Kramer Sighting! Yosemite Edition

So we get back to our van which we had parked by the Cemetery in Yosemite, and what should we see? Could it be?

KRAMER SIGHTING!

Yeah, they had said they had moved, but maybe this was them.

Believability Rating: 60%. It was white and giant, and probably responsible for about one third of the Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere. It did have Arizona plates, but that is pretty close to Florida, right? It was parked right next to us, and we had seen this van in Yosemite before. We were going to take a picture of the interior, because it looked like it was well used, BUT THERE WAS SOMEBODY ASLEEP INSIDE!!! So we did not take pictures of the inside. Besides, the person looked Filipino, and so far as we know, none of the Kramers are Filipino.

Not even remotely. Except possible one of the middle children.

Tune in again next time for another edition of KRAMER SIGHTING!

Legoland!

Previously, on '24'...

Er... actually, last time we were in San Diego. Now we come to the real reason why we went to San Diego, and that is Legoland! Yes, an entire theme park devoted to those little bricks, and it was a blast! It is a bit pricey at about 65 dollars for adults, and 55 dollars for kids, but here is where homechooling truly pays off. You can go for 21 dollars a person if you home school (17 when we went), and for 25 a person if you want to go to their new Aquarium. The Aquarium was not open yet when we went, but so what? It was really fun. There was almost as many Legos here at Legoland than in some people's house that I have been in.

The entrance to Legoland.

We were there before the park even opened. Lovely San Diego weather. It even sprinkled a bit while we were there.

Here we get the tickets. No, there was not a Golden one in the lot.

The signs for the restrooms were pretty funny.

Hey, a life-sized R2-D2!

This picture came out a bit distorted, Nicholas really liked the Darth Vader. Yup, all made out of Legos.

They had a little Jungle cruise with quite a few animals made out of, you guessed it, Legos.

Nicholas was eaten by a Lion.

Nicholas tried the Volvo Driving Track, and he got a License as well.

Ah, now we come to one of the more memorable moments at Legoland. This was a Song and Dance troupe that taught kids about Fire Safety.

They were pretty athletic, because the entire Fire Truck spun around, and they would climb on the ladder and dangle off of it.

Why were they memorable? The Chorus to one of the songs they sang was, "Keep the Wet Stuff on the Hot Stuff." Good advice any time.

THE highlight of Legoland. Millions of bricks are used to recreate famous American and world landmarks. Here is the New Orleans section of Miniland.

Mardi Gras in brick! Actually, New Orleans is not very accurate as no corrupt politicians could be found. We will have to look more extensively through our pictures for the Lego St. Louis Cathedral. When it was being built, we happened to see some pictures of the Lego Cathedral, and apparently they were using old pictures of it. Quite a few of the Lego recreations have the interiors recreated as well, and the Lego people happened to recreate the Interior of St. Louis Cathedral as well as it would have looked like before 1970, meaning that they made a High Altar and everything was Ad Orientem. It cannot be seen as the Cathedral is roofed, but I truly appreciate the effort put into it.

A Lego Mission. Mini Figures of Fathers Milich and Fitz-Henry would be really cool!

The Hollywood Bowl. There are more than 15.000 Mini Figures in Miniland.

Lego San Francisco. Here is the entrance to Chinatown. Chinatown has the smallest figure in the park, a duck hanging in a window made of four bricks. We couldn't find it.

The famous row of houses on Alamo Square.

The Golden Gate Bridge.

One would think that this would be a boring part, just looking at Lego Bricks, but it really was pretty neat.

The Embarcadero in San Francisco. No U2 in sight.

The Capitol of the United States. Again, very inaccurate as no corrupt politicians were in sight.

Georgetown is recreated here along with the B&O Canal.

The United States Marine Corps Memorial.

Another view of the memorial.

The Washington Monument.

The Lincoln Memorial.

The Smithsonian.

This was on the Water cruise that they have, Mount Rushmore. No Jimmy Stewart in sight, or Marin Landau at the bottom.

Lego New York City. Also inaccurate, as you could not smell any urine-soaked air.

The Taj Mahal.

The Sydney Opera House.

Lego Florida, which was basically Daytona Beach and the famous Speedway there.

Ah, yes, look at all those Mini Figures! Almost as many as what comes with the Death Star.

We were there the entire day, from opening to closing. Here they are posing with the souvenirs that came from one of the approximately 600 gift shops. They had Lego sets there that are not sold in stores, so that was pretty cool. The food was nice too, and not too outrageous for being a theme park. We had Pizza at the Ristorante Brickolini!

All in all, a very nice time.

What?

There is one section of Miniland missing?

Tune in tomorrow for a shocking expose!

Dawn Over Big Sur: 2 September 2009

Here are some images of Big Sur on the California Coast at Dawn.

Dawn breaking out, with the Star Sirius in the middle of the clouds.

Bixby Bridge, looking towards the West.