Minnesota and Arizona 2023:
Day 15 - Los Angeles

	Wednesday, June 21, 2023: Tom fetched breakfast for us at McDonald's this morning, and was surprised to see a police cruiser parked right outside our room. There were no police in sight, and we hadn't heard any disturbances during the night.
	Our breakfast came with a cool California-specific cup. Are other states going to get unique designs?
	Ocean!
	Our first stop this morning was at LEGOLAND California, which was only minutes away from our hotel. The road into the amusement park had a large "W" ...
	... and then an "E" ...
	... "L" ...
	... "C" ... we see where you are going with this ...
	... "O" ...
	... "M" ...
	... and "E."
	Welcome to LEGOLAND California! We weren't actually going in, ...
	... so we turned around just before the entrance to parking.
	Let's zoom in on the hotel. How great is it that it looks like it was made from LEGO?! It's awesome!
	We got back on the highway, and then got off fifteen minutes later at the main gate of Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. Tom's dad had been here for basic training in the 1950s.
	This beautiful and new-looking building is the Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton.
	The base was on both sides of the highway, with hangers for hovercraft visible on the ocean side of the highway.
	Camp Pendleton stretched for miles as we drove north on the highway, ...
	... with clusters of buildings and vehicles spread out over the countryside.
	It was interesting to see the hills and mock buildings that Tom's dad had trained on when he was a Marine.
	Check out the color of this Tesla. We've seen lots of matte colors on Teslas, but for some reason, this color really worked.
	Swallows? Are we near San Juan Capistrano?
	Why, yes, we were. We got off the highway, turned onto Old Mission Road, and it was right there.
	Here's the entrance to the Mission, ...
	... which was built in 1776.
	We did a loop around the neighborhood that contains the Mission, ...
	... and got a look at the Mission Basilica, ...
	... and the Serra Chapel before we completed the loop and got back on the highway.
	Just before 10 AM, we arrived at the Shops at Mission Viejo, ...
	... and made our way to the LEGO Store. We spent a few minutes before the store opened checking out the Ninjago display. We aren't Ninjago fans, but we really liked the building techniques and some of the unique pieces that were in the models.
	Debbie selected a small cup's worth of pieces, ...
	... and we did the refill-and-dump again.
	Now is a good time to tell you that you are going to see a lot of LEGO Stores today. Los Angeles is a LEGO-rich area, and we were going to all of the remaining stores that we didn't get on the US-50 trip last fall. Here we are at South Coast Plaza, ...
	... which has a carousel inside. Look at all of the balloons!
	Do you see the LEGO Store? Look for the red block.
	There it is!
	Debbie has been building a lot of modulars lately and needs a lot of gray and tan pieces.
	We were near the food court, so we decided to have lunch at Marugame Udon.
	Debbie ordered a Beef Dashi bowl, and Tom ordered a Tonkotsu bowl. We both ordered it the Sanuki way, with scallions and tempura flakes. Both were very delicious, and we were really happy that we'd chosen this place for lunch.
	Debbie had been fighting a salivary gland infection since we were at Macalester, and it wasn't getting any better. We stopped at a CVS to try to get into a Minute Clinic, but there were no appointments available within a reasonable driving distance. Debbie decided, again, that she could live with it until we got back home, and we left.
	This is the Discovery Cube in Santa Ana, an interactive science museum, ...
	... and a little further up the road is a Delta III upper stage exhibit that's part of the museum.
	Our next stop was at Disneyland Resort, ...
	... where we drove around the entire amusement park for a while trying to find parking. We saw the Guardians of the Galaxy - Mission: BREAKOUT! building that is part of the Avengers Campus.
	This building is part of the Anaheim Convention Center. It looks kind of futuristic, doesn't it?
	We turned west on the palm tree-lined Katella Avenue to continue our drive around Disneyland, ...
	... and saw signs for Downtown Disney, which is where we were headed.
	We drove up Disneyland Drive, marvelling at how many hotels were scattered around the outside of the park.
	Oooh. Check out this van for Star Wars Galaxy's Edge!
	We passed several parking structures that were either closed or limited to hotel guests, ...
	... until we finally found the parking specific to Downtown Disney itself.
	We parked in the Simba lot, and started our trek to the shops of Downtown Disney.
	When we spotted these kids with LEGO bags and BB-8 balloons, we knew we were on the right track!
	We went through the security screen at the entrance, ...
	... and then we were there! Debbie hurriedly got this shot of Mickey while there were no people posing with him.
	Here's a display celebrating the 100th anniversary of Disney.
	We made a quick stop at the Star Wars Trading Post.
	Tom was tempted by the rainbow Star Wars Pride Droid Factory set which featured six different astromech droids, ...
	... and the station to build your own lightsaber, but ultimately we didn't purchase anything.
	Just down the street was the coolest LEGO Store we've seen. The giant sculptures on and around the building were all made from LEGO.
	Check out the exhaust on the rocket carrying Buzz and Woody. It had such cool detail!
	It was two stories. There were signs saying that the Mosaic Maker was on the second floor, along with some more large sculptures.
	Look at the size of this Pick & Build wall! Even though the top two-thirds were fake, just like all Pick & Build walls, it was still enormous.
	Score! Debbie grabbed some cool blue ball joint pieces that she'd never seen on the Pick & Build wall at any other store.
	We were totally here. In the window display behind Debbie were hundreds of minifigs on display.
	Let's look closer.
	Finally, here's a giant sculpture of Belle with the Beast.
	Tom got really excited seeing these ads for "The Mandalorian" and "Ahsoka." We love "The Mandalorian," and can't wait for the new "Ahsoka" series to start this fall.
	This giant wizard hat marks the entrance to the Disneyland Hotel.
	This wild-looking tree is apparently a Dragon Tree from the Canary Islands. Its leaves looked like flattened green bananas.
	We left Disney and headed to the nearby Winchell's Donut House in Anaheim.
	There were no crullers today, ...
	... but we got a great selection including two more of those chocolate frosted cake donuts with peanuts that Debbie had discovered yesterday.
	We drove through the streets of Los Angeles, ...
	... and admired the Los Angeles skyline, ...
	... until we arrived at the Century City Mall.
	This mall was as shooting location for one of our favorite movies, "Crazy, Stupid, Love." This mall was used for the scene were Jacob takes Cal shopping.
	Unfortunately for them, they didn't go shopping for LEGO, like we were doing.
	Whoa. No Pick & Build wall. This is the first LEGO Store we've been in that didn't have one.
	We were distracted from our shock when Debbie recognized the song "Too Late for Love" by John Lundvik being played over the soundsystem. This song won Melodifestivalen in 2019 and represented Sweden in Eurovision that year. We're always excited when we hear Eurovision music being played in public, and it seems to happen fairly often at LEGO Stores, thanks to whoever creates the store soundtracks back at LEGO headquarters in Denmark.
	Back to LEGO. With no Pick & Build wall, Debbie picked one of the flower sets that she didn't already have, got a store sticker for her LEGO passport, and we left the store.
	They were building a stage on the ground floor below us, apparently for The Golden Ratio Musical Show.
	We walked through a rock sculpture garden with some really beautiful pieces as we headed back to our van. All over the mall were giant LED screens showing ads for movies and TV shows. They all contained variations of the phrase "For your consideration." This one for the series "Andor" wanted us to consider it for an Emmy award.
	With her salivary gland infection making her crazy, Debbie was eyeing every dental office that we passed, but especially this one with its cook sign made to look like toothpaste being squeezed from a tube.
	We passed this wall with scenes from "Welcome to Wrexham." That was completely unexpected.
	Ah. There's the traffic. Or as Debbie referred to it: the hellscape that is Los Angeles.
	The slow pace of traffic let us get a great photo of the Getty Center up on a hill overlooking the highway.
	We wound through the hills of Bel Air until suddenly the Valley opened up before us.
	That's the Sherman Oaks Galleria on the right. The interior was a filming location for "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." We didn't stop there because they don't have a LEGO Store, ...
	... so we went to the LEGO Store at Westfield Topanga Mall instead.
	They have a Pick & Build wall. All is right with the world.
	We decided to test our tactile abilities and try to get specific minifigs from the Disney 100 Minifig series. We successfully identified Dr. Facilier by his top hat and stick, and identified Tiana by her dress and her frog.
	As we left the mall, we stopped to get gas. It's always fun to see the prices in California, although these were nowhere near as high as they were last fall.
	Hey! That's the Space Launch System!
	We were driving by Aerojet Rocketdyne, which makes the first and second stage engines for SLS.
	They also made the F1 engine that was used on the Saturn V and had one outside their entrance.
	Just after 6 PM, we made it to the Granada Inn, our destination for tonight.
	The room was gorgeous, much more beautiful than we were expecting. It was a king room, ...
	... and the bathroom was also beautiful.
	Debbie decided that she couldn't wait to get back home to deal with her salivary gland infection and decided to call Teladoc. After a few minutes on the phone, we were back in the van, headed to nearby North Valley Pharmacy to pick up her prescription for antibiotics. The entire process had taken less than an hour, and Debbie was wondering why she hadn't called Teladoc weeks earlier.
	We wanted to pick up dinner from the In-N-Out burger that was almost next door to the pharmacy, but when we saw that the line for the drive through was backed up into the street, we decided that McDonald's was a better choice. After a very reasonable wait, we got our food and headed back to the hotel.
	Tom had been looking at upcoming launches and saw that there was a SpaceX launch scheduled from Vandenberg Air Force Base for tonight! The launch was scheduled for 12:17 AM, and we headed outside a few minutes before lift-off to see if we could see it.
	There it is! Debbie's sharp eyes picked it up climbing through the trees, ...
	... and we had a great view of the flame tail from the first stage.
	We followed the Falcon 9 as it flew across the sky, ...
	... and had a very good view of first stage shutdown, ...
	... and second stage ignition. With huge smiles on our faces, we headed back to our room. It had been a long and eventful day, and even with the surge of adreneline at unexpectely being able to see a rocket launch from Vandenberg, we quickly fell asleep. Day 16 >