Vacationing National Lampoons style....part uno

is an adventure to say the least....and when you add my parents in the mix it's down right crazy.
But a vacation is a vacation and I would be crazy to ever pass one up....

So we left bright and early....at 6 am on Saturday headed for Sunny Southern California...which was actually great timing since the temps were in the 100s in Nor Cal.
Our plan was to leave ridiculously early so that Natalie would sleep and we could get pretty far out of the bay area...mission accomplished....but she slept so well that we ended up almost half way to LA before she woke up...ahh breakfast at a diner in the middle of nowhere...nice.
So after a nice glorified truck stop breakfast we headed towards LA...actually Calabassas to be exact.
Calabassas is much nicer than Los Angeles...or so we've been told. Uh the Kardashians live there...it must be nice...hello they're the Kardashaians...
Acutally it was quite nice, clean and beautiful. It's one of those places that can *almost* entice you into living in So Cal....almost...of course the median home price is like 1.5 million..but whatev.
So we check into our hotel, wihtout seeing one celebrity...trust me I was on look out, and decide to take Natalie swimming. We get her all greased up with sunscreen and gets ourselfs ready aka me getting Natalie ready while Dan watches TV.
And all of a sudden *POP* the TV goes black...weird. Dan is feverishly working to get the TV working again, because heaven forbid we be without a TV for even one night...and all of a sudden I realize that the TV is smoking....like plumes of smoke coming out of the back of the TV.
So I tell him to unplug the TV and I call the front desk and tell them that our TV is on fire (I know a bit dramatic...sue me) after some crappy translation by me I am able to let the housekeeping staff working next door that our "television esta en fuego" which then sends her into a tissy.
Finally the maintenence guy comes and we try again to talk about the TV....but it wasn't going well. The manager comes and moves us to another room "a very nice room with a plasma." she says, like we won the lotto.....
(in hindsight I should have taken the TV fire as an omen for the direction the trip would take but I was being optomistic)
Luckily the remainder of the Calabassas stay was uneventful, no Kardashians, no more fires...just regular old vacation stuff.

Then it was on to San Diego...or so we thought. My mom reserved us an "oceanside condo....Ocean Beach CA" Now I think anyone would think that that Condo would be beachfront in Ocean Beach CA...right? Uh...no....it was a condo, near an ocean and a beach in Oceanside CA....NOT San Diego....
Now if you're familiar with Oceanside...it is NOT the same as Ocean Beach....not at all. Oceanside is about 40 miles north of San Diego, and is right at Camp Pendelton...it has beaches but they aren't quite the same as San Diego....
Okay, so we deal with this and we figure, hey theres a beach there, it will be fine....yeah...the website for the condo failed to mention the FREIGHT TRAIN that runs 100 feet from the condo 24 hours a day...blowing it's whistle at EVERY intersection.
Hmm...another sign...maybe.