Category: United States (Page 1 of 7)

4 days around Denver, Colorado

April 22, 2025 / Erin McKinney

Norah had 3 days off school for her Spring Break this year so I decided to take a couple days off of work and decided we would explore the Denver area for a long weekend because we could get cheap flights on Frontier, I had Marriott points for the hotels…and we had never been! We were supposed to leave New Orleans at 7pm, but on our way into the airport they delayed us until 9pm, then again to 9:40pm departure, putting us into Denver around 11:45pm. By the time we got our rental car and got to our hotel, it was about 1am, but we were happy to be here- knowing that when you book the budget airlines, that doesn’t always happen! Ha

The only thing notable at midnight on the way to the hotel

Friday morning we slept in a bit longer than I had originally planned because of the flight delay and the fact that within the last week a winter storm had developed and the south area of Denver was unexpectedly going to dealing with up to a foot of snow where I had planned to spend our first day… so my itinerary was getting whittled down quickly.

We started our morning at a Mexican burrito truck. One thing about the western US, breakfast means breakfast burritos and I’m here for it!

Our first site of any significance was Garden of the Gods, a red rocks formation with a drive thru park and hiking trails.

Kegan had warned me, back in his Geology camp days, they came through here… and he said it was skippable… but since we literally had to drive through it to get to the Springs where we were headed, it didn’t make sense to skip.

But… that’s it. That’s the Garden of the Gods. lol Just those red rocks. ha I couldn’t believe how famous the park name is when THIS is literally it.

Right on the edge of Garden of the Gods was the Manitou Cliff Dwellings so we swung in here and spent $45(!!!) to see a recreated cliff dwellings and a museum and gift shop. 100% a skip lol

I learned after that this cliff dwelling was created around 1907 to try to divert tourists to the area… and the stones were actually looted and stolen from a real Ancestral Puebloan site near Cortez. The family that built this still runs it… and apparently its highly controversial, even to this day. I had no idea at the time. But we definitely were like…ok… you ready to go? ha

After that visit, we headed on down to Manitou Springs for a stop at Miramont Castle, a chateau built in 1895 by a french-born catholic priest named Father Jean Baptist Francolon. He was born into a wealthy aristocratic family and immigrated to the US after being recruited to serve as a priest in the Santa Fe area. He spent almost 10 years touring around the southwest to various mission churches and chapels. He had failing health and he decided to move to Manitou Springs area, because it was known for its healing waters and clean air.

Father Francolon incorporated all of the features he liked into one castle. There is English Tudor, Byzantine, Moorish, Romanesque… it really was a cool house…but did sort of seem like a mish-mash of random elements.

The tour started with a fire history museum in the basement… I realized after, I didn’t take many photos because nothing was very photo worthy, really…

This was the priest’s bedroom, the lady at the front desk said this was the most peaceful room or that people feel unsettling spirits here.

There was the Queen’s Tea Parlor in the castle that serves high tea twice daily. But I didn’t know their max capacity would be like 5 people… and they were “all booked” even though there was only 3 tables… so we didn’t have high tea. I have a feeling that was probably for the best. ha Our theory was that you had to have reservations because they likely ordered the food in instead of making it on site and had to know how much to order.

As we left, the snow we were promised started falling. The fluffiest snow I have ever experienced.

We headed on into town to find an alternate for lunch. The town was a cute artist-type town. Like a Nashville, Indiana. Tons of good independent shops and restaurants.

We decided on Sherpa Garden for Nepalese/Tibetan food. It looked really good online.. and it was a great choice!

Beef Momo dumplings with a tamarind sauce

We shared the Combination plate with Saag, Lamb Curry, and Chicken Tikka Masala

They had a momo soup, which I made an assumption was the momo is a spicy broth like I always get in New york at my favorite restaurant. Even asked- is this like “momo johl?” and she said – yes, exactly that. So I was a bit disappointed with a chicken broth soup showed up. haha BUT, it was one of the BEST chicken broths I have ever had… it had definitely been stewed down all day to make this.

The combo platter came was a rice pudding that was dreamy. Now I have to figure out how to make this at home.

To go with the rice pudding, I ordered a Kabuli naan- a naan bread sweetened with raisins and cashews. Also dreamy. 10/10 would recommend.

We were supposed to drive out to the Royal Gorge and Florissant Fossil Beds, but the fossils were starting to get covered in the sticking snow… and I couldn’t imagine driving 2 hours into the mountains to walk across the highest and largest gorge in the US in 29 degree weather and snow was a great idea.

We had also booked the Cave of the Winds 6:30pm night UV special tour… but we had decided over lunch we likely didn’t need to hang around until 8pm then drive an hour on the interstate after dark, so we would just finish up the few in-town items we had earmarked and head back to the city.

First stop was the first of the natural springs- Twin Spring- which was drilled in the 1920s. I saw a local resident walking down with his water bottle to fill up for the day. We sampled it. It was naturally fizzy, so that is super cool to me…but we all agreed it didn’t have a good clean taste to it… it had a metallic funk to it.

We finally found a spot to park behind the arcade we wanted to visit anyway, so that was handy 🙂

We walked up the hill to another spring, Wheeler Spring that was drilled in 1936 as a tribute to Jerome Wheeler who bottled and marketed Manitou Springs naturally fizzy water and made it famous.

Norah said this one tasted like you licked a chain link fence. lol

The Penny Arcade was our intended destination. I had read that they had tons of vintage and even antique arcade games to play, most of which were still 5 cents, 10 cents or a quarter.

I think this old wooden basketball game was my favorite. The guy pitched the basketball up granny style into the goal.

I had a lot of fun playing this old baseball game too.

Old peep show booths. Of COURSE we had to check those out. I’ve never actually seen one in real life! ha The Knotty Peek was just a cartoon style girl figurine on the beach.. the Peeping Tom headquarters was just pinup girl photos in bikinis. Very racey! lol

If you’ve ever read Ready Player One- you know there is an epic Joust battle that allows Wade to find the Copper Key for the First Gate…. Ready Player One is one of my favorite fun easy-reading fiction books, so playing Joust was super fun.

Kegan played the rifle game after I recommended it… I said it was really fun! I got 2900 points. Kegan’s score was so high, it reset the dang scoreboard. lol 13,000 or something in the end. It just kept giving him extended play. I think he played 6-7 minutes on a quarter. ha

Sampling another spring- Navajo Spring. Same. Metallic. Not great. ha

Quick stop at Patsy’s Candy Shop before heading out of town.

We decided that it was time to get moving…and it was the right call. This was the interstate already.

As I’m driving, I got a call from Colorado Springs… and I’m like, what the heck… it was the Cave of the Winds calling me to tell me they were cancelling our UV tour because of the weather to get everyone home and they were refunding our tour cost. I was like, that’s amazing- we had already ditched you guys and headed back to Denver. ha She laughed and we had $95 back we didn’t anticipate. Win!

I made Kegan take a photo of this crap I was driving in while he was being a passenger princess 🙂 We have an arrangement- I drive in cities, he drives on long trips. He hates traffic and managing 18 different inputs on the road… and my brain hates the monotony of long stretches of nothing… so it works for us. ha But that meant that I was the only name on the rental car for the weekend.

The aftermath back at the hotel in Denver.

We checked in the Denver Marriott West for the next 3 nights.. and after 30 minutes or so, headed out for our escape game reservation that also was moved up to 7:30pm from 9:30pm

We booked this one because it was Star Wars themed. War for the Galaxy. We were in a jail cell and had one hour to escape and find the resistance before we were caught.

We escaped we plenty of time to spare. I think they said we were 3 minutes off the all-time record.

After, we couldn’t pick anything that sounded good to anyone….so we sat in the car for a bit trying to find something… and when Kegan mentioned there was a Chuy’s Mexican restaurant nearby, we all said “ooooh, I’d eat Chuy’s!” ha So, we just did chain food. Nothing new and exciting…

We rolled back into the hotel and Norah and I both fell asleep in our clothes. ha Bad mom.

Saturday morning bright and early we headed towards Golden to fit in some suburb town stuff before an afternoon of reservations in Denver.

Breakfast burritos again at Bonfire Burritos. I got the Carne Asada with Green chili sauce and it was the best I had ever had. Kegan and Norah got a chorizo one that was soooo salty, they didn’t finish theirs… but I was happy. ha

An older gymnasium/center that reminded me of the Vallonia gym.

Our first stop was the Mines Museum of Earth Science at the Colorado School of Mines- a public university in Colorado founded in 1874.

Our first view of the mountains since it was so low visibility on Friday.

We drove out a bit to a dinosaur tracksite, but the road was closed. We walked up the hill to the first spot to see some dinosaur bones

With the snow still covering the ground, we decided the almost half- mile walk uphill (in thin air, mind you…. it was hard to just BREATHE haha and when you add elevation..it was a bit of a workout at times just doing a flight of stairs! Someone said it takes about 8 days to acclimate) We all decided that the likelihood of seeing nothing on the ground after walking was going to be disappointing, so we aborted the mission and went back to town.

Next stop- the Denver Museum of Miniatures, Dolls and Toys. Which, I figured would be weird… but it was even weirder than I anticipated. It really was just dollhouses with a couple shelves of other things.

Now, weirdness and all- you cannot discount the skill and craftsmanship that people put into these miniatures. Like the vegetables above- those are purchased whole from a local miniature creator. But they are designed to where you can cut open the bell pepper and find seeds, the cucumber slices, the red cabbage has all of the layers of the real thing. Mind blowing attention to detail. (My fingertip for scale)

This one in particular was a blast from my past. This Fashion Plates from 1977 was at my grandmother’s house when I was growing up. I remember making MANY a doll rubbing with those plates.

We headed on into Denver to a shop that was only open 12-4 Saturday during our trip…so we had to hit this window- called Fifty-Two 80s. A vintage toy shop of 80s and 90s nostalgia.

They had soooo many items from PeeWee’s Playhouse.

Including the REAL ACTUAL PLAYHOUSE SET. Only $900 and it could have been mine 🙂

If I wasnt flying, I’m pretty sure this Chairy would have had to come home with me… but Kegan talked me out of it since it was over $100… and flying with it would be a giant pain.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle table. I recognized about every item on the table from Bryan having every turtle item known to man.

Our haul in the end- some Labyrinth stickers for Norah’s best friend. Hello Kitty trading cards, 2 packs of Little Shops of Horrors stickers from the 80s, 2 packs of 1982 Dark Crystal trading cars, a Casa Bonita South Park sticker, a set of Star Wars nesting dolls (to go with our Yo Gabba Gabba nesting dolls) and then the cashier gave us a Kojak trading card at checkout.

Now…. the entire purpose of the trip was upon us.

We had been watching TV and found Casa Bonita Mi Amor- a documentary about Trey Parker and Matt Stone -the creators of South Park and Denver natives- buying the defunct Casa Bonita Mexican restaurant and restoring it to the price tag of something like 30 million dollars to try to salvage the history and their childhood magic. Great documentary. Great cause. They say throughout how this was NOT a sound business decision. That the reason they were able to buy this and do this…. was because it was a stupid money decision.

But how refreshing is that… that in this world of business savvy and investment capital and everything having to be for the greatest possible profit and the greatest return for investors that these two filthy rich big kids can just do something from the heart, the right way… and preserve something that didn’t make “business sense” to preserve. Long live Casa Bonita.

For that alone, we had to make the pilgrimage. I booked 3 months prior and there was only late lunch slots available for me to reserve for the entire weekend. But I didn’t mind- I planned my day around a 2pm lunch reservation. ha

Of course, we knew about the lore of Casa Bonita from South Park- which is a staple cartoon of my upbringing. If you haven’t seen it- its one of the best episodes. Kyle gets to have his birthday party with 3 friends at Casa Bonita, Eric Cartman’s favorite place in the whole world- except Kyle isn’t inviting Cartman- because Cartman is a jerk, he instead invites Butters. Cartman schemes to get the spot for the trip by manipulating Kyle and hiding Butters in a bomb shelter for a week so he can go. The scheme unravels as they arrive to the famous fountain in front of Casa Bonita and Cartman does a speed-run to try to fit in all of the fun of Casa Bonita before the police take him into custody. Its comedy genius.

Watch the South Park episode, watch the documentary, visit the place. It’s absolutely worth it for one visit.

The famous fountain and giant bell tower which we could see from a mile away on our way in, like a big Mexican food beacon. ha

The menu is 1 set price since you are basically paying for the whole experience. $39.99- unlimited chips and salsa, unlimited fountain drinks, one entree and then Sopapillas for dessert. We added on a side of guacamole and 2 El Diablo cocktails with a smokey mezcal, lime, cassis and ginger beer. They were fantastic and made dealing with this ADHD fever dream of a restaurant a better experience. ha

Cartman himself getting an honorary seat forever at Casa Bonita. Loved seeing this. ha

Live music playing throughout the experience

In the remodel, they set aside a Museum section with original Casa bonita items and history.

The original gorilla that would randomly roam around and surprise children. He’s still around, Norah and Kegan found him later in the Magic show.

The splash zone for the Cliff Divers, for the kids to get an up front view

The sheriff, one of the characters roaming the venue interacting with guests.

Black Bart, Ani and the Princess Pirate.

The Assayer remodeled and reprogrammed to give Casa Bonita coins in a Farrah Faucet t-shirt.

We stayed so long, a new band came on shift. ha

Finding the secret button to get a pearl. (a plastic egg with a squishy octopus inside.)

I had set a 5:30pm alarm just in case we lost track of time since we had an escape room reservation… and we needed every minute of it… probably could have even spent another 20-30 minutes if we had it to spend. It was an overall great afternoon. It was like the Disneyland of Mexican restaurants. For the price, definitely worth it as a one-time experience. Viva Casa Bonita!

We headed out to Louisville, Colorado (pronounced Loo-is-ville I’m told) to what Reddit told me was the best escape rooms in the Denver area- Rabbit Hole Recreation Services.

We did Frost Base Z – an antarctic base that we had to go try to save a stuck contaminated team, decontaminate ourselves and escape in our pod back to the surface. The theming was pretty good. There was fog and a escape pod that was just a stationary room, but the sounds and light effects made it feel like it was really moving up and down underground or to the surface. We escaped with 14 minutes left. Plenty of time 🙂

For Easter. I had them hide a rabbit stuffy and rabbit key necklace for Norah in the room for her to find. (it was a service they offered at booking- I wasn’t a crazy mom that asked this to random things haha)

We were due to go to dinner at a Sushi place in Louisville before heading back to the hotel, but none of us were hungry at the time, so we got carryout so we could take it back to the hotel and eat it within a couple hours.

Easter Sunday Funday started a bit later with our first plans being at 10:20am at Meow Wolf Denver.

I forgot to take a photo of the outside, but its called Convergence Station- a multi-dimensional train station between Earth and other dimensions, with some sort of weird parallel arc story about missing people and stolen memories.. as all Meow Wolf art installations are a visual fever dream… but also have hidden easter eggs to find, hidden doors, codes, quests, etc.

Fun fact, that vending machine of laundry detergent is a secret door to a hidden room.

Norah completed the hidden pizza quest and got the passcode into the hidden pizza room.

Cracking the code in the aquarium room to get a secret psychedelic video

We spent hours wandering around, seeing every corner of the building… but there really isn’t much to say without experiencing it. I don’t think I’m quite artsy enough to truly “get” Meow Wolf… but it is like nothing else in the world every one we visit.

We decided to get German food for a late lunch at Rhein Haus downtown right near Mile High Stadium.

Giant Pretzel with beer cheese and honey mustard.

Kegan’s sausage platter with cheesy spaetzel and sauerkraut

My Denver brat with Polish Kilbasa, cheesy peppers and onions with diced jalapeno. It was really good!

Our afternoon was uneventful… we were debating going to the Selfie Museum… or the Museum of Illusions…but eventually we all agreed to just go back to the hotel for a 3 hour nap before escape room fun in the evening. Norah and I did full on pajamas in bed and were zonked out. Kegan had to wake us up to go out. ha We would have been down for the night, I think.

Conundrum games was our destination tonight- for the Hollywood Mystery room- a Dick Tracy style 1940’s missing starlet we had to help the detective find the suspect and where he had taken the star- Holly Woods.

Funny story- We got a card that was coded in a cypher called “pigsty”. The room malfunctioned, and a drawer was supposed to open that gave us a decoder ring to decode the message… but have no fear… Norah just happened to know how to decode pigsty IN HER BRAIN… so the game master didn’t even notice that the drawer didn’t open for us. So, even with a malfunctioning game, we managed to get the record for the room. Hence Norah’s “It was all me” sign. It really was. ha

We weren’t really wanting a full dinner after German lunch- so we decided to just get ice cream.. and found this local chain of frozen custard called Goodtimes. It was good enough for a late night teat.

Monday morning was our last day. We packed up and checked out of our hotel and headed into the downtown area, we had a few options for breakfast to select between, but everyone agreed just coffee and pastries sounded best so we drove to Aurora to Paris Baguette.

A Fruity Pebbles Mochi doughnut. Norah said it was “fire”

After breakfast we fought our way directly downtown on a Monday morning and searched for parking for a bit to go into the Denver mint. When we arrived we were still over 45 minutes away from a tour start, so we decided to just hit the gift shop and look for any sets or coins for the collection.

We settled on this Native American Dollar set from 2009-2018 since we always try to find these but they are hard to come by in circulation these days. Norah was looking for a 2019 Denver mint penny… so if anyone has one in a change jar, she’s still on the lookout 🙂

The Denver Public Library building looks like a child’s castle playset that someone built in real life. Parking is such a beast I noticed that they had pull up curbside book drops for people.

Since we had to pay for 5 hours of parking. we decided to just leave the car there and walk a bit towards the Colorado History Center, passing the Denver Art Museum.

The actual Colorado State Constitution from 1876. I learned that Colorado is nicknamed the Centennial State since it was 100 years after the founding of the country.

The History Colorado Center was a very well done museum. Lots of state history and memorabilia, lots about mining culture and settlement…but didn’t shy away from some of the darker parts of Colorado history like the Salt Creek Massacre, the Chinatown riot in downtown Denver, KKK prevalence in the state, Japanese internment camps, segregated ski towns…. I think those things are important to ensure they tell the stories of EVERYONE in the state… and I think this did a great job all around.

Produce boxes highlighting the agriculture industry in Colorado

A recreation of one of the larger family homes in the Amache Japanese internment camp

Business sign from one of the original burlesque clubs that folks like Clint Eastwood and Elvis used to frequent when in town.

I forgot to photograph all of the mine exhibits, but lots of focus on the silver and gold industries and other mining that has been at the heart of Colorado industry

There was an exhibit on skiing and the mountain retreat culture and ski industry of Colorado. Norah gave ski jumping a shot in their simulator.

Ha! Even History Colorado got in on the fun of Casa Bonita complete with the 4 minute Cartman clip speed-running Casa Bonita. ha

An electric car from 1905 designed and built in Colorado. The signs said this car arrived at the museum on its own power in 1990.

They almost didn’t get me to leave this complete blockbuster setup in the corner. haha Talk about nostalgia. I could picture myself stocking shelves, stuffing VHS and DVD clamshells with title inserts.

Original cardboard cutout from the premiere of South Park in 1997.

Norah enjoyed the basement gaming setup from the 90s and played a little MarioKart on the N64

Norah had to have this 90s activity book from the gift shop. I made her agree to do it on the plane instead of electronics if I bought it. She shook on it 🙂

To kill an hour or so until we headed to the airport, we decided we could eat so we went to a restaurant I had bookmarked called MAKfam- a modern Chinese.

We sampled all 3 bao they had- a marinated mushroom, a pork and a spicy chicken.

Chinatown dumplings with chicken and chives

a Steak and Egg Jian Bing sandwich with beansprouts and hoisin sauce

Norah requested her own scallion pancake order… and she housed the whole thing- soo I guess the kid knew what she wanted.

To round out our trip, we took a drive through the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Preserve to check out some wildlife. Its an 8 mile loop through a nature preserve… we saw prairie dogs, deer, buffalo, ducks, geese, tons of birds- even a hawk.

After that it was the craziness of rental car return, shuttle, security, gate changes, etc… but a fairly empty direct flight back to New Orleans on Southwest. Norah decided to wear her retro Casa Bonita shirt home today that she picked up in the gift shop…so I’d say the goal of creating childhood memories at Casa Bonita was a success!

Next trip is New York City->London->Ireland for 8 days at the end of May. See you then!

Exploring Los Angeles after Christmas

January 2, 2025 / Erin McKinney

Hey everyone! We took a quick 5 day trip to Los Angeles between Christmas and New Year’s this year to fit a little stateside travel into the plans.

Day 1

We booked ourselves on a 6:25am flight out of New Orleans, luckily direct to LAX, so only about a 3.5 hour flight. It was the first time Kegan got to use his Clear Plus membership and his TSA Pre-check, so that made 5:30am security a bit more tolerable.

We landed on time and headed out to grab an Uber, only to learn that you can’t grab an Uber at LAX, you have to ride a shuttle out to a rideshare lot. Which, actually, first annoyed me…but then after seeing it, I get it… it was much smoother and easy to find the Uber when it arrived because everything was labeled with a letter and number.

Our Uber dropped us at our hotel first to leave our bags, but unexpectedly, they had our room available at 10am. I booked Burton House, Beverly Hills- which sounds fancier than it is- its just a Residence Inn they rebranded. ha

Our first destination was supposed to be brunch at Bottega Louie in West Hollywood…which I had read was amazing, but they just brought us a lunch menu, no brunch today….but that’s ok. Food was still stellar. They are known for their pastries and macaroons. We didn’t sample any of those.

These were Portabello mushrooom “fries” and they were fantastic

Norah didn’t want the pizza we were getting, so I told her to just order her own entire pizza. ha

This is what I was here for… the Truffle, fontina, creme fraiche pizza with a runny egg yolk. This pizza was heavenly.

With full bellies, we headed across town to the La Brea Tar Pits to begin our tourist track for the day.

Overall, the geologist on the trip voted this a “skip”… and he’s right… there’s nothing really to see. You are seeing some sectioned and fenced off pits that may have a little 2-3 foot section of wet black tar visible. It is all preserved, which is great… but there’s not much to actually SEE. The Page museum on site was a nice 30 minute walk through with a few skeletons… and the atrium was pretty, but I think I’d save my money.

They had an Observation Pit that would have been cool to actually see the tar and maybe see how sticky it was….but it was closed. No tours were given that day either. Kegan was only able to get this photo sticking his phone up over a gate and hoping he didn’t drop it! ha

They have found the skulls of over 400 dire wolves in the pits.

A sloth with fur getting eaten by a big cat

I think this is the mammoth they found in 2009 when they excavated more of the LA Museum of Art underground parking garage.

My bestie- the ground sloth. Not as big as others we’ve found- but I love it when I find them 🙂

We finished at Le Brea way quicker than I anticipated, so we decided to add on the LA Museum of Art which sits right beside La Brea in the same park and on our way to our next 3:30pm tickets we had to wait for.

It was a modern art museum… and I’m just not an appreciator of a lot of modern art… but they did have an exhibit highlighting the cosmos through various cultures in art. That was pretty neat.

There were lots of displays of old hand-drawn books on display about discoveries in space and science

This was a moving 3 layer hand-drawn and colored star chart in a book from the 1600s

Our first glimpse of the Hollywood sign from the 3rd floor of the Museum of Art

A statue of a chicken by Picasso. They had an entire room of Picasso works, including a couple that weren’t cubist. That was interesting.

A portrait of Frida Kahlo by Diego Rivera

Modern art I found interesting- a headless man trying to drink from a fountain

This was probably my favorite of the modern art… a mixed media work by Sanford Biggers called “Witness” from 2016. Various materials used to create African folk statues, creating shadows of a more modern strong Black culture. I couldn’t find much from the artist discussing the meaning other than it shows the ties to history and culture.

After meandering through all of the galleries, it was time for our pre-booked tickets at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

This museum just opened in late 2021, so still seemed very new and fresh.

Norah was thrilled there was a VR experience

One of the coolest exhibits was a zoetrope of the Toy Story characters to show the art of animation.

They had a big room/display of old cameras and equipment used to film in color. I liked this one because it was very similar to the color wheel we have for our 1950’s aluminum Christmas tree where the colors rotate in front of the light and create different color effects.

Storyboard design for the racers in Tron

Storyboard design for the Terminator before filming

A concept design idea for the movie Blade Runner

The very first character sheet for Mickey Mouse. I love how just by looking at these still images on a sheet of paper, you can tell how the animation is suppose to move and act,

Gizmo from The Gremlins. Fun fact- by the time we got to this museum, my feet had a couple blisters because I wore new shoes like an amateur…and very thin socks. Kegan advised I get a pair of real socks… so I went to the gift shop of the movie museum here and bought a pair of Gremlins socks. ha

Overall, a very cool museum. There was a permanent exhibit about the roots of the movie studios and the Jewish founders. I didn’t realize that ALL the movie studios were founded by Jewish founders. Literally, every single one. That was interesting.

After the museum, we decided to just visit a couple other spots in the area before heading out. We got dropped off in our Uber at the parking lot of Du-Par’s, a well-known diner in the area. Famous to us because of the Amazon show Bosch, where the *sort of spoiler alert* – one of the main characters dies in the parking lot.

Attached to Du-Par’s is The Grove, which is a big vendor stall sort of food establishment. We were there for the Kaylin and Kaylin Pickles Kegan had seen on Instagram.

They had 12 types of pickles and offered pickle flights. We tried all 12.

In the end, we liked the Kosher Dill and the Honey Mustard slices the best. Kegan got 2 jars to eat this week before our flight back home.

We grabbed coffee at the “best coffee in LA”. Newsflash, it was not the best coffee in LA. lol

After walking around for a bit trying to find good food we wanted, we just decided to Uber Eats something from the hotel or eat nearby. Once we got back to our hotel, we decided to try Factor’s Famous Deli, a kosher deli across the street from our hotel.

Norah ordered cheesesticks…and man, there were a lot of them. ha she ended up eating them the next night for a late dinner snack too.

Matzah ball soup… a staple. Their’s was good… but I’ll actually venture to say that mine is better!

Norah’s chili dog she ordered… apparently the girl is growing. She’s thinner than she’s been in years, back in jeans she outgrew almost two years ago…and eating full meals this week, which is very unlike her. Must be a growth spurt. ha

Kegan got the Pastrami on Rye. I got the beef tongue half sandwich on rye with a side of chopper liver but I guess I forgot to photo mine. Chopped liver wasn’t my style..I’m still chasing Toojay’s liver schmear from south Florida….man, nothing like it.

We got Black and White Cookies to go since we were so full… and headed back to the hotel room for 30 minutes or so until our escape room time.

We had booked at Hatch Games for The Lab Rat which I had read was one of the best rooms in LA.

We (obviously) escaped! 🙂 It was a very cute room and concept. The humans were the lab rats and the rats were the scientists and you had to figure out how to escape your cage in 60 minutes. Our game master was super impressed with Norah, of course… and so impressed, he recommended she check out the behind the scenes set up of the room, so she could see the wiring and the sensors and the Arduino board and breadboard that was controlling the whole thing (she just got an Arduino board for Christmas…and I was hoping she would enjoy learning to program C++ on it via this 30 Days Lost in Space game where you have to get your stranded space ship back online over the course of 30 days via coding lessons to help you do it… so this backstage glimpse couldn’t have been more timely! Yay game guy for helping a mom get her kid interested in programming!)

After that, he even took us up an old elevator to a new room they are working on with a giant submarine they are theming for a room.

Funny little turn of events. I found this place because I was looking for Escape My Room LA- which is the only other location of the Escape My Room in New Orleans where we did all 4 rooms, they were the best rooms ever, we made friends with the game master there who even recommended we look into Haynes Academy for Norah and who told us about sound color synesthesia – which Norah definitely has! So… because we had such ties to Escape My Room, I wanted to find it out here but couldn’t. It looked like maybe they were affiliated with the Hatch Games in some way… But when he took us up to the top floor to the new super secret game under construction, I saw a giant Escape My Room logo painted on the wall. Turns out, during the pandemic they went under it sounds like and sold to the guys who created Hatch Games. The submarine is from New Orleans! and was acquired from the Audubon aquarium at some point by the Escape My Room guys, but never finished… but now its going to finally see the light of day next year. All in all, we felt very “in” there and it was a cool experience. He said Lady Gaga was just there last week. I bet she didn’t get to go see the secret submarine room! ha

Day 2

We started Day 2 with breakfast and a coffee from the chain Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf connected to our hotel…and then grabbed an Uber up to Warner Brothers Studios for a studio tour.

The tour was fairly neat. We go to see the backlot and the sound stages where tons of famous movies and shows have been filmed since the 1930s.

After a film and a golf cart ride around the backlot, we were allowed to self-explore a museum type area and the Stars Hollow town set from Gilmore Girls.

None of us were fans of Gilmore Girls or had ever really watched much…so this experience of walking the town didn’t really do much for us. Friends was the other big show with tons of photo ops, like the orange couch in Central Park with the fountain…or the Central Perk couch…we don’t really like Friends either… so we weren’t as absorbed into the opportunities as some other folks.

They let Norah turn off the Bat Signal and Kegan got to be the good guy to turn it back on to call Batman.

Original Christopher Reeves Superman costume

They had a Harry Potter section that Norah was pretty into

The sorting hat experience sorted her into House Gryffindor- which she wasn’t thrilled about because she’s definitely a Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw. A HuffleClaw or RavenPuff, if you will. 🙂

After Warner Brothers, we hitched an Uber ride out to Glendale to eat at Porto’s bakery- a cuban bakery and lunch spot.

We were unfortunately a bit underwhelmed. It was sooo busy… and the pastries or coffee wasn’t anything like what we would get in south Florida… but overall, it was a quick lunch to hold us over and was fine.

Guava and cheese pastry and a churro croissant. We also tried the Ham Croquette, the Potato Ball and the Cafe Con Leche. The coffee was the most disappointing. Kegan says its because it needs to be made with hate and a little bit of red lipstick. These folks just weren’t angry enough like his cuban girls at the cafe he used to go pick up from in Boca. haha

Next stop was the Griffith Observatory. Man, were there a lot of people who had the same idea on the Friday after Christmas! ha The traffic up the road to the observatory was so backed up, I felt bad for the poor Uber driver and we got out and walked the last mile up the hill to the entrance so he could turn around and go back down.

The viewpoint here I would have missed from the car, so that’s a positive. Also, I was not chilly anymore after that hike up…so another positive!

From the top, you have a great view of the Hollywood sign. I had to stand too close to Norah to get a good photo showing the sign closer and bigger behind her due to all of the people… but you get the idea.

The building is gorgeous… the views are spectacular.

They have expanded the observatory underground from just a telescope, exhibits and planetarium to add the Leonard Nimoy Event Theater, the Cafe At The End of the Universe (a play on words and homage to Douglas Adam’s Restaurant At the End of the Universe book-the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books being my favorites)- and tons of other science exhibits. There were just a few hundred too many people everywhere to be able to do anything. Kegan was frustrated, Norah was visibly annoyed with all the kids jumping in front of her and messing with the exhibits she was using… so we quickly decided that was enough and made our way for the exit.

Next stop was the cross streets of Hollywood and Vine to explore downtown Hollywood and see the famous Walk of Fame.

I made sure we stopped where we could see the Capitol Records building for Norah. One of her fun facts is that the Capitol Records building sends out a morse code signal from its tower. She sat and decoded it to ensure that her facts were accurate 🙂

Hollywood has a scramble light like Tokyo and it was fun to see everyone rush everywhere in all directions later in the evening when it was swarming with people.

We had time to kill until our dinner reservations, so we headed to Grauman’s Chinese Theater.

Opened in 1927, its been a theatre house and movie theater ever since. Changing names to Mann’s Chinese Theater in the 1970s and now the TLC Chinese Theater.

It was the first theater to have air conditioning…and many movies have premiered at this theater over the years including Star Wars in 1977. The Academy Awards were hosted here in the 1940s, but now in the Dolby Theater next door.

We were able to find tons of hand and foot prints in the front courtyard.

I was on the lookout for Mel Brook’s handprints because I knew his was funny. He wore a prosthetic 6th finger on his left hand when he did his prints, forever “cementing” him as a funny man.

Norah said “I know the name Michael Keaton”…. uhhh yeah, its Beetlejuice! I love Michael Keaton as an actor. We watched The Birdman recently and that was such a cool weird artsy film…. he’s great in the show Dopesick, too.

Kegan decided to give Billy Crystal’s star a little Mike Wizowski treatment. “Can you believe it… I’m on the Walk of Fame!!! ” (while being completely obscured)

I had made 5:30pm reservations at Musso & Frank’s on Hollywood Blvd. It’s an Italian restaurant that’s been serving Hollywood elite for 105 years!

We were sat in one of the half round leather booths in the “new room” which was added on in the 1930s and the original exclusive “back room” bar and tables for the elites was moved to this area. This restaurant held Hollywood’s first pay phone where I’m sure many movie deals were made.

The history from their website is better than I could write it up:

“From the beginning, Musso’s has been a favorite among Hollywood’s A-list. Charlie Chaplin was an early regular. Often seen lunching with Mary Pickford, Rudolph Valentino and Douglas Fairbanks, Chaplin — legend has it — would challenge Douglas to a horse race down Hollywood Boulevard, and the winner had to pick up the tab at Musso’s. Charlie would win and gloat over a plate of Roast Lamb Kidneys, his favorite Musso’s meal.

In the ‘20s and ‘30s, it wasn’t uncommon to see Greta Garbo and Gary Cooper having breakfast together — flannel cakes and fresh coffee, of course. Or to bump into Humphrey Bogart having drinks at the bar with Dashielle Hammett or Lauren Bacall.

In the ‘50s, Hollywood legends like Marilyn Monroe (flanked by Joe DiMaggio), Elizabeth Taylor and Steve McQueen could be found enjoying drinks and appetizers in Musso’s famous Back Room. Jimmy Stewart, Rita Hayworth, Groucho Marx and John Barrymore also had starring roles at Musso’s.“

Most of their original classics are still being served. We started with the meatballs with polenta

I couldnt resist the steak tartare with quail egg. It was amazing.

I went with the classic Prime Rib- it was fantastic…..but 18oz was wayyy too much meat. ha I had to leave half of it.

Kegan tried the Lyonnaise potatoes. Basically skillet fried with onions… tasted like midwest skillet potatoes to me… but he loved them.

and the very authentic fried shrimp and fries for my kid who can’t ever get enough shrimp and fries, even living in New Orleans. lol

Stumbled on Leonard Nimoy’s star as we left Musso and Franks.

Norah really wanted to go to Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum… so since we had almost 2 hours to kill before our escape room reservation, we gave in and humored her.

To round out the evening, we booked an escape room at The Escape Hotel right on Hollywood Blvd.

It was a very cool themed joint. They had sideshow acts performing on the stage, tables and a bar…. and then 8 escape rooms all with circus or horror themes.

They gave us Escape passports to track for all of their rooms. They stamp you once in green when you enter, and in red if you escape.

We earned our red stamp and escaped with time left! It was a neat themed room, but overall an easy one since we’re at like 70-80 rooms now ha We really need to add up all of the rooms we’ve done and see.

Day 3

We started this Saturday morning with an Uber downtown to the Grand Central Market, a famous market that’s been open since the 1920s.

We found a guava and cheese croissant and coffee – neither were worth finishing.

So, we went to the only other venue open other than Eggslut (a new chain that had a huge line) – a Mexican taco stand serving chilaquilles, pancakes and breakfast burritos.

After breakfast we walked next door to the Bradbury building to see if we could get a peek inside to the famous atrium where scenes from BladeRunner were filmed.

The building didn’t open for another 45 minutes, but we could see most of the atrium through the door!

Across the street was the Million Dollar Theatre, one of the first movie theaters in the US. Opened in 1917. Built by Sid Grauman, just like the Chinese theater, this one was over 10 years earlier, before the big move from downtown to Hollywood.

After checking out that area, it was time for the trek up the big hill over towards the Central Library where we were scheduled for a monthly tour by the LA Conservancy on Art Deco Architecture.

But.. because of this amazing funicular railway called the Angel’s Flight, it was a quick and easy trip to the top of the hill!

Angel’s Flight was a railway open since 1901 for transporting people up and down Bunker Hill. With a 33 degree incline, its a steep slope.

The original Angel’s Flight was demolished in the 1960s when this whole downtown block was demolished to revamp it into mixed use commercial space. But, they stored the original cars, planning to reinstall it within 2 years. It took 27 years to actually get it accomplished!

It reopened in 1996 and other than a couple accidents that closed it down (biggest from 2001-2010) it remains open for travel and costs $1 each way, or .50 with TAP, LA’s public transport app. I had TAP for mine, but it wouldn’t let me pay for Kegan and Norah with my own TAP… so Kegan had to use a credit card for the $2 because they also only took exact change and the lowest he had was a $10.

This was another famous Michael Connelly novel/Bosch episode where they investigate the murder of a lawyer on the Angel’s Flight railway.

We headed to Maguire Gardens at the Central Library to meet our tour guide for our Art Deco tour.

Our guide was very nice friendly older lady, but man…she was a talker. ha I had to zone out and read on my phone hiding behind Norahs back a few times to keep from making annoying faces. ha but overall, great info- and great access into a couple private businesses we couldn’t otherwise see downtown.

We started out at the Con Edison building

After the tour, we walked to another street nearby and Norah spotted a robot delivery service.

The side of it said it was being driven remotely by a real human. How cool!

I wanted to stop by St Vincent Court that was nearby, it is a European street tucked into downtown LA. Since the 1950s when a big department store started letting out space to restaurants and cafes, now it is a deli, Italian, French coffee, middle eastern restaurants… it was a cute little street.

The next item up for us was lunch… and it was a couple miles away and across some freeway areas, so we thought it might be best to Uber…but I had seen these robot cars driving around earlier called Waymo’s. I was determined to ride in one during this trip. ha Kegan was not on board… but like most things, he loves me and wants me happy, so he was willing to die like a man. haha

I downloaded the app and signed up during one of those droning tour guide sessions I mentioned above while hiding behind Norah….so I called up Waymo and it was there in 3 minutes! It pulled up to the curb, I unlocked it with the app and we were in! Once you buckle up, you click Start Ride on the screen and you are off!

It was so weird to be riding in a car with no one in the driver seat…but honestly, after this ride, we took about 7 more in the trip and were disappointed when the destination was out of Waymo’s designated travel area and we had to go back to Uber. No weird driver, no crazy air freshener smells or terrible jerky driving (my goodness the bar is low for Uber drivers anymore)… the car was clean, the temperature was great, the music is set from your phone based on what you want to hear. It was honestly a great experience and the robot driver was fantastic. Kegan became a bigger fan than me! and having Norah alone in the front passenger seat with no driver had tons of people looking and doing double-takes, laughing, asking her how she liked it… it was great. 10/10 recommend if you go to LA.

Lunch was an all you can eat sushi restaurant that had fantastic reviews online called Tokyo Haus.

After eating the entire ocean, we needed to call up our robot friend Waymo once more to visit Olvera Street, the birthplace of Los Angeles back in the 1800s when it was just El Pueblo de Los Angeles.

They were having some sort of festival in the square.

After exploring downtown, we decided to make one more stop our way back towards our hotel at the Velaslavasay Panomara – which is something we saw a couple places in Europe- these 360 degree paintings- mostly in Poland and the Czech Republic… so Waymo dropped us off, only for us to discover it is open by appointment only… and there was a homeless guy sleeping behind that bush in the entry. So… back into a new Waymo. lol

Last minute, I found an escape room to book at Maze escapes which was Sherlock Holmes themed… we tied for the record in the room at 22 minutes…..so it was sort of disappointing to be in and out so fast lol

We were still so full from sushi lunch that we didn’t eat dinner, just grabbed a couple small snacks at the convenience store next to the hotel and called it an early night.

Day 4

Today was museum day. We started out with breakfast at our hotel which ended up being a bad choice- it took an hour to get Salmon toast and a coffee. ha Kegan was banned from making any more decisions on this vacation after this third choice that was an annoying one ha (Griffith Observatory and La Brea Tar Pits are the others) After breakfast we Waymo’d to the Natural History Museum

We were almost the only people upstairs when we first started. Much more manageable crowds than we have been experiencing.

The largest known ammonoid fossil in the world.

Norah still enjoys the little kid science museum exhibits. So I always let her play around. You never know when it will be the last time.

A very extensive gem and mineral collection.

After the Natural History Museum, we had to get an Uber to The Getty- a large private art museum thats way out in the Hollywood Hills

A Da Vinci painting that I was surprised to see here.

The line out the door queueing up to view Van Gogh’s Irises. We accidentally skipped the line by coming through the building from upstairs first and then down… whoops lol It is a very cool blue/purple bright pigment painting. I see why it was so remarkable.

Im sure this view from the top overlooking the city is amazing when its not 50 degrees and foggy 🙂

Overall, a few cool paintings…but I feel like it was more of an attraction for the amazing buildings and gardens and views… At the risk of sounding super snobby, it just didn’t have the impact after going to European art museums. It was free entry though…. and technically you were supposed to make a reservation ahead of time…and we didn’t so we were lucky to even get in. The security guy just took pity on us and let us pass through! So, for that…I am thankful and happy with the experience.

We grabbed an Uber back down off the mountain into town to a taco truck I had been following on Instagram for months….only to learn they are only there on SATURDAYS and not SUNDAYS…. dang it. So I pivoted and found another high rated Mexican restaurant in the area called Loqui.

After that, we decided to walk around and explore Culver City. We walked past Sony Pictures Entertainment (I think where they film Jeopardy!)

We walked a mile or so to the Museum of Jurassic Technology.

It was a weird art installation that was set up to look like a real museum. It was all weird useless stuff lol I’m not artsy enough… We were all confused ha. I think maybe pass. Unless you just like weird stuff lol

We hit up Milla Chocolates across the street but it a was right before they closed and the girl was less than helpful even explaining how they bundle their chocolates… so I just got a drinking black sesame chocolate drink and called it a day. $6 per chocolate for tiny little chocolates anyway lol

Next we walked by an Erewhon grocery store- the celebrity grocers…. I had to go be a grocery store tourist and see what sort of stuff I could find.

I left with a $14 bottle of super green juice because I LOVE green pressed juice and didn’t have any the whole trip… and it was some of the worst green juice! haha It was just like pressed swiss chard with cayenne pepper.

Lastly, we had to let Norah experience the California exclusive of In-N-Out burger.

Kegan and I lived in California for a couple years… so we didn’t feel the need to eat a Hamburger and fries, but Norah was all about it.

To round out the evening, we booked one last escape room at Escape Room 66 in a room called The Mush Room.

It was a fantasy room almost like Candyland where we had to find our way out. There were like 75 locks in the room. It was comical. Not our fave. Very homegrown…but they did have a tank of a cat named Beans that we got to pet, so a win overall.

Day 5

Day 5 was alllll Universal Studios Hollywood!

We went all out and booked the VIP experience with the private lounge, guided private tour guide, lunch and and VIP lanyard that granted us unlimited Express Lane rides for the entire day.

The breakfast was a small buffet with pastries and sandwiches and coffee while we waited and met our guide for the day.

Our studio tour was on a trolley of about 20 people and we got to walk around the sets and take photos instead of just the normal tram studio tour

We got to walk through the currently filming show St Denis on Stage 26 which looked SUPER realistic to a real ER that it was spooky.

Our guide Angela and the Back to the Future courthouse set, which is also the courthouse from To Kill A Mockingbird with Gregory Peck.

Monster murals by a famous LA street artist done with spraypaint.

Walking down New York Street where all the major superheroes have fought.

The plane crash from War of the Worlds scenes

Fast and the Furious the Ride was broken when we went through, so no idea if the car chase was cool or not lol

The Waterworld show was a bit kitchy but there a surprise plane that flew it on fire at the end and made it pretty cool.

Our first glimpse of Super Mario World from the escalators

Someone was very happy with their Toad hat lol

We shared a meal back at Harry Potter World of fish and chips and sticky toffee pudding and I had warm butterbeer.

To close out the night we ended in the kiddy land and rode Secret Life of Pets and Minion Madness and Kung Fu Panda Express.

Overall, I felt like the value was there for the VIP passes since the normal tickets were higher for Christmas and once you added Express Passes and paid for food and water in the parks… it was maybe $100 more per person… and everything felt very relaxed and handled… and we rode every ride in the park at least once. For one day, worth it.

Tuesday we headed to the airport first thing to head back home. It was a fun trip to the west coast, but I won’t be searching Zillow for any houses anytime soon. 🙂

Next trip is to Italy at the beginning of March, see you then!

Spring Break 2024 – Houston, TX Days 3-5

April 4, 2024 / Erin McKinney / 1 Comment

Day 3 started off with the Three Uncles Toast from the night before because I had saved it from a TikTok video or Facebook reel months ago about how it was this amazing milk bread toast that I had to have. I grabbed the coconut raisin…Maybe amazing toasted or heated up… but to me it was just square bread…

Never fear, I had 2nd breakfast planned! ha We drove to the southeast side of Houston to some sites and near there is The Original Kolache Shoppe that has been open since 1956. Its a local Czech bakery that has been family-owned for 3 generations

My pastry was basically a pig in a blanket- a soft bread surrounding a sausage. They were a bit heavy if I am being a food critic. Definitely not something I’d be swinging by for on my way to work every day. ha But I respect the Czech heritage recipes and the tradition of the family bakery 🙂

I had scheduled a visit to Smither Park next, a public art space full of mosaic glass sculptures. It was REALLY a cool public park… so many art exhibits including a giant fish amphitheater…

Norah big brain spotted tiny mosaic Spongebob characters out of nowhere in a random section of the sidewalk. Once she pointed them out, of course I could see them- but I never would have spotted them among everything else there. The way her brain works really is something else.

Kilroy was here.

The all white section was pretty cool too among all of the vibrant color.

Randomly, I saw online they were planning an Easter Egg hunt at the exact same time I planned to be here anyway…and Norah said she wanted to hunt some eggs, so I RSVPed for us to attend.

Before the hunt, they had the kids color their own egg ( as a way to drag out the event per one of the volunteers, “because last year they hid the eggs, hunted them and it was over in 10 minutes” ha)

Norah created a sunset on her egg

After she colored her egg she decided she didn’t really want to hang around and hunt them.. ha so we headed on out for the rest of our day.

Our next destination- the 1940 Air Terminal for Houston which has been preserved as a museum.

As you can tell, it was a hopping place at 11am on a Saturday 🙂 That Model A is being auctioned off, selling 2500 tickets for $50 each if you want to throw your hat in the ring 🙂 I also did… but what the heck do I do what a Model A?? I asked the guy- he told me that I could drive it in a parade… or some of the old guys drive them in their retirement communities like a golf cart. haha

This amazing art deco building was built in 1940 as the main airport terminal for the city of Houston.

The lobby may look a little small, but in 1940, there were only 2 airlines operating out of Houston… and the planes only held about 20 passengers… so if it looks like an old bus station, it basically was.

We got to take a chaperoned visit out into the locked Houston Hobby airport air field to see an old 1942 Lockheed Lodestar that would have flown passengers at the time of this terminal being operational.

They had a lot of flight memorabilia including this rare clear plastic bubble helmet rain dome that was part of the “Braniff Airlines Strip” campaign. It was meant to evoke a “blasting off to space” theme in 1965 and was iconic…but quickly was discontinued because they cracked easily and there was nowhere to store them once on board the aircraft.

Our lunch was just a snack- a strip mall spot called Señora Churros.

Norah ordered this monstrosity haha Strawberry ice cream in a churro bowl. She didn’t even eat 1/3 of it. ha

Kegan and I were a little more realistic and just got a single churro with Cajeta (a caramel sauce)

After a sugar buzz, we headed back towards downtown to the Rothko Chapel.

I just dont “get” modern art. ha The Rothko Chapel was constructed by the De Menil family in Houston as a spiritual space for the public. The commissioned artist Mark Rothko to design 9 giant murals for the inside walls.

I wasn’t allowed any photos… but the inside was just white walls, some church pews in an octagon and a bunch of black/purple plain panels on the inside.

I’m sure someone more art-brained than me could explain it and make it make sense, but all 3 of us walked out like… what is the purpose of that?? ha

Next we toured the Menil Collection- a building full of over 19,000 pieces of art from prehistoric to modern. They also didn’t allow any photos because the lady told me “the Menil’s still hold the copyrights for these works of art, so no photos are allowed of their private collection”. oh. ok…. weirdos. ha

My big takeaway from the Menil collection was that Max Earnst was a German artist that I need to know more about his surrealist art. I was seeing Dali in all of his works… and the collection had 20 or more of his paintings.

After the museum we went back to the hotel to rest up for our evening out with friends.

We scheduled a meet up with my friend Tim and his wife Jennifer that live just outside of Houston. I met Tim in South Florida when I was in X-ray school. I legit cant remember exactly… but I believe we may have met on MySpace… and I ended up at his apartment for a hurricane lock in party in my Papa John’s work uniform… I will have to have him remind me if that is really how it went… I think I have a mental block for that period of my life. I barely remember any of that era of Erin. ha Except Tim. He has always been an awesome friend to have. So happy to see him married and happy and excelling in life. Good things to good folks.

We met up at Caracol- a new restaurant by Hugo Ortega – a well-decorated Houston landmark chef. When I say the food was outstanding, I don’t think that does it justice. I will be booking this again on this next trip.

Norah started with a blackberry mojito mocktail.

Norah had the Empanadas de Camaron to start. ( I forgot we’re in Texas- portions are HUGE)

Tim with the Ceviche de Chile Canario- a lime cured raw red snapper with chile’s cilantro, radish and more.

I got the Ceviche de Coco – lime cured red snapper is a roasted pineapple and coconut based sauce.

Kegan’s Ensalada de Pulpo- Spanish octopus salad with sausage, roasted potatoes, carrot, celery leaves and a pumpkin-seed dressing

Jennifer’s Callo de Hacha – pan-seared scallops with roasted cauliflower

My Pulpo Ahumado – smoked octopus with chorizo and potato hash

Tim’s Costillas de Res – Braised Short ribs -was spectacular…

Dessert, there were churros with chocolate, espresso and a tableside whipped traditional mexican hot chocolate service.

The after- dinner attraction planned was really the event of the trip. Also the reason there were no cocktails at dinner. We had reserved a spot at Strangebird- the #1 Escape Room experience in the USA.

This was a combination of live actors and an escape scenario… the setting- we were invited to a seance to try to summon the spirit of Harry Houdini. Our medium, Madame Daphne, invited us in and presented us with books all with our name on them, with personalized fortunes- performed some Tarot card readings… and then we proceeded into the seance room to attempt to summon the spirit.

But here is where it all went terribly wrong, Madam Daphne had purchased Houdini’s wife’s wedding ring to try to draw his spirit closer… and …the rest of the story you’ll have to find out for yourself.

That’s the best detail I can give without giving away anything about the actual event. It was sooooo well done. Good acting, fantastic flow of the game, great props and room objects. It definitely earned its ranking. I warned Tim and Jennifer it was all downhill from here for their escape rooms. ha

Day 4, Sunday, was a chill day. We started with getting Norah’s easter basket out and assembled in the hotel room while she was still asleep along with a Strawberry milk tea from a local Asian bakery.

Kegan also found her a cute little bunny cake for breakfast, too.

Kegan found us a couple pastries- one sweet and one savory- while I stayed back in the hotel and wrote a couple blogs posts to catch up 🙂

Around 11am we headed out to Crosby, TX an hour or so away to see my extended family. My aunt Laura and uncle Billy live out there along with my cousins Michael and Travis and their families. Growing up, Michael and I were two weeks apart in age, and Bryan and Travis were less than 6 months apart… so even though we never lived close or spent much time together, still fun to have cousins your age 🙂

Laura went into “grandma overdrive” for Easter. ha She had a basket for Norah and the other kids, organized a sack race and even painstakingly counted an entire jar of jellybeans for everyone to take guesses. (My guess was the closest at 1125 jellybeans… when there were 1178!) The prize was $20…and even though I did my best to forget the $20 on the counter, Laura caught me on my way out the door! lol

Billy and Laura (and Travis) had all kinds of goodies cooking- fajitas with steak and chicken, two types of sausages, hot dogs, burgers, smoked hot wings, potato salad, two types of beans, pico, guac, rice, fresh tortillas and I’m sure more that I don’t remember. It was a spread…and it was good eats.

They had a croquet course set up in the backyard and had some healthy family competition trying to dominate the game.

There were some drive-by eggings- mostly from Travis being mischievous- smashing confetti eggs in everyone’s hair. ha Everyone spared Norah until the end, afraid I would be mad about having to get that out of her hair. haha but then I gave permission and it was a free for all- all the girls running around smashing the remaining eggs on each other’s heads. ha

Billy hid easter eggs for hunting… but one special green egg had $20 inside. They all missed it multiple times hiding in a green magnolia tree until Mikey found it with some hints. That boy is so fast…and smart… he’s gonna do some things in life.

I think Norah had a blast with her cousins and actually spending the day outside. Granted, she had to take a phone break inside and recharge those social batteries for a bit… but I understand that. ha

Billy took us on a ride through the neighborhood to see the lake and pool and the peacocks!

Turns out, their neighborhood is overrun with hundred of peacocks.. and its that time of year… males are showing off for all the females everywhere you look. ha

We hung out for hours just chatting and hanging out… headed out around 6:30 or so to head back to Houston for our escape room. We arrived about 45 minutes ahead of our booking, so we hit the Super H Mart next to the place since it was on my list. H Mart is an Asian grocery store chain that I wasn’t aware had any locations outside of New York…until I started planning our Houston trip- I’ve always told Kegan when we move to NYC (when…not if haha) that it has to be near an HMart. Its my dream to have a ground floor apartment with a tiny back patio- walkable to HMart and the subway! (I think that will live in my dreams though…. likely not a reality ha)

H Mart has a food court inside with a few varieties of food. Norah got a Korean corn dog. I got a spicy Vietnamese seafood soup with veggies.

We checked out the aisles… an entire aisle just dedicated to ramen.

We made our way to Escape IT Houston… don’t recommend. Half the room was broken, the puzzles were silly, and you could tell they just wanted us to hurry up and be done so they could close up and go home. Luckily, we exited the first 60 minute room based on The Alamo in like 30 minutes… and then we did a 30 minute Apollo 13 escape room that took us about 5 ha, so they got their wish.

As I was looking over the Day 5 itinerary I realized I didn’t book another escape room I thought I booked… which is fine because …bro… its a lot 4 days in a row. haha but Norah was disappointed of course ha So we discussed and said, really after we go to NASA tomorrow, we can just head home and only miss 1 Indian/Pakistani restaurant I wanted to try… and we all agreed to just do that and get a “staycation” day back home. So, we packed up the hotel room when we got back, went to sleep, and headed out Monday morning

Our first stop Monday (Day 5) was at Paris Baguette- a South Korean chain that is just expanding worldwide. The family that owns this was worth 3.6 billion dollars and they invested over 2 billion in expanding it worldwide… for their sake, I hope its a success! But, I think it will be if they choose their locations wisely.

This was my first mochi doughnut. I can see why people like these- chewy…not overly sweet…. It wasn’t swoon worthy to me… but it was good.

Next was the hour drive to NASA with high hopes for seeing the historic mission control room that they have restored to its look from the Apollo 11 mission that put a man on the moon.

I was starting to get concerned when we had to line up down the entire sidewalk to even get in the building…

Once we got inside, there was a sign to download their app to register for tram tours. (The Historic Mission control tour was a tram tour) – so I get the app and try to reserve a spot only to find out that THAT specific tram tour is the only one you can book in advance… and has to be booked over 3 weeks ahead of time or it sells out.

Epic fail since that’s literally the only thing Kegan wanted to see. I felt terrible for not knowing this… (especially when my tickets said it included the tram tour …I just didn’t know there were 3 different tram tours) so I even went to guest services and asked if there were still tickets available for the VIP tour of Mission Control (even though they were $200 a piece ha ) but (luckily) that tour left at 9am for the day… so literally, no way to see what we came for.

We walked around the rest of the exhibits… but really… there just isn’t much there… to give perspective, the “food lab” which is a big cafeteria food court like in a mall was bigger than the whole floor of space exhibits. and all of the exhibits were mostly just printed text on boards on the wall. Most of the interactive exhibits were all broken, out of service. The VR experience ride was shut down. It was easily the jankiest and worst science museum or even NASA experience we’ve ever done.

They do have the Boeing 747 that was converted to shuttle the space shuttle between missions and you can walk through it.

They did have 2 or 3 spacesuits on display…but not nearly the memorabilia or actual space gear or history you would expect.

We watched the videos in the theater, walked all of the exhibits and in under 2 hours we had toured everything even with long lines, so all that was left was the Rocket park tram tour… and when we walked over to that, there was a line that was easily going to make it an hour wait to get on the tram…. and we said we have seen these rockets up close at other parks and it is NOT worth it to hang out that long for a tram ride… so we called it early and left pretty disappointed at what a tourist trap it seemed. So, my takeaway is that even the little NASA science museum outside of New Orleans is way better than the Houston Space Center… and if you are going, make sure you reserve your mission control tour a month in advance or you won’t actually see anything historic and will end up drinking a Starbucks in the “food lab” 🙂

So, disappointingly, we kind of ended the trip on a downer! I saved NASA for last thinking it would be such a cool experience….but I really should have known better with how terrible Space Camp was when I chaperoned Norah’s school a couple years ago. I think that NASA used to be great and we really still want it to be… and the respect and reverence we have for the historic space program is really blinding us (or at least me) to how terribly executed all of the public outreach and experiences are… I hope their real missions coming up are executed well and can show we can still accomplish great space exploration but my interaction with anything NASA in the last few years wouldn’t have me trusting my life to their spacecraft.

We headed back over the Louisiana line and made one last fun stop at the Atchafalaya Welcome Center which is just a rest stop.. but with a fun little animatronic swamp animal display and video about the Atchafalaya River Basin area.

We watched the animals and laughed at the raccoon looking like it was having a stroke when the bit ended and he retreated stiff back into his tree stump. ha We watched the video and then headed back to the car for another 2.5 hours home… which ended up being over 3 with a couple wrecks and traffic backup around Baton Rouge.

Overall, a successful short Spring Break trip. Next trip will likely be Boston, Massachusetts in June since I have a big client goLive there and Kegan and Norah are going to join me in the hotel for some tourist shenanigans as we can fit them in 🙂

Spring Break in Houston, TX – Day 2

March 31, 2024 / Erin McKinney / 2 Comments

We started day 2 with a Houston institution- TexMex breakfast tacos! With Houston having over 1 million people who identify as Hispanic (44% of the population) it stands to reason that there is some amazing Tex-Mex food to be found in the city. We decided to try Tejas Taco House and it was legit.

With full bellies, we headed back downtown where we were yesterday to hit the Natural Science Museum. There were not enough hours in the day to fit it in on Thursday and I knew we would want quite a few hours to see everything here. Norah was immediately drawn to the interactive periodic table of elements and spent a lot of time here.

We saw a show on the Universe narrated by Tom Hanks in the planetarium. Just absolutely mind blowing how big the Milky Way galaxy is..and then to learn that our known galaxy is part of 1000s of other full galaxies…and that just makes up the Virgo Supercluster of galaxies which is just one part of the observable universe. We are just unbelievably insignificant specs of space dust. and knowing this makes it easier to laugh at self-important people who think they deserve to cut in front of you at Starbucks. 🙂

The Natural Science Museum had a well laid out timeline of fossils starting in PreCambrian and leading through Jurassic, Triassic..all the way to modern era. They had an extensive trilobite and crinoid collection which I love looking at. Some of their trilobites even still had the spines on their backs!

We were able to see Sloth-Zilla, the largest ground sloth skeleton. Look at this beast! I do love my ground sloths…

Norah said she thought she had a resemblance to the Neanderthal. ha

The museum had an extensive gem and mineral collection as well as a special collection of Faberge royal pieces in a traveling exhibit. I can’t remember which photos were from which, so they are all together below.

The museum also contained a Butterfly Sanctuary which was a fun experience to be inside an enclosed greenhouse with birds, butterflies, turtles and other species just going about their business.

After the museum we headed to El Gato Coffeehouse- where you can have a coffee and hang out with some adoptable cats. Turns out you need reservations for the actual coffeehouse, so we were relegated to “the studio” with the extra cats in a big room… which was fine. Who knew you had to reserve coffee with cats? ha

After some coffee and hang out time, we headed to The Color Factory, an “art space” -aka a money-making Instagram photo op opportunity ha It was cute but its a one-time experience.

There was a giant gross stinky ball pit at the end that I had to get in with Norah. ha I just tried to forget everything I know about germs and disease transmission and make memories with my child ha

A full room with light-brite walls.

Norah and Kegan had to sit opposite each other in sound booths and draw each other without lifting the pencil. Norah’s turned out very Picasso-esque.

The next stop was dinner and we chose Xiao Long Kan – a fancy hot pot spot with very traditional Chinese decor.

We chose a dual broth- golden chicken and pork bone broth. We ordered plates to add to and cook in the broth that included beef and lamb slices, quail eggs, woodear and enoki mushrooms, greens such as lettuce, napa cabbage, pepper cress and chinese spinach, spam, handmade noodles and ramen, fish balls along with a smoky plum juice and fresh-pressed watermelon juice.

Overall, it was the 2nd best hot pot experience I’ve ever had, since we visited Xpot in Las Vegas and they had this out of this world Lobster soup base and Wagyu beef…but for a real-world meal (since I’d never spend the money on Xpot in my life again) this was so so good.

Next door was a newly-opened Moshi Moshi Japanese store with kawaii cute stuffies and Japanes beauty and snacks so we quickly browsed through to see what they had

Then I ran into Three Uncles Toast to grab a loaf of bread for breakfast in the morning.

We decompressed in the hotel room for 45 minutes or so and then headed out for out late-night shenanigans. Friday night in Chinatown is a hectic affair ha Every plaza looked worse than this with cars backed up every aisle.

We were headed to Claw Mania Kingdom

This was an arcade full of nothing but claw machines. You bought tokens for $1 each and each chance was 1 token. You could keep your stuffies or you could trade them up for a bigger stuffed animal or even a coin you could redeem on a future visit. Norah had 7 stuffies in the end and traded a few in for an anime figure she wanted from the case. It was a blast.

After playing claw machines it was time to head to Exit Lab Houston where I booked “the hardest double escape room experience”. It was a combo of two rooms in 90 minutes and was classified as the hardest escape room around…

And let me tell you…. It was hard. Ha we did not escape. We made it out of the first room in under 60 minutes but then we got into the 2nd room and with only 30 minutes left there is no way we would have made it. After we ran out of time, our game master showed us the remaining puzzles we had to solve- about 3 more major puzzles- but I don’t think I would have figured them out even with 20 hours left haha. So, we have to finally admit defeat and say we did not escape! And that’s OK. It was a huge challenge and it was humbling to see that there are apparently people out there a lot better at escape rooms than us! Ha

Spring Break 2024 in Houston,Texas – Day 1

March 28, 2024 / Erin McKinney / 1 Comment

Hello! Its been a while 🙂 Life has been “life”ing to say the least. It been a bit since we’ve been able to coordinate even a quick trip somewhere with Norah’s school schedule, visits of others to New Orleans, Kegan finishing his dad’s cabin in Indiana and me trying to start a whole new client project without dropping anything I already had going on. ha It has been an absolutely crazy 6 months or so… and not really slowing down until Summer… BUT I always say we have all the best problems. Too many people who want to hire you, a kid too involved in fun things at school, too many friends wanting to visit? Give me those “problems” any day. We are happy, healthy and living life. Soon enough we’ll be sitting in our rocking chair begging Norah to come see us…so for now we’ll just live our crazy life as it comes at us through a fire hose 🙂 ha

So, when we finally figured out we had a few days of spring break we could go somewhere, we had a few ideas.. quick flight to New York, quick flight to Ft Lauderdale, a flight to LA and spend some time in California? Chicago might be a fun 4-5 days… eventually we decided to just drive to Houston since we haven’t spent any real time in Houston in over 10 years, we didn’t need flights that I might have to cancel if something came up.. and bonus-a lot of my dad’s side of the family lives around Houston, so we were able to fit in a bit of extended family time along with playing tourist.

We picked Norah up after school on Wednesday and immediately headed west on I-10 from New Orleans through all of Cajun country Louisiana. Our first stop was for Billy’s Boudin and Cracklins.

We were headed to dinner so we kept it minimal getting 1/4 lb of cracklins- the BEST we had ever had… along with a shrimp ball, a boudin ball and a crawfish ball to share. They had tons of frozen cajun items, but we couldn’t consider those and have to keep them in a cooler for 5 days. ha Boudin is a cajun sausage that is cooked pork, rice, vegetables and cajun seasonings all stuffed in a casing. Everything we ordered was amazing and we may have to hit this again on the way home.

Our dinner stop was at a true local Cajun restaurant called Prejean’s outside of Lafayette in a town called Carencro.

Kegan got the crawfish nachos and the duck and andouille gumbo they are famous for. Norah got a kid’s shrimp and fries and I got the Crawfish enchiladas. Kegan’s was great. Norah was happy with hers… I expected chunks of crawfish and cheese in my enchiladas, but it was like a crawfish boudin mushy filling that was slightly reminiscent of cat food. ha I’m sure if I had expected that, it would have been fine, but I wasn’t a huge fan. I tasted Kegan’s gumbo and it was fantastic.. smoky, spiced, dark rue… it was definitely the winner of the meal.

Mine came with a side of “cajun rice dressing” that was soooo good… and a side of maque choux (pronounced mock shoe). Cajun rice dressing is similar to dirty rice, with browned meat, charred veggies and seasonings. I think this one had poblano peppers and grilled pork sausage. Maque Choux is a cajun side dish that’s a mix of corn and peppers sautéed in bacon grease and this version was on a cornmeal crust.

The first time I had seen this on a menu- the restaurant listed every single supplier for their restaurant as well as all chefs and artists contributing to the interior.

After we left the restaurant, we headed to our hotel in Houston crossing the Texas state line.

and continuing until we could catch the Houston skyline at night.

It was almost midnight, so we got unpacked when we got to the room, but quickly fell asleep.

Thursday morning we started off right by heading to Dim Sum breakfast at Ocean Palace. Dim Sum is basically Chinese brunch. Its usually a group activity, social occasion with tea and lots of small plates.

I purposely booked our hotel in the Chinatown district of Houston… because almost all of the food, coffee and desserts I love are all asian. Bubble tea, Vietnamese ice coffee, dim sum dumplings, hot pot, Vietnamese Pho soup, Korean BBQ and kimchi, sushi, even Korean fried chicken is the best fried chicken. So… I wanted to make sure we were in walking distance of amazing food at all times 🙂

Our dim sum spread did not disappoint – with taro cakes, beef tripe, shu mai with truffle, Chinese broccoli, eggplant, egg rolls, bbq pork buns, shrimp and chive dumplings, hand pulled noodles with roast pork, custard buns and egg custard tarts.

Once we were nice and miserable from a late breakfast, it was time to head towards downtown Houston to Hermann Park. Parking was a bear… after driving around a few loops through some parking lots, we ended up just going and finding a pay garage at a hospital nearby and walking back.

Hermann Park is a 445 acre public green space and was given to the city of Houston by George Hermann in 1914. Today, it contains a golf course, the Houston Zoo, a miniature train, a reflecting pool, pond with paddle boats, a pioneer log cabin museum, fountains, gardens, sculptures and more…

As we walked in from the north we passed this monument to Sam Houston. The American General, senator, governor AND President of Texas when Texas was briefly its own independent country. He is famous for leading the Texans to victory over Mexico at the Battle of San Jacinto which was a key victory in their war for independence.

The Pioneer Obelisk was erected in 1936 to honor the Texas centinnial and as a dedication to the pioneers who settled in the area.

Norah had never done a paddleboat, so we took one out onto McGovern Lake and Paddled around for a bit. Well, Kegan and I paddled and she lounged on the backseat. ha Then midway she decided she wanted to paddle so we got to do a mid-lake driver exchange where Norah and Kegan tried to swap seats without tipping the boat over! ha We were successful luckily.

We were stopped by a panhandling father and young son selling homemade chocolate bars in the park….why not… Norah chose the Coconut Milk and Honey and surprisingly Kegan and Norah ate it… so I tried a piece too haha. It was pretty decent.

Our next stop was the Houston Zoo… a typical city zoo. A few favorite photos below.

This monkey had my heart because every time anyone got close to the fence, he did a big wind up to throw his poop at them and they’d scurry off. haha I like my peace and quiet too, buddy.

After the zoo, we took a train ride across the park and walked across the Centennial Gardens towards the Health and Science Museum.

It was a neat cross between a children’s museum and a science museum… very interactive stations and fun life-size exhibits like the colon you could climb through.

Kegan revisited his childhood and did the PE Class bar hang. He made it over a minute…but this was the last photo I captured at 49 seconds… can’t post it without giving him his full credit! ha

Norah got to touch pig lungs and a pig heart. The lungs were healthy lungs, then smoker’s lungs with a tumor. Cool display, but all I could think about is how did we give a pig lung cancer and smoker’s lungs? I probably don’t want to know…

Lastly was Norah’s highlight of the day, we got to go into the CellLab and run experiments. Norah selected extracting DNA from Wheat Germ… and Blood Typing.

I think we may have found something Norah really likes to do… follow instructions in a lab. ha She was VERY into doing everything exactly right… keeping samples separate and seeing the end result.

The funny thing about the blood samples… Patient 1 was O+ (Kegan’s blood type), Patient 2 was AB- (My blood type) and Patient 3 was A+ (Norah’s blood type)! We thought that coincidence was pretty cool.

After the lab, Norah got to see an iron lung! She had been wanting to see one for years. We found a medical museum in Iowa last year that had one on display but the lady at the front wouldn’t let us go see it because we weren’t visiting a patient and they still had covid restriction policies in place.

Our last stop of the night was at the Museum of Fine Arts. Thursdays the museums are open until 9pm…so I scheduled this full museum day to take advantage of that. We started in the Cullen sculpture gardens and by getting Norah some pizza in the cafe. We were still full from Dim Sum at 5pm and didn’t really want to consider dinner.

The museum was HUGE and consisted of at least 3 full multi-floor buildings.. but a few captures that were my favorites:

There was a special exhibit by an artist named Kehinde Wiley that had very vibrant gigantic murals. Kegan and I both found them very intriguing.

A punch dagger in the middle eastern exhibits

An elephant ceremonial headpiece from Cameroon

This painting that just really captured the eerie reds of a giant fire.

This Norwegian silver serving platter with real ivory walrus tusk and green gems.

and lastly… this weird painting, that has to be the weirdest thing I’ve seen I’ve seen in an art museum. It has such a Salvador Dali surrealism to it… but it was painted in the late 1400s or early 1500s!

The closer you look, the weirder it gets. It is supposed to be scene depicting Saint Christopher Carrying the Christ Child Through a Sinful World. But the “sin” came from a very weird mind. ha

Very rarely have I ever wanted to take a painting home from an art museum.. but this one I would have carried off and hung proudly above my fireplace haha

After the art museum we had an Escape room booked at Escape Hunt Houston. We booked the Emperor’s Jewels since we had never done a samurai or Japanese themed room. We escaped quickly, 30 minutes or so… overall it was a fairly simple room but fun!

On the way to the hotel, we hit Walmart to replace my headlight since it burned out and Kegan is awesome and can just replace things like that in 5 minutes lol. Then we ordered Jack In the Box since it was 10pm and Norah had never had it and had declared it a “must do” on the trip. haha She reported that it was very good and definitely worth it.

Category: United States (Page 1 of 7)

4 days around Denver, Colorado

Exploring Los Angeles after Christmas

Spring Break 2024 – Houston, TX Days 3-5

Spring Break in Houston, TX – Day 2

Spring Break 2024 in Houston,Texas – Day 1

Kegan, Erin & Norah

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