Vacation Day 4:

Day 4:

It was very cloudy and dreary looking outside when we woke up on Day 4.  I sent Dazzle out on the balcony to get some rainy pictures of the beach.  

Still super beautiful but looking like we might get rained on.



There was still a few people walking around on the shore.  I guess when you live there, you don't care if it rains on you or not.  You pretty much stay wet all the time anyhow....



I was happy to see that they had a pool guy cleaning the lazy river.  I like the shit that I swim in to be clean.

Empty!  I wish it would stay empty when we decided to get in so we could have the whole thing to ourselves. 
Yeah, right.

There was an indoor pool and hot tub at the hotel.  We got into the hot tub every day but not that pool.  It was a slime green color the entire time we were there and we decided not to get into THAT swamp.  GROSS!  I didn't take photos of the indoor pool but I should have just to display it's disgustingness.  That was one of my only complaints about the hotel.  Bastards.

We didn't much care that it was rainy and cloudy outside because we all got slightly sunburned in a few places from staying outside most of the day before.  We all slathered on sunscreen repeatedly but when you're sweating and in the water all day long, it's hard to not get burned at all.  The sun was so intense!  We had small patches of red on us in various places so we decided to stay out of the sun for the next day or so. 

We all took showers (one more complaint about the hotel.... we had no hot water that morning and all had to take "cool" (not quite cold but not warm what-so-ever either) showers) and ate the breakfast that we brought with us.  Then we headed down the strip on foot to find something fun to do. 

We walked down to the Ripley's attractions but found that we were early and they weren't open yet.  That was fine with us.  We went inside a beach shop and fooled around until Ripley's was open.

We found this guy and I thought it was SO hilarious!  I've never seen a fat giraffe!  HAHAHA!!  Really? Who comes up with this stuff??

We didn't buy anything during this trip because we didn't want to carry stuff to Ripley's.  We took note of prices and things we liked and decided to return later. 

When we went back to Ripley's and realized that if we bought tickets all at once for the attractions that we wanted to visit, it would be cheaper.  SO, we made up our minds and purchased our tickets.

For 3 adults and 2 children (we had to lie and say that Dazzle was 11, LOL) to visit Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum, Ripley's Motion 5-D Theater and Ripley's Aquarium, that will be a grand total of $183.00.  Wow.  I mean, it seems like a lot to me but honestly, that's probably a good deal for all of us.  Anyhow, we took the package and off we were to do the museum first.

I'm really glad I was a good blogess that day and brought my camera.  I was worried about getting arrested for taking flash photos in the museum but no one seemed to give a damn so I clicked away!

Butterfly wing art.  SO COOL!  Someone painted on this butterfly's wings?!  SWEET!

If you look at the above photo closely, you can see a clown painted on the left wing.  SUPER cool!!

This one was feather art.  I just love how creative these people are! 



This was a replica of the world's tallest man's hand.  Dazzle held hers up to compare how huge this dude's hands were.  Awesome!



More feather art.  Butterflies painted on feathers?  Yes, please!

The kids loved the museum.  They did think that parts of it were a little scary but they still had so much fun.  Dazzle clinged to me a little but Neon thought the scary parts were the best.  :)  We arrived as soon as they opened so there was almost no one in the museum with us.  That's how we like it. 

Anyone that is friends with me on Facebook can view more pictures of us at the museum.  I even got a really great photo of Supa holding Bumblebee's hand.  LOL, you're going to want to check that out. 

When you leave the museum, you have to walk thought the Ripley's Arcade to get outside (Of course you do!  You want to spend MORE money don't you??)  We were heading straight for the door when we realized it was POURING cats and dogs outside.  Therefore,  it ended up being a perfect time to be trapped in an arcade!  We got some tokens, played some Skee-Ball, visited the cotton candy machine (fun to watch it be made and even more fun to eat) and I even played some guitar hero (Hey!  There was a Coldplay song on the song list that was calling my name!).

When the rain slowed down to a slight drizzle, we made our way down the strip to the Ripley's Motion Theater and got in line (a small one) to see the shows they were featuring that day. 

Of course, no flash photography was allowed during this one (not that I could have operated or held onto the camera during this show anyway). 

This is a photo of the motion theater years ago.  Now it is 5-D and there is a purple dragon that moves and roars (he also has a little birdie on his wing) instead of the T-Rex that was featured a while back. 

When you go inside the motion theater, you sit in high backed chairs, buckle in and hang on!  They call it 5-D because you can "smell" things, you wear 3-D glasses to view the show and you also get sprayed with water at appropriate times.  We saw two movies during the one showing,  one was a movie about snowboarding and the other about skateboarding.  It snowed in the theater and I had to restrain myself from sticking my tongue out and eating some of it because it really did look like real snow.  I found myself wondering what the fake snow would taste like.  LOL, maybe I was just getting hungry. 

Supa, Jade and I (oh and her evil husband) did the motion theater years ago and had a blast (and that was when it was only 3-D!) so I pretty much knew what to expect.  The kids LOVED it!  I could hear Dazzle squealing just like I was and Neon kept saying "wow!".  That made the cost so worth it. 

We walked to the hotel room when we were finished to have some lunch.  It was only maybe 6 blocks away and it was only drizzling a little bit but it started raining hard on us before we made it. By the time we got there, we were all pretty soaked.  LOL, luckily, it was hot outside and we didn't really care.  We dried off a little, I used my blow dryer and then we ate the lunch that we packed.

The Ripley's Aquarium is located about 20 minutes (actually about 11 miles but the traffic is such a bitch) or so away from the beach at a shopping center called Broadway at the Beach.  There are all kinds of outdoor shops there and different places you can eat and explore.  We drove on over to visit the aquarium and it was SO packed that we couldn't find a parking spot.  There were people double parking and blocking cars in.  We circled the lot a few times but decided that we didn't want to deal with a crowd of that size (or have the van blocked in by some fish loving asshole).  We left the aquarium with plans to return the next day first thing in the morning.  We wanted to enjoy the fishies, not fight a huge group of tourists. 

After regrouping, we decided to drive a short distance to another outdoor shopping center that is located on the water called Barefoot Landing.  I've been there plenty of times and it's a really nice place to look for odd things to buy.  There are tons of specialty shops for things you can't find other places.  For example, we visited a magic shop with a sign out front that said, "Harry Potter shops here!" (the kids got a kick out of that).  There was a flag shop that had every single kind of flag you could imagine (it took some real restraint to not buy flags for my flag pole on our front porch).  We saw some really cool flags and I fell totally in love with that shop.  There was also an olive store that we got to taste olives in.  YUM!   Dazzle and I were in olive heaven. 

One of the stores was called "The Christmas Mouse".  When you walk inside, it's a huge store (2 floors full) that looks like Christmas threw up everywhere.  They had Christmas trees up all around that had different ornaments covering them.  You could create any kind of themed tree that you could think of and they had all the ornaments to purchase right there.  So cool!!!

I wasn't sure if I could take photos or not so I just snuck a couple. 


I don't know why but I LOVE this picture!!  I guess that anytime the kids are together, sharing something and happy, it makes me extremely happy.  Even if it is just a photo of two ornaments.  I should have bought these.  Damnit!

BTW, it was Dazzle's idea to take this photo for my blog.  Baby blogger in training?  Hmmmm.....

A sock monkey tree!  Oh, my Grama would have loved this one!!  :)

Shopping (even window shopping) is one of my most favorite activities so I had a blast at Barefoot Landing and I hope to go there again soon to look around more.  We didn't even get to see half the shops they have there because there is so much to look at!  (Uh, oh, I feel a day trip coming on soon!!!)

For dinner (and for Neon's extreme pleasure) we decided to eat at The Ultimate California Pizza located conveniently at Barefoot Landing.  :)  We were starving and the pizza was awesome!  Mama got a salad.  Dazzle, Neon, Supa and I shared a large dinner salad and an extra large pizza with black olives, pepperoni, Italian sausage and feta cheese on it.  YUM!  The service was good and the pizza was great.  I give them an A.  Not too pricey either.  It was $55 for all of us.  Sweet!

When we left Barefoot Landing, it was time to move straight onto the pool and lazy river.  We swam and floated again until the pool closed (around 10PM).  I had a few adult beverages during swim time and by the time we got back to the room, I was ready to pass out.  I was super tired and my drinks made me extra sleepy.  :) 

To Be Continued......................