Weekend Exploring

Jason was in town this weekend which meant it was time to find something to do.   We were in a blackout period for Disney due to the holiday weekend.  Jason asked me about day trips in Southern California.   I could only suggest seeing the monarchs in Santa Barbara.   After further research, I realized we missed the monarchs wintering this year.   He started researching things to do and came up with two.   We did the first one on Saturday.

We headed to the desert, Palm Springs, to visit the Aerial Tramway.   I am not a huge fan of heights or things suspended high above the ground, but there was supposed to be wonderful hiking on top of the mountain.   That fact made me overcome my fears and step on a rotating tram.  Did they really need to make it move in a circle as well as up?  It went from 2000 ft. to 8500ft. in about 15 minutes.  We drove up a road to the tram station that started at 440ft and went up to 2000 ft.   It was a really steep road!   There were multiple signs warning you to turn off your A/C.   Thankfully I didn't need to get out and push.    Once on the tram, Jason laughed at me all the way up. I gripped the bar meant for steadying yourself with sweaty palms.   The kids stood right at the window and loved it.   I enjoyed what I could see as long as didn't look down.   At the bottom:

At the top:

Once at the top it was beautiful.   There was still some patches of snow on the ground.  I am guessing after the storm we had last night that there is fresh snow up there now. 

The children enjoyed walking across a little stream on this fallen tree.

We found some huge Jeffery pine trees whose bark smelled like caramel. 

I shamelessly posed the kids for this picture.



We hiked about 1.5 miles.   The kids ran, jumped and skipped most of the way, if they were not climbing on rocks.

We hoped to eat on top of the mountain and ride down at dusk.   Unfortunately, the restaurants ran out of kid friendly food and we were starving.  We headed back down the tram and into Palm Springs.   We found a great little restaurant called the Matchbox.   The kids got their pizza and we got to see downtown Palm Springs.

We headed home so that we could attend Easter Services on Sunday morning.   Our L.A. church did not disappoint.   Easter services were great.   The kids had a blast in the kids activities.   Sunday afternoon, my daughter shot a few scenes of a short film with a director she worked with in the fall.   She got to play a fairy and had a blast blowing glitter all over the set.   Her set teacher was also pretty cool, she came home with a balloon animal in the shape of a poodle.   That has never happened before. 

Monday was my daughter's birthday.   We planned to visit the Reagan Library for a few hours and then fly kites on the beach.   I'll post about the library another day, but we never made it to the beach.   Jason flew home Monday night.  

In acting news:
We found out this week my daughter was cast in two short films that film at the end of the month.   We also found out this week that a film she worked on in the fall was submitted and accepted to the Cannes film festival.  

I'm tired and tomorrow is a busy day!   The Reagan Libary post will have to wait until Friday.