It rained all night, and the cars sound completely different driving past on wet concrete roads rather than wet bitumen! Our last full day in California and it was fine, but with a rather cool wind. Maria left her coat behind so she was not a happy girl! We headed back to Yorba Linda as there were still heaps of munzees still waiting for us, lol. However we did a little side trip to Angel Stadium again and capped the new ones there. This time at Yorba Linda we walked the Santa Ana River Trail, which runs all along the river. It was lovely, once we were accustomed to the constant noise of the traffic on the motorway on the other side. Lots and lots of birds, all sorts of chirpings and tweetings in the trees, even buzzed by several hummingbirds!! The pine smell of the trees and the river flowing past were great. Walked about 9.5 kms though Maria’s says 12, but going to stick to mine as hers was in her shoe, lol. Actually back at the hotel just after 6, how early was that! Basically packed and ready to go in the morning, heading for Phoenix and 2 nights there.

Just a couple of notes, most cars here don’t have indicators as separate lights, the brake light flashes instead! They also do lots of u-turns, which is funny as my GPS tries to send me around the block all the time rather than a u-turn at the lights, LOL

A real scavenger

Have to find out what these are
Maria capping physical munzees

Sorry I forgot the PS for the night of the 3^rd. We fiddled around a bit and then we went to the All American Military Store as Maria wanted something special for John. Lots of great things there and a successful shopping trip. Capped a few more munzees around the place and then left the car back at the hotel and walked back to California Adventure for the light show. Only thing was everyone had to stand to see so was a bit stiff after standing round for just over an hour. Oh well. The show was great with images being projected on jets of water telling the story of Walt Disney and how the whole empire began and developed.

OK back to today!

Might not have done as much walking only just under 9 kms, but lots of socialising and munzee capping. Started off the morning with breakfast at a Carls Jr and then moved on to Yorba Regional Park where the main event and the main reason for coming to California, Munzee Madness 5. More socialising, walking around the park and munzeeing, lunch, raffle, more munzees, clean up and then more munzees, both Maria and I managed 100K in a day which is an achievement that we can’t do at home. Did however hear lots of hummingbirds, heard and saw a woodpecker and obviously the squirrels get fed as they thought we might feed them! Also blue jays and a turkey vulture soaring over the river in it’s concrete canyon! From there we then headed over to dinner after a little more munzeeing. More socialising and then down the freeway and a flyover as well to change direction and finally home!! Two more nights here and then on to Arizona.
P.S. so far we’ve walked about 90 kms and driven about 200 miles.

 Turkey vulture Woodpecker & hummingbird hide and seek!

Well today was the first day of the reason we came to California. Munzee Madness V kicked off with an event at Elliot’s shop in La Habra. Lots  of special munzees around the area and other players to meet and exchange social munzees with. They can be quite obvious, 2 or 3 people standing around a lamp post with phones in hand is a dead give-away, LOL. From there we drove to the Brea Mall and once again munzeed around in the car parks around the buildings. Another huge shopping centre! Then across the road for a few more, but these were scattered through the Craig Regional Park. So we had a lovely couple of walks. We did try to find a geocache but were unsuccessful. From there we headed for the next phase which was the Food Truck Fandango. Apparently the trucks have that area of the car park on Friday nights until 9 pm. So once again lots of munzees to cap and people to meet. We had Japanese fried chicken and chips for tea, rather tasty! Had a walk up and down the street, said our goodbyes and headed home. Going to be a full day tomorrow, for the main event, having breakfast, lunch and dinner and being very social, lol.

Couldn’t resist – spot the bird

Important things first this morning, grocery shopping! Mind you there was a little park with a few munzees in it a couple of streets away from Vons, so we did those first! Filled up with fuel on the way back, this paying first when one has no idea of how much the car will take is bizarre!

We then walked up past Disneyland to do a few virtuals in the car parks and then back to Disney’s California Adventures, which is the theme park on the opposite side of the plaza. It’s more adult orientated, but that roller coaster was way to big and scary to even contemplate trying. Wandered around munzeeing as we went, and Maria popping into all the shops on the route as well, lol. As the light/laser show is on tonight at 8.15 we got fast past tickets so we have a designated area to stand in and watch it. So will do the 30 minute walk back there later tonight, if we haven’t fallen asleep lol.

Beautiful cyclamens

P.S. For the 4^th:
Didn’t get home until 9.30. We left the hotel about 5 and headed for the Angels Stadium. (Lots of munzees there) It is a very large place, and car parking for the zillions, lol, we drove around and around and around. Concrete blocks and fencing separated out different parking areas and it got darker and darker until it was full night and we were still cruising the car parks. There was only one with vehicles in so it was easy as I didn’t have to stress about where to stop and park when we got to a new area of virtuals. From there we drove off to another couple of smaller virtual gardens and Maria finally got the 2 munzee badges she was chasing!

Okay, now back to today. Woke late again, and after some fiddling around we left 9.30 to go and visit Elliot, the local munzee reseller. He also sells coins and stamps and such stuff, very interesting shop. Did a little buying and then we capped the munzees around the shop and headed back to the hotel. Actually managed lunch at 12, and then we walked over to Disneyland again but this time to do tourist stuff! First off Pirates of the Caribbean, then on to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad which was a roller coaster, but only a small one, lol. From there it was the Haunted Mansion and then Splash Mountain with it’s 50 ft drop and lots and lots of water! We came out dripping, LOL. We headed over to Tomorrowland, but there was a 65 minute wait for the ride there, so we gave it a miss and did the submarine Finding Nemo ride, it was very well done, but then they all are well done. But we must have spent about 3 hours in queues for about 20 minutes of rides! We found a seat and waited for the Paint the Night evening parade. Wow, lots and lots of coloured lights on floats and dancers. That was followed by Disneyland Forever Fireworks Spectacular which included the projection of images and lights onto the Castle.  BTW the fireworks can be seen and heard every night all around this area, we even saw them last night when driving around after the virtual munzees. No good having a nervous dog in these environs. LOL. Another amazing feat of entertainment. However getting out was a feat in itself with thousands of people all exiting out of one area!! Walked home and had a very late dinner! Now 10.30 in the evening, so finishing this off with a few photos and bed!

Spot the bird! 
We don’t care that thousands walk past we are going to sleep!

Maria’s hat queuing for Pirates …
Now about that 50 ft drop and I had to be in the front!
   

Woke at 2 and couldn’t go back to sleep, lol. There is an early morning experience in Disneyland on Tuesday mornings, an hour before opening time, so 9 am which we thugh we would try. Walked around the far side of the block to the far entrance and stood in queue for the bag search. Memo to self: find out what is banned in a theme park before getting there!!! We both had selfie sticks which are banned and no lockers to put them in, so Maria went in and I took them back to the hotel. Better that way, as Maria is aiming for a couple of munzee achievements today and therefore she needed them more than I did, LOL. Anyway 2kms later we met up again on the other side of the nearer entrance, got our tickets and entered the park. Sadly the railway was being refurbished, so no train ride around the grounds, but we did catch the omnibus up Main Street. From there we walked through Tomorrowland and caught the monorail and went twice around the park in that. More wandering and we hopped on to the paddle steamer for a trip around Tom Sawyer’s Island, only it wasn’t going anywhere, LOL. Off that and more wandering, we did watch the Enchanted Tiki show, which is fun! Then headed back to the hotel for our 4 o’clock lunch. Writing this now as we are going out to the Angels Stadium for lots more munzees and hopefully Maria’s goal.

Sightings of mallards and a Canada goose on the lagoon. There were mallards in Disney World Florida as well, wonder if they are cast members, LOL.

Time to go out again, catch you tomorrow xoxo

Well on this Leap Day I slept in, waking up at 0740!!!!! And felt yuck for doing so, lol. We therefore didn’t leave until 0830ish and headed for a little park with streets of frogs around it. Normal munzees have become frogs for this special day so we did a lot of walking for few points but it was still fun looking at gardens around the route we took. Some topiary in a garden here, lovely design there, collections of pot plants and lovely roses. Saw another couple of hummingbirds and took a photo or 2 of them in the tops of trees, but I reckon it’s going to be a case of spot the bird, so see if you can see it in the picture below, LOL.

We parked the car in another large shopping centre at lunchtime, had orange chicken & noodles in the food hall, and then went frog hunting again. Our aim was 229 of them and we managed 239 so that was good! After we left the centre we drove to Rainbow St which had a collection of virtuals making up a rainbow, and then home feeling rather weary. We only managed 13 kms today, we did 15 yesterday LOL. Had dinner so now time for bed. We are going to see if we get in to the early opening at Disneyland tomorrow. Catch you tomorrow, xoxo

These tree roots looked melted into the concrete!!

Woke up 5ish and we headed out about 6.30 for the emerald munzee garden in La Habra. It was very foggy and cold!!! Nice thing about early Sunday morning is not too much traffic, lol as I had to get onto the freeway for part of the way.

We had found a nice little park at the end of the GPS directions, but not being able to see much, we wandered around and munzeed for a while. Then headed for a field of mystery’s which proved to be at a shopping centre. Not quite like ours, this ‘centre’ took up all four sides of a large intersection, and was absolutely enormous!!!!!

Highlights included hearing and briefly seeing a hummingbird, the bit longer appearance of a lizard, a nice pair of mallard ducks near the concrete canal and several garden beds of lovely poppies! Stopped just after 10 for coffee & juice (we had yoghurt for brekky) and then stopped for the day about 5! As we had seen the local Vons supermarket on our walk we drove over to the opposite quadrant and did some grocery shopping. We have a little fridge and microwave so can be more self sufficient meal wise. Home again and tried to organise a timetable for the rest of the week. Will see how accurate it is as we go along!

Anyway now just about ready for bed so be good and catch you later!!!

Well it was a day+ of delays lol.
Had a very pleasant stay in the domestic business lounge, food was very nice. However the flight was delayed so instead of departing at 2305 it was 2350 before takeoff. Flight however was quite quick only 3 hrs 45 mins. Well that’s what my logbook had written in it.
Caught the airport shuttle at Brisbane to the International terminal and settled down to wait for Maria. Ron, Anna & Anna’s boyfriend Keegan came along to farewell us off.  Checked Maria in, quick coffee stop and we headed into the depths of Brisbane Airport!!!

Departure was supposed to be 1100, but apparently a baffle was not working in one of the engines and had to be removed so we were 2 hrs late leaving. However, the Captain said they loaded extra fuel and the flight was going to be 12 hrs rather than 13. Anyway it was a very bumpy flight, lots of turbulence!!! Got to LA and had to circle for about 45 minutes as the airport was closed because of low cloud (looked a bit smoggy to us lol) But it was still the 27th so it has been an exceedingly long day!

Got through immigration without to much time spent queuing and then had to wait about 30 minutes for the luggage to come out, so we reckoned they were scanning it all first. Then the queue through customs and we were out! Eventually found the shuttle stand and waited for that to arrive. We had an Indonesian driver and 3 other passengers to chat with in the 40 minute drive, freeway speed of 75 miles per hour was a bit fast lol.

Arrived at our hotel about 11 but as check in was at 2 they stored our luggage and we walked down to the hire car place and picked up our Too early to go back to the hotel we headed off to the AT&T store to get our sim cards. All installed, we had lunch at Subways and then found a grocery store for a few supplies.  We couldn’t find any fruit loaf (no toaster anyway lol) or muesli bars. When we asked the man working in an aisle he asked us to speak English!!!!! And we thought he was Mexican.

We did find some munzees along the way never fear, lol.

Checked in and unpacked, fiddled about a bit then went out for a walk up Disneyland Drive for the munzees of course. Getting dark we headed back and indulged in a very nice ice cream each, Maria had butter pecan and I had chocolate peanut butter!!! Now having 2 minute noodles for dinner!! Shower and bed, catch you tomorrow!

OK, closed the zip on the suitcase at 16.15 and did a few other household chores, sigh, so just about ready to go. Dad’s picking me up in 40 minutes. He was already going to the airport to pick up Grandma Janice, so I’m tagging along. Will catch the shuttle from the international to the domestic and be there with lots of time to spare, my flights at 23.05, LOL. However, I used my frequent flyer points to go business class, so can have a look at the business lounge whilst I wait! Meeting Maria at Brisbane and then a 13 hour flight to Los Angeles, so won’t blog again until we get there. Take care and do something fun  Lisa 🙂 xo