California Trip, Day 2

We decided to have a light breakfast attend one session and then go to the beach! It's a very good thing we were seeing Anita Archer who is a very engaging speaker, or we wouldn't have been able to keep our minds on the session.

On the way to Huntington Beach, we all felt so happy and carefree! I'm not usually the type of person to skip out on conference sessions so it felt kind of rebellious in a good way. I'm a vacation dork so I get a thrill from simple things like driving on the Pacific Coast Highway and seeing palm trees lining the streets. Just a group of six girls, tossing duty to the wind and heading out for a day at the beach.

We ate at Dwight's Beach Concession, home of World Famous Cheese Strips. We struggled to figure out exactly what they were. It was kind of like nachos, tortilla chips with shredded cheese on top with a sweet tomato sauce. Unusual but good. While we were eating and marveling at the ocean, some sea gulls approached. Poor Ramonda is terrified of birds! This is a very calm, quiet, sweet girl so it was out of character for her to freak out. She threw down her food and started yelling, "I'm leaving! I'm done! Can I have the car keys?" It became funny because we all started scarfing down our food so we could calm her down and get away from the birds with her.

We really had fun playing at the beach. Taking some photos as though we were running down the beach like Baywatch girls. Playing in the waves. Watching what seemed like hundreds of red suited tweens who were in some sort of lifeguard camp. As we were leaving, the lifeguard dashed into the water to save someone. Turned out it was a drill but still cool to see.

Amanda had really wanted to go to Disneyland and we had said that if it didn't cost too much we would go even if only for a few hours. For one day it was $72.00 so we thought that was too expensive but after the beach, Amanda, Ramonda and I found our way into Downtown Disney. This is a touristy area with shops and restaurants, just outside the actual park. We did some shopping at World of Disney. This place was huge, smaller than a Wal-mart but not by much and very crowded. Everything you could possibly imagine was there in Disney form. I did buy a few souvenirs there but I probably would have bought more if there hadn't been so, so many people.

We ate at a restaurant in Downtown Disney called Katal. A nice place with a fancier menu. I think some of the girls had a hard time finding things they thought they could eat on the menu because it was kind of gourmet. Most of them had steaks. I had a wonderful arugula salad with manchego cheese and an entree of sausage made from lamb. I had never eaten lamb before. Delicious. Very cool to actually eat some of the things I've seen on food network.