Spring Break Twenty-Nineteen

At the beginning of Spring Break we set aside 3 nights and four days to travel up north to check out more of California. I had dreams of driving all the way to Hurst Castle, but we scaled back when we realized how far and expensive that would be, especially because we have younger children. That would be something we'd want them to remember. We knew we wanted to go the beach and camp at a KOA that had teepees. Our first stop was Ojai to Ryan's friend Joel's home and work space. Ryan has done some things with him through Vans and he, at one point did a bunch of stuff for Yo Gabba Gabba and our kids were raised on that show. He told Ryan anytime he wanted to bring the family out, he'd love to have us, so of course we took him up on it.

Joel first took us over to see his Father's Emus. I did not get any pictures because I was scared of them for the kids and they seemed like animals that would get mad at you if they caught you taking a picture of them. But we were able to feed the Koi fish, so that was cool. 

Joel's Dad was a professor and had traveled the world and collected a lot of cool things. They were nice enough to show us around, but we left Benny outside with the Emus. Things would have definitely been broken if Benny was allowed to handle things.

We went back to Joel's place and were a little star struck with all of the Yo Gabba Gabba props.

He even let the whole family take a ride in the car Plex drives in one of the episodes.

Inside his work space. 

Joel gave them a tour and the kids were in awe of all the cool things.

Ben spotting a piece of Foofa's land.

After Ojai, we stayed the night in Port Hueneme. The next day we checked out the Santa Barbara Mission briefly. Ben didn't want to be quiet in the quiet spots.

After Santa Barbara we headed to Solvang and really walked around the town. It was unseasonably hot and busy. But it was still fun to check out.

We spent a lot of time in this bookstore/Hans Christian Andersen Museum.

And got some ice cream to cool down.

We continued on our way and found out that we were really close to some sand dunes. Not just any sand dunes though, back in the early 1900's before Charlton Heston, the first Ten Commandments movie was filmed. After it was filmed, the director Cecille B. Demille ordered that all of the props and sets be buried. For the longest time it was this myth that somewhere in California there is this set buried. They eventually found it and have been slowly excavating it with funding the receive. So it's this whole modern archaeology as they race to uncover all of these things before they decompose even more.

Phew, that was a lot. We found out that there was this Dunes Center that had a bunch of pieces of the sets displayed, so of course we had to go check it out. They also had a sand wall where people can mail them sand from any where and they will add it to their collection. I really appreciated that part too.

We eventually made it to Pismo Beach. We walked around the down town and walked on the pier. Sidenote, now that we are in California, I have a quiet goal to try and walk on every pier in Southern California. We will see if I can do it, aka convince the family to do it with me...

The next day we went back to the sand dunes to check them out. I don't know why I think sand dunes are so cool, but I can't get enough of them. 

After the dunes, we went to Oceano Beach. Ryan really wanted to go to a beach where we could drive on it. My thing is piers, his is driving on the beach. 

The whole car on the beach thing is fun but it's also super stressful with little kids that are oblivious. The whole looking both ways before you cross the beach was hard for them to understand. On another note, there were so many shells and sand dollars. Mom was loving it.

We found that agriculture is a big thing in this region. And I tried to think of a way that we could move up here and open some kind of orchard or something. It's really amazing up there.

That night we made our way back down to Ventura and stayed at the KOA near there in Santa Paula. We surprised the kids and stayed in a teepee. They were pretty stoked. Loved the KOA and I want to go back when it's warmer. The pool looked fun and they had a zip line. Not to mention peacocks that howled all night.

The town of Santa Paula looked pretty cool so we had to check it out before we headed home.

If we had more time I would have loved to check out all of the museums they have there. I would definitely go back there.

We ended our Spring Break by staying out in Hemet for a couple of days. It was just the right amount of adventure and mellowness. But don't let this post fool you. (As with all of these posts.) Nothing is ever accomplished without some yelling and tantrums from the children as well as the adults. We are all pretty intense and tense in our family.