Hopped Off the Plane at LAX With My Dream and a Cardigan
(Yes, it was July, but it was a bit chilly compared to Florida)
The air was surprisingly cool outside the airport. I guess that’s the thing about rarely leaving a place. You forget that other places have vastly different weather patterns.
The sky was a hazy gray. The infamous LA smog, no doubt. Or maybe clouds. Or smoke from fireworks, since it was July Fourth, an unofficial day of mourning in the year 2025.
I was pretty excited to slip on my fuzzy sweater (probably not technically a cardigan, whatever that is, but close enough) while we waited for the rental car shuttle to arrive. I do love a melancholy sky and crisp air. It reminded me a little of England.
That feeling wouldn’t last. What came next on our California vacation was twelve days of relentless sun. The skies were so bright and blue the entire time that, about halfway through our stay, my 11-year-old asked if they ever had clouds in California. Maybe not?
As much as I’d love to escape Florida, and yes, we did sneak a peek at Zillow a few times as one is required to do while on vacation, I’m not sure I could live like that. I guess there’s always Northern California. I’ve heard they have drizzly rain and fog that you can sink into like a cozy, depressing blanket.
After I dropped off the family at the terminal and parked the car in what might’ve been a cow pasture in a flood plain, the flight from Orlando to LA was uneventful. Well, uneventful except that I watched the original Karate Kid movie on the in-flight entertainment screen and it was awesome, as always. I didn’t have headphones, so I turned on the subtitles. It still held up. I could hear the “Get him a bodybag, YEAH!!” line in my head. I didn’t need the sound.
When we arrived in LA, I discovered that the miniature golf place featured in the film called Golf N’ Stuff was a real place and they had two locations in Southern California! I told everyone I could about this (my wife, the kids…), but literally nobody was as excited as I was. We didn’t go, but we did drive by one of the locations, which was all the thrill I needed.
The trip was filled with many other thrills.
The Beach and The Hannah Montana House
Our two primary activities while on vacation are sitting and driving.
After a day or two of sitting, with a little light swimming and tablet watching mixed in, we piled into the rental car and drove from Thousand Oaks across some mountains to a beach called Point Mugu, where we confirmed that the Pacific Ocean was indeed very cold and witnessed the world’s most bored lifeguard. Then, we continued down the coast toward Malibu.
My 9-year-old recently binge-watched the entire Hannah Montana series and associated movies and is firmly in her Miley Cyrus era. Thus, we, as a family unit, made sure to remind ourselves at least once a day for twelve consecutive days to look to the right to see the Hollywood sign, regardless of where we were located geographically. We’re so fun. On the drive toward Malibu, we decided to look up where the Hannah Montana house was, and it turned out we were right by it! So fortunate.
We turned off the main road onto a small side street near the beach and got a perfect view of a rear gate and lots of bushes. It was beautiful.
Home
No, not back to Florida yet. Knott’s Berry Farm. The ancestral homeland.
If you don’t know—and pretty much everyone I mentioned it to has been clueless, so you’re not alone—Knott’s Berry Farm is not some sort of U-Pick farm experience or an immersive jam-making tour.
It’s a theme park. Rollercoasters, log flumes, a hotel, Snoopy for some reason, Wild West-themed actors, gift shops filled with Knott-branded merchandise where people with the last name Knott spend way too much money.
We took advantage of a package deal that included one-and-a-half days of park admission, as well as a one-night hotel stay. My wife checked into the hotel for us, and she said the clerk barely reacted at all when she told him her name was Knott, so I was glad I didn’t tag along. I might’ve cried. I was really looking forward to the fanfare. I don’t know why I was expecting something like a duck reprisal, but I was.
In retrospect, I should’ve ordered a custom t-shirt emblazoned with the words, “Get This…My Last Name is Knott.” Without that, all the other park visitors had no way of knowing they were in the presence of royalty.
Anyway, the park was good. Knott too embarrassing. The boys loved the rollercoasters, and I survived. We all rode one called Ghostrider, which is an old-style wooden rollercoaster, and it was terrifying. Do Knott recommend.
Basketball at the Parks
There’s only so much sitting around I can take, so whenever we’re on vacation, I always make a point of finding local public parks with basketball goals where my middle kid and I can kill off 45 minutes to an hour. We found a couple of solid options, one of which had a large hill beside it with what appeared to be a little trail to the top, suggesting that it was meant for climbing.
My son and I shot some baskets late one evening. We enjoyed the novelty of the clatter the chain nets made with each swish, and before heading out, decided to attempt the climb. It looked super easy. A medium-sized hill covered with cacti and brown brush. No sweat. I carried the basketball with me. We made it about two-thirds of the way up. We almost died. Pretty steep and precarious up there, as it turned out. We turned back, slipping and sliding a few times on the way down.
It was fine, though. It’s not about how fast you get there.
A Hike to a Waterfall
Not ones to be dissuaded by a near-death hiking experience, my son and I decided to try to kill the entire family a few days later.
A nature hike is a quintessential summer vacation activity. It’s a must. Even if your family hates hiking. And walking. And being outdoors.
I found a nature park less than two miles from where we were staying. And it had a waterfall, which was ideal because everyone knows hiking is better when it results in getting to see water moving from one place to another.
The map at the park was a bit difficult to read, but it seemed to suggest the waterfall was about 0.8 miles from the parking lot. Easy. We sallied forth into the desert at a jaunty pace. My 11-year-old (the basketball player) even got some hill running in to work on his cardio. My daughter, my wife, and my oldest son, who was bedecked in a floppy hat, and inexplicably, Crocs, lagged behind.
We wound our way up and down some hills, and eventually, traversed a small winding path down the side of a small cavern to the waterfall. The waterfall was there. I can say that much for it. A young couple was swimming in the disgustingly green waters at the base of the waterfall despite the “No Swimming” sign. We stared at them awkwardly for a few minutes before starting our ascent back to the main path, and eventually, the car.
My Crocs-wearing son fell twice, rolling each ankle. Nobody could’ve seen it coming. I heard him reporting later to his computer friends that he “almost died today.” All of us almost died. The climb up from the waterfall was more challenging than I expected. We stopped to rest in a large wooden teepee-like structure before completing the final trudge back to the car across a lifeless and desolate landscape.
Another successful holiday hike in the books.
Hollywood
We stopped off in Hollywood on the way to Knott’s Berry Farm. Honestly, not much happening here except that I happened to spot the GOAT’s star on the Walk of Fame.
Green Day’s star was way on the other end, and no matter how lonely the road was, we weren’t walking that far, so I was super lucky to claim the best possible consolation prize.
Ocean Avenue
We achieved the early 2000s emo, pop-punk singularity. As we turned right onto Ocean Avenue, I queued up “Ocean Avenue” by Yellowcard1 on the playlist. What a moment.
Santa Monica Pier
On one of the last days of our vacation, we stopped by one of California’s top tourist destinations to get hustled by some breakdancers. It was fun. A group of five guys did some spinning around on their heads and various gymnastics moves. The 10-minute show culminated with a red-haired shirtless guy from Portland getting a running start and doing an aerial over five men from the crowd who were bent over at the waist.
Thrilling. I gave them twenty dollars so they wouldn’t ridicule me in front of everyone.
We emptied the last of our savings account to ride the Ferris wheel as a family, ate some French fries, and called it a day.
And a vacation. Until next summer. When maybe we’ll take advantage of having a fourth grader for the last time and utilize our free national parks pass to plan an epic outdoor adventure. Hiking!
Turns out “Ocean Avenue” was inspired by a road called Ocean Boulevard in Jacksonville, FL, BUT Yellowcard moved from Florida to Thousand Oaks, CA (where we stayed!!) so I’m counting it. Small world. How fun.
I appreciate the Green Day and Miley Cyrus Easter Eggs. Which makes me think I’m missing a whole bunch more 😄
Looks like you and the family had a great vacation. I haven't been out to the west coast in a few years and really miss it out there. Now that we're in Germany, it's just such a long trip, so for now I'll have to live vicariously through your post.