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All the links from my West Coast vacation posts.

EPIC SUMMER VACATION!

August 22, 2018 /

My other hobby besides reading is planning vacations!! And because I did so much research to arrange for our two-week tour of the West Coast from Oregon to Los Angeles, I decided to write posts on all of our many stops.

Here are all the links below in case you missed something that interests you. I’ve covered where we stayed and what we did as well as other important details for planning your own trip.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Ashland, OR

The Redwoods

Point Arena Lighthouse

San Francisco and The Beat Museum

Laguna Beach

Disneyland

Baseball in Los Angeles

If you have any questions just leave them in the comments sections of each post. I’m happy to help!!

BASEBALL IN LOS ANGELES

August 22, 2018 /

This post will wrap up my series on my epic summer vacation.

After Disneyland we stayed in L.A. one more day to see the Cubs (one of the teams we root for) play the Dodgers. We moved hotels because 1) Disney is very far away from Dodger stadium, not necessarily by distance but by time needed to travel this distance in LA traffic, and 2) Disney is expensive.

Because I spent a lot of time researching the best hotel to stay at to attend a baseball game at Dodger Stadium, I thought I’d share our experience.

DISNEYLAND!

August 15, 2018 /

I was actually surprised when my husband suggested adding Disneyland to our epic West Coast vacation, but I wasted no time researching and planning for this experience.

Luckily I’ve had the Disney credit card for several years and had built up enough points to pay for a chunk of our stay.

‘THE DEATH OF MRS. WESTAWAY’

August 14, 2018 /

The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware is an entertaining and suspenseful family mystery. Ware is of course known for her thriller The Woman in Cabin 10.

Harriet Westaway is 21 and is trying to make ends meet after losing her mom in a car accident. She is hard up for money and hiding from a loan shark. In her mail one day (in addition to a bunch of overdue bills) is a formal letter saying she has been named in the will of a “Mrs. Westaway” who had a significant estate. Harriet feels there must be some mistake as her grandma (who she didn’t even know) has been dead 20 years, but due to her desperate situation Harriet decides to go for it anyway!

What follows are twists and turns of a family drama as Harriet uses what she has learned as a tarot reader (how to read people and show them what they want) to attempt to collect this money. As emotions and history come into play, this task becomes both more difficult and easier than she expected.

LAGUNA BEACH

August 6, 2018 /

I had nearly finished planning our epic summer vacation through Oregon and California (hitting Redwoods, a lighthouse, San Fran, and Disney) when I realized that we couldn’t go across the country and not swim in the ocean!! So, I added two more days on to our trip to hit a beach near Los Angeles before our reservations at Disneyland.

As is my nature, I did A LOT of research to see what beach area may be best for us, and ultimately I decided on Laguna Beach. I got the impression that this area – a former artists’ colony – would be more relaxed and casual. I am definitely more comfortable in an “offbeat” atmosphere over anything “glam.”

So I am happy to report that we had an amazing and relaxing time at beautiful Laguna Beach and would definitely go back. It also hosted a very special reunion for me!

WHAT WE DID IN SAN FRANCISCO

July 31, 2018 /

I hadn’t visited San Francisco for decades, so I was excited to spend two days there with my family as part of our epic West Coast vacation. Obviously, one could ideally spend many more days in San Francisco, but with the amount of time we had, I feel like we did as much as we possibly could!!

So in today’s post, I’m going to tell you what activities and attractions we enjoyed in San Francisco as a family of 4, with kids ages 7 and 9.

‘OUR HOUSE’ – a bizarre & addictive read

July 29, 2018 /

I just finished an addictive book from my summer reading list:

Our House by Louise Candlish

Fiona Lawson and her husband Bram have recently separated and have agreed to a “bird’s nest custody agreement” where their kids stay in the house full time and the parents take turns living there (in their $2+ million property in a fashionable area of London.)

Everything seems to be working out fine with this arrangement until one day when Fiona finds strangers moving into her home, and this nice couple fully believes they just legally purchased the home. It must be a mistake…

What follows (and leads up to) this confusing scene is a web of mistakes and lies that spins WAY out of control.
Continue reading

THE BEAT MUSEUM & CITY LIGHTS BOOKSTORE

July 27, 2018 /

On the Road is one of my most tattered books. It is underlined and dog-eared; it is not in good shape.

I love the freedom and excitement written in this book: the open road, the jazz, the late nights, every day as an adventure. This is a lifestyle I never could have lived (in my more nervous reality), but I have loved living it through Kerouac and the other beat writers I have been fascinated by, especially Neal Cassady who inspired many other works of literature and drove the Merry Pranksters bus.

So while visiting San Francisco, I had to visit the Beat Museum. I actually didn’t know this museum existed until I saw it listed on a Kerouac bookmark I picked up at the American Writers Museum, another great literary stop.

A second legendary attraction in San Francisco that had been calling to me for many years is the City Lights Bookstore, which comes up time and time again in the stories of beat culture and more recently in my Writer’s Almanac emails.

We stayed in the cottages to the right of the lighthouse!

MY STAY AT POINT ARENA LIGHTHOUSE

July 23, 2018 /

How many people can say “I stayed at a lighthouse” ?? Well now I can!!

As the third in a series of posts on my epic family vacation, I want to tell you about an amazing and beautiful place we stayed while traveling California Highway 1: Point Arena Lighthouse in Mendocino County.

I discovered this opportunity – to stay on lighthouse property – when I was looking for a 2nd overnight stop between Ashland, Oregon and San Francisco after experiencing the majestic Redwoods.

‘RED SPARROW’ – THRILLING

July 21, 2018 /

I just finished Red Sparrow: A Novel (The Red Sparrow Trilogy) thanks to a recommendation from a friend, and wow was it a great read!!

This book, published in 2013, is currently a movie getting lackluster reviews. My advice would be skip the movie and read this book instead.

Dominika, a young and talented Russian intelligence officer is, against her own wishes, sent to “Sparrow School” to learn “sexpionage” and then assigned to operate against a CIA agent, Nate Nash, to find out the identity of Nash’s mole inside the Russian government. Nate and Dominika being working each other, and eventually one of them betrays their country to work for the other. What follows is truly delightful and terrifying and is apparently realistic because the author, Jason Matthews, is retired from the CIA.

Leslie's Bookcase

Page 15 of 29

EPIC SUMMER VACATION!

BASEBALL IN LOS ANGELES

DISNEYLAND!

‘THE DEATH OF MRS. WESTAWAY’

LAGUNA BEACH

WHAT WE DID IN SAN FRANCISCO

‘OUR HOUSE’ – a bizarre & addictive read

Our House by Louise Candlish

THE BEAT MUSEUM & CITY LIGHTS BOOKSTORE

MY STAY AT POINT ARENA LIGHTHOUSE

‘RED SPARROW’ – THRILLING

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