Off to California!

The plans are made. The hotels are booked. The tickets are purchased.

Now I just have to figure out long-term parking at JFK and I'm all set!

I fly out of JFK tomorrow at 6:40 am et, landing at LAX at 10am pt. I am renting my car through Enterprise as they gave me the best one-way rental rate. After I leave the airport I drive down to Anaheim and spend one night there at the Ramada Main Gate.

On Wednesday, I check out of the hotel and spend the day at Disneyland (most likely). I hit the Ducks game that night (vs the Blues) and head to Santa Barbara immediately after the game. That night I stay at another Ramada right off the 101.

Thursday morning I trek up the Pacific Coast Highway on what most people say will be a drive I'll never forget. My destination for lunch is Nepenthe in Big Sur. After lunch, I'll be rolling into San Jose to hit up the Shark Tank for Ducks/Sharks. Once that game is through, I head up to Redwood City to a Best Western to unwind after a looooong day of driving. Thank god for XM! The MyFi will be with me for the whole trip.

When I wake up Friday morning, I will ride into San Francisco for the first time, dropping the car off downtown. Then a quick bus ride or, if the weather is nice, brisk walk will take me to my final hotel, the Westin St Francis in Union Square. I've heard that every President since Taft has stayed there (thanks to my trusty Frommer's Guide Book). My activities for San Francisco are still up in the air, but a visit to Alcatraz is very much in the cards.

Saturday, I check out of the hotel and enjoy the morning in San Francisco. I fly out of SFO around 3:30pm pt and land just before midnight eastern at JFK. I'm sure I will freeze my buns off while I look for my car in the long-term parking lot!

I booked the Westin St Francis on Hotwire.com. It's an awesome site - if you're ever traveling to a big city and don't care what chain hotel you stay at I highly recommend this tool. You can pretty much narrow it down to one or two hotels before you book it if you look here. I was spot on with the Westin.

AAA was also a huge help in planning this trip. I reserved all of my other hotels through their website and got the best rates. I also used their Triptik tool to map all of my routes, printing out the PDFs they produced. I suppose I'll know how accurate they are after this trip!

I bought my tickets to the Ducks game from Stubhub. I tried to do that for the Sharks game too, but they had less available, especially for just one ticket. I went through ticketmaster, and cursed my way through the $15 in fees they tacked onto the price. Bunch of savages.

I'm hoping my next update will be from sunny Orange County! If it's from an airport you can be sure that I am grumpy!