SPRING VACATION 2013: THE REST

As usual, my procrastination (and, in my defense, lack of wi-fi in certain areas on our vacation) leads me to summarize the rest of the trip today.

TUESDAY

Our travel down to Norco, CA, home of Bill and Mary Koster (Uncle and Aunt to me), was not as fraught as yesterday's journey. We started out with Mexican Breakfast at a small place in Morro Bay. If you've never had chips and salsa as part of your breakfast, I say that you're missing out. I had huevos con chorizo (or something something), which was delicious when placed in tortillas.

Thus Mexicanated, we set out for Norco. Our halfway stop today was Santa Barbara. We walked the pier and took in the general sights as much as we could. You really could spend a week in any of these cities... we, of course, crammed several into one week. C'est la vie.

We arrived in Norco and had a great time catching up with Uncle Bill and Aunt Mary. They took us to a place called the Wingspot for some awesome boneless wings - garlic parmesan was to die for. (The healthiness quotient occasionally got away from us this week, but again, it's vacation.)

WEDNESDAY

Onward to San Diego today, to take in the zoo and anything else that caught our fancy. The San Diego Zoo is awesome but tiring. We started with a guided bus tour to get the lay of the land, and then we walked the entire length of the zoo anyway. We got to see many animals up and around this time as compared to two years ago; the polar bears swimming around and playing for the audience was a real treat at the start of the day. While many other animals were napping, the big cats seemed restless for some reason - wonder why.

After a tiring but enjoyable day, we took in a little of Balboa Park before heading back to Norco, stopping along the way in Temecula, which has a great "old town" and also a burgeoning winery community. Since it was too late to visit the winery community, we took in "old town" and ended up at a biker bar/restaurant called Texas Lil's. Great burgers there. The waitresses were dressed up like... uh... loose cowgirls, shall we say? I only make these statements as observations, Dear Readers. I was focused on the burger.

Back home for more QT with Bill and Mary and then to bed.

THURSDAY

Today was "LA Day," as we headed into La La Land to catch a taping of "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson," which is one of my favorite television shows. The tickets were free, but we had to arrive at CBS Studios at least 30 minutes ahead of check-in time (3:00 p.m.). However, not being confident in the traffic being anything but hellacious, we chose to arrive even earlier, which was good because there was a student group of about 27 waiting for the taping. The studio only holds 160, so between those students and the rest of Craig's fans who were in attendance yesterday, I don't think we would have gotten in, which would have meant a wasted trip to LA.

We had a healthy lunch at some place called Freshii (no, really, it was healthy!) in the Farmer's Market, which is a combination of shops and restaurants. It's a bit of a tourist trap, but it gave us a good place to park, since the CBS Lot was not surprisingly full when we arrived.

We then stood in line for about an hour (Camille's patience was sorely tested; while she likes certain elements of the Craig Ferguson show, it's certainly not one of her faves, and she didn't have my undimmed enthusiasm to get her through the long wait). After that, they let us in to pass through the security check: no cellphones, cameras, etc. We left our technology in the car (and Camille's purse in the trunk) to make the process easier. We then got to sit on a bench (fortunately the predicted rain held off while we were there) while the 1iota people (coordinators of the tapings) gave us the run-down of how to act, that we were "show enhancement," etc.

We then went up four flights of stairs to the studio. We actually got prime seats, middle of the third row up, so we could see over the cameras and the whole studio, including the "stable" of Craig's pantomime horse Secretariat (Camille's favorite "character" on the show). While the current studio is larger than Craig's previous studio (butt of much of his jokes), it still appeared much smaller than it does on television. The wonderful tricks the cameras can play, don't you know.

The warm-up guy Chunky B was slightly annoying (especially to Camille), but energetic enough to get us primed for the show. He told some pretty corny and off-color jokes, if only to ready us to laugh at anything that happened on the show. That wasn't too difficult for me, as I think most of what goes on "The Late Late Show" is funny.

We had a double taping, since Craig tapes Friday's show on Thursday. It was interesting to see how they shot things slightly out of order; I'm curious to see how the final product comes out. The first guest was Zach Braff, formerly of Scrubs and now the voice of a flying monkey in Oz, the Great and Powerful, I kid you not. Zach was there to promote the film that premieres today, but the humor in his interview mostly came from the fact that he apparently shot a television pilot with Craig back in 1989. Much laughs were had at the corniness of Craig's televised amazement of Zach's character using a 1989-era Game Boy.

Alison Brie from Community was supposed to be the next guest, but she was apparently ill, so Gillian Jacobs from Community took her place. Gillian was absolutely adorable and was game to play along with Craig's usual "improvisational style" interview. She even tried to play the rusty trombone! (Don't ask.)

It was surreal to be there live and in person, to watch Craig have quick conversations with Michael the producer, etc. I had never been to a television taping before, so I'm glad that this was my first (if only).

The second taping's guests were Chi McBride (you'd recognize him from a lot of stuff; he's currently starring in CBS's new show Golden Boy). He was very funny and also played along well with Craig. Also present on the second taping was Laurie Holden, "Andrea" from The Walking Dead. Considering she's usually dressed down on the zombie apocalypse show, she cleaned up real well, as they say, for the taping, dressed in a very attractive red dress that definitely caught Craig's eye, if you catch my meaning.

The taping wrapped up and we headed back to the car. The only negative was that the CBS pages wouldn't let us use the restrooms after the taping wrapped, so after 3 1/2 hours, our bladders were sorely tested. We also tried to get out of LA at rush hour, which is a delight. Fortunately, we were able to find some facilities in Azusa, and all was well.

FRIDAY

And so we reach the end of our fabulous trip to California for 2013. We crammed many sights and sounds in during this week, and we definitely look forward to returning when we get a chance. I hope that you've tolerated my written ramblings about our journey as well. Until next time...