Our staycation in Los Angeles
Submitted by wendy on July 11, 2008 - 1:00pm.
UrbanDictionary.com says that a staycation is "a vacation that is spent at one's home enjoying all that home and one's home environs have to offer."
That's what we did this last 4th of July weekend.
It's been about three year since we've managed a family camping trip, let alone one in our backyard. And now that our daughter is almost 2 1/2 we've been itching to bust out the ol' three room tent and propane stove. We love, love, love beach camping, but remembering what it was like camping with a 2 year old--something we haven't done for about six years--we came up with the idea to have a practice run before going public.
That, and the price of gas.
The practice run in the backyard and the corresponding staycation turned into a sweet little family adventure.
We pulled out all the stops. My husband snapped together the tent early in the morning while our kids watched anxiously waiting to jump inside and make themselves at home. Barbecue, games, fire pit, smores--who needs the great outdoors when you have the great (but small) backyard?
And the local fun didn't end there. Or rather, the fun didn't actually START there. Before the camp out on Saturday, we'd hopped in the car to the Seaside Lagoon in Redondo Beach. It's a seawater-filled, family-friendly lagoon that's gated and has decent lifeguard presence--and especially for the little ones--no waves! And it's only $5 for adults over 17, $4 ages 2-17 and under 2 yoa are free for an all day entry. And the Redondo Arcade was a blast. The indoor Tilt-A-Whirl seems harmless at first and they have the most interesting and questionable array of prizes for your kids to spend the strings of tickets they've collected during a few turns around the nice size game room.
On Sunday after camping in the backyard, it was a balmy 76 degrees in West Los Angeles and a steamy 98 degrees in the San Fernando Valley, but that didn't stop us from heading over to Griffith Park for a day of fun. I know, I know--Griffith Park? Yup. It's a great place to explore.
We started with Los Angeles Live Steamers (Walt Disney was a member), where we rode a miniature scale train, then it was right around the corner to Travel Town to check out the REAL trains--Travel Town is a great (free) train museum with lots of old skool locomotives for the kids to climb on.
It was still early in the afternoon, time enough for pony rides! Griffith Park pony rides are a cheap ($3) way to kick up some dust, swat the flies and give the kids a stinky taste of the old west, LA style.
Then it was a off to the Glendale Galleria--Daddy demanded a stop at Games Workshop to buy a Warhammer 40k miniature set--then we were back on the 101 > 5 > 110 > 10... and viola! We're back in time to light the barbecue once more.
Other than the Warhammer miniature set, it was a relatively cheap weekend. And we had a blast!
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