Here's the itinerary plan so far. We are traveling with 3 kids, so we are not doing anything too funky or out there. We'll save that for when we come back alone.

- Fly into LA, rent Escalade (big family for 2 weeks requires big luggage and big car)

- Drive through Santa Barbara, have lunch, go on to Santa Maria, stay the night. Routine Radisson deal for one night.

- Drive through the Paso Robles wine area a little, see a winery, drive up to Monterey. After looking about a 100 places, settled on the Marriott at the marina. Spend a couple days there, do a whale watching trip, go the aquarium, do the 17 mile drive, go to Carmel, etc.

- Drive over to Sequoia Nat'l Park, stay at the John Muir Lodge for a couple nights. Spend a few days breathing clean air, hiking in the wilderness, appreciating nature, dodging bears, taking pictures.

- Drive to Pasadena, stay the night at the Ritz. Hang out at the pool, drink a lot, eat a lot, hang out at the pool some more for a couple days. Mid-vacation chill break.

- Drive to San Diego. Stay at the La Valencia in La Jolla for a few nights. See Old Town, go the zoo, do whatever else comes up. Oh yeah, the kids are wanting to go to that LegoLand place, which does almost nothing for me, but I'm making them go to Sequoia and hike a couple days, so I guess I'll take them to LegoLand.

- Drive up to Santa Monica, stay at the Loews on the beach for 3 nights. Go to the beach, see LA and environs, chill. Try to find a place with margaritas and beach music for at least one sunset, to make us feel at home.

- Come home form LA (damn, it has to end sometime).

For a first-time Griswald family adventure to the Golden State, I think we're covering a decent amount of decent stuff. Everyone had their thing to do, which grew our trip from a week to 2 weeks. Wife wants some pampering at the Ritz, and wanted to go to La Jolla. Kids wanted to see whales, the aquarium, the zoo, LegoLand. I wanted to see wilderness. So, we tried to catch a little bit of all of it as an "Intro to California" trip.

I just hope that Christie Brinkley doesn't drive by in a Ferrari, and derail our trip.