The 43

This trip wasn't long enough. I'm glad we were able to combine my work retreat with a much-needed family vacation, but at least for me, it felt over before it started. We had one more adventure before leaving California -- we found the Brady Bunch house used in exterior shots (which has since been remodeled to look like the set on the inside. I snapped a quick picture and we were on our way back to Utah. Although we made good time, the journey wasn't that crammed -- we stopped at Giordano's in suburban Las Vegas for the Chicago-style pizza Lori and Michael didn't get to enjoy this summer. After that, we zoomed back to Salt Lake City, stopping in St. George for gas and Beaver for a bathroom break. We listened to the rest of the Ready Player Two audio book along the way. The sun was still up when we pulled into our driveway. I wish we had more time for our trip, but being home feels good.

We weren't in a rush to get out the door this morning, but we did and visited two last used video game stores, the first in North Hollywood and the second in Northridge. The first store was really impressive and I found some old Atari games. The second was just OK. We are done with shopping this trip ... From the second store, we went to a Starbucks near Topanga Canyon, then drove into the Santa Monica Mountains to do a short hike in Tuna Canyon Park. The views of the ocean were amazing, and we hung out for about 20 minutes at the summit. Michael wanted to drive the PCH through Malibu, so we headed west for about 20 miles, then turned around and found a beach to hang out at for a while. Ben had fun in the surf, and I sort of did -- the undertow was freaking me out a little and I gave up even after I got used to the cold water (I now wish I hadn't).  We left the beach and found a Chipotle for dinner. We drove back through Topanga Canyon one more time and emerged near Reseda, the...

Today was our first full day of vacation for all four of us with no driving and no work retreat. We jammed much into it. We ate breakfast at the hotel and got out the door about 10 a.m. Our first destination was the California Science Center near USC. The museum's main attraction is the Space Shuttle Discovery, and we spent a lot of time in the exhibit hall, taking pictures and reading all the exhibits. The rest of the museum was interesting, though some of it was under construction. Besides many old air and space vehicles, it featured exhibits on different ecosystems with cool interactive features that, if the boys were a few years younger, they would have loved. From the museum, we walked over to USC to check out the campus. Michael wasn't as impressed with it as he was for UCLA, I think because it's in not as good a neighborhood (but you could tell USC takes security seriously -- the campus is fenced in and felt safe). We found the building with the video game program, b...

As we were packing up to leave the resort, we surprisingly found ... the coffee maker. I wasn't impressed with this resort as I was with past retreats, but it was still pretty nice, and the family loved staying here. But, it was time to go. We drove to a Costco first to fill up, then worked our way north to Westwood to visit UCLA. Michael is taking an online video game design class through UCLA in a couple weeks, and this was a chance for him to see another college campus (after visiting Cal Tech on Sunday and UC Irvine on Monday) and be excited about what lies ahead, even if UCLA is a dream school for him. The campus is gorgeous, although we couldn't quite find the building that houses the video game program. Plus, almost every building is closed -- I forget how much more locked down California is than Utah. We left UCLA and headed to near the Miracle Mile, where Lori heard of a good taco place, Quesada's. The tacos were delicious, if not a little small, and we then headed...

I didn't sleep well last night. Between the wine, too much food, and just feeling kind of exhausted (but happy exhausted, my body rebelled -- at about 1 a.m. I thought I was going to throw up. I didn't, thankfully, and eventually fell asleep. This morning, I got breakfast with some coworkers (the company always springs for breakfast on retreat Tuesday). The rest of the morning and afternoon was free time -- no events planned. Lori, Ben, and I walked around the grounds and made it down to the ocean and rocky beach the resort has. I kind of wish Ben and I would have embarked on a longer hike north of the resort, but we never quite got around to it. Instead, Ben and I, and Michael for a little while, hung out by the pool, both the one outside our room and the bigger pool with the water slide.  Basically, our company took over the 13+ pool -- I bet at one time that at least half of the retreat attendees were hanging out by it, drinking, socializing, and enjoying the great weather. ...

I woke up early and walked to get Lori coffee because apparently the room doesn't have a coffee maker. She was tutoring in the morning, and I offered to walk down to the coffee shop to get coffee for her and Michael and a muffin for Ben. I enjoyed my own breakfast as part of the retreat, and it was decent.  Monday of my work retreat is always a work day -- not a real work day, but a big team-building activity, a nice lunch, a pep talk from our CEO, and some other workshops and stuff. This year, we broke into our individual teams for 90 minutes, and afterward, when the boss asked the entire group how it went, our editorial team might have been the only one cheering. After years of having a small team, having a real time (14 of us, though only 10 attended the retreat) feels awesome -- and today was the culmination of that. Dinner was at a restaurant right on the ocean, and it was a feast, almost too much food. My big problem is that we get all this food, and then because we're al...

The morning started with breakfast at a little diner in Eagle Rock with Tim. After walking home, we repacked the car and tried killing a few hours before going to the Terranea Resort, where my work retreat was being held. First, we drove to Cal Tech in Pasadena. Michael isn't necessarily interested in the school, but we are showing him some colleges to get him excited as he gets closer to the next step. The campus is neat but was really quiet -- but I guess that's understandable on a Sunday during the summer during a pandemic. Afterward, we found a Starbucks and a Winchell's. For our next excursion, we visited two used video game stores in Burbank -- one cool store where Michael bought a used Wii U, and another at a mall in beautiful downtown Burbank that we couldn't for the life of us find (it was incorrectly located on the mall maps, and tucked away in a corner of the mall that wasn't easily seen). Our effort to find the store wasn't worth it: The selection wa...