My trip to California (long with pictures)
We left Newfoundland on Saturday Sept. 4th around noon and flew to Toronto. The 3 1/2 hour flight was good but I did not have a window seat. We had almost 4 hours of waiting in Toronto but with customs, security, lunch and wandering around the airport taking photos, it went pretty quickly. The flight to Orange County (John Wayne Airport) took about 5 hours. This time I was sitting by a window but it was cloudy most of the way. It did not clear up until the sun had almost set. This was my first view of Orange County on approach to the airport.
Sunday when we got up it was foggy. I was sort of surprised because even though I know that places along the Pacific would get fog I had an image in my mind of Southern California always being sunny. We went to Newport Beach but it was too foggy to get many "nice" photos.
As you can see fog doesn't stop people from going to the beach. It was a nice temperature, around 20�C. We walked out on the pier and along the boardwalk and went in a few shops.
Then we left the beach and drove inland towards the hills. I loved the hills.....I could see them from my hotel window and as we were driving and I told Joe I just wanted to drive to the hills. So we started driving and ended up in Yorba Linda and Riverside. The temperatures there were a lot hotter, the van was showing 97�F.
The landscape is so different to me, all that brown with grasses and cacti.
The next day was a holiday, Labor Day so we took Jodi's advice and drove to the Mission at San Juan Capistrano. We really enjoyed that. It's so historic and has lots of space to walk around and take pictures.....lots of photo opportunities there. I saw my first hummingbird ever!
After spending close to 2 hours at the mission we drove to Dana Point to a state beach and looked around. We saw dolphins and pelicans. Then we drove through Laguna Beach back to Newport Beach. The beach was more crowded than the day before.
That evening we went to The Spectrum, a huge outdoor mall. Living in a cold climate we don't have outdoor malls and I thought it was such a neat idea. We walked around, shopped a bit and ate at The Cheesecake Factory.
The next day I was on my own since Joe's conference had started. I went to The District, another outdoor shopping mall and big box store area & back to The Spectrum to do more shopping.
On Wednesday I went to Fashion Island, another huge outdoor mall. I am not a big shopper but I wanted to see the mall. I mostly window shopped and picked up something for my niece and sister. I also went to Balboa Beach, just down the road/coast from Newport Beach. It was cloudy almost all day that day. I saw some guys surfing on boogie boards.
On Thursday Jodi pickd me up at my hotel. We met up with Petaloid and spent the morning chatting. It was a lovely visit. In the afternoon Jodi and I went to San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary in Irvine. I could see my hotel from there, it was really close. I saw a Great Blue Heron (I got really close to it), a couple of Egrets and 3 lizards. The first time I have seen a lizard in the wild.
Jodi then drove me around to several more areas and we had a great time sightseeing.
On Friday I went back to Balboa Beach and collected some small shells to take home. I also went across to Balboa Island and walked around. It's a tiny island packed with homes. It's really neat and I think everyone must have a boat because there were a lot of boats around the island and in the harbour.
Friday evening Joe was finished his conference so we went to Newport Beach to watch the sunset over the Pacific. That was really nice and I'm glad we did it although I didn't wear a jacket and I was pretty cold! (it was probably around 17�C with a breeze).
On Saturday we flew home. Our flight left Orange County around noon and we flew to Toronto. We must have got a tail wind because we landed 1/2 hour early. I had a window seat during the flight and the skies were clear. We flew over the Grand Canyon and the Rockies. I was going to read a novel on the flight but I was too busy taking pictures of the amazing scenery.
It was a wonderful trip and I saw so many "firsts"......my first palm tree, lizard, surfer, hummingbird, etc.
If you want to see more of my photos you can check out my blog.
Here is a link that might be useful: My Blog
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