a weekend

Jesse and I took the train to San Juan Capistrano for a romantic little day trip this weekend. We had a lovely time. We love analyzing and discussing things together, and this trip provided plenty of fodder for us.

This is the waiting area of Union Station in Los Angeles. It's a beautiful station with marble floors in beautiful patterns and gorgeous woodwork all around.

My husband. I just think he's so handsome.

This is a shot of the LA river. In LA, rivers are lined with concrete. I can't tell you how disturbing this is for an ecologist. On so many levels. Ugh.

Usually there are trees and shrubbery growing down the middle, indicating the volume of water that flows here in SoCal. It's also covered in graffiti. Charming.

We got a fabulous picnic bag for our wedding from Jesse's cousins, the Richters. We LOVE it. It was the inspiration for this trip. Here we are setting up. Jesse also packed 2 cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon, which brought us to a greater level of picnicking.

This little town is quaint and touristy. Outside of the walking tour (which was about 7 blocks long) was a regular town with liquor stores and laundromats. Proof that it's always just an illusion.

San Juan Capistrano is a Mission town. The mission here is really remarkable. But it cost $10 to get into, and since our goal was to go on the cheap, we just looked over the walls. We did go into the new church around the corner and sat listening to music for a little while. That was free. We left before they passed any collection dishes.

There was a petting zoo on the other side of the train tracks with a lot of cute animals. This boar was chilling out in the water tub. I imagine his roommate was annoyed. Jesse hates it when I cool my feet off in his water glass.

Napoleon Dynomite's llama doppleganger.

We were in this town for a while. We got there at about 1 in the afternoon and the only train going back to Union Station was at 6. I didn't think 5 hours would be hard to fill, but with 7 blocks of antique stores, it was. We finally decided to have a drink. Jesse's beer was truly the coldest in town. Do you see that it is filled with ice? My goodness. 

This is a little jail cell made in 1897. You just can't help but be a tourist here. There's no chance of fitting in- if you're in the 7 blocks of the walking district, you aren't a local. 

There was a wedding going on in town. We peeked in (from the outside, we didn't crash...) just to see what they had done. It's amazing how much more interesting weddings are after you plan one. Of course, our wedding was leaps and bounds more awesome than this one:) We love our wedding so much, we just can't help but think it's better than any other wedding on earth. Maybe because it was ours.

While we were waiting for our train, the wedding party came down for photos. Jesse admonished me for taking pictures, but I pointed out that they knew full well that there would be a huge crowd waiting for the train. The bride undoubtedly loved the attention. I know I would have:)

And that concludes our tour of San Juan Capistrano.