Last year during Fall break, we made a last minute decision to drive to Newport Beach, CA. It ended up being a magical trip and we hoped to relive it this year. Tuesday night, we checked the weather forecast on about four different weather sites and they all said, "90s and sunny" for Thursday (the day we would be arriving) and mid 80s the rest of the week. The weather appeared to be even better than our last year trip, so we made hotel reservations and packed the car. (We had said over and over, we are not going if the weather even has a chance of looking bad.)
So, we packed the kids in the car on Wednesday. Our almost running out of gas in downtown Las Vegas, should have been a warning to us. (We decided to not get gas in Cedar City, because it was late and we were tired and Taco Bell didn't taste as good as it sounded when we stopped there for dinner. We both said, "As long as we don't hit bad traffic, we will be fine." We hit bad traffic and were sweating it until we made it to a Chevron.)
As we were driving into Newport Thursday morning, it was dark and cloudy. We kept on checking various weather web-sites and while the temperature forecasts were now in the mid 80s, they all said afternoon sun, through the weekend. Here we are in the hotel, very hopeful the sun will come out.
At the beach with no sun.
Still having fun
Resorting to sand fights because the water was too cold.
The next day, it was raining in the morning (even the local weather people hadn't predicted that.) So we headed to the Discovery Cube in Santa Ana. We had a great time there.
Saturday was supposed to be cloudy in the morning and sunny in the afternoon. No such luck. It rained all day. We did go to the beach to watch the die-hard surfers. My kids couldn't stand being so close to the water and not get in.
Chasing seagulls
It was all fun until they started getting cold.
The day redeemed itself with a trip to Chipotle
So what was supposed to be a fun, spread summer out to the last possible moment vacation to California, turned into a very lame, rainy cold trip. We made the most of it. We still ate at the Crab Cooker, got Balboa bars and played in the sand. We did consider heading to Legoland or Disneyland but the weather worse in San Diego and we ran into some other out of staters, who said Disneyland was packed and cold. We would have gone and visited some friends of ours in LA but the weather channels kept on saying, "Afternoon sun and warmer" and the whole purpose of the trip was to enjoy the beach, so we just waited it out. Oh well. At least we don't have cable at home and my kids got to watch all of the Sponge Bob they wanted to in the hotel. Oh and sadly, in Utah, it was sunny in the high 70s while we were gone. We came home to rain. :)
Next year will be better right? Right? :)
7 comments:
Sorry about the weather. If it makes you feel better, the water is almost ALWAYS too cold in these parts to "get in". Better luck next year.
Ha ha, that almost sounds like a "cruise" vacation story: so bad it creates good memories :).
Sorry to disappoint this time!! At least you didn't go this week--the weather is even worse (from a vacationers perspecitve at least).
That stinks ... kind of.. I think I'd make the whole trip to eat at the Crabcooker! :)
I have to second Queen Elizabeth's comment. We lived north of Malibu and were ALWAYS wetsuit boogie-boarders, even in August! (The movie-makers want you to believe So Cal is Hawaii. It's not.)
BTW: my kids' highlight of vacation is also watching tv shows in the motel room to their heart's content! We don't have cable at home, either :)
It looks like the kids all had fun anyway.
Sorry, Janice. That is a bummer. As a local, I was OK with the rain, but not for a beach trip. Hope you can come again!
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