Queen Mary, Long Beach, CA

We went out to dinner on the Queen Mary with our nephew Paul and friend Paulette. The Queen Mary was built in 1934 in Glasgow, Scotland and is now a floating hotel and 5 star restaurant that is docked in Long Beach, CA. During WWII, the Queen Mary was used to transport troops to Europe. Long Beach is about 5 miles or so from Seals Beach, where we are parked.

Lovely evening with good friends and a little wine -- couldn't ask for better!

First photo, Rene had Beef Wellington and I had Filet Mignon and a Lobster Tail with clarified butter. Soooo delicious! At the end of the meal chocolate covered strawberries were brought out. What a special evening it was.

Malibu Creek State Park - 2/19/09

Today we went to Malibu Creek State Park, a place where a lot of movies/tv shows have been made. We are huge fans of M.A.S.H. and went purposely to locate the area where the movie/tv show was made. We hiked in about 2.3 miles, but were somewhat disappointed that there was not much to see, save for a burned out jeep and ambulance. There are volunteers that are currently in the process of revitalizing the set, but not much has been done to date.














What was evident, was the landscape that looked very familiar to us. I can see the helicopters coming over the ridges that you see below.








You an see the helicopter pad at the top of this small hill. I kept looking for Hockeye, BJ and of course Major Hollihan.

http://www.venturacountytrails.org/News/0168-MalibuCreekStParkHistory/NewsPage.htm

There were stakes in the ground and we tried to picture where the mess tent was and especially "the swamp".

http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-trw-mash2feb02 link to more information about M.A.S.H. and other movies made in the park. http://www.courant.com/travel/la-trw-mash2feb02,0,1107150.story?page=2

While we were walking the trail, we saw a couple of parrots and could hear a whole lot more in the trees. Was kind of neat.

These were a couple huge turkey vultures that we saw on the trail as well a deer. What a cool afternoon we had.

Have you ever seen/heard of the movie "Mr. Blanding Builds His Dream House". Movie was made in 1948 and stared Cary Grant and Myrna Loy. Was a cute movie about a couple building their first home and it just seemed to get larger and larger and more expensive as it went along. This is the house that was in the movie that is in Malibu Creek State Park, which is now the State Park office. There's a camping area that is near the house.

Disneyland, February 2009

We went to Disneyland over the President's Day long weekend meeting up with Melanie, Todd and grandkids. Also Todd's brother's family went as well.

Here we are posing in front of it s a Small World and the castle.

Whee, here we go on the California Screaming roller coaster.

That's Rene in the front -- boy did he get wet. At the end of the day the kids wanted to go on the Grissly River run -- that's me with all the kids. We had so much fun!

Todd with his little girl!

Melanie sharing a moment with Griffin.

Alec hanging with his cousins Ava and Quinn.

I'll take a picture of you on the carousel and you take a picture of me!

Mother and dauther.

Look at our faces -- I loved it -- Rene not so much.

Miss Peyton posing with a princess and Tinkerbell.

I got to do the rides that went round and round -- Melanie said they made her queasy.

Erin with Quinn, Ava and me in line for a ride.

Alec with Grandma and Grandpa.

In line for another ride -- did a lot of that, but Disney has standing in line down to a science -- the lines generally went very quickly.

End of the day and now Grandma and Granpa will be leaving and they will be leaving the next day (Monday), to go back to Scotts Valley. It's now going to be a few months before we see them again.

Seals Beach, CA

We're now at Seals Beach, CA, parked at a Naval Weapon's Station. It's really nice and we found a couple of RV's from NH. Spoke to a man yesterday who had a UNH hat on.



Pictured with us is Rene's nephew Paul who lives about a mile from the Weapon's Station. We went to dinner with him -- walked downtown to the restaurant -- the best salmon dinner I've ever had. Nice little town that we want to get back to today. Understand there is a pier down there at Seal Beach that serves great hamburgers and frappes that are to die for...... Paul is the son of his sister Lorraine and has lived in Seals Beach for 10 years.






Today we went to the wharf at Seals Beach. It was another beautiful day.










A couple feeding the pigeons on the wharf. Pigeons were all over them and eating from their hands.








At the end of the wharf is Ruby's Diner serving up the best fish'n chips and hamburgers along with frappes. What a lunch we had!








After lunch we did the city walking tour of Seals Beach. It's a quaint and beautiful little town with clustered houses on narrow streets. There's an old trolley car on display on the commons.