I’ve been a little absentee lately and that’s because I’ve been on vacation up and down the west coast. Started by going down the Oregon coast. Snuck a peek at the Goonie’s house every and other ridiculous reason to stop and gawk at the sites. Made my way to Reno for a couple of days and then down to California. While there have been many, many reasons to be excited on this trip (Random Arcades, Winchester Mansion,  National History Museum, The Endeavor, just to name a few) one of my personal favorites has been visiting Universal Studio’s Hollywood.

The last time I was at Universal Studios, King Kong nearly scared the piss out of me despite the banana’s in the air, I cried at Jaws, and basically had a miserable time. Fast forward more than twenty-five years. Universal Studios is a completely different place. While the studio tour is still there, it too has been overhauled. As many of you know, I’m obsessed with Fast and the Furious. So much to my surprise, the Studio Tour has the two largest 4D interactive screens in the world. One of them is race against time with Vin. I’m just saying, I may have road the entire hour plus long Studio Tour three times, just so I could race again and again.

Of course whatever else I did in Universal, (sorry Jurassic and Springfeild, you we’re cool, just not as cool) nothing would compare to Hogwarts. Hogwarts Castle, Hogsmeade, Honeydukes, Olivander’s, the Three Broomsticks, the Hogshead, or the Lights of Hogwarts. Magic. I was sitting in the Three Broomsticks nearly in tears the first time. I was sitting inside of of my favorite books. Magic. Pure and utter magic. I know that the Hollywood version of Hogwarts is half the size… a quarter of the size of Orlando’s but I still loved it. I loved every minute there. Plus, has anyone had Butterbeer??!! OMG. Frozen Butterbeer is a godsend. Pumpkin Juice both carbonated and original is a bit on the sweet side for me, but man… frozen butterbeer is where it’s at every time.

Anyway, this is my long winded way of saying, I’m still around, I’ve just been on vacation for about five weeks. I’m headed home at the end of the week. Making a pit stop at the Jelly Belly factory and I’m going to try and avoid the crazy and get through Oregon before the ellipse Monday. When I get a little more time, I’ll try to share some more stories and some of my own pictures from this trip.

It’s been a blast.