My friend Gregory just tagged me in one of those chain letter-type posts where if you don’t answer 11 questions about yourself and forward it along to 11 more people someone close to you will be severely maimed in a freak photography accident. Oh, wait, it’s not one of those? Okay, well, I’m still going to answer the questions. Better to start the year off on the right foot.

RULES:

• You must post these rules.
• Each person must post 11 things about themselves on their blog.
• Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post and create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer.
• You have to choose 11 people to tag and link them on the post.
• Go to their page and tell them you have linked him or her.
• No tag backs.
• No stuff in the tagging section about ‘you are tagged if you are reading this.’ You legitimately have to tag 11 people.

Seems easy enough. Here are the answers to the questions that Gregory asked me. I just took some NyQuil so this should be extra good.

1.  What is your favorite piece of artwork and why? highly prized by Sister Mary Corita, a serigraph we have hanging in our living room. I wrote an essay about why I love it for the book I Heart Design: Remarkable Graphic Design Selected by Designers, Illustrators, and Critics.

2.  Can you remember the name of your first crush? Scott Fudemberg, kindergarten, Mason Ridge Elementary. Funnily enough, his wedding was featured in a “Vows” column in the New York Times a few years ago. Oh great, now he’s going to think I’m stalking him. My mom sent it to me, Scott! Tell your wife not to worry!

3.  Given the opportunity for super powers, would you like the ability to fly or be invisible? Fly. I can already make myself invisible when I want to be.

4. Where is your dream destination for 2012? Standing on the top of a mountain in Crested Butte, Colorado, getting married to my fiancé Keith Scharwath. And after that, embarking upon a tour di gelati in Italy.

5.  If you could make people see the truth about one thing, what would that truth be? Driving sucks. Riding the bus is fun. Walking is like taking a brief, beautiful vacation in the middle of your day. Okay, that’s three things. But it’s essentially the same truth.

6.  When cleaning, are you someone who cleans and organizes the big things first, or focuses on the details? If it was up to me, I’d focus exclusively on the organizing and someone else could handle the cleaning. Wait, maybe it is up to me.

7.  How many icons are on your desktop at this moment? Counting my toolbar? 29 icons and 10 folders.

8.  Let’s pretend you’re in the witness protection program. You’ve been asked to give yourself a new name. What’s your new identity? Walker Texas Ranger. (They would never suspect I’d use part of my name in the new name, right?)

9.  Shoes on or off inside your home? On. Shoes are a big part of my life.

10.  What’s the longest you’ve gone without saying a word, talking to anyone? That’s a tough one. I guess when I lived by myself and was on deadline that I might have gone a full 24 hours without talking to anyone. But I probably had 15 iChat windows open and sent a dozen text messages during the same period.

11.  What’s your favourite object in your home right now? And please share a photo of it. I love my home and there are too many favorite things in it to list. But each morning I wake up to the view of my closet, which makes me happy every single day. I guess if you aren’t having fun getting dressed then what’s the point really of getting out of bed in the morning. This is a photo of it taken by Justin Sullivan for an awesome interview with me over at LA, I’m Yours.

My 11 questions for 11 people are as follows:

1. What’s the strangest or most surprising thing on your desk right now? (You can take a photo if you want, unless it’s too embarrassing.)
2. What is your earliest memory?
3. How did you come to live in the city where you currently live?
4. What was the last meal you cooked for yourself?
5. Where do you fantasize about visiting?
6. When was the last time you drank too much?
7. Do you feel as if the way you currently earn money is your true calling?
8. What song do you sing to yourself when you need to psych yourself up?
9. How do you manage your to-do list(s)?
10. What new skill would you most like to learn in 2012?
11. What is the view out the nearest window? Take a photo, please.

And I’m tagging these 11 people: Steve Portigal, Marissa Gluck, Colleen Wainwright, Sonja Rasula, Jessi Arrington, Beth Walker, Jen Walker, Mike Nugent, Souris Hong-Poretta, Chris Pouy and Nathan Davidson (and if you don’t have a blog, yes you can answer on your Facebook page using “Notes” function that can be found on your page).

Happy 2012.

Before we’d officially named Big Kiddah, we realized we were already all calling him the same thing. “No, kitty!” (as he leapt onto a dinner plate) “No, kitty!” (as he leapt onto the book we were reading) “No, kitty!” (as he leapt onto the computer keyboard) “No, kitty!” (as he leapt through the front door—which he had just opened himself). We all sounded a lot like Eric Cartman as he guarded his precious pot pie from his cat.

And thus, Kiddah was named after a South Park episode. (How cool are my parents?)

As his early behavior showed, Kiddah loved exploring, and he quickly grew bored with the limited adventure in our house: He wanted to be outside. Each morning he’d stand at the sliding glass doors (the only ones he couldn’t open himself) and issue a long, plaintive demand to be released out into the world. He’d often return late at night with headless rabbits or mice as proud evidence of a hard day at work. When my parents moved to a house in Denver that was a little dicier when it came to strangers and fast cars, they could only appease his spirit by taking him for long walks on a leash. When I was there a few weeks ago, Kittah and I explored the vegetable garden together, him twirling his ears through the late-season Swiss chard in pure feline bliss. Freedom.

He loved being in the mountains the most, where there were no rules. Here, he could roam free, exiting the house by flying through the top half of the often-open Dutch door, performing his gasp-inducing cat acrobatics on balconies with the best sunset views. It’s fitting that he made it back to the mountains to spend his last day outside, unencumbered by silly leashes and hovering owners.

Kiddah always seemed to be one step ahead of us, seemed to know things that we did not. Yesterday, after Big Kiddah died, my dad emailed us this photo, which I had never seen before. “He loved boxes,” my dad wrote. “We didn’t know he could read.”

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family members, especially the four-legged ones.

Contrary to what you might be thinking, this photo, shot by one Keith Scharwath, was not taken on Halloween. When Keith snapped it with his iPhone, I had absolutely no idea what was going on behind me. But really, it was no different than any other Friday night in my corner of Los Angeles. I love this photo because it sums up the experience of living in LA—and perhaps specifically Hollywood, where I lived for seven years—perfectly. And it was also taken at one of my very favorite places in the city.

There’s a bar called the Powerhouse where I spent my formative LA years. When I lived in a bungalow tucked into a hill above Highland, the bar was a block away from my tiny living room, and therefore, an extension of it. And also, the antithesis of it. For a time, the Powerhouse’s only decor consisted of a series of disturbing clown paintings. The bathroom security alternated between a chain lock with a broken chain to no locks and a large hole where a doorknob once was. The alleyway in the back wrapped around a Chinese restaurant that courteously left its greasy rags and aprons out so intoxicated people could wear them. I loved every inch of that bar, mostly because every inch of that bar was covered in quite graphic graffiti.

In many ways, the Powerhouse is your standard dive bar—dark, loud, dangerous when you consider the number of darts being hurled through the air by incapacitated arms. But the Powerhouse is also a block away from the Kodak Theater. If you look carefully during the Oscars telecast, you can see its sign blinking casually just across the street from where the red carpet begins. It is adjacent to the frightening entertainment megaplex that houses LA’s cacophony of tour buses, cement handprints and terrazzo stars—the rest of the world’s idea of Hollywood. But to me, Hollywood is all about this dingy, glorious bar that once had a hole ripped into its front leather banquette so big we filled it with beer bottles one night, just for fun.

And that brings me to Superman. (You know I’m no good at spotting celebrities, but I always recognize superheroes.) This is a man named Christopher Dennis, who is one of the Chinese Theater characters—he dresses up and collects tips in exchange for photos on Hollywood Boulevard. In 2007 he was the star of the documentary Confessions of a Superhero. Recently, the characters have been embroiled in legal battles with the city, one of the most tragic entertainment tales of all time.

Because of this bar’s proximity to their workplace, many of the Chinese Theater characters drink at the Powerhouse. They come in costume, right after their shift ends. They walk from the other Hollywood, cross the street, step through the door, order a beer, and no one bats an eye. Millions of dazed people arrive at the intersection of Hollywood and Highland looking for heartwrenching stories of fantasy and fame among the Forever 21 and American Apparel. In reality, those stories are right inside this bar.

And that’s what makes the Powerhouse the best bar in LA. Holding its own against a terrifying new mall and the walls of tourists all these years has only added to its grimy greatness. It’s staring down a Gap across the street (which once featured a 20-foot-tall Sarah Jessica Parker) with a steely, whiskey-soaked gaze. It’s giving the finger to the new lofts which now must peer down into its scary, razor-wire encrusted alley. It’s cleaned up a bit since the first time I walked through its doors. But there most important part is still there: a long, sticky bar where we can all come together—the barflies, the unemployed writers, the superheroes (and later, when they patched the banquettes, the hipsters) and agree that living in LA is superbly weird. Sometimes we need a drink just to make us feel normal.

What’s your favorite bar in LA?

I’m celebrating ten years in LA with ten days of LA stories. Go here for more LAX.

Today’s LAX post will be a bit different, since I’m parked poolside in Palm Springs for my friend Sonja’s bachelorette party. And that’s the thing. Over the last ten years, I’ve often found myself far, far away from my beloved city when Saturday morning comes.

That’s not a bad thing. One of the very best things about living in LA is how easy it is to get the hell out of town.

And not just out of town. Like, into several totally different ecosystems. It’s pretty much like living in the Biosphere. I can’t think of any other major city where you have such unfettered access to such a wide variety of terrain, weather, and outdoor activities so close to home.

For all the grief people like to give LA for being a concrete jungle, Los Angeles is dizzyingly close to nature. Within a two-hour radius, you can scramble through a desert oasis. You can camp on an uninhabited island. You can ski on a 8,000-foot peak… no, you can ski and surf in the same day—something I have yet to do!

It may seem crazy to write a post celebrating LA that’s all about leaving LA. But I think this is what completes the experience of living here. Being able to escape and recharge is important to my city experience. And actually, we really don’t even have to leave. We’ve got the largest municipal park in the country located within our borders. Situated in a verifiable urban mountain range. We can climb a mountain before breakfast.

In honor of our perfectly situated city, here are a few places I’ve found myself on the weekends over the last ten years. All of these places are less than three hours from my house. A few of these places are even within LA County!

Joshua Tree, 137 miles.

Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, 86 miles.

East Fork of the San Gabriel River (part of the Bridge to Nowhere hike), 46 miles

Malibu Creek State Park (during the Bulldog 25K), 36 miles.

The Parker, Palm Springs, 104 miles

El Matador State Beach, 42 miles

Verdugo Mountain Park, Burbank, 15 miles

Believe it or not, the LA River. 0 miles.

Where’s your favorite LA-adjacent getaway?

I’m celebrating ten years in LA with ten days of LA stories. Go here for more LAX.

After ten years in LA you might say that I have learned to be a good Angeleno. I say “freeway” now instead of my midwestern “highway.” I don’t complain about the piles of ripe, juicy oranges falling off our trees in January. I hardly ever wear pants. But the truth is, I do not, in fact, deserve to live in Los Angeles. The reason being is that I fail at one very important LA trait. I never recognize celebrities.

Which is a real bummer, because that’s the first thing anyone ever asks you about when you say you’re from LA.

When I was a producer I ended up working with serving coffee to plenty of celebrities. As a writer, I get to interview some of them. For three years I lived a few steps from the part of Hollywood Boulevard that was closed at least three times a week for premieres, where I could easily have walked down to see, say, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes make their first post-Suri appearance if I wanted to (okay, I did walk down there for that). But for some reason, when I’m out wandering the city, I just don’t recognize their E!-friendly faces. It’s become kind of a joke. The first thing Keith usually says to me as we walk out of a restaurant is “Did you see who that was?” I didn’t.

My famous-blindness became apparent the second week I was in LA. We were sitting at Birds on a Saturday afternoon ingesting beers and other things when I spotted a blonde girl sitting at the table next to us. I definitely knew her. I tried to place her as she plucked pieces of steamed broccoli off her plate. It was obvious that she knew me, too—she kept looking over at me with a slightly annoyed face.

I have to go over and figure out how I know her, I told my tablemates. I started to get up when one of them tugged me back down, embarrassed. It turns out it was someone I had spent plenty of time with in high school—but not in that way. It was Melissa Joan Hart. Clarissa! That explained it all.

It was only when I went inside and looked in the mirror in the bathroom that I remembered I had swapped the changeable lenses in my sporty sunglasses with amber lenses—which meant the reason she kept looking at me was because I was staring her down with my transparent insect-like goggles. At that moment that I learned the most important rule of LA: Always wear dark sunglasses!

You would have thought over the next decade that I would have somehow improved my celebrity-spotting quotient. I shopped at what was then the Mayfair Market on Franklin (now it’s a Gelsons, and has an improved store layout) which has more sitcom stars per aisle than any other grocery store in the city. And I’ve had my fair share of OMG THAT’S HIM instant-recognition moments. Jeffrey Jones hunching over a shopping cart at Trader Joe’s. Alex Baldwin sporting a tracksuit and grin in Santa Monica. Julia Roberts screeching through a yoga class (no, it was not adorable). But most of the time, I’m at a bar, gazing at a vaguely familiar face, trying to figure out what in the world my childhood babysitter is doing in LA.

I think it’s part of a common affliction that most people have when they move here: When you see someone you think you recognize, you always assume you know them from college, not cable. So maybe it’s just my own self-centeredness when I think that all celebrities are just old, unplaceable friends. I’ve lived here long enough now that I can hardly keep track of the non- and semi-famous people that I know, how could I possibly be responsible for the contents of Us Weekly, too?

And here’s the awful truth. Most of the time, they look so—gasp!—ordinary. Yes, this is the craziest True Hollywood Story secret about celebrities, you guys. They look like regular people. Regular people who most likely attended my summer camp.

To all the famous people who are reading this now, I just want to apologize in advance. I’m sorry for not knowing who you are, first of all. (To the reality show people, I’m sorry for not caring who you are.) But I want to make something absolutely clear. Celebrities, I’m not staring at you because I’m impressed by your accumulation of Daytime Emmys. I’m staring at you because I’m trying to figure out if you were in my Honors English class at Parkway West Senior High.

What’s your best celebrity sighting? Or are you like me, and lack celebrity sight?

I’m celebrating ten years in LA with ten days of LA stories. Go here for more LAX.

In ten days I will turn 34. Although some—Hallmark, Facebook—might consider the fact that I have managed to spend 34 years on this earth to be some incredible accomplishment, this date coincides with what I think is a far more impressive anniversary. When I turn 34, I’ll have lived in LA for TEN YEARS.

This, I think, is a very special milestone. I have named it LAX.

There’s a funny saying about living in LA, and everyone here seems to have their own variation on it. But it goes something like: “Everyone hates living in LA for the first [insert number] years, but if you make it to [insert higher number] years, you’ll stay forever.” But this saying was never true for me. From the moment I sailed down the 101 into Hollywood with a U-Haul filled with my parents’ furniture, three months’ rent in my bank account, and no job, I was mesmerized. I fell in love with LA on day one.

I came here because I thought it would be an easy place to spend a year or two while I got my act together. Ten years later, I can’t see myself leaving (plus, I have yet to get my act together). LA made me comfortable and uncomfortable in all the right ways. And I wanted a way to commemorate that. Since some people I know are making all the other Virgos look bad by using their birthdays as massively successful charitable fundraisers, I, too decided to embark upon a mission to use this anniversary as a way to give back. So for the next ten days, I’m dedicating this blog to a decade of living in Los Angeles.

I want to tell you the stories about my favorite moments of living in this city. I want to point you towards the very best places. I want to show you what I think should be different here. And I want everyone to share their own ideas of what LA was, what it is, and what it could be, whether they’ve lived here 0 years or 75 years. Which would make them LALXXV.

So first, I want to hear from the Angelenos. What’s your LA story? How long have you lived in LA? Why did you come here? Why did you stay? Leave a comment or drop me an email alissa[at]gelatobaby[dot]com

And stay tuned for X more days of LAX.

Update: The Board of Public Works denied the permit on August 24, canceling the festival.

For the past 30 years my neighborhood has hosted a street festival called Sunset Junction, which is also a nickname for the nearest major intersection to my house. This year’s event is scheduled for this weekend, the last “real” summer weekend before Labor Day. For two days, a stage that’s pretty much at the bottom of my street will ring with big-time acts like k.d. lang and Lil’ Jon. You’d think it would be a great time to meet up with the dozens of friends we know who live in the neighborhood. Oddly enough, almost no one I know goes to this festival.

Today, a Board of Public Works commission recommended that a permit for the festival be denied due to the fact that the festival owes the city almost $400,000.

Yes, that is $256,484 they didn’t pay last year. Plus the $141,978 they have not yet paid this year. I snagged this paragraph from the commission’s report, which is filled with all sorts of other baffling details, like the fact that the permit papers were turned in late, emails were not returned, and a collections effort went unanswered. You can download the entire PDF and read it yourself. (Perhaps more disturbing than the fact that the organizers couldn’t get their act together is the fact that it took the city this long to take action against people who are obviously taking advantage of the city financially. But I digress.)

Just looking at my Twitter and Facebook streams today, and based on my conversations with my neighbors, I can say with confidence that most of the people I know are happy that this festival might be dead. It wasn’t always this way, I hear. I went right after it started booking national acts, in 2002 and 2003, but when it was still a “suggested donation”—and when I was still young enough to chug a dozen $8 beers and sneak into Isaac Hayes’s private party at Tantra. (Ah, the good old days.) But since I’ve moved here, I’ve realized that it’s mostly attended by people who live far away, park illegally on our tiny streets, and leave glittering piles of puke in our driveways. It has flat-out failed in producing the sense of community it was meant to create. Unless you count how we’ve all banded together against it.

The big argument for the festival was that the organizers were using the proceeds for programs that benefitted the community, like working with local youth and supporting the farmers market. But now the organizers are trying to raise $100,000 fast from fans, which basically admits those funds were mishandled (uh, what happened to the money from last year’s ticket sales?). I feel horrible for the local bands who have been booked to play and vendors who have bought booths. It’s obvious they’re never getting their money back. Local businesses have already lost big time, as they’ve been blocked out or marginalized in recent years by bigger sponsors and national vendors. Now they’ve been robbed of the bump in sales they expected from the weekend, even if it came with huge inconvenience.

If this version of the festival is indeed cancelled, I say we take back our block party. We don’t need closed streets and funnel cakes and Butthole Surfers to show our neighborhood pride. Let’s shop at our local boutiques, eat every meal out at a Silver Lake restaurant, pick produce at the farmers market, relax in the Meadow, check out a book at the library, climb some stairs, play music on street corners, drink cocktails with our neighbors at bars we can walk home from (and hopefully not puke in anyone’s driveway). I’ll be out of town unfortunately (why do I always miss the good stuff?) but if I was here I’d spend the entire day at Pazzo Gelato, sampling every flavor, soaking up the last August weekend in one of the greatest neighborhoods in LA.

If you live here, please consider doing the same. Let’s show that Sunset Junction isn’t just some festival that we hate. Let’s prove that it’s an actual place—that we love.

Emerging from yet another camping stint along the coast, we’ve finally found wifi (and showers! and laundry!). And I come bearing photos. My shots from the Yosemite-Kings Canyon-Sequoia leg of our tour can be found here. I hope to add captions and tags soon, but this photo is probably my favorite. Remember in my first post from Yosemite, I snapped a shot of this hulking dome rising over the valley? That’s called North Dome, and for one night, we got to sleep on top of it. That’s our tent as the sun rises over Yosemite’s most famous hunk of granite, Half Dome. It was like sleeping on the moon.

Update: Now that I’ve gotten caught up with my news, I’ve learned that a hiker fell to her death on Half Dome two days ago. My short post the other day about warning signage in the park was linked on a story by LAist, which wonders if the park should be more vigilant about visitor safety. A record-breaking 14 people have died in the park so far this year.

Check out the rest of the photos here. More soon!

Heading up to the top of those falls (the tallest in North America at 2425 feet!), and beyond. See you in a few days!

My mom and aunt were here for the past week and I was thrilled to have a chance to show them my Los Angeles. No, we didn’t step foot on the beach or attempt to see the Hollywood sign or pretend to shop on Rodeo Drive, but we got to see what I consider the real LA—the places that people like me really live and work. And—because it is indeed possible—we did arrive almost everywhere via bus, subway, sidewalks and stairs!

Get Some Perspective: My first recommended stop for any visitor to LA is a drink on the roof of The Standard downtown. Yes, it can be annoying (I usually refuse to go anywhere that requires a wristband) but if you gracefully slide up here around, say, 6pm, you’ll be treated to no hassle, plus live jazz, sunsets, and a perfect 360-degree “you-are-here” introduction to the twinkly, glass-towered city, plus the mountains and hillsides beyond. If there’s a better open-air, rooftop view of LA, I haven’t found it. If you want a more zoomed-out view, substitute with a trip to Griffith Observatory and pair the view with a hike.

Find Some Art: After your high-class cocktails you’ll need some culture. Sure, the Getty has a better view. MOCA has Art in the Streets. But neither museum has the exquisite urban spaces and great collections of LACMA, which is quickly becoming the best place to spend an arty afternoon. We toured the Tim Burton exhibit (recommended) and had lunch at Ray’s, the incredible new restaurant set amongst the Renzo red plaza. Plus the Craft and Folk Art Museum, with one of the best gift shops in the city, is right across the street. Sadly they close at 5pm, which was just moments after we arrived.

Watch Something Outside: We forget sometimes, with our endless-summer climate, that we have so many stellar outdoor venues. I was delighted when we bought tickets to see my friend Lenny’s film Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest, that we’d be seeing the film under the stars at the John Anson Ford Theater. I always forget about the Ford, the smaller sister to the Hollywood Bowl, right across the freeway. Taking in a show outside should be one of the highlights of any trip to LA, whether it’s a Brazilian dance series at the Ford, or Hall & Oates at the Bowl (this weekend!) or Cinespia at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Extra bonus: You get a chance to pack a picnic, including wine, allowing you to save a few bucks on dinner that night.

Go Home Again: I realized as we stepped onto this jaw-dropping patio on the Dwell on Design home tour that house tours are absolutely the best way to see Los Angeles. We’re famous for our residential architecture and L.A. residents are always so very generous to let the public inside. The Dwell tours are legendary, but there are plenty more throughout the year like the Bungalow Heaven Home Tour, the Venice Garden and Home Tours, the Hancock Park Homes Tour, and you can always tour famous homes like The Gamble House and the Neutra VDL House. I was especially delighted that many of the homes on the Dwell tour were on the Big Parade route (and yes, we did take some stairs!).

Eat a Fancy Brunch: After all that walking, one does tend to get hungry. Bottega Louie was the hands-down favorite for two out of two moms on our trip. Our first visit was on a Saturday morning, as downtown’s residents sleepily wandered into their morning ritual of bright orange mimosas and sunny hollandaise. Brunch is a key to LA life, and Bottega Louie is maybe the best place in the city to have it. We loved the gorgeous white-on-white space that echoes with laughter, the pastries lined up in the bakery like fine jewelry. The food is fantastic, the service is great, but even more than that, it’s almost always open—unlike so many other places—ensuring that you’ll be able to stop in here again for lunch or dinner. As we did. Another dinner tip: Chaya Downtown for its summer happy hour of $2 grilled-to-order yakitori skewers and $5 sushi rolls. Our dinner bill was $28.

See Hidden History: I knew when I bought tickets to the LA Conservancy’s Last Remaining Seats that we’d get to see Sunset Boulevard in the beautified theater, but on Sunday night we got so much more than that. We joined a crowd of over 1000 people in singing “Happy Birthday” to the Palace Theater, which turned 100 when it reopened this week. Then we got a lecture about the history of the theater and downtown in 1911, plus before-and-after shots of the renovation, and then, a conversation with one of the film’s stars, Nancy Olson. You couldn’t have asked for more—it was the best way to experience LA’s past. The LA Conservancy does plenty of events, like their upcoming sunset walking tours, all to benefit a great organization. A must-do.

Hit the Civic Highlights: Finally, a downtown architecture tour is a must. We did a quick loop that hit Bunker Hill (the Central Library was closed, sadly), Disney Hall, the Music Center, and the Cathedral. But there are plenty more stops to be made: City Hall, Caltrans, the Biltmore, Bradbury Building, Grand Central Market, Angels Flight (when it reopens). And yes, although we may find it cheesy, you must make a stop at Olvera Street for a peek at LA’s birthplace. Past the rows of Mexican wrestling masks, there’s now a wonderful new cultural center, La Plaza, with the best LA history lesson you can get for $9. We ducked into La Golondrina, a restaurant that’s been operating since the ’20s in one of the city’s oldest buildings (1855!). Then we hopped across the street to Union Station (another must-see highlight) and took the Red Line back to our hotel.

Did they have a good time? Well, I’m sure the margaritas helped to put a smile on their faces, but just look at those happy moms!

More photos from our mom adventure here.