Chapter 121
Beware of Tree Snakes

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(Originally posted December 11, 2013)

Okay. This next picture has quite the story behind it. So there was this GIANT tree (easily the biggest one in the whole gardens). I told Tracy to go pose with it, and she thought it would be funny to recreate the classic “senior picture” pose where you pop out from behind a tree. So she went to stand slightly behind the tree and was already for the picture when she jumped out of the way, obviously freaked out. Something had been moving on her arm and had actually bitten her. It must have been a spider because the bite was small and only lasted a few days, but Tracy was convinced it was a “tree snake.” Anyway, the story shouldn’t be funny because I was sad she got bitten, but I had already been taking the picture when the “creature” started crawling on Tracy, so I inadvertently got this action shot as she sprang away in terror.

I posed next, but I was NOT about to get too close to the tree.

We only had a few more areas of the gardens left to explore. One of them, however, was this most majestic of waterfalls.

Finally, we finished traipsing back up the path and toward the general direction of the exit.

As we were about to leave, the last tree we saw was a Cork Oak, which is where the wood for corks comes from. I thought it looked really creepy.

After spending a solid couple of hours at the Botanic Garden, we left and drove the short distance into town. Before long, we saw this sign beckoning us—the actual reason for our journey.

And here was our bounty. First the Truffle Mac.

And second, our other favorite, the Penne Rosa.

They were both SO GOOD. They were also extremely filling, so splitting the two plates, we had some leftovers to bring home.

We knew we should probably start heading back at this point, so we made our way to the car. Before we left, however, we had to buy the signature Noodles dessert—a giant Rice Krispie Treat.

On the drive back, we hit a lot more traffic, but I think we made it home in about two hours total.

The varied landscape of our immediate surroundings never ceases to surprise me.

We were pretty tired by the time we got back, but we had one more mission we were determined to complete. We were trying to make a sort of faux-headboard for our bed modeled after this one that we had seen at Tracy’s parents’ bed and breakfast.

Here’s what we were able to make for our bed.

After this busy day of exploring, we hit the hay under our new “headboard.” The whole excursion had been so spur of the moment, but we were REALLY happy we went. The Botanic Garden was absolutely beautiful, and our Noodles had been worth the trip. Now we were anxious to get as far south as ACTUAL San Diego sometime soon!

July 29-31, 2013

As July wore on, our resolve never to let Crooky come into the house faded a bit.

On Tuesday, Tracy worked from home, and since she had built up a few extra hours, she was able to finish for the day at about 3:30. We headed straight to the parks and made it to Disneyland at about 4:00.

We’re never there in time on weekdays to make it back to Big Thunder Ranch while it’s still open, so we made a beeline in that direction. Pocahontas was in the petting pen, and she was being SO friendly. We had a great time with her!

Clarabelle was in jail when we first arrived.

Since they were getting ready to close up the Ranch before too long, her handler brought her out into the open for a little while, and we got to pet her too. She was also being friendlier than we had ever encountered. Maybe these animals just prefer weekdays! We also hung out with the goats for a few minutes before leaving the Ranch.

We headed into Fantasyland and rode Casey Jr. before deciding to go to the Village Haus for dinner. Of course, on our last trip to this restaurant, we had discovered that Disney pizza tastes pretty good. We decided to reprise this meal choice with a Pepperoni Pizza.

After sitting for a while after dinner, we walked out of Fantasyland and toward Frontierland.

We’d wanted to ride the Mark Twain, but it was already done for the night so we rode Pirates instead.

Getting a craving for beignets, we decided to go back to Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen Express and get the ones we’d really loved several months earlier. We rode the Monorail to Downtown Disney and then queued up at the restaurant.

While we were waiting, we looked at the menu and saw that they also had Bread Pudding as a dessert. Deciding we actually wanted to try that instead, we placed our order.

Our Bread Pudding came out, looking quite delicious.

We poured on the sauce it came with after a few bites to see how that was too.

The dessert on the whole was definitely good. The one thing it had in it that we didn’t particularly love was raisins. Neither of us really DISLIKE raisins per say, but I’m not usually a fan when they are cooked into desserts. We both mostly ended up eating around them, and the bread pudding itself was really good.

After finishing, we walked back to Mickey and Friends and headed home.

On the last day of the month, we decided to go check out Fashion Island in Newport Beach. We’d been wanting to walk around this mall and Tracy specifically wanted to check out C Wonder, a store they had there that we always liked poking around in NY.

After checking out the mall, we went to Le Pain Quotidien. This was another restaurant that we’d loved going to occasionally in NYC but hadn’t come across yet in SoCal. Mostly, we love their fruit tarts.

This entire mall is definitely too rich for our blood, but it was still fun to walk around. So many of the stores reminded us of New York, and we actually found ourselves slightly missing the city for the first time since we had moved. We might actually need to go back and visit sometime!

Overview of July 2013

Random Photo of the Month

This picture is actually an awful capture, but the story that goes along with it is interesting. For months, we’d noticed these flocks of really loud birds that seemed to like flying way above our apartment and other places in our area. We never knew what they were, and then while we were sitting on the balcony, two parrots flew down and landed in the apple tree in our courtyard. We’re talking full-sized parrots that you would expect to see in the zoo or in a rainforest. They ate some of the apples (which they are doing somewhere in that picture—though I’ll admit, I can’t seem to see them and I took the picture…) and then they took off again after about 10 minutes. Now when we see the birds flying high up in the air, we can indeed verify that they are parrots! Apparently parrots really do live in SoCal. We thought it was something cool to learn.

Total Days This Month Spent Visiting Disneyland Parks
9

Total Days Spent at Disneyland Since First Getting Our Passes
65

Favorite Disney Snack
Pickle Flavored Popcorn from Cozy Cone Motel (This snack was a little bizarre, but Tracy liked it from the outset and it grew on me. Apparently, flavored popcorns are a major staple at Tokyo Disney, so I’m glad to see them trying out that fad here)

Favorite Disney Meal
Pulled Pork Hot Dog from Refreshment Corner (This was just really tasty, and a really huge meal. They gave up plenty of pulled pork, and it was served on top of an extra-long hot dog. The flavors went really well together, and it was all very memorable)

Favorite SoCal Discovery
Balboa Island (We actually went several new places this month, so there were plenty of other locales that are worth mentioning, including the San Diego Botanic Garden and Fullerton Arboretum, but Balboa Island—especially at sunset—was just really awesome. It’s beautiful, the desserts are great, and there’s a nice long walk built into the visit)

Favorite Guilty-Pleasure TV Show
Dog with a Blog (Okay, I’m not exactly sold on Dog with a Blog, but after seeing so many Disney people on Twitter making endless fun of its concept, I was interested to see what it was all about. Even though I didn’t exactly love the show, that didn’t stop me from watching the entire series)

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