Mission de San Juan Capistrano

I've been to The Mission in San Juan Capistrano plenty of times.  It's the only mission I've really ever visited. But my hope is that my family will someday take a road trip and see all the missions in California, maybe  when my oldest needs to go to one for a school project, we're kind of an all-or-nothing family. But that will be another story for another time.

Last March we went to the Return of the Swallows Celebration that happens every year. Since my childhood I've heard a mixture of the legends that surround the story of the swallows, so this was the year I finally decided to partake in the festivies.

It was a gorgeous day at the mission with blue skies and fluffy white clouds overhead. Part of the celebration (alright the entire day) was a celebration of Italian heritiage. The aroma of delightful food filled the courtyard, vendors selling all manners of italian product, and an Italian group singing bad renditions of "that's Amore" is what you will encounter if you arrive on Italian Day. A word to the wise though, when you go, for almost any event, you should probably take some cash with you. I forgot and had to skate by on the the couple dollars I had.

Oh yeah, and another word to the wise.... There are no swallows flying around at the return of the swallows celebration!

But even if swallows are scarce, it was still a beautiful day to go, as evidenced in our photos.  And the mission is beautiful, a true American ruin.  If you haven't seen it, make plans, between the beautiful mission and the quaint little town of San Juan Capistrano, you wont be disappointed.

Petersen Automotive Museum

Over the summer, my sister wanted us to go with her and her kids to the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. My niece had gone to a prom there and thought it would be a cool place to take my nephew. They had an exhibit at the time with life size models from the movie Cars and apparently the teenagers were able to get into the vehicles. I’m not sure that’s a good thing…letting teenagers at Prom get into the back of your display vehicles???!!! Maybe, the teens were mistaken and were taking it upon themselves to get into the vehicles.

Anyhow, we finally picked a day to check out the museum. When we got there we found out that the Cars exhibit was no longer, which sucked because this was the reason we drove out to LA! Sadly, my nephew who is only four could not understand and wanted to see Buzz. Nevertheless, there were plenty of cars to view, but again telling a four-year-old boy that he could not touch the cars did not go over too well. On the third floor they did have an interactive play area for young children, but it wasn’t big cars to jump in and out of, so it was not up to par. On top of all of that my sister admitted shortly after we arrived that all of them (her and the kids) had been up late, making them all cranky. Once they realized there was no Cars display and the interactive stuff was not going to satisfy the little tikes, we opted out of staying for a long period of time.

It’s not that the Peterson was bad, just not kid friendly. Though they do have the third floor of interactive-hands on stuff for kids, you could probably find and be more satisfied with taking your little ones to a children’s museum. It will probably save you a considerable amount of money.

Otherwise, the Peterson is a pretty cool museum. I enjoyed the displays they had out the week we went. There was the Hot Wheels collection that featured a car designed by Rat fink as well as some other amazing looking hot wheels.

They had the Batmobile from the 90’s movie, grease lighting, and the car from Speed Racer.

But my favorite exhibit was From Autocamps to Airstreams: The early road to Vacationland, which covered mostly travel trailers. I was amazed how far we have come since their inception into American culture.

Afterwards, I took my family to Pinks for Hotdogs. I have been there a couple of times before and I think I have even mentioned them on this blog before, so I won’t go into much detail. I was excited when we got there, because the line wrapped around the building. Now for most of you, I know this would be a deal breaker, having to wait thirty minutes in line for a hotdog. But every time I have been there previously the line was nil. So, I wanted the experience of the whole ordeal. I was enthralled and threw myself head first into the tourist experience.

As for the food, it’s great if you love hotdogs. No complaints. However, let me give you a small tip. Bring your own soda, preferably a 44 or 64 oz.. Some of the Dogs are spicy and a little 12oz. Can sold at a buck something a pop does not suffice!

On our way home, we struck gold when Faith had to stop and pee (I’m not sure if I meant that cleverness or not). Anyhow, we stopped in the City of Baldwin Park by a Target and apparently the city was having a meet your Police and Fireman day! The kids were able to sit on police motorcycles and in the vehicles with the canines. They could crawl through he SWAT and Fire Trucks. Faith loved it! This after all is why Faith was psyched about going to the Peterson Museum and funny enough, by the end of the day she was able to play in vehicles.

Free Museums!

Bank of America is promoting various museums nationwide and passing a deal on to their customers! If you are a Bank of America client, check out this deal! for those in the Southern California area it includes LACMA and Discovery Science Center.

The Unoffical McDonald's Museum

Last year about this time, we started taking local trips to see some Roadside Attractions. One of the First places we went too was the Unoffical McDonald's Museum in San Bernardino, California. The orginal Museum (Or so says, psuedo-owner Ray Kroc and Money Machine) is located in Des Plaines, Illinois which is a recreation of the original first branched McDonald's after the Kroc talked the McD brothers into incorporating and then later buying them out.

The San Bernardino version is located at the orginal site of the very first McDonalds (Sort of, the first started in Arcadia, but the Airdome was moved to San Bernardino about 3 years later) and became a popular teen hangout that later sparked the Fastfood Craze. After the location went through a number of owners and became run down, the current owner decided to purchase the spot and make it a Museum. The Current owner is a restraunter himself, owning the local legend Juan Pollo. He also bought another Route 66 historic location...The town of Amboy!

Anyhow, I was perusing old photos and found that I had never got around to posting our pics. So Here you go! And if you get a chance take a trip out and check out the Museum.



I use to love this playground equipment

The Juan Pollo Cruzing Car

Memrabilia

Mystery House

The house is not as scary as the person on the porch!

Waiting in the gift shop.

The Winchester Mystery house was a must see for me as we headed north. It was in my top places to visit on our trip, the others being: The Mystery Spot, Golden Gate Bridge, and The Dysfection building. We almost missed out on going due to our tight scheduling, but we decided to make the stop on our way home.

Most of you know the story, the widow Winchester believed she was being plagued by ghost that died at the hands of her family's Winchester rifle. In order to appease the ghost she had to keep building on to her estate. So she hand a team of workers that kept working around the clock, day and night.

A window in the floor

To be honest, while it was a great tour and very interesting, I didn’t see the overall weirdness and creepiness that others had described. True, she had a fascination with the number 13 and cobwebs; there were stairs and doors that lead to nowhere, and a chimney that was never completed for 14 or so fireplaces. Sure, it was interesting that the front door was only used twice in its existence because she was trapped in the house after an earthquake and felt that the spirits were angry with her for spending to much time on the front of the house. Staircases that were in the shape of W and connected rooms, cabinet doors that opened up to walls, all the pillars placed upside down for good luck, and a séance room that the widow used to spy on her help were all fascinating, but the way people worked themselves up over this place I expected a little more.

A very scary shadow
Cob web windows- just like mine.

A very long way to get a short distance

A cool leopard tile fire place

Upside down column, just like every other one in the house- done for good luck.

A rarely used front door- 2x

I suppose I expected every room to be creepy and weird, things upside down that should be right side up and so forth. Was she really crazy or just an amateur architect (she only used a professional for one room and with the other rooms if you disagreed or offered an opinion you would probably be fired) that botched up more times than you can count?

So while I had a good time and enjoyed the tour and was just excited to finally be in this house that so many people have told me about, I would say it was the bottom of the 4 places we went. I still recommend checking it out but realize it’s a little expensive and probably not as weird as you are imagining it should be.