Entering the "no cancer zone"...Day 1 in Long Beach

We had a nice, uneventful (the best kind!) of flight from Boston to Cincinnati then on to Los Angeles.  Our luggage was almost the first on the carousel, we boarded the bus to National and picked out an almost new Ford Flex - an interesting choice with lots of room for our luggage.  And lots of room for passengers (which came in handy today when we were able to squeeze three of us in the middle seat and a wheelchair in the back storage area.   It's quite comfortable, lots of technology and gets really crappy gas mileage, which is a pretty big deal here in SoCal where regular unleaded is averaging close to $4.68 a gallon!!!

After hitting the sack at about 10 p.m., waking up at 4 a.m. (gotta love jet lag) then rolling out of bed for real at about 6:30, we had breakfast then took a nice walk to Downtown Disney.  It's about a mile away and we enjoyed the walk, especially since we knew we weren't going to be part of the crowds that were heading into Disneyland itself.  The hotel "proudly" serves Starbucks coffee, which I really dislike, so we found a nice coffee shop and enjoyed a cappaccino.  The good news is that the coffee situation will improve dramatically on Thursday when we can look forward to some really good Kona coffee!

We met up with Rick's family and headed to Mimi's Cafe for lunch.  It was great to see everyone and catch up on family news.  The brothers haven't been together in several years, so it was a great reunion. 

Ed, Rick and Bob

 





Bob, Jeannette and Rick

After spending a couple of hours visiting with Bob and Sheri, we drove to Newport beach for dinner.  We found a restaurant on Newport Pier, had a cocktail while enjoying a beautiful sunset and dinner. 

Those are oil rigs just to the left of the sun

 

The pet pelican greeted us as we walked into the restaurant