Vacations Blog

What’s the first thing you think of when you imagine a vacation in Los Angeles?  Disneyland.  Okay, yeah, that’s been covered here already, so what’s the second thing?  The beach, of course!  If you live in Wisconsin and you’re planning to visit Southern California, you’re not coming here for the art museums.

Santa Monica on Veterans' Day

The obvious beach destinations are the Santa Monica Pier and Venice Beach, both places that are good for classic photo opportunities.  But if you’re the kind of beach lover who wants to see more beach than people, head north.  Once you pass Sunset Boulevard you leave the tourist traps behind in favor of some of the most beautiful beach spots in the area.  If you have the time and enjoy a beautiful drive, keep going even farther than the vast stretches of Zuma Beach, itself a great destination for a quick two-hour out-of-town getaway.

Family fun at Zuma Beach

The steep terrain that drops off away from Pacific Coast Highway makes some of these beaches a little bit more difficult to access, but that’s what keeps the crowds away, and almost guarantees that you will have a pristine view once you get down there.  Nicholas Canyon and El Matador are two beautiful less populated spots.  Look closely for the brown signs directing you to the turnoffs – they’re easy to miss.  Parking here is paid for at a machine, then you display your ticket in your window.  Solidly constructed staircases get you down to the sand, but there are a LOT of stairs, so make sure you pack lightly.

El Matador

Just up the coast, Leo Carillo State Beach has a campground to the east of the highway, and plenty of parking along the sand if you take the turnoff to the west.  There’s also a stretch of beach there that allows dogs.  Not just for sunbathing, you can watch surfers, windsurfers, and parasailors, or poke around in the tidepools at low tide.  Parking is $10 a day, so make sure you’ll be there long enough to make your visit worth the cost.

The last chance beach in Los Angeles county is called County Line.  No longer the true line that ends the county, this is a local surfing spot famous for its dual breaks, perfect for long- and shortboarders alike.   You’ll know you’re there when you see the turnoff for parking on the west side of the highway, right across from from Neptune’s Net, an old-school beach shack that attracts local color as well as beach visitors for bottled drinks, grilled meats, and steamed seafood.  (Warning – there are only portable toilets at this beach and restaurant, so leave your daintiness back at Leo Carillo’s flush toilets.)  It’s a perfect destination for your drive – sit on the porch and have a snack and drink while you watch the surfers, then head back south to that turnoff that you missed on the way up.

From guest blogger Marsha Takeda-Morrison of Sweatpantsmom

As in most major cities, there is no shortage of great museums in Los Angeles.  We’ve got our Natural History Museum, our Museum of Contemporary Art, and our Aerospace Museum.  We’ve the one with the Tar Pits, the (relatively) newly revamped Getty Museum and recently facelifted Getty Villa.  And no list would be complete without the cultural gems like the Japanese American National Museum and the African American Museum.

But it’s safe to say that here in L.A. we’ve got something that no one else has, a museum that’s like no other, a shining beacon in galaxy of museums.  If this were American Idol, it would be David Cook

We’ve got the Museum of Jurassic Technology.

I’m not sure I can even explain what this museum is all about. Don’t let the word ‘Jurassic’ fool you – there’s not a dinosaur to be found.  The website describes it as a “specialized repository of relics and artifacts from the Lower Jurassic, with an emphasis on those that demonstrate unusual or curious technological qualities.”  Huh?

That means you won’t see any triceratops, but you can find an exhibit of decaying dice, and a rather large display case devoted to an exhibit consisting entirely of some fake plants and single ant, titled ‘Megolaponera Foetens: Stink Ant of the Cameroon of West Central Africa.’  The most curious thing is you can press a button and hear a buzzing sound, which is apparently what the stink ant of the Cameroon sounds like – although I’m sure I will never be able to verify this.  Also, don’t miss the unbelievably bizarre collection of letters to the Mt. Wilson Observatory titled, ‘No One May Ever Have The Same Knowledge Again’ and contains, among others, the following letter from a Mrs. Alice May Williams to Dr. Edison Pettit and Dr. Seth B. Nicholson (No, I don’t have any idea who these people are.)  This is an excerpt, and I kept the spelling as they had it:

“…I have got half a house with another woman some years older. She will not let me sit quite a moment it is terriable she keeps wanting to no the inds & outs of everythink. She keeps running up & down the stairs in & out of the doors slamming them about & keeps wanting to talk & keeps wanting me to get ready to go out. It is awfull I dont no wether I am standing on my head or feet & still I am going through that treatment I told you. At times somethink works my mouth to talk out loud & I have got to be carefull of her hearing as she thinks I am mad…”

See what I mean?

The last time I visited the museum, which was a few years ago, there was a guy around four-feet-tall playing the accordion on the sidewalk out front.  When he saw us approaching he stopped, ran inside and took his place behind the ticket counter to collect our admission fees.  Even the pricing is odd; where else is a child considered anyone from ages 12 to 21?  Here’s their entire price list:

Adults, $ 5.00
Children aged 12 to 21, $ 3.00
Students in full time education, $ 3.00
Persons 60 years or older, $ 3.00
Unemployed persons, $ 3.00
Disabled Persons $2.00
Active service personnel in uniform $ 2.00
Children under 12, Free

Also, their hours:

The Museum is open Thursday from 2:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 12:00 noon to 6:00 pm

Oh, and then there’s their membership page, which starts off with the oddest, off-topic paragraph I’ve ever read on a museum website:

On March 25, 1961 Zvezdochka, daughter of the stars, the last of a group of 11 remarkable dogs, was hurtled into space amidst the flaming cacophony of a Vostok four thousand kN rocket launch known to the world as Sputnik 10.

Here at the Museum we feel a strange affinity for these first exceptional, earth-born creatures to leave our planet. Like the dogs, we feel ourselves to be lonely vanguards in a rarefied and unknown atmosphere. But, like Zvezdochka, we are emboldened by those who have gone before while knowing full well the risks and hardships of the journey.

Seriously, you must visit the Museum of Jurassic Technology, if only to say that you have.  You’ll never be the same again.  Zvezdochka and the dogs thank you.

Photo: From the exhibit ‘Rotton Luck: The Decaying Dice of Ricky Jay’

From guest blogger, Andrea Widburg, of Andi’s Answers

When we traveled in Europe last winter, we had to deal with two immutable factors: the long distances we had to cover and the high cost of lodging. We hated to spend our days stuck on trains, rather than walking around and sight-seeing, and we hated to spend our nights paying $300 for a small room with a half bathroom. A sleeper train seemed like the logical solution. There are lots of websites that give information about this way of traveling (see here and here, for example) and they all make it seem very civilized and easy. They’re almost correct.

We took our first sleeper train from Paris to Venice. Although we had very carefully and specifically booked a cabin just for the four of us, we were promptly led to a cabin that already boasted two other people. Fortunately, the conductor was a sympathetic type, and the train wasn’t too full, so we finally got a cabin all our own.

Our cabin had two lower berths that functioned as seats during the daytime, and two upper berths that folded up against the side of the car when not in use. I didn’t have a tape measure, but the berths felt as if they were about two and a half feet wide. The train company provided a thin nylon sleeping bag that served as both a top and bottom sheet (much like the sleep-sheet used in hostels), a small pillow, and a thin blanket. Our luggage was stuffed under the bottom berths and placed on shelves above the top berths.

The good part of the sleeper train was that we did sort of sleep. We took our shoes off and got to lie down. The train had that nice, relaxing chugga-chugga-chugga rhythm, and there were mercifully few horns and whistles. The kids were initially too excited to go to sleep but exhaustion finally overtook them and they blinked out.

The bad part was the fact that the berths were extremely uncomfortable and, for my tall husband, way too short. Also, getting to the bathroom was no fun. You had to crawl down from the berth (since my husband and I slept on top), put on your clunky winter shoes, unlock the door (which inevitably woke the spouse), and then stagger down the rocking aisle to a very cold and, usually, somewhat dirty bathroom. If there was no toilet paper, you staggered back to your cabin, got the toilet paper and started all over again. Multiply this not just by your own bathroom stops, but by the children’s, and you’ve got a pretty lousy night of sleep.

Of course, after all this discomfort and inconvenience, we woke up to find ourselves in beautiful Venice. Once there, although we were tired, we spent quite a nice day sightseeing. In other words, the plan worked perfectly, with us doubling up on travel and lodging and not wasting any daytime hours sitting on a train. So even though I really did not enjoy the experience, I ended up doing it all over again when we traveled from Venice to Rome, and I’ll do it again the next time I’m in Europe.