read my blog any longer.

You know what comes next, don’t you?

I really couldn’t design a better day if I tried.

We started out our first full day in Los Angeles at the Euro Pane bakery on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. When we lived in Pasadena six years ago this was our favorite breakfast spot, and I was delighted to see that nothing has changed, from the green walls to the thick, strong coffee to the smiles on the faces of everyone who works there (all the more impressive because it is always packed. This is the place to get pastries, bread, and apparently egg salad, and all of the locals know it). I love a bakery that doesn’t have its own website but instead understands the importance of good butter and fresh fruit. To wit: my apple strudel was both juicy and flaky. Divinely so.

After we had our fix of cinnamon, chocolate, caffeine, and fat, we headed for Long Beach and the Aquarium of the Pacific. There are two things that I really love about this aquarium. One was the size – it’s big enough to offer a wide variety of animals and exhibits but not so big that younger children are overwhelmed. We were there for just over two hours and saw almost everything including an orca’s skeleton:

And a huge piece of baleen from a blue whale (You know those things that look like teeth? Up close they couldn’t be less teeth-like):

The other thing I love about the aquarium is that visitors are encouraged to really interact with the animals, especially in the outdoor area where there we spent a lot of time and touched not only sting rays but small sharks.

One area is dedicated to showing what lives close to the coast, plant and animal, marine and avian. Teddy loved exploring the tide pools and touching the starfish and anemones. A nearby tank full of fish and seaweed actually had water that moved in undulating waves simulating coastal waters.

We watched a tank full of rays being fed, and the children were especially delighted when one of them pressed its mouth up against the side of the tank – “It looks like a monster!” Tommy shrieked.

The sea lions also put on a show – one in particular kept diving down in front of all the spectators and opening his mouth in a way that sent everyone watching into spasms of laughter.

A real favorite for all of us was the outdoor aviary full of lorikeets. We bought each of the boys a cup of nectar to feed them and they both loved having the birds land on them (and me).

Back inside, Teddy was determined to see an octopus. He’s developed a fascination lately with things that lurk in the deep and have tentacles. He didn’t seem to mind that when we arrived at the tank, the octopus had tucked itself into a very small corner. We spent a long time in the dimly lit North Pacific display admiring the translucent bodies of the jelly fish and laughing at the puffins as they tumbled and dove.

When we were finished we let the boys each make a souvenir penny and then headed over to the nearby P.F. Chang’s for lunch in the sun. All dining options in the immediate vicinity are chains. If I had been thinking ahead a bit I might have had sandwiches made at the bakery so that we could have a picnic. The aquarium sits right at the edge of Rainbow Harbor, which has a lovely marina and park and any number of benches and nice places where one might have a picnic overlooking the water.

There are also a variety of cruises that depart regularly – you can go whale watching or get a tour of the Port of Los Angeles. Matt and I idly talked about taking one, but were put off by the boys’ continued fatigue, which manifested itself in the form of spazziness that seemed like it might be a recipe for disaster on a boat. So instead we strolled along the paved path that led us up to a small lighthouse from which we could see the Queen Mary, now a hotel and museum, and a large Carnival cruise ship towering over it. Sea lions delighted us and a group of Japanese tourist by swimming across the marina and climbing onto the backs of some of the boats to bask in the sun.

Leaving Long Beach is almost like driving through a modern sculpture – several huge bridges bisect the enormous port with its gantry cranes and multi-colored containers stacked in a dizzying array. I suppose it should be grim to think of all those cheap imported goods but somehow the whole scene is strangely beautiful, especially since its backdrop is the dazzling blue of the Pacific. As we drove away amidst the continually rumbling semis a white blimp floated behind us like magic. The boys sat in the backseat insisting that 66 degrees or no, they were going to swim in their great grandparents’ pool (which they did – yes, I love my husband who went in with them) and I watched in the car’s side mirror as we climbed the hill and the harbor receded until it looked like a child’s toy spread out behind us. That blimp and those cranes (to say nothing of the smell of cinnamon at Euro Pane and the smiling whale face above) will surely be in my dreams for months.

What are your Monday dreams? Please feel free to share a link to your own inspiration below, making sure you link directly to your post, not your site’s homepage and that you link back to this post. Questions? See About Monday Dreaming.

With all due respect to Arlo Guthrie, I wonder what is more stressful – flying cross-country solo with two children or running drugs. Actually, I jest, because with backpacks full of coloring and invisible ink activity books, new Hardy Boys mysteries, and stickers the boys amused themselves very nicely for the entire flight. Which was relatively smooth to my great relief (I think my fear of flying is still a secret).

None of us may have been taking drugs, but we were certainly all wasted with fatigue. We spent the night before in a hotel room near the Philadelphia Airport and as it was Teddy’s birthday, he was on a the high of turning five and kept Tommy and I awake a good part of the night – which was short anyway since we had to get up at 4:30 to get the shuttle. Still hopped up on birthday happiness, he told everyone on the bus – a surprisingly jolly crowd given the early hour – that the day before was his birthday and that he was “sooo much bigger and sooo much faster.” Then he told everyone he could on the plane, as well as the guy working at Starbucks in LAX, the woman behind us on the escalator, the man behind the desk at the rental car company…

We arrived in Los Angeles early and within an hour had our bags and rental car and were on the road. We drove to Rancho Palos Verdes where great grandparents awaited the boys with much anticipation. If you’re ever in Los Angeles and have a chance to get out to this peninsula (just north of Long Beach and the port) take it. It was a perfect day and as we came down the hill toward their house, the ocean spread out before us and Catalina Island floating magnificently in the distance I almost burst into song. Of course that may have partly been because I was so tired!

I probably shouldn’t have planned for us to do anything that afternoon other than a nice family lunch, but the weather was so irresistible that I’m not sure I would have kept to that resolution had I made it. And who am I kidding? I’m almost always too ambitious. So we made a quick visit to the Point Vincente Interpretive Center just up the road. On a normal day this would have been just the boy’s speed. There is a small museum with exhibits about the geologic and human history of the Peninsula as well as a lovely little garden with great views of the nearby lighthouse. But exhaustion was catching up. Despite Grandma Sonia’s best efforts (she’s a docent) the boys were minimally able to focus on anything inside, although Teddy did really like the tide pool and kelp forest (both static exhibits behind glass). It really is a nice little museum and a good size for younger kids.

Our real reason for the visit was to try and see some gray whales as they migrated north. The crew of observers working there saw four in the morning. But despite some woozy attempts with binoculars, no whales for us. Just two crabby kids to pack in the car, which I did. We headed for Pasadena where we are staying on this trip.

So for the most part our cross-country jaunt went swimmingly. But there was one thing that happened on this trip that I’ve been dreading for the past eight years, and it’s made worse by the fact that it happened under my watch. Both of my children chose loveys when they were born that were irreplaceable. Tommy’s is a little doll/rattle (unimaginatively named Dolly) that came in a basket filled with bottles and burp clothes. Teddy’s is a customized teddy bear/blanket emblazoned with his name. After countless nights on the road – remember that Dolly came with us across two continents – I finally made the mistake of leaving a lovey, the precious Lovey Bear with whom Teddy has slept every night of his life, in our hotel room.

Exhaustion is no excuse here folks – I might as well have left one of the children behind.

I realized my error as soon as we boarded the plane and called the hotel before take-off. The nice woman promised to retrieve Lovey Bear and hold him for us until our return next week. I can’t tell you how much I’m hoping that she comes through. And Tommy valiantly offered to let Teddy sleep with Dolly for the duration of the trip, staving off sleepless nights while we’re on the road. But if Lovey Bear isn’t waiting for us in Philadelphia, well, I may just have to get on another plane to who knows where – I’m not sure I’ll be able to go home after that.

Tomorrow – touching real life sharks at the Aquarium of the Pacific. And a picture of me with a bird on my head.

(I’ll have practical tips and recommendations about flying out of Philadelphia Airport and into Los Angeles with kids in a later post).

I don’t think I’ll be seeing too much of this on our trip to Los Angeles in a couple of weeks – those days are past for me. This photo was taken the last time we were in California at the end of a very fun day that included a ride along Venice Beach to the Santa Monica Pier and back again with stops to play on the playground and ride the carousel.

Thanks for indulging my nostalgia for the days of sleeping on the go (as opposed to going without sleep). This picture is for Photo Friday at Delicious Baby. Have a wonderful weekend.

Today I’m reviving my long-abandoned habit of sharing some of my planning for upcoming trips. If you’re like me you know that often half the fun of travel lies in the preparation, which is of course platonic in that it is completely devoid of whining, super-early mornings, illness, and the unexpected that accompanies any trip with children.

We’ll have three full days in L.A., one of them the day we arrive (our flight gets in at 9:30 in the morning). Since we’re mostly going to visit with family who live in Rancho Palos Verdes, I’ve already planned some expeditions out that way including a trip to the Aquarium of the Pacific and (possibly) a whale-watching boat ride. But the third day of our trip is open and I’m trying to decide what to do. You may recall that Matt, Tommy, and I spent three months in Los Angeles six years ago and during that time we had many far-flung favorite haunts including Travel Town and the Los Angeles Zoo, both in Griffiths Park; Venice Beach and the Santa Monica Pier; and the Huntington Library and Gardens in San Marino.

With one day, and so much to choose from, it’s difficult to narrow down our plans. But per usual I think I’m going to let the children’s interests be the driving force behind our itinerary. Right now I’m leaning toward a trip downtown to the Miracle Mile area on Wilshire Boulevard. This is a great area with lots to see – my thinking is that we can drive there, park, and then let the children’s moods and interests dictate what we do.

I’m pretty sure that Teddy will want to see dinosaurs being excavated at the La Brea Tar Pits and see the fossils on display at the Page Museum.

The Petersen Automotive Museum is also nearby and that should be fun for all of us. Not only are there lots of cool antique cars to see there, they currently have an exhibit called “The Sounds of Speed” exploring the relationship between cars and music – I can’t wait to see some of the album covers on display (should also be fun to explain to the boys what an “album” and a “record” are).

And if we’re feeling in an artistic mood, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is right there as well. Among the exhibits that I think the boys would like is “American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life 1765-1915″ – sounds perfect for Tommy, who is a real history buff. They also have a new children’s gallery where we can learn about brush painting and Korean art.

For lunch or a snack, we’ll head a few blocks away to the Farmers Market, a great place to just wander around and gawk, to say nothing of eating, much like the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia.

In addition to our itinerary, there are some logistics for me to consider on this trip. Matt will already be in California for business, so the boys and I will be flying solo to meet him. I’ve done day-long drives with the two of them but I’ve never flown with them both alone before. Since our flight is at 6:30 in the morning and since I’d like to have a full day of swimming and whale watching when we arrive, I’m thinking of getting a hotel room at the Philadelphia Airport the night before we leave. I think it will be worth the expense to get the trip off to a smooth start.

The boys and I will be picking up a rental car at LAX, and I’m thankful that I did spend a lot of time driving all over Los Angeles when we stayed there – it makes me marginally less intimidated about doing so. I’m trying to decide whether to check the boys’ booster seats at the desk or bring them to the gate.

And finally there’s the matter of Easter. Rather than haul along the boys’ baskets I think I’m going to get them each a chocolate bunny and write a note from the Easter Bunny explaining that their other goodies were delivered to our house and will be waiting for them when we return. We are planning to go to church on Easter Sunday at All Saints Pasadena, which is where we attended when we lived there. Then it will be off to Phoenix to see Grandma and Grandpa. Should be a busy and fun couple of days.

So what about you lovely people – any suggestions for Los Angeles? Got any of your own plans going on right now? Please share!

Photo of palm trees courtesy of tiarescott via Flickr.

Photo of La Brea Tar Pits courtesy of notaboutwill via Flickr.

Photo of Farmers Market courtesy of _e.t. via Flickr.

There are lots of things I love about writing a travel blog. I love how it brings a sense of possibility into the most dreary of days. When I’m feeling homebound or tied down all I have to do is poke around my own site for a few moments to remember all the places I’ve been and those still to come. And I love the people I’ve “met” online – the community of wanderers who have wonderful adventures and take beautiful photographs and inspire me to add still more locations to my bucket list.

But perhaps what I love most of all is how the site has meant an end to inertia, how it has led me to look at my life as one big opportunity for exploration. Not that I didn’t travel before, but I was less spontaneous and creative about it. I’m so much more likely now to pick up and go, to fit trips in, to add a flight so that I can cover more ground because really, what else better have I got to do? Case in point: in a few weeks we will once again be making our annual spring-break trip to Phoenix to visit Matt’s parents. Matt also needs to go to Los Angeles on a business trip. Originally he was going to fly to L.A. solo the week prior to spring break and then drive to Arizona to meet me and the boys but as we discussed our plans one evening a few weeks ago he said, “why don’t you see if you can get a one-way ticket to Los Angeles for you and the boys? You could fly out a few days after I leave and meet me there instead.”

So I did. Simple as pie and no more expensive than flying to and from Phoenix. And now we’ll get to visit with the boy’s great grandparents who live in California, see the lovely little house in Pasadena where we spent a very happy three months (it’s where Tommy turned two), and introduce Teddy to the LaBrea Tar Pits, the Pie n’ Burger, and the Pacific Ocean.

I’m also hoping that we will get to see some of the gray whales that every winter and spring make the long journey down the coast from Alaska to Mexico and back again. We’ll be there at the point when the mothers who have had calves should be swimming from Baja to the Bering Sea. Teddy’s passion for marine animals has only increased since our trip to Atlantis, and today I’m dreaming of taking a boat ride under that impossibly blue California sky, looking as hard as we can for blows and then hoping to see the magnificent tails curving out of the water. I think we’ll probably do this as part of a visit to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, which is a lovely place with an especially wonderful outdoor interactive exhibit where visitors can touch and feed some of the animals. We’ll also be stopping by the Point Vincente Interpretive Center in Rancho Palos Verdes, which has an exhibit and information about the whales and is on a peninsula that affords great views of them as they pass by.

What are you dreaming of this Monday? Please feel free to share a link below, making sure you link directly to your post, not your site’s homepage and that you link back to this post. Questions? See About Monday Dreaming.

Photo courtesy of eco-photography via Flickr.

Many moons ago, in our pre-child days, Matt and I drove up Route 1 from Los Angeles through Big Sur. We spent a few nights at the end of our drive in Pacific Grove, a little less touristy than its flashier neighbors Monterey and Pebble Beach but an excellent spot for doing all the things the area has to offer.

I’d love to take the kids to Pacific Grove. Now that they’re a bit older, I think we could find an appropriate bed and breakfast from among the many Victorian beauties the town has on offer. While visiting, we’d be sure to:

• Rent bikes and ride them for miles along the coast, stopping to explore tide pools and watch the many adorable sea otters at play in the water.
• Visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium, one of the best you’ll find anywhere, including a hands-on area with 45 exhibits (they even have stuff for babies here).
• Check out the oldest continually operating lighthouse on the West coast at Point Pinos

An added attraction that I know my boys would love is the chance to see thousands of Monarch butterflies that spend the winter in Pacific Grove. We’ll be sure to visit between October and February, prime butterfly-viewing season at the sanctuary the town has created to protect these fragile insects.

So no Carmel, no Cannery Row, no Pebble Beach golf for us – it would be all about nature, animals, and hopefully a great meal at Taste Café and Bistro, which I remember as having fabulous eats all those years ago that I was there.

My posts this week are going to be a bit shorter than usual, because I’m working quite hard behind the scenes to get my new blog up and running. I’m planning a big, blog launch party in the middle of next week – be sure to tell your friends!

Photo of Pacific Grove sign courtesy of uzvards.

Photo of butterflies courtesy of Tolka Rover.

Photo of Pacific Ocean courtesy of Vicki & Chuck Rogers.