Seconds With Steff

There’s so much about the last two days I didn’t get to write because we were just plain exhausted when we got back to the room at night, but having my friend Joe with me was absolutely the best experience I could ask for. Not only was it fun to spend time with my West Coast friend, but having a second set of eyes on Hunter was a level of relaxation that was just amazing! Joe was a complete natural with Hunter. It just made the whole Disney experience exponentially better, and we had so much fun! Although I think Joe’s going to be in recovery for at least a week…

Oogie Boogie Bash is wildly different from Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. I’m not sure which is better yet, but I feel like if they merged the two, they’d have the ultimate Halloween extravaganza.

To get candy at Oogie Boogie Bash, you have to go through trails that have characters! It’s not a photo opportunity with the character, but generally they’re interacting and taunting the passersby. And you can go at them as well — as Hunter did with Professor Callahan.

Speaking of Professor Callahan, Hunter stopped him cold… It was absolutely the funniest thing. Big Hero Six is my favourite Marvel movie, and Hunter told Professor Callahan that Hiro stopped him. Even behind a mask, you could see the man take a breath, pause, slump his shoulders, and say, “I have nothing to say to that.” It was just ridiculously amazing and super funny!

After waking up with a Disney hangover this morning, we hopped on the freeway to get back to Dana Point and work our way down Old PCH. At Camp Pendleton, we were forced onto The Five, but then got back on Historic Route 101. Our first stop was the California Visitor’s Center, where they were thrilled to offer information.

And then we walked into the California Surf Museum. I’ve been to a couple of surf museums in California, and this one was by far the most impressive. Tons of exhibits, but there were two standouts: one of Duke’s actual authentic surfboards, and the surfboard Bethany Hamilton was riding the day the shark attacked. The museum docent explained that nobody else had ever asked about it when I expressed that it was interesting it wasn’t in Hawaii. Absolutely an amazing thing to see — and completely terrifying.

We hit two more sites before leaving Oceanside…

While driving through Carlsbad, I spotted a really nice surf shop, so I stopped and got Hunter just a few more T-shirts… nothing like school shopping in Cali!

For my 13th birthday, my cousin Carolee gifted me Seventeen magazine, which she renewed until I went to college. In the very back of the magazine were advertisements for things like poetry contests, but most importantly, there was an ad I was obsessed with: teenage girl fat camp in La Jolla, California — which I:

1. DESPERATELY wanted to go to, and
2. Pronounced Jolla with a hard J and L, like jolly.

Now say it out loud… la JoLLa.

As I grew up and out of my Seventeen magazine phase, I learned about Js pronounced as Hs and the double LL pronunciation as Ys. But more importantly (and sadly), I never got to La Jolla… That ended today!

Although we didn’t go to fat camp — and yes, I’m sure a therapist would have a field day with this post — it was thrilling to finally make it!

So, all that said, next we stopped at UC San Diego’s Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. It was a lovely aquarium right past Torrey Pines in La Jolla. We got super lucky and saw the giant octopus at feeding time.

Since 2019, I’ve been trying to get to Sunny Jim’s Cave — and today was my day!

Except it wasn’t…

There was absolutely zero parking, and I had reached my limit when the parking garage was $40 and we were only going to be there for 30 minutes. I just absolutely refused. So maybe we’ll do Sunny Jim’s Cave next time.

But Hunter helped me, and we navigated down to San Diego on Pacific Highway — as it’s called down here — and managed the entire route with zero signage!

WE DID IT!!! Point to point! All of Pacific Coast Highway, no matter how you count it!

We then got ourselves to Balboa Park so I could go to the Comic-Con Museum! I was really, really very excited!

As we started walking towards the museum, I read a sign that said the exhibits were closed. I was sure I’d read it incorrectly — because how could you close all the exhibits? Wouldn’t you just close, like, one exhibit and change it over, and then have the rest of the museum on display?

The answer to that is no… no, not at all!

They closed the entire museum and took everything out. New exhibits are going in.

What? Who does that?

And when I walked in, there were literally five employees standing there. I looked at them and said, “You closed the entire museum? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

One of the kids goes, “Really?”

“Yeah, ’cause when they wanna work on the Temple of Dendur, they don’t close the entire Metropolitan Museum of Art.”

Their response was, “We’re not big.”

SIGH…

So I give you: The Comic-Con Museum…

So next, we walked across the parking lot to the House of Pacific Relations International Cottages from an exposition in 1935. I couldn’t wait to see what was held inside these cottages.

Except… they were closed.

Only open on Saturdays and Sundays.

I gave up on Balboa Park at that point, and we headed over to the Hotel Del Coronado — because if there’s one thing I could count on, it was the gorgeous facility that is Hotel Del…

Except it’s apparently under extreme renovation.

I still got some good pictures, but it was just like somebody was playing a joke on me at that point.

One more stop before leaving Coronado Island … L. Frank Baum’s historic rental when he was writing “Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz,” “The Emerald City of Oz” and “The Road to Oz.”  

At that point, Hunter had more than earned his Italian dinner, so we headed down to Little Italy, had a wonderful meal at Vincenzo Cucina and Lounge, grabbed a cupcake from the Sprinkles ATM, and made our way to our last hotel for this trip.

One day left before put red-eye tomorrow night!

Vertullo Summary – We made it!