There is always money in the banana stand.

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Today Jimin was off work so we decided to go out exploring together. We met Sarah Brockman (another Belmontee in LA) for breakfast at Norm’s diner. The place was packed and a waitress who was running through the restaurant, brought our food to us quickly. The thing to get is the “loaded hashbrowns”. I was too distracted by foods to put syrup on to see that gem on the menu. Another quirk about Norm’s is that they bring you fried jalapenos at the end of the meal. No one really knew what to do with them, so we had a bite and left the rest on the plate. After paying the bill, we said goodbye to Sarah and made plans to see her again soon when we all return to Nashville.

Jimin suggested a trip to Balboa Island where we could go to a real-live banana stand, like in Arrested Development! We were super excited to see it, but unfortunately we hit heavy traffic on our way to Orange County. After quite sometime we reached the tiny, crowed island. There were cute shops and restaurants lining the street. We decided to eat at Sugar N’ Spice Original Frozen Banana Stand. There was another “original banana stand” three shops over, but this stand was packed. We ordered our bananas, which come dipped in chocolate, then in a topping-Zack got peanuts, Jimin got peanuts and sprinkles, I went with heath bar. Our bananas were delicious! We walked around eating them, looking at the bay and the boaters on it. We were surprised to find a very large jellyfish that had washed to the shore. We continued walking the mile or so around the island edge and back to the car.

We were ready for diner, so we went in search of an In n’ Out Burger. We found one within a few miles, but when we tried to pull in, the parking lot was completely full and there was no dining room, just a walk up service window. We wanted the full experience so we went on to find another In n’ Out.


We decided to go in the direction of Disneyland. At night, they set off fireworks that we thought we would be able to see from close by. We found an “In n’ Out” within a few miles of the highway and went in to try out the classic. The place was packed and all the tables were full. We had heard about the “secret menu” from Josh Kilby and Beau, so we decided to try it. Zack ordered his burger and fries “animal style” and was happily surprised to find bacon on his order (among other surprises). I had a burger and vanilla shake, and we agreed that this place is worth all the hype. The food is all very fresh-they get shipments everyday of their meat and produce. They don’t even have freezers! Stuffed, we went back on our hunt for Disney. We followed the signs toward Downtown Disney. We passed hotels and restaurants and found ourselves headed out of town. We turned around and started following the signs again. This time we found ourselves really close, but again the signs lead us astray. As we were headed toward the highway (but we thought we were going to downtown Disney), we took it as a sign and headed towards home.

Along the way, we passed the hugest Forever 21 and decided to make a quick stop. Zack and I didn’t buy anything, but we were able to get some toothpaste and coffee cups from the Wal-mart next door.

We headed back to apartment and sat down to watch tv. Jimin fell asleep, but Zack and I stayed up watching TV and eating popcorn with her roommate, Zach. By the time we finished watching the Daniel Tosh comedy special a second time, we decided to head to bed.

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Comments

[kevin]

loved reading about your guys' time in la. glad you could spend some time with j...i know she had a great time.

[Kris "The Sis" Romans]

Too bad none of us know the recipe to the Bluth's super secret frozen banana. I had hoped you two had cracked it.

[Kim DeWa;;]

Guts of Iron
Jennifer, Child you must truly have guts of iron if you can even think of eating those animal style fries!!! They even look as though an animal of some sort may have already eaten them once.