OT: Suggestions needed on Palo Alto and Pomona

[Paesano]

On the red eye back home. Thanks to everyone who proposed ideas.

It was an expensive trip but nice to see the eldest son again. He has another 5 weeks out here but he is making the most of it. I would have jumped on this opportunity when I was 19 too. But this experience has revealed something I didn't know about myself. I became quite attached to my kids. Still trying to figure out why and how to cope with it.

 

[jleves]

On the red eye back home. Thanks to everyone who proposed ideas.

It was an expensive trip but nice to see the eldest son again. He has another 5 weeks out here but he is making the most of it. I would have jumped on this opportunity when I was 19 too. But this experience has revealed something I didn't know about myself. I became quite attached to my kids. Still trying to figure out why and how to cope with it.

So where did you go - what did you do? What was great? What was meh? We want details - or at least I do.

 

[Paesano]

So where did you go - what did you do? What was great? What was meh? We want details - or at least I do.

Well, as you might imagine, the heat at the end of the week did limit us a little. I get dehydrated easily and I did get dehydrated. Early in the week we got in some good beach time. We did Santa Monica Pier and Venice Beach. My kids are still little children at heart so they built sand castles. The temperature was perfect at that time and the beaches weren't overrun. And the boardwalk at Venice was an "experience". We also walked around and ate in Beverly Hills while the weather was nice. We visited the Ferrari dealership, which had a La Ferrari in the showroom.

We took the train up to Palo Alto to do the Stanford information session and tour. It actually was informative. They were more honest and detailed than east coast schools we visited. We also found a nice Jewish Bagel place called Izzy's. Then we took the train back to LA. The ride was nice and it was nice to not drive but I might opt to drive if we did it again.

We did take in a Dodger game but didn't go to Tommy's after. They had fireworks after the game and then it was pretty late.

Pomona College was nice but HOT. We got a chance to speak with their athletic director, which was also informative. We ate at Walter's per one suggestion. Claremont and Palo Alto are both nice places to spend 4ish years.

To avoid the heat we spent some time at the California Science Center. Seeing an SR71 and Space Shuttle up close was pretty cool. We also spent some time shopping at Fry's and working on my son's car. He bought a fixer upper 300ZX to drive to the beach while out there.

We hit some Mexican restaurants and walked around downtown a little too.