A pleasant surprise

As we were driving down the road, almost to cube tree, we passed a little bakery with signs hanging up claiming the bakery to be a winner of Food Channels tv show "Cupcake Wars." As we passed by, Bonnie asked if we should stop, and honestly, I said no. Sorry Molly! I just knew that we had a lot of stops to make, and it was going to be a long day, and for some reason, cube tree was just one of the stops I was really looking forward to. I know. . . weird. Bonnie was persistent however and I agreed that since we were coming back this way to get back on the freeway, we could stop after cube tree. So we did.

(Unplanned but surprise) must see # 6: Hotcakes Bakery-- Culver City, CA

We parked and went into the bakery, which honestly was a little disappointing. They had one of the "winning" cupcakes labeled to try, but was a flavor that did not interest me in the least. But that was it! No pictures or signs or any form of memorabilia from being on, and winning a tv show contest! Seems so silly to me. The bonus though as you can all guess. . . a yummy, or more like 6, yummy snacks for the road!

Kodak fun continues. . .

Someone cut a tree on their front lawn in the shape of a cube. It's pretty cool.

That's the only information we needed to add this destination to our list of stops! And for a bonus? Only 10 minutes from the donut shop!

Must See # 5: Cube Tree-- Culver City, CA

. . . And they were right, it was pretty cool!

Yum!

Recognize this?

Must see #4: Big Donut-- Inglewood, CA

Though on the list of California odditites, there seemed to be several titled "Big Donut," we knew that Randy's was the one not to miss! Afterall. . .

Randy's is a destination with Hollywood star status. It appears over and over as a movie backdrop or in obliquely angled atmospheric LA montages.

Yup, who would've guessed that this trip would lead us to seeing probably one of the most famous donuts ever seen on tv?! Obviously we couldn't get the donut's autograph, but the owners (who happened to be working at the time) kindly signed a postcard for Cayden.

And since this stop was so cleverly planned only 120 miles into the trip, we were able to hit it somewhere around 10:30 in the morning. Perfect time for breakfast!

Little biddy part 2

I thought I had done such a good job of mapping everything out, but we happened to completely miss the exit for biddy biddy church, then as we neared the next mystery spot, we discovered that this exit was closed. We didn't really have maps of the cities we were hitting, we were going almost completely off written directions. Bonnie started getting a bit crabby when we realized that for the second time in a row, we were going to have to pull over to find directions. I tried to keep everyone chipper, but of course the same thought was going through my head. . . are we going to get lost and search for directions for all our stops?

Well, after making a few circles, we ended up at our next location. . .

Must see # 3- America's skinniest house-- Long Beach, CA

If I do recall, Bonnie's mood was completely lifted after finding skinny house! It was so worth all those turn arounds! We felt a little silly hopping out of the car to take pictures, especially with the neighbor outside. But he was so nice, and told us that people are always stopping for pictures. He even gave us permission to move the garbage cans for a better kodak picture!

Now on to something a little bit bigger. . .

Little biddy

When our trip first started getting planned, I told Bonnie of some of the stops we would be making, the kids however, were kept in the dark on everything.

The night before departure though, I did come across a few more must see places, which ended up making some of our destinations a surprise for everyone afterall.

So 70 miles into our trip (plus a few extra for turnaround purposes when we got lost), we pulled into a small random shopping center to find our next exciting picture op.

Must see # 2: Tiny Church in Parking Lot -- Tustin, Ca

It claims to be a 6 person church. We didn't get the opportunity to see inside of it, so I am not really sure if there are just 6 seats in it or what, but it seems rather silly to have a whole church for that few amount of people. However, it definitely served a purpose for our random trip, so we shot a few pictures, and moved on!

Crazy California. . . the beginning of our adventure!

A few weeks ago, Bonnie (my anti road trip sister) made some big announcement over facebook about a random roadtrip she was taking with her kids. weird. In search of Bigfoot. Ok. . . but where was my invite? She said she was taking a friend of hers, with his kids too, but I was welcome to come along. Me, in the back seat with four kids? No way! So I convinced her that I would make a much better travel buddy than he ever could and I was in! Bonnie had plans for a six day trip which would take us up the coast of California, to end up in a dinky little town to go white water rafting and to find bigfoot. That sounded like a decent start, but I was sure we could do much better than that.

So the planning began!

Soon enough. . . our "Bigfoot or Bust" road trip, turned into our "Crazy Caravan through California (with a stop to find Bigfoot)" trip instead. It was going to be awesome!

I undertook the planning for this adventure, which made me the navigator. With no other options, that left Bonnie to be our driver, and the kids in the back, to be just that, the kids in the back!

The goal of the trip was to see the most odd, the most interesting, the most weird, and a few important sites of the good ole state of California. So I scoured the internet for just that! I picked our stops, I created a travel plan, and on Thursday morning, we loaded into the car and were off!

And who would've guessed that our very first stop would land us smack in the middle of where we started?

Must see # 1: Grape Slide - - Escondido, CA

A grape-themed park, with a Fruit-of-the-loom zoom! Who knows what inspired the artist to associate fruit with children's amusement, but the result is a bunch of grapes with a slide and "twigs" for climbing.

We came, we saw, we kodaked it, and were off! Now the adventure begins. . . for real!

Doogle's new toy

A girl in my class gave me a scarf as a goodbye present.

It was put in my backpack, and somehow Doogle sniffed it out.

I don't really wear scarves, so I let him have it.

I don't think he likes scarves anymore either. . .