My Passport’s Travels

Wednesday, Jan 8
Time to get out of town! A snow storm is coming, so Monday we started frantically changing plans.  Our poor Travel Agent made, cancelled and changed reservations for us several times as the forecast continued evolving. (Thanks, Scott!) From our original plans to fly out Friday, spend the night in a Courtyard by Marriott and cruise on Saturday, we ended up flying out Wednesday, spending three nights in a Holiday Inn before cruising on Saturday.  We also threw in a car rental along the way since we suddenly had more time in Long Beach.    Mom picked me up at work Wednesday afternoon and we headed straight to the airport. After an early dinner at Maggianos, we boarded our on time non-stop to Long Beach.  It was quite bumpy at the beginning and end of the flight but in the middle was smooth sailing!  The Long Beach airport is darling. Maybe 3 gates, no jet bridges (but fun party music playing as we deplaned), 2 luggage carousels that are in an open-sided building, a separate building for concessions and a third building for checkin. It felt like being in the islands!

We stayed at the Holiday Inn Long Beach Airport. Our hotel is an older building – a 13 story circular building. We ended up on the 11th floor with a lovely sunset view (although we wouldn’t learn that until the next day). It also had a tiny bathroom that was bright at night because light switch controlled both the sink area and the restroom/shower area.

I would be remiss to not acknowledge the horrible wildfires about an hour north of Long Beach. While they didn’t directly impact our visit, we saw many who were. While waiting to check in, the desk agent told the party in front of us that they had anticipated 40% occupancy, but over the course of the day, so many displaced families ended up booking last minute stays and they were now sold out. By the time we returned from the cruise, they were much more under control, but still an unbelievably scary time for so many.

Thursday, Jan 9

 I had to work a good part of the day. But the room was comfortable and the view at breakfast was amazing!

We walked across the street to Subway for lunch and stopped to get some drinks for the room at the gas station on the corner. We got a better view of our hotel during the day light.

When work was through, we played games until it was time to pick up our car at the airport. See, told you the sunset from our room was gorgeous!

 Back to the hotel for a lovely dinner in the restaurant on the top floor (which also has a lovely breakfast buffet each morning).  The Elote queso dip was amazing and the service was wonderful. Five stars – at a Holiday Inn! Despite what Jimmy Buffet may think of their menu!

Friday, Jan 10

After a bit of a lie-in, we had breakfast at the buffet, then loaded up and headed out! No hard goals for the day, just cruising down Pacific Coastal Highway 1 heading south. We started at Bolsa Chica State Beach and watched the surfers for a long time.

They weren’t catching many waves, but would wait and wait until the right one came along, then they’d go!

We couldn’t imagine how cold it had to be for them, even with their wetsuits. We were in jeans and long-sleeves and wished we had a jacket! (And a picture of our trusty steed for the day. The agent convinced me to upgrade, not because of the better air filter, which was her logic, but because it was a hybrid and gas was over $5/gallon!)

Across the street is the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve – lots of pelicans and other water birds.

I especially enjoyed watching the black ones that would swim, swim, swim under water, then pop up with a fish snack.

(I also learned that Bolsa Chica means little handbags – named for the row of mountains in the distance.). It was time to leave, though, when the family came in with the little one yelling “Ducks! Ducks! Ducks!” No matter how many times they tried to teach him to say pelicans.

Further on down the highway to the Balboa Pier. It was surprising how much louder the waves were from the pier than they had been at the beach, even though the waves on the beach seemed bigger to us. We walked the pier and I had an ice cream cone from Ruby’s Diner at the end of the pier.

Back to the highway, but the driving was getting rougher. We decided it was time to head back to Long Beach (taking the highway this time), and we ended up at the boardwalk area near the Queen Mary and the cruise port. Lunch was at Gilan Pizza and Grill, meatball sub for Mom and I had the gyro platter. We shared a fresh churro then headed back to turn in the car.

A few more games in the room, then dinner upstairs again. This time Mom had the carne asada loaded fries (basically nachos, but with fries instead of chips) and I had a couple of appetizers (the dates wrapped in bacon were amazing). Can’t stay up too late tonight – we have a cruise ship to catch tomorrow!