USA Trip (12th Sep - 8th Oct) - Day 16 - Tiki Run and Torrance

The next morning was another early one as we rushed down to Huntington Beach early in the morning for the Tiki Run/Walk.

Cameron and I had signed up to run 5km, Tara and Tomas were running 10km and Alana, Kris and Brett were walking the 5km. It was hot, around 34C, but there was a nice beach breeze and it started early enough.

Huntington Beach had also been a place we wanted to see as it was where one of mine and Tara's favourite bands had formed, The Offspring.

Unfortunately the magic of the beach was ruined when I had to step over a needle to get to the water, but it was a nice place to run and the Tiki Run was a good spirits fun run.

Cameron finished his 5km run first, about 7min ahead of me. Next Kristine crossed the line about 10min behind me. Alana and Brett were another 10 min behind and Tara and Tomas finished the 10km after that

Not our best times, but it was hot and we'd not been keeping up with the running while we'd be on holidays, nor had we been hydrating or eating well...:

Cameron: 5km, 38.04 min
Keir: 5km run: 45.30 min
Kristine: 5km walk: 53.21 min
Brett: 5km walk: 58.42 min
Alana: 5km walk: 58.54min
Tara: 10km run: 1hr 7min 57s
Tomas: 10km run: 1hr 25min 46s

Our medals

Cameron's Results

Brett finishing (note the Start/Finish was back to front..)

One of the strange things at the beach was the sight of oil rigs on the horizon, not something we are used to seeing in Australia:

After finishing up at the run, we treated ourselves to In-and-Out Burger for lunch:

The food was good, but for some reason Tomas was described as a double meat animal (which isn't entirely wrong...)

(Animal style means you get the chips covered in melted cheese, onions and sauce - but Tomas asked for no cheese).

We then made a few quick drive-by stops to see some of the filming locations for the Buffy TV show, Torrance High School, which served as Sunnydale High:

Torrance High School

Sunnydale High in Buffy

Next was 1313 Cota Ave, which served as the Summer's Residence in Buffy:

Summer's House in Buffy

1313 Cota Ave

As we headed back to our house, we passed a cool mural, "Brown Pride Melts ICE":

Once back at our apartment, we showered and changed and then packed. While we were keeping the rental here, we had two nights booked in Anaheim so we could visit Disneyland over the next two days instead of driving 45min each way.

The apartment was the Portofino Inns & Suites. We had two rooms booked, so Tara, Brett, Cam and Tom took one room and Alana, Kris and I took the other. 

Kristine had a headache, so she rested up, while the rest of us headed to Downtown Disney.

Cyber Truck

Display in the Pixar Hotel

Hollywood Theme at the park

Lego Store

Star Wars store

Rei's Speeder

Tara and the boys headed to the pool for a swim, while Alana, Kris and I had a quiet recovery evening in our room ready for the next day.

USA Trip (12th Sep - 8th Oct) - Day 15 - Malibu?

Well, today was a bit of a disaster. It started slowly again as we recovered from the crazy fortnight we'd had so far.

We decided to head out to Malibu to check out the beaches, it was a decently long drive but there were a few things to see on the way. I set the route, and somehow accidentally had us pull into Odyssey Board Games, which had a huge selection of cool stuff, that made my wallet a little lighter and suitcases a lot heavier! 

We then headed out towards the mountains with another quick stop for Alana at Abbey Lee's Dance Studio. This was part of the Dance Moms TV show that Alana had been watching:

Next we headed up towards the Getty Museum. We had planned just to have a look as admission was free, but parking was $20 so we just admired from afar and kept driving.

After that we continued towards Malibu. At one point the GPS directed us onto a small side street to avoid congestion on the main road. We followed it and found ourselves weaving through a number of small streets with a lot of other cars, presumably who had also followed their GPS.

At one point we were forced to turn down a small street and joined a huge line of traffic that didn't move. It turns out that at the end of the road there was a stop sign and a turn on to a super busy freeway. Traffic was going super slow and we spent an hour and half to travel about 5km down the road and onto the freeway, which we could only join going in the opposite direction.

There was no easy way to turn around and at this point we'd had enough. It was hot and it was getting late, so we stopped at a Whole Foods store to get some supplies and headed back home. We missed seeing any of Malibu, but we survived so that was the main thing.

The sunset was beautiful

As a bonus and to make up for not seeing Malibu, I took us on a detour and we got to see the famous Warner Brothers Water Tower:

Our other reason for rushing home was that the boys had booked tickets to a soccer game, LA Galaxy vs Colorado Rapids at Dignity Health Sports Park:

Kris and I dropped them off and then returned back to the apartment. We got back just as we got a message from Cameron that it was nearing halftime and could we come and pick them up so we'd be on time for the end of the game.  They enjoyed the game, which ended up as a win 3-2 to LA Galaxy who had been 2-0 down at halftime.

This goal was terrible:

USA Trip (12th Sep - 8th Oct) - Day 14 - Citadel Outlets and the Rooftop

 After a hectic start to the trip, it was time to slow down a little. We had a sleep-in, but Tara had a much more exciting morning.  She decided to head out for a morning run, and being conscious of not going too far in a neighbour hood she didn't know, she ran laps around the house.  This worked for a while until a Shih Tzu got annoyed with her and decided to chase and bark at her. She was concerned about the "rabid shih tzu" so raced back inside and gave up on her run.

The fearsome monster

Once she had recovered and we had woken up, we headed out to Citadel Outlets. Located in Commerce, California, Citadel is a outlet shopping area designed to look like a castle. It is 14,600m2 and consists of a number of outlet stores. It was also themed up for Halloween:

Once we finished there, we headed to Costco to buy some supplies (the Costco memberships are international). Cameron was surprised at the low cost of alcohol, but couldn't buy any as he was only 20.

We also found this cheese that might have been made of dog...

That evening we decided to make the most of our rental property and retired up to the rooftop where we could watch the planes coming in to LAX and see the lights of downtown Los Angeles. Alana brought up a phone app that let us see where the planes were coming from, which was pretty cool. There were a number of private jets heading in.

The Ice-Cream Truck

Full moon