by Greg Marine Our May Vacation 2026 Part 1
The last few months have been interesting. I’ve been wanting to write about our May vacation ever since I got back. I just haven’t been in the right headspace to write about it. That isn’t a bad thing. My headspace has been good for the most part. It just hasn’t been in a “write about an amazing vacation” state…LOL I’ve learned that when I want something to be done right, I need to be in that zone, you know?
So, I’m finally where I can write about our first day. I had already created the vlog weeks ago…LOL Now, it’s time to write about the day and present the vlog as well. The day before was my travel day. It was okay. The route I’ve been taking this year hasn’t been the greatest. So, I’m going to reevaluate flights for future trips. It’s always good to try new flights and see how they go. It was worth a shot. I just didn’t like it…LOL But I arrived in plenty of time to get our rental, checkin at the hotel, and have a lovely dinner at the attached restaurant that they have at ALO. The other Ayres hotel doesn’t have a restaurant. This felt like a special treat! And it was pretty good. I had authentic tacos that had handmade tortillas they made fresh when I ordered. That was a first for me! I also got the chips and salsa. All of that was homemade as well. It was amazing 🤩
For this trip, I decided to try and keep everything I packed into a single backpack. I now have one of those that you can vacuum seal the clothes and reduce the space needed. It worked rather well. The caveat was that it prevented me from bringing home my traditional coffee mug. Lesson learned! My motivation was that Southwest Airlines is inappropriately aggressive about telling people that there is limited overhead bin storage. They are constantly reminding people that they will need to check roller bags if the bin gets full. That stresses me out every time I have my roller bag with me. The funny thing is that they always have room when I board the plane. And one of my last flights had extra room to spare after everyone was onboard this time. That was despite the guy coming over the speaker several times telling us that we were going to run late because people had too many things in the overhead bin. Yeah, he was very wrong. I wonder if I should start reporting a complaint to Southwest about this…LOL Travel is stressful enough without that nonsense. Anyway, I’ll always take my backpack and a roller bag from now on. I’ll just have to mentally block that nonsense from Southwest as best I can 😒
This time, we were at a different hotel, thanks to some redirections. This one is still an Ayres hotel. But it’s called Ayres Lobby Orange…aka ALO…aka HELLO in a British-like accent…LOL My first impressions were “it’s just a hotel.” But it grew on me and it became my home for the weekend. Especially after Cherie arrived 🥰
I woke pretty early on our first morning of vacation. It’s probably because of my timezone and how I’m no longer really on my offset sleep schedule anymore. But I did manage to fall back to sleep and got a little more shuteye…hehehe Shortly after I woke for the day, I made my way down for breakfast. It is buffet style at ALO. That meant it wasn’t as fresh. But I still enjoyed it. There is an outdoor patio at ALO and I naturally decided to eat out there. That morning, it was better to be outside anyway. There was a school group that morning pretty much taking up the entire indoor seating area…LOL I don’t mind the number of people. It just meant there weren’t any tables available for just me. I would have had to sit at the bar if I wanted to eat inside. So, I’m glad they had the patio for that reason as well. But I typically prefer to eat outside anyway…hehehe
They didn’t have apple juice available for free. But they did have it in their little “lobby shop.” So, I bought some for our vacation. We were able to have it both days we had breakfast together. Tradition saved! LOL After that, I went back to my room. I wrote the letters for Cherie and Bambi. I like to write those sort of letters in the moment. I have those special feelings on these vacations. The things I write in the moment are the best for these things. I sometimes write stuff ahead of time. But I like the feeling of writing in the hotel…hehehe I then steamed all of my clothes to prepare them for the adventure that awaited!
The next thing I did was go down to check out the little secret garden that is tucked away in the middle of the building. It was quite lovely and I enjoyed it very much. I sat there for a bit and enjoyed the ambience. The night before, I had purchased some waters from the “lobby shop” to tide me over. The gal told me that there was a water bottle refill station in the gym. So, I checked that out on this garden trip. It’s a water filtration station. I used it throughout this trip. I then ended up back in my room for a bit to work on Notesprout. I was glad to have access to Claude Code while I was there so I could continue working on that project on breaks during the vacation. At the time, it wasn’t ready for daily use and I wanted to take every opportunity to work on it…LOL But after a little while, I found myself going back down to the garden to journal using my Supernote…hehehe I was still using the Supernote system back then…LOL
After that second visit to the garden, it was time to head over to Union Station to see my best friend!!! This was probably the most exciting part of the day for me, aside from actually being with Cherie. That anticipation of seeing her again is so thrilling. And this time, we were meeting up at the very place we had our very first real warm hug two years ago 🤩 The moment I saw her, I turned on the camera…LOL I wanted to capture the Rex’s running to each other in excitement…LOL You’ll see that in the video, of course…hehehe
After our first warm hug of this vacation, we made our way to the car so she could put her stuff in the back. Then we walked over to Olvera Street. This was my first time experiencing this part of LA. I had driven by it two years ago when I drove around to find Union Station for my first trip there. But I didn’t know anything about it aside from what Cherie had told me. I didn’t even know it was where it is…LOL I loved it! And I’m so glad it will be a new tradition for us. This was where we got our first churro of the trip. This one was from Mr. Churro! It was my very first authentically Mexican churro. And I loved that I got to share this first time experience with my best friend 🤩 We have so many firsts. Some are just firsts for one of us. While most are firsts for both of us 🥹 This one was just a first for me. But it’s special for her too since she got to experience my first with me 🤭
While we were enjoying our first churro, we were listening to some live music. It was interesting because most of the singing was pretty bad…like karaoke bad…LOL But it was so fun. We joined in a little from our little spot…LOL That experience inspired my first karaoke Friday performance for Cherie…LOL After that, Cherie got her mom a magnet and then we headed back over to Union Station. And then it was back to the hotel for us! Cherie checked in and we briefly parted ways to prepare for the ballgame that night.
When I got back to my room, I opened the care package Cherie had prepared for me 🥹 It had the traditional food bars and the chicken with rice dinner. I absolutely love that! But it also had my repaired Bingford. I sure did miss my little buddy! It had been a month. Longest month of my life!!! HAHAHA j/k He’d like to think it was my longest month…LOL j/k again. And I got my first ever bucket hats!!! Cherie’s mom made me two to choose from for our Dodgers game. I LOVE THEM!!! I had asked on our April vacation if she thought her mom would be interested in making me a bucket hat…hehehe She did so in double!!! To say I am Blessed is an understatement 🥹 I loved the note Cherie wrote me and the little drawing on the bag. I’ll cherish those for the rest of my life 🤩
For our vacation prayer, we did it in the garden this time. We usually do that in the lobby just before we begin our first night together. But with there being a garden this time, why not?!? hehehe Then it was off to the game! This was our favorite game so far. The seats were amazing. And the Dodgers won this time…LOL The walk there was nice. The walk back was a little better. The only real disappointment was that they didn’t do Daaaayyyyy-O nearly as much this time…LOL It was only maybe 2 or 3 times. There were a few fights as well. But nothing that took too much away from our experience. It was fun to see foul balls that landed nearby. Nothing remotely close to us, though. And the fireworks were amazing 🤩 I definitely love everything about our time at this game. I think we may try to go to an Angels game without the Dodgers sometime so we can get the best seats at a lower price…LOL Something I noticed more so this time was when they announced the players coming up to bat. They sounded so excited for the Angels players. But they sounded like they were super bored when announcing the Dodgers players…LOL Yeah, I know we were in enemy territory…LOL But why sound so depressing when announcing the best team to ever play the game?! LOL j/k
As I was recording my final thoughts for the night on my vlog, my phone storage became full…LOL It stopped recording mid-thought…LOL You’ll see that in the video. So, that’s why I suddenly stopped. It wasn’t that I tried to cut something out…LOL I spent part of the night clearing off the phone so that it wouldn’t happen for the rest of this trip. That said, I didn’t do as many recordings after that. Perhaps I was worried I’d run out of space again? Or perhaps I’m still not confident in my vlogging? Either way, I’m still glad I vlogged this time.
Speaking of that, below is the vlog from that first day. It brings me back to the day as much as this blog entry and I’m so grateful it exists. Even if the rest of the vacation wasn’t captured as much, I know that everything I did capture was worth it. And I’m now inspired to continue doing this on all our adventures! Stay tuned for the next part of our May vacation. Hopefully, it will come very soon…hehehe