This weekend we drove down to Del Mar for the 2010 Surf Dog Surf-A-Thon, the biggest dog surfing contest in the world, and perhaps the most adorable thing we’ve ever seen EVER.  Need we say more?  Enjoy the pictures.

We’re not sure when or even why this happened, but recently food trucks have become really popular.

Yep, food trucks, roach coaches, mobile food poison dispensaries; those dirty looking trucks that hang outside construction sites and car washes selling mystery meats that even dogs would be afraid to eat.

Or at least that’s how most of us used to view food trucks.  But times have changed.

Food trucks aren’t as plain as a Denny’s on wheels anymore.  They sell more than just defrosted burgers and overcooked scrambled eggs.

Food trucks have themes.  They sell gourmet versions of a particular genre of food using high quality ingredients.

But you have to be in the loop to find them.  Usually the only way to find out where these food trucks are located is through word of mouth or to follow them on Twitter.

And even then, if you arrive late, you might stand in line for an hour… and the food will still sell out.

That’s why we were really excited to attend the first ever Orange County Foodie Fest this past weekend.

The event pulled together 49 of the top food trucks from Southern California and put ‘em all in one lot so 8,500 people could try some great food that’s normally hard to find.  There was supposed to be 50 trucks, but the dim sum truck didn’t show.

We spent five hours jumping from truck to truck, spending about 20 minutes in line at each one, but it was totally worth the achy feet and scorching sunburn.  Here’s what we sampled:

Nom Nom Truck

This was by far the most popular truck at OC Foodie Fest.  We hit this food truck first and we’re lucky we did because the wait was ridiculously long by mid-afternoon… and we can see why.  They serve amazing bánh mì, which is a Vietnamese sandwich served on a French baguette and stuffed with cilantro, pickled carrots, peppers, mayo and choice of meat, the best being pork.

Piaggio On Wheels

Ever since the Buenos Aires trip we’ve been craving Argentine food.  So we were stoked to find out about Piaggio On Wheels.  The skirt steak taco with chimichurri sauce and the pulled pork slider were nice, but it just wasn’t the same.

White Rabbit Truck

Southern California has a big Asian population and a big Mexican population, so it makes sense that a lot of food trucks like White Rabbit fuse the two together to make Asian tacos and burritos.  The craze started with the Kogi truck, which serves Korean BBQ tacos, and now White Rabbit is gaining popularity for their Filipino tacos.  They were just okay.  The pork sisig, which is fried pork, was too salty and chewy, and the chicken adobo was a little dry.  But this was probably just a bad sample.  They were more concerned with their Man Versus Food-style eating challenge where contestants had to eat a 6-pound burrito in 30 minutes.  Just look how big they were:

Chunk-N-Chip Cookies

It was getting pretty hot, and since there was no shaded area, the only way to cool down was with an ice cream sandwich.  Here’s why that tactic didn’t necessarily work: Chunk-N-Chip makes ice cream sandwiches using fresh baked, hot-out-of-the-oven cookies, then smashes a scoop of ice cream in the middle.  The problem is that the warm cookies melt the ice cream, making for a messy yet delicious affair.  I went with the brownie cookie with mint chocolate chip ice cream, and Jackie had the chocolate chip cookie with rocky road ice cream.  Yes, they were as dense as they sound.  They took second place in the “Best of the Fest” competition.

Ta Bom

Dessert wasn’t going to stop us from having more food, so we went to the Brazilian food truck and got a sirloin steak taco and a chicken taco.  They were both pretty good but the service was unbelievably slow.  And I’m still afraid of what the side effects are from drinking that Guarana drink that tasted like Red Bull.

Seabirds

We needed a break from all that dense food, so we went for something that usually scares us: vegetarian food.  The beer battered avocado taco with tequila-jalapeno sauce was refreshing, but the real hit was the jerk jackfruit taco, which had jerk seasoned jackfruit topped with green salsa.  It kind of freaked me out at first because the taste and texture was oddly similar to skirt steak, but once I got my head around the fact that I was eating a fruit and not meat, I felt proud for taking the healthy alternative.  Plus it helped me ignore my mental calorie counter, which was reaching a frightening number.

Longboards Ice Cream

It was getting inexplicably hotter as the sun was setting and we knew we had to finish the day with dessert, so we stopped at Longboards for a coconut ice cream bar dipped in Ghirardelli dark chocolate and rolled in coconut shavings.  It really didn’t have the refreshing effect I was expecting, but it was pretty damn good.

The trucks were separated into sections with funny names based on cities in Orange County, like Eaterheim for Anaheim, Foodport Beach for Newport Beach, and our favorite, based on Huntington Beach…

We didn’t get to try other places like the sushi food truck called Fishlips…

…or the French fry truck that served sweet potato fries with Nutella and peanut butter, or the double-decker bus serving World Fare…

…or the pizza by the slice truck, or the crepes truck…

…or even the meatball truck called Great Balls On Tires…

But overall, the OC Foodie Fest rocked.  Yeah, it was a pretty expensive day — tickets were $12 a person, parking $15, and each truck cost between $6 – $10 — but we look at it this way: we’d wind up paying way more in gas to drive to these food trucks in parts unknown in L.A.  So we’ll pay gladly a premium to have ‘em all in one place.

Next time, though, I won’t wear a belt.  There’s really no point.  Unless you want to see if you can actually snap a belt by ballooning in size.

Lovers travel to romantic hotspots.  Curious people travel to UFO hotspots.  And suicidal people travel to, well, suicide hotspots.

The most famous suicide hotspot in the world is the Golden Gate Bridge.

Between 1,300 and 2,000 people have plunged 200 feet to their death from this San Francisco landmark since it opened in 1937.  And the city has finally had enough.

San Francisco’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission just approved a new plan to install a suicide barrier that would hang 20 feet below the bridge.

Anyone who jumps would get caught in the steel net and then have to be fished out by a cherry picker truck.  (Hopefully they can’t crawl out of the net to finish the job.)

The anti-suicide net won’t be installed for another three years, which means the bridge will likely claim at least 72 more lives (an average of two people jump per month).

In October of last year, Jackie’s dad told us about a letter he received that a movie called “Oliver’s Arrow” would be filming near his home in Palos Verdes, California.

First thing we thought was, “that’s a terrible title for a movie… it must be fake.”

In addition, we live near Hollywood and we’re friends with plenty of people in the industry, so we know that movies are often shot under fake titles to prevent stalkers and crazed fans from invading the set.

So we did quick search on the Internet Movie Database and found that “Oliver’s Arrow” was actually the fake title for Christopher Nolan’s next movie, Inception.

By now you’ve seen the trailer at least twenty times, and judging by the trailer, you have no clue what the movie is about.  That’s exactly why the movie was shot under a fake title.

Nolan, the director of The Dark Knight, worked on the script for over a decade, and the content of the movie is allegedly so mind-bending that Warner Brothers wanted to keep its $200 million investment tightly under wraps.

But for a movie shrouded in such secrecy, it wasn’t that difficult to walk on set.

We kind of expected the shooting location, a beach front park on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, to be surrounded by armed guards and killer dogs and landmines because of the high profile cast involved… but there wasn’t even yellow tape.

We parked in a nearby parking lot and watched crews set up lights all around a cove, some as far as half a mile away, to illuminate two set pieces: a three-story tall wooden facade of a Japanese castle on the beach, and a Japanese balcony perched cliffside.

Since the sets were facing the ocean, we couldn’t see what they looked like, but I found this picture of the beachside column later…

So as darkness fell, we inched closer and closer to the set, until we were literally standing ten feet from Mr. Nolan.

We still couldn’t see the construction in its entirety, but it appeared to be a blend of future and past, reality and dream, a stylized Japanese balcony that played host to a party with actresses in classy yet unusual dresses and hats that looked like they could have been flight attendants from Blade Runner.

After a few minutes of guessing what we were looking at, a production coordinator came over and told us it was a closed set.

We struck up a conversation in an attempt to convince her to keep us around, and I soon found out that we both went to the same film school.  But that still didn’t stop her from politely kicking us out.

Nonetheless, it was a cool experience to be on the set of Inception, and it made us even more curious to see the movie when it comes out this Friday.

On a whim we decided to drive up to San Francisco for the weekend to watch some bizarre movies at a horror, sci-fi and fantasy film festival called Another Hole In The Head.  Here’s what went down…

Day 1

The plan was to hit the road by 7 a.m., but after watching a Slap Chop infomercial for the third time in the middle of the night, it was clear we weren’t going to get any sleep.  So we packed up, added some road trip songs to the iPod, and left around 4:30 in the morning.

Once past the Grapevine, a steep strip of highway that winds through the mountains and dumps you in flat farmland, there’s nothing interesting to see for about five hours.  Unless you think cows are interesting.  I find them more interesting between buns.

There aren’t many billboards along the way, but the one I find strangely fascinating is for a place called Andersen’s.  Apparently their claim to fame is pea soup.  I don’t know of anyone who craves pea soup, so I find it odd that they advertise their pea soup over 200 MILES AWAY.  Who, for the next four hours of driving, will seriously be salivating over the prospect of eating a food that resembles vomit?  I could MAYBE understand if it was proven to be the best pea soup in the entire world.  But it turns out it’s just a tourist trap and the food is terrible.  Yet somehow Andersen’s has been successfully fooling people for 86 years.

When we finally arrived in San Francisco, it quickly became apparent that we should have checked the weather report.  You think California, you think summer, you think warm.  NOT the case.  It was cold and cloudy and all we packed for footwear was flip flops.

We stayed at Broadway Manor Inn.  The name is deceptively classy.  And the Ferrari parked in the garage would suggest it was a 4-star hotel.  In reality, it was a typical 2-star Travelodge-type place without the prostitutes doing crack in the stairwell.  But it was cheap and it was one of the few hotels still vacant last weekend.  We didn’t mind the paper thin walls and outdated decoration, we just wanted to sleep after being awake for over 24 hours.

After a long nap, we hailed a taxi driven by a certified hippie: long gray hair, long beard, and a slow, surfer voice that sounded exactly like the sea turtle in Finding Nemo.  After we told him where to go, he replied, “Alright, man, let’s check it ouuuut.”  At every stop light, he would jot incomprehensible thoughts into his notepad with a writing system that resembled hieroglyphs.

We ate dinner at a gastropub called The Monk’s Kettle, a tiny, crammed eatery conveniently located right next to the movie theater where we would soon spend six hours.  The food was expensive (as expected), but the place had amazing reviews and even appeared on Food TV.  We shared a fresh baked pretzel with two dipping sauces (the cheese sauce was awesome) for an appetizer and had the mac ‘n cheese with bacon for our meal.

Then it was off to the film festival.  If you’re not the type of person who appreciates weird, off beat movies with titles like Ticked Off Trannies With Knives or Dr. S Battles The Sex Crazed Reefer Zombies, you wouldn’t want to endure the nerd fest that is Another Hole In The Head.  Here’s what we saw on Friday:

Symbol — a Japanese film about a man who wakes up in a mysterious white room.  The walls are covered in buttons (I kid you not, the buttons are angel penises) and each time he presses one, an object drops into the room that may or may not help him escape.  Meanwhile, there’s an alternate storyline about a Mexican wrestler preparing for an important match.  Eventually these two storylines converge in a bizarre but poetic way.  The last 15 minutes have been described as “mind-blowing”.  I wouldn’t go that far, but I will say that the slow build up is worth it for an end sequence that is fascinating and worthy of a “what does it all mean” discussion.

Robogeisha — over-the-top, silly B-movie about two geisha sisters turned into robots by a malevolent corporation.  A movie with machine gun breasts and ass-swords and a geisha turning into a tank sounds like it should be awesome, but the filmmakers ditched the hokey fight scenes and dragged out a boring storyline that was supposed to mock Japanese melodrama, but became one instead.  The trailer is entertaining (NSFW)… the movie is not.

Tucker & Dale VS Evil — by far the most fun film we’ve seen in a long time, this comedy-horror can basically be described as one big misunderstanding.  A group of college kids suspect two hillbillies of killing their friend and spend the rest of the movie trying to kill them.  But the hillbillies actually saved their friend and are completely oblivious to what’s going on.  Really funny movie that MIGHT come out in theaters.

Day 2

Started off the day with lunch at an Asian fusion restaurant with really good reviews called So.  People raved about the wings and after quickly ingesting half a dozen like a vacuum, I can totally see why: juicy, flavorful, spicy, and lots of garlic.  As always with wings, it was a messy affair.

We dropped the car off back at the hotel to keep one of the few parking spots available and decided to walk two miles to Coit Tower.  That walk alone was enough to motivate me to start P90X again.

Along the way, I couldn’t help but wonder why someone decided to build a city on land covered in steep hills.  Seems like an inconvenience from the get go.

However, the long climb to the top of Telegraph Hill was worth it for a stunning panorama of the bay.  Coit Tower, a 210-foot tall monument dedicated to the firefighters of San Francisco, sits at the top of the hill and is one of the most recognizable symbols of the city — you can see this phallic symbol from practically anywhere in the city.

The line to see the 26 murals inside Coit Tower and the elevator ride to the top was too long, so we instead walked down to Washington Square, a popular park where homeless people mingle with picnickers and nobody seems to mind.  If you’ve seen Dirty Harry, you’ve seen this park.

It wouldn’t be a normal day in my life without an embarrassing moment.  We were sitting on a bench, watching people walk their dogs, when a lady walked by with an adorable dog that looked just like a fox, except without the creepy eyes.  I said, a little too loudly, “Look at that fox!”  I didn’t realize until after I said it that that comment could be construed as me talking about the girl instead of the dog.  But, seriously, when was the last time a guy called a girl a fox and didn’t do it in an Austin Powers voice?

From there we took a cab to a Mayan-Mexican restaurant called Poc Chuc.  This place had one of the best tacos I’ve ever had in my life.  But this was no ordinary taco.  It was a turkey taco.  The turkey was everything you don’t expect from turkey: tender, juicy, citrusy, and totally addicting.

Keeping with the theme of weird and unexpected on this trip, we stopped for dessert at an Indian ice cream shop.  Sure, they serve normal flavors at Bombay Ice Cream, but I was way more interested in the unusual stuff, like saffron pistachio and cardamom rose.  Both flavors were rich and bold, but not refreshing like you would want ice cream to be.

We walked just around the corner to the Roxie Theater for the last film of the trip: A Serbian Film.

It’s already the most controversial movie of the year, and likely will become one of the most controversial of all time.  Some have even called it a dangerous film because a guy at Cannes fainted at a press screening and broke his nose.  On every filmic level, A Serbian Film is a good film, but it’s a film you CAN’T like and will probably never watch a second time because it’s not enjoyable.  It’s really, really, really dark, graphic and disturbing.

A Serbian Film is about a former porn star struggling to raise a family who is pulled out of retirement by a mysterious producer who promises to pay the man a large sum of money to star in his latest movie.  The catch is, he can’t know any of the details about the movie and he can’t back out.  That should be the cue to run away fast, but the guy needs the money, so he takes the job.  It would be an understatement to say that winds up being a bad idea.

After the movie, we decided to clear our minds with one last meal.  The taste of Indian food still lingered in my mouth from the ice cream, so we went to a place nearby called Asalam’s Rasoi.  The food was good but unreasonably expensive (apparently it’s not easy to find a cheap meal in San Fran).  We came to the conclusion that Indian food isn’t photogenic — it actually looks like colorful animal gruel — so just take our word that Indian curry is delicious if you’ve never had it.

It was a quick one and a half day excursion, but I think we got a lot done and I learned a lot of lessons along the way: climbing a hill in San Francisco is just as rewarding and just as exhausting as climbing Mount Everest, alcohol makes bad movies good (the drunks in the crowd loved Robogeisha), and you will ALWAYS look like a pervert if you say “Look at that fox!” out loud.

We talked all about the Orange County Great Park in Irvine, California previously in a guest post, but since there’s not much to see other than some artistic renditions of what the park will look like in a decade or two, we wanted to take you for a ride on the park’s only attraction: The Great Park Balloon.

You know how movies and TV shows are always made into theme park rides?

Well, the Orange County Great Park Balloon is kinda like The O.C. The Ride: it’s dramatic and mildly enjoyable, with an underwhelming middle and a satisfying conclusion.  Unlike the TV show, however, it’s not a total waste of time (even though that’s one of the top 3 things Orange County is known for, right above conservatism and just below plastic surgery).

It’s no Disneyland, but a ride on the Great Park Balloon is free, and the wait is short.

The first thing you do is pick up boarding passes.  Of course, you have to sign your life away just in case the balloon detaches from its tether and flies away — one of the pilots assured me that if that did happen, the balloon would drift about 10 miles before crashing safely into the ocean (where we could be eaten by sharks?) — or the balloon pops and we plummet to our splattery deaths.

Luckily, we’re in a first world country, and that means the balloon is completely safe.

After you redeem your passes, up to 30 people board the ring-shaped steel carriage.  The balloon wobbles as you disembark — this is the moment where you’ll question your decision-making — but the carriage quickly evens out, giving way to a smooth ascent.

Before you know it, you’re 400 feet above the ground, walking around the carriage to get a panoramic view of the decommissioned El Toro Marine Base and the surrounding area.

Admittedly, the view isn’t that spectacular: old runways, some hills, a few buildings, master-planned communities, two congested freeways, a shopping mall, and a thick layer of smog that limits long-distance vision (allegedly you can see up to 20 miles on a clear day, but that’s something nonexistent in Southern California).

If you’re lucky, however, you’ll have a flock of loud kids aboard your flight who love to give adults mild heart attacks by running around the carriage and shaking it back and forth.

Or maybe you’ll get a good gust of wind that rumbles through the carriage and knocks it around.

Or you might even be aboard when everyone decides to congregate in one section, causing the carriage to tilt uncomfortably.

Those are always options to give your flight a little more drama.

Fortunately, most people value safety, so rides are typically gentle and relaxing, with a calming sway and a light breeze that tickles your face as you hang in midair.

After a few minutes to imagine what the park will look like once it’s completed, the balloon descends so slowly that you don’t even realize you’re about to touchdown until he pilot tells you to clutch the handrails and prepare for landing.

Adventure-seekers will probably find the balloon ride as exciting as watching a children’s soccer game (the #4 thing The OC is known for is soccer moms), but for everyone else, it’s a quick, fun and free thing to do in Orange County… unless you have a fear of heights.

Every Father’s Day, Rodeo Drive, the famous shopping street in Beverly Hills, closes down to showcase hundreds of cars at the Concours d’Elegance, which is just a fancy French word that means competition of elegance (or as I like to call it: a day to make economy car drivers feel worthless.)

Despite seeing all four Fast & Furious movies, I’ll admit that I’m not much of a car guy.  However, even though I can’t properly identify cars (or even drive a stick), I still appreciate a well-designed car.

This year, the Rodeo Drive Concours d’Elegance showcased everything from classic cars from the ’20′s and ’30′s, to muscle cars, sports cars, European luxury cars, hot rods, customs, concept cars, and a number of incredibly rare automobiles that typically remain locked away in secret garages and rarely see the light of day.

The great thing about this particular car show is that it’s free.  Other concours d’elegance shows around the world charge at least $25 a ticket.  Looking at these museum-worthy cars, I can see why.

Here are some highlights…

1899 Rochet Quadricycle

I can’t find much information about this vehicle on the internet because every time I do a search, it comes up with information about a doctor named Rochet who was doing weird medical experiments with penises in 1899.  For example:

“Rochet performed tubulization of a meatus-based flap from the scrotum.”

…and…

“In 1899 Rochet swung a pedicle from scrotal skin based on blood supply just proximal to the meatus and tunnelled through the glans.”

That.  Sounds.  Horrific.

All I know is that the Rochet-Schneider quadricycle was made in France, has one cyclinder and can tear up the streets with its whopping EIGHT horsepower (which is actually comparable to my Toyota Yaris).

I doubt they produced many of these vehicles and I imagine hardly any still exist today, so it was cool to see an ancestor of the automobile in such great condition.

1948 Norman Timbs Special

Definitely one of the most confusing cars I’ve ever seen: the front looks like it should be the rear, and I imagine it being more successful as a boat than a car.

It took over two years and $10,000 for automotive engineer Norman Timbs to build this 18-foot long streamlined beauty.  His dream car was featured on the cover of Motor Trend in 1949 and pretty much vanished after that.

The car was eventually discovered rotting away in a desert in 2002 until a collector purchased it for over $17,000 and restored it back to its original, one-of-a-kind glory.

The General Lee

The sign on the car said it was the actual General Lee from the TV show “Dukes of Hazzard”… but didn’t they destroy that car in like every single episode?

Dream Ryder

The Dream Ryder looks like a version of the Batmobile designed by Robin.  Only Robin could create a car with an interior this flamboyant…

The snake-like fiberglass body was built over a 1984 Camaro convertible and took over 13 years to construct, but nobody really knows why it was made other than to question the sexual orientation of its designer.

No wonder there was a gay guy hovering around the car with his dog dressed in this bejeweled outfit…

If you want to see more cars from the show, check out our set of 50 pictures on Flickr.

They don’t make movies like they used to.

Today, most movies are just bad.  But there was a time when movies were so bad, they were actually kinda good.

They were the trashy, schlocky, ridiculously over-the-top movies with bad acting, inexplicable storylines and unnecessary nudity and violence that Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez paid homage to in the Grindhouse films (and in the upcoming Machete).

Instead of paying $14 to watch the formulaic crap at the movie theater, you can watch a grindhouse double-feature at L.A.’s oldest revival theater, the New Beverly Cinema, for only $7.  It’s like a bad movie slogan: twice the movie, half the price.

The program changes almost every day, and even though they sometimes play legitimately good films, most nights are dedicated to cult classics, exploitation flicks, and obscure genre films from the ’70′s and ’80′s, played back-to-back, all on 35mm film.

Often times, directors, cast and crew will even show up for the screenings, including Quentin Tarantino.  He bought the theater earlier this year, saving it from being turned into a Super Cuts.  So it’s no surprise that they frequently show Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs at the midnight screenings.

Last weekend, we made our way up to the New Beverly Cinema for a Jim Wynorski triple feature.  You probably don’t recognize the name, but if you’ve ever scrolled through premium cable stations late on a Friday night and seen titles like Busty Cops and The Devil Wears Nada, you know who he is.

Best tagline ever?

Back before he started doing Skinamax flicks, he wrote and directed cheesy B-movies and terrible sequels like Ghoulies IV and 976-EVIL II.  His movies were never intended to be good, they were meant to be fun.  He was even in attendance for the triple feature to laugh at his movies with the audience.

First on the bill was Wynorski’s first film, The Lost Empire, a movie so preposterously bad, I couldn’t help but wonder why I was having such a good time watching it.  This scene sums up the whole movie (possibly NSFW), but since I know you’ll want more, here’s a summary:

–Ninjas try to steal the key to a weapon, then never make an appearance again.

–Busty blonde cop assembles a martial arts team featuring two even bustier women, including a Native American who loves to say “kimosabe.”

–The plan is to infiltrate an island controlled by a villain who wants to take over the world.  He also happens to be holding a martial arts competition.

–The martial arts competition never happens.  Instead, the busty girls go through a series of medical examinations and training regimens that involves a lot of jumping jacks and more nudity than is necessary to the plot.

–Corny ’80′s synthesized soundtrack.

–A man in a gorilla suit.

–The villain plans to take over the world using a laser canon that resembles a giant penis.  Busty girls foil plot in needlessly skimpy outfits.

–Cheesy lines.  After a guy gets stabbed with a sword, the Indian chick says, “I guess he got the point.”

The second movie, Chopping Mall, is a cult classic.  The movie is about eight teenagers who stay in a mall after hours to have sex and drink beer.  But their plans are foiled when three security robots go haywire and try to kill them.

Best quote from the movie:  “I guess I’m just not used to running around a shopping mall in the middle of the night being chased by killer robots.”

If that isn’t worth the price admission, I don’t know what is.  We didn’t stay for the third movie, Demolition High, but it starred Corey Haim and Alan Thicke, so it must have been good.

Check out the schedule at the New Beverly Cinema and go see something that’s actually entertaining for once.

People driving from LA to Vegas regard the I-15 as a long and boring stretch of highway that stands between them and public intoxication, irresponsible gambling and regrettable sexual encounters.  Movies like “The Hangover” and “Swingers” skip over this part of the road trip with a montage as if there was nothing to see besides cactus and the occasional road kill.

For the most, they’re right.  But sometimes you have to stop.

Sometimes you just need a break from the monotonous and boring hum of the road (or your significant other).  Sometimes you’re craving really unhealthy hood from establishments with questionable health records.  And almost always, you need to drain the 8 cans of Monster Energy Drink that has swelled your kidney to the size of a cantaloupe.  Even if you never drop below 90 mph on the four-hour drive straight to Vegas, you can impress your friends with cool facts about the places you refuse to pull off at.

Ostrich Omelets And Buffalo Burgers

The scariest and most hazardous part of the drive to Vegas is traversing the Cajon Pass, a steep mountain pass known for car accidents, snow storms, wild fires, deadly encounters with NASCAR fans, and earthquakes — the San Andreas Fault runs right through the Cajon Pass.  Once you reach the summit, you can visit one of the few remaining historic U.S. Route 66 roadside diners left in California.  Summit Inn still features many of its original signs, like a Standard Oil sign with Mickey Mouse, but they’re known for having some unusual food like ostrich omelets and buffalo burgers.

The McDonald’s Train Station

The last relatively large town you’ll see before you hit over 200 miles of desert landscape is Barstow.  Right off the freeway there’s a place called Barstow Station.  There you will find a McDonald’s where you can eat your dollar burgers inside one of three side-by-side rail-road cars.  At one point, this was supposedly the largest McDonald’s in the world.  But what I find even more fascinating is that Barstow Station claims to have “the cleanest restrooms in all of Barstow.”

Case Del Desierto

Head down Main Street in Barstow and cross over an old iron bridge that’s set to collapse any day now, and you will find Casa del Desierto.  Today the building is home to the Route 66 Mother Road Museum, the Western America Rail Museum and the Barstow Area Chamber of Commerce.  But it was originally built as a Harvey House back in 1911.  Here’s a little history and fun wrapped in one: Harvey House’s were a chain of eateries located at railroad stations, and they’re considered to be the first restaurant chain ever.

The Oldest Del Taco

If you’re a connoisseur of the 59 cent taco such as myself, you probably love Del Taco, which is far superior in every way to the hideous and overpriced Taco Bell (79 cent tacos!? What a rip!).  I know it’s hard to imagine such deliciousness being even better, but at the oldest Del Taco franchise at 401 N. First Street in Barstow, they make fresh Mexican food that tastes like it came right out of an autentico pueblo.  It’s like being in Mexico without the drug war or kids trying to sell you Chiclets.

The Barstow Murals

You’ve seen the Harvey House, you’ve crossed the rusty bridge, you’ve gorged on McDonald’s and Del Taco, and you’re about to leave Barstow when you notice an interesting mural.  Then you see another one.  And another.  Murals depicting the history of the area in downtown Barstow are popping up all over town, and they’re becoming such a popular attraction that a group is now offering tours.  Let us know if it’s interesting; we’ll wait in an air conditioned car.

The Original Del Taco

While you still have the goodness of Del Taco in your mouth, check out the building where the original Casa del Taco stood in 1964.  Located at 38484 Yermo Rd. in Yermo, this little food shack is now an unreliable-sounding eatery called Tita’s Burger Den (which supposedly serves great shakes).  It still brandishes the original Casa del Taco sign.

Calico Ghost Town

Fans of panning for gold and gunfight stunt shows will probably enjoy a visit to Calico Ghost Town just a few miles off the I-15.  Called “The Official Silver Rush Ghost Town”, it’s a registered California historic monument, but it’ll cost you $10 to visit.  Just remember how far that $10 can go in Vegas: 10 beers; or 3 steak dinners in the middle of the night; or 1 lap dance at a second-tier strip club.

Is That A Waterpark In The Middle Of The Desert?

Smack dab in the middle of no where, you’ll pass the Lake Dolores Waterpark, also called Rock-A-Hoola, but better known as The Oasis That Never Was.  It’s no longer in business for obvious reasons — who would drive two hours into the hot dessert to go down a water slide? — but apparently the park was pretty popular in the 70′s and 80′s back when the more conveniently placed Raging Waters didn’t exist.  Here’s another fun fact for ya: officially the world’s first water park debuted in 1977, but Lake Dolores is unofficially called the first water park because it added water slides in the 1950′s.  That’s officially unofficial.

Zzyzx Isn’t Zazzy

About 8 miles before you hit the town of Baker, you’ll pass a street sign for an off-ramp that you’ll probably never get off at in fear that an encounter with the freaks from “The Hills Have Eyes” will lead to your zoothapsis (though perhaps I’m being zoilistic).  The street is called Zzyzx, and what makes this street so special is that it’s the lexicographically greatest place name.  What that confusing term means is that out of all the street and city names in the English language, Zzyzx is the very last one.  At least it sounds cooler than the nearly unprounable last word in the English dictionary: zyzzyva (a South American weevil).

The World’s Tallest Thermometer

I wouldn’t be surprised if the term “highway robbery” was invented in Baker.  The gas prices are insanely high, but chances are you’ve gotta fill up once on the way to Vegas.  You can get a snack at Alien Fresh Jerky (avoid the anal probe special) or an awesome strawberry shake at The Mad Greek Diner.  If for some ungodly reason you have a desire to sight-see, your one and only option is the World’s Tallest Thermometer.  It’s 134 feet high to commemorate the hottest temperature ever recorded in the U.S.: 134 °F in Death Valley in 1913.

World’s Tallest Roller Coaster… In 1996

The Desperado roller coaster at Buffalo Bill’s in Primm, Nevada was listed as the tallest roller coaster in the world by the Guinness Book of Records in 1996.  The record has been eclipsed since, but with a drop of 225 feet and top speeds around 80 mph, it’s still one of the biggest and badest roller coasters in the world.  The problem is that it’s often closed due to high winds that threaten to blow the coaster car off the track.

See The Car Bonnie & Clyde Were Killed In

Bonnie & Clyde is the stuff legends are made of.  Their incendiary run as outlaws ended violently on May 23rd, 1934 when cops fired 130 rounds at their car, hitting each of them 25 times.  Their bullet-riddled Ford is now on display at Terrible’s Primm Valley Casino Resort.  Nothing says party like a crime scene.

Al Capone’s Armored Car

So many rival gangsters tried to kill the infamous Al Capone in the ‘20’s and ‘30’s that he had his car retrofitted with lead-filled doors and glass one-inch thick.  Adjacent to the Bonnie & Clyde Death Car, you can check out the equally shot-up bullet-proof Dutch Schultz that once saved Capone’s left.  We wonder if Tupac’s car will be the next exhibit.

Whiskey Pete’s

There’s nothing particularly enticing about Whiskey Pete’s Resort & Casino at the Nevada state line in Primm, but I just love the back-story.  The hotel was named after Pete MacIntyre, a guy who illegally made whiskey in the mountain caves nearby.  Legend has it that when Pete died in 1933, he wanted to be buried standing up with a bottle in his hands.  His grave site remained unknown until workers constructing a monorail between the Primm hotels accidentally uncovered his body.  His body was then moved to the cave where he used to make moonshine.  It’s a heartwarming tale you can recount to your children before they go to bed.

The Nevada Landing Sign

32 miles outside of Vegas is a little town called Jean.  It’s not a place you’d want to spend a lot of time in considering that if any criminals escape from the nearby prison, they’ll probably stop into the only casino in town, the Gold Strike.  There used to be two casinos here, but in 2008 they demolished the Nevada Landing… except the sign.

Disneyland proclaims itself as “The Happiest Place On Earth.”  Most of the time, this is patently false; a serious case of misadvertising that deserves a little asterisk next to the title just to prevent a disgruntled family from suing. 

Usually Disneyland serves as a breeding ground for arguments and germs.  Everyone disagrees on which ride to go on next.  Families on the brink of crumbling utilize Tomorrowland as a therapist’s office.  The kids want toys the parents can’t afford, resulting in a threat to stop loving whichever frugal parental unit crushed their desire for more stuff they’ll never play with. 

As the bank accounts drain, the waits grow longer, and the sunburns become more painful, the crying, hissy fits, personal insults and overall contempt multiply like minor infections, morphing Disneyland into one of the least happy places on earth. 

Fortunately, that wasn’t the case this particular day. 

Cruella De Vil harasses a man selling balloons.

One of the perks of having a friend who works at Disneyland is that they can get you in for free, saving about $100 per person (if you’re going to both Disneyland and California Adventure).  Many of my friends decided to get “real jobs” long ago, abandoning their low-paying jobs at Disneyland, and subsequently my friendship. 

But Jackie’s friend Jenn knew someone who worked there and could get the three of us in.  This person has been added to my will. 

Free admission was a great start.  It got better when the parking attendant, who was blatantly staring at Jackie’s ample cleavage, gave us free parking, saving us $14.  “You’re cool.  I hooked it up.”  Awh, yeah, playa; that’s how you impress the ladies!  (He didn’t get Jackie’s number.) 

To top it all off, the wait for rides was short — like a pizza: 30 minutes or less — and the family-of-four count was relatively low, resulting in less arguments and divorces.  It was mainly teenagers, who can be equally as loud and annoying, much like a little girl throwing a temper tantrum because her family doesn’t want to go on Snow White for the tenth time in a row.  I like how teenagers cuss an unreasonable amount too, as if they just learned naughty words and need to use at least two in every sentence or risk forgetting it. 

The most adorable things in the entire park. Take that, Mickey. If you weren't a cartoon, you'd be exterminated anyway.

Rides And Attractions

One of the newest rides at Disneyland is Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, a combination of ride and video game.  You sit in a slow moving spaceship and fire a hand-held laser gun at enemy targets to rack up points.  I sat in a ship by my lonesome, clutching both guns, and managed to amass a combined score of 72,400.  Not bad, but not great. 

Know how many Jackie got?  5,600.  I’m convinced Jackie didn’t know she had to aim for targets and accidentally accrued 5,600 points.  Solid score based on luck, piss poor score based on skill. 

I don’t like drops.  I’m not ashamed to admit that it took me over 20 years to build up the courage to tackle Splash Mountain and it’s 50-foot drop.  I still don’t particularly like the feeling that my stomach might revolt and cover my log mates in more than just water.  But I go on the ride anyway because the drop isn’t that bad. 

On this particular occasion, a mother was taking her two young kids on the ride for the first time.  She, too, hated drops.  I had to talk to her the whole ride and let know it was going to be okay even though I was one leg twitch away from wetting my pants.  After the drop, she said, “That wasn’t that bad.” 

The Haunted Mansion is a make-out ride.  Thank goodness it’s dark in there because I would hate to see what’s growing in those buggies.  If I had a black light, it would probably look like a crime scene from CSI. 

Captain EO is the corniest thing ever.  And I love it.  I also love that world class talent like George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola and Michael Jackson teamed up to make a 3D movie experience with then cutting-edge technology and Captain Freakin’ EO was the best they could come up with.  Unfortunately, the new Captain EO Tribute isn’t as cool as what it used to be.  The seats wobble and vibrate for like half the show, even during unnecessary moments like the dance scenes when there’s no action.  It was really distracting.  You could get the same experience for a quarter at a sleazy motel.  During the show, I kept thinking, “If there was an earthquake right now, no one would know the difference.” 

If you have anything in your body that needs dislodging, ride the Matterhorn Bobsleds.  This clunky roller coaster opened in 1959, and has been bruising kneecaps ever since. 

The only reason to visit California Adventure is Soarin’ Over California, a ride where you sit in a seat that’s lifted into the air and pushed close to massive video screen that simulates the experience of hand gliding over various landscapes in California.  Not only do you get to see and hear California, you feel the mist from the waves of the ocean and smell the oranges from the groves in Orange County.  It’s worth the long wait. 

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad lacks thunder and really isn’t much of a mountain, but it sure is fun. 

The Food

Much like a fair or a sporting event, the food is just as big of an attraction. 

I’ve been to both parks plenty of times, but I tend to stay away from the long lines and exorbitant prices in the restaurants.  There could be some great food at the sits-down places, but I like eating fast and eating on the go.  Rides frequently break down and wait times can quickly balloon, so I like to stay on the move.  Here are my favorite quick eats at Disneyland and California Adventure (note that the food isn’t photogenic)… 

There’s an ice cream stand on the boardwalk near California Screamin’ inside California Adventure that serves the creamiest, smoothest ice cream I’ve ever had.  I think the only ingredients are sugar and triple-thick, quadruple-churned cream.  It’s unbelievably dense and rich. 

At Thanksgiving, the turkey leg is generally neglected.  But if grandma knew how to cook turkey like the chefs at Disneyland, people would fight for the leg, literally, like savage barbarians.  Eating a tender, juicy turkey leg is primal and messy and completely unattractive, but it’s also one of the most delicious things you can buy at the park.  There’s enough savory meat on one leg to fill you up for hours.  At $9, it’s a bit pricey, but it looks like a bargain compared to the unthinkably expensive corn on the cob which is $4.75. 

Across from the Indiana Jones ride is a little joint called the Bengal Barbeque where you can get deliciously sweet and savory meat on a skewer.  The skewer also doubles as a weapon if the teenagers act up. 

Walk to the end of Main Street and you’ll see a long line.  You’ll quickly notice that this isn’t a line for a ride.  No, it’s the line at the Little Red Wagon Corn Dog stand.  Yes, it’s that good.  I’m curious to see the list of ingredients because I’m pretty sure crack is in there. 

No matter how hot it gets, there’s never a bad time for warm clam chowder in a bread bowl.  People often mistake the line at Royal Street Veranda for the line to Pirates of Caribbean, it’s that long.  Can’t go wrong with New Orleans fritters for dessert. 

Unfortunately, the cleavage trick doesn’t work for getting free food.