California trip-thursday

We took of early to make sure we could get to newport beach on time and didn't have to stress. We got there early enough so we could treat ourselves to a nice breakfast. We found a place with pancakes for d since he didn't get his pancakes the previous weekend. I choose the healthy option for my breakfast and replaced toast with a bran banana muffin. The muffin was the size enormous and i am still not clear what was healthy about that choice...maybe the added fiber from the banana and the bran!
We got to the boat and picked some nice seats upstairs.

As we sailed off we could see the nice houses on the harbor front..would not mind one of these as a summer cabin! We saw some pelicans diving to get some fishes and started looking for some dolphins. We saw a herd of dolphins and they put a show for us. They jumped out of the waters and we saw a lot of baby dolphins as well. One of the help on the boat spotted a blue whale so we headed over there. In between we saw 1000 of dolphins and lots of birds as well. It was amazing. We got closer to the whale and we could really see the spit of water and his back as he was coming in and out of the water. Then our spotter saw another one and we went to observe that one. We saw his back very well and then he went for a deep dive and it was time for us to get back to the harbor. We just passed a sun fish...truly amazing creature. It's the biggest fish and he has only one bone. We could not believe our luck on this trip. We decided that we needed to send a note to Stephen Fry and Mark Cowardine. You don't need to go to Baja california and hire a plane to see a blue whale. Just take a boat trip from newport beach ;-)

Of to the desert but first we thought we had to drive top down along highway 1...coastal cruising in california!! We went up to long beach and we spotted 1 or 2 platform and also the fake island off long beach which are actually oil platform...sincerely they are way more attractive than the platform. We parked and went for a quick stroll along the marina and found a place for a nice cup of coffee and a quick lunch fix before heading to palm springs. Off we went to the highway and battled through LA traffic...thank god for the HOV lane which helped us escape most of the traffic. Yes,in the US you qualify as a high occupancy vehicle if you are 2 in the car! We made a spot along the way to an outlet mall to stretch our legs a bit and buy a couple of jeans for dougal. We got some very good deals!

We then headed to the palm spring areal tramway. It's a rotating cabin which goes up 6000 ft to the san Jacinto mountains. Amazing views from the top and we got the best place at the restaurant up there where we had some nice salads to finish the day. We got to our hotel just fine and it was a great place where we got a little cabin for ourselves and it had 3 pools open 24/7. We were too tired to enjoy them just now but what a fabulous first day!