Oh the adventures of California. The summer of 2016 was the summer I traveled with my Mom and Dad to San Diego, California. We had never been to California before and had no idea what to expect. I wondered what it would be like and thought the area around would be very populated and crazed. We flew into the LAX airport, got our rental car, and drove to the Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey hotel. Then we went to go get dinner in the hotel and we could see the water and boats outside of our hotel. Dinner was at sunset and the scenery outside was beautiful. After dinner, we drove to the Santa Monica Pier. It was really busy and everyone was out and about because it was a Saturday night. We rode the Ferris wheel and other rides and also enjoyed walking around and taking in the views. We went back to the hotel around midnight and went to bed. Our room was very nice and comfortable.

The second day, we rented bikes and rode to a breakfast place in the morning. We ate a wonderful breakfast at the Cow's End Cafe where the locals like to eat. After breakfast, we rode our bikes all the way to Venice Beach. The beach was nice and the weather was pretty and sunny. There were skating places and even skateboard parks and we watched them for a little bit because I thought it was interesting and cool. Throughout the time we rode the bikes, we enjoyed the breezy, sunny day outdoors. The atmosphere around us was amazing and we were surprised how many people were there. There were people on the beach enjoying the beautiful day, people working out on the beach, and people riding bikes and jogging. Then we rode back to the hotel to return our bikes and took many pictures along the way. We got in the car and drove to Anaheim for one hour. Since we had a really fun time while riding bikes and used a lot of energy, I napped in the car on the way there. When we got to Anaheim, we went to Disneyland for the rest of the day. I rode so many new rides that I had no clue existed in Disneyland and had the time of my life. My favorite ride in Disneyland was Space Mountain because the ride had so many more twists and turns than the one in Disney World. After we had an amazing time, we went to dinner and then the hotel.

On the morning of the third day, we packed up and we drove down the coast to many different beaches and took many memorable pictures. We adored the beautiful atmosphere and tried to go in the water. We just put our toes in the water because the water felt like ice water. Since we didn't want to go in the water and freeze, we continued to go from beach to beach and take pictures. One of our stops along the way was Newport Beach and Balboa Island. The beaches were beautiful and we had a great lunch. In Balboa Island, I bungee jumped on the pier as we waited to go whale watching. In the afternoon, we boarded our whale watching boat. We were on the water looking for whales for two hours. We saw several species of dolphin, sea lions, and to our amazement we saw blue and finback whales. Our boat captain knew a lot about marine biology and taught us interesting facts as we cruised. This was one of my favorite parts of my trip. To leave Balboa Island we had to take the Balboa Island Ferry. As we made our way down to San Diego, we finally decided to go get dinner. We ate and then headed to the Hilton hotel to go to bed.

The fourth day was so much fun because we went to SeaWorld and rode so many roller coasters. We also saw a show that featured a sea lion doing multiple amazing tricks. My favorite ride at SeaWorld was called Manta. This ride was really fun to go on because it had a 53 foot drop and was going up to 43 miles per hour. After we left that night, we went back to the hotel, freshened up, and went to go eat dinner at CUCINA urbana where the food was absolutely delicious. After dinner we were exhausted and went to dinner for the night.

The last day, we went to Coronado Island, shopped a bit, and stopped and the iconic Hotel del Coronado. We took a stroll on the beach and took lots of pictures. We took so much time here that we almost missed our flight home. Thankfully we got there in time and flew home.

In conclusion, I loved my adventure in California. I had the chance to go see part of the West Coast which is completely different from where I live. This was a great experience for me and I would want to do it again.