We arrived at our campsite near San Bernadino late Friday afternoon. We took it easy that night, setting up camp and doing errands to prepare for our upcoming week. The following morning we headed into LA for a tourist day. We stopped at Planet Fitness on our way in and then grabbed lunch at a small South American fusion grill before heading to the La Brea Tar Pits.
The grounds have several tar pits that are free to the public as well as couple of active excavation sites. We checked these out before heading into the museum. They have a good collection of fossils discovered in the tar, and Bryn loved the design of the building itself.
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| Mammoth bones again! |
From the museum we headed over to the Venice Beach area, and took strolls along the canals, the ocean, and past Muscle Beach and the shops. It was a nice area, but when we peaked at the price of a medium sized condo that had an open house it was $7 million.
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| The Pacific |
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| Grand Canal, Venice |
Next we headed over to Firestone Walker Brewing Company, where we tried several beers and picked up a boxful of more beer to send to our beer aficionado friend. When finished with our flights we went to a nearby restaurant (Michi) for some great sushi/ramen. After dinner we drove to Torrance to try out Monkish Brewing Company, which Bryn loved.
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| The Monkish haul |
After a few samples there, we tried to visit the nearby speakeasy named Blind Rabbit, but they were closing 2 hours early because "they had been too busy all day". The vibe and name were both great, so it was a bit of a disappointment that we didn't get to really check it out before returning to the campground. We did discover that despite being so car dependent and spread out, LA has pretty terrible parking.
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| Our own (half) Blind Rabbit |
Sunday we headed in the opposite direction to Joshua Tree National Park, which contains two distinct deserts. We started off by doing a hike on the Lost Palms Oasis Trail near the southern end of the park. It was a nice hike through the desert terrain, with views of several different terrain types. However, we were a bit disappointed by the oasis that makes the end of the trail; it was kind of cool for the palm trees to suddenly pop back up along the canyon walls but was underwhelming compared to even the group of palm trees near the trailhead. We ate lunch overlooking the oasis and got back to the truck with plenty of time to explore more of the park.
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| Lost Palms Oasis Trail |
One of the stops along our long scenic drive through the length of the park was at the Cholla Cactus Garden. This is, unsurprisingly, filled with cholla cacti. Bryn tried to carefully pick up part of one that had broken off and fallen onto the ground. It quickly attached itself to her hand with its barbed needles and took quite a bit of force to tear free. There are still visible pieces of cactus in her thumb and index finger two weeks later.
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The Cholla Cactus Garden
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The Cholla Cactus in Bryn's Fingers (as she says "Oh wow. That is super painful and very much stuck in there.")
In the northern half of the park we entered the territory of the Joshua trees that give the park its name. The trees are apparently named that because they reminded some early Mormon travelers of Joshua raising his hands to the heavens in prayer. We finished with a near dusk visit to Keys View, a lookout point that was suffering from a bit too much haze during our visit for a good view.
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| A Joshua tree |
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| Admiring the desert view |
The remainder of our stay in the area was weekdays. Shawn had a work deadline and a coworker out sick, so he mostly just worked a ton from the camper. On Tuesday, Bryn had the opportunity to join Newport Aquatics Center for a master's practice. It was the first time back out on the water since Minneapolis and she was put in a quad for the first time ever! How exciting. It was a gorgeous morning row in Newport Bay with a beach launch, which Bryn hadn't done since she last rowed in California in 2011. You could tell she was well adjusted to the cooler morning temp as she was in a uni rather than bundled up.
After practice, she headed to Breakfast Republic, a local recommendation with a fantastic variety of options for brunch. They had wifi and outlets, too.
Around lunchtime, Bryn switched to the Anaheim Packing District to try out the food court. It was underwhelming. There are no outlets to be found! But there is wifi so if you plan ahead and are all charged up, it would work for a bit. After lunch, she headed to Monkish once more. A few more hours of work there and it was time to head home. Which took over 2 hours in LA traffic.
On Friday we left to travel south to El Cajon for our next week's stay near San Diego. However, Bryn did have to come back to LA during that week for a short work trip. It was an uneventful stay in Tustin, with the exception of The Habit discovery. One of Bryn's clients asked if we'd been to In n Out yet, and when she expressed how much we don't like it they pointed her towards The Habit.
Guys. THE HABIT. It's such a gem. The fries are well cooked and seasoned, the burger bun is nicely toasted, the burger toppings are delicious, and the shake is smooth and rich. 10/10 go there instead of In n Out.
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