The Family Vacation
(This should make up for the weekly 500 words I've missed these last two weeks.)
We have talked about it since two years ago when my mom gave us a giant plastic Pepsi bottle to fill with loose change. It had a Disneyland postcard taped to the side to remind us that when the bottle was full of coins we should use that money to go to California. We never actually filled the bottle all the way, and the money in it was nowhere near enough to pay for the whole trip; but it was heavy enough to induce a hernia when I picked it up, and the extra couple hundred dollars allowed us to pay for a breakfast at the hotel where we stayed.
I should make clear up front that the only reason we were able to take this trip was because of Eileen. She planned it, scheduled it, arranged it, and her job paid for it. If it had been up to me, we would have arrived in California with only the clothes on our backs, nowhere to stay, no itinerary, and the naïve hope that the Visa card and the giant Pepsi bottle could be used to solve all those problems. Eileen started cobbling this trip together back in February or so. She arranged everything online, and we actually started paying for the trip a few months before we left because she charged our hotel rooms and the tickets to Disneyland and Sea World on the credit card, which we had almost paid off by the time the trip rolled around. This was not only nice from a financial standpoint, but it was also nice to have the tickets in hand when we arrived, rather than to have to wait in line to purchase them. So, because I am probably going to tease her mercilessly throughout the rest of this journal, I’ll tell you now that Eileen was really the champion of the vacation.
We chose the timing based on James’s “year-round” school schedule, which isn’t really year-round at all; the kids are in school for nine weeks and out for three. (It is the work of Satan.) James’s first session off-track began the last week in September, and since we had no plans as to where he might go during this time while all the rest of us were at work and school, we decided to take our family vacation then. We figured it was easier (and probably cheaper) than finding daycare for that week. As it turned out, we chose the only week during the school year in which there are no crowds anywhere in California. I am not complaining. In fact, I almost fear ever having to go again because I don’t see how it could be any better than it was this time. But let’s start at the beginning, shall we?
Saturday, September 25, 2004
Having packed the van the night before, we got up insanely early, strapped the still-groggy children into their seats and took off by 4:30 A.M. We have often taken trips to Las Vegas (Lost Vegas, as Elizabeth and James used to call it), and we were to pass that city of sin on our journey, but our trip today would be significantly longer, significance being measured by the length of time in the car: probably 12 hours. Envisioning the hours of traffic delays we were certain to be trapped in around Los Angeles, I did not want to be arriving at my sister’s house in San Pedro at midnight, so I figured an early start was the best bet. We could be past the Salt Lake City Permanent Road Construction Zone before the sun was up. With any luck, the kids might even sleep until we got as far south as St. George. The rest of the time could be spent doing 80 (or so) on the vast open roadways between the crowded terminal points of the journey. And, as it turned out, things went according to plan. In fact, they went better than I could have imagined.
The first thing I was grateful for was that the kids did, in fact, go to sleep. This cuts down on the backseat nattering, induced by boredom, which makes me want to kill them after three hours trapped in the car with them. The second thing I was grateful for was that Eileen fell asleep too. This made it possible for me to let my foot weigh a little heavier on the gas pedal, if you know what I mean. There’s a tone that creeps into her voice sometimes. It’s hard to describe in writing because you have to hear it, but if you did, you would recognize it for what it was: a warning. “Michael…,” spoken slowly and with the obvious pretense of calmness that belies that simmering volcano beneath. Whenever the speedometer creeps into the 80 range, I hear that tone, a reminder that someone is watching. But as long as she was asleep, I was free to blast across the desert that is most of Utah before the sun came up.
I don’t mean to brag, but I must mention that our first stop was Cedar City, far beyond the usual bladder-busting first-stop length of Fillmore. According to MapQuest, it is 280 miles from our house to Cedar City, and the trip should take 4 ½ hours. We arrived there at 8:00 in the morning, having left home at 4:30. You do the math. The kids woke up with the sunrise, and Elizabeth (more like her mother than either of them care to admit) immediately asked, “Dad, how fast are you going?” We had been talking the day before about how long it would take to get to my sister Barb’s house, and I had noted that it depended on how fast we went. Her question then had been, “How fast will the van go?” I didn’t have an answer at that time, but when I looked down at the speedometer to answer her current inquiry, the needle was quivering at 110. Eileen, whose eyes were not yet open, apparently heard the hesitation in my voice when I answered.
“Michael….”
Stepping out of the van in Cedar City, I was like a newborn foal. My legs were so wobbly from almost four hours in the car that I staggered into the gas pump and had to cling to it for balance until I regained the ability to walk upright. While I was clinging, I filled up the tank, and then we made our way to a nearby McDonald’s for breakfast and a lengthy stop in the restrooms. We made it a point to not spend a great deal of time dithering around, as this is what often slows our trips to Lost Vegas. We were back on the road in half an hour, this time with Eileen at the wheel.
She wanted some music to accompany her driving, but since I was the only one who thought to bring CDs, there seemed to be nothing coma-inducing enough in my bag. She agreed to something between the Fleetwood Mac she would have preferred and the Judas Priest I would have preferred, adjusting it to her standard of proper volume: turn it down so that you can just barely hear it, and then turn it down a little bit more. I went to sleep for a while, hoping that the miles would go by more quickly if I were unconscious. I later awoke, the sun shining on my face through the window, a small blot of drool on my shoulder, and the hum of the wheels on blacktop drowning out the music. We were five miles outside of Cedar City. Old rickety cars were passing us like we were standing still. Eileen doesn’t exceed posted limits. Two geological ages later, we arrived in Baker, California.
The only thing I have to say about Baker is that the price of gas is ludicrously high. Being in the middle of nowhere allows them to stick it to the tourists. Had I known this, we would have stopped in St. George just for gas and then been able to afford an extra day on vacation. My advice for drivers: Do not stop in Baker, California!
The final leg of the journey to Barb’s house is blurry in my memory. All of us were fully awake and working at cross-purposes. I was learning that my driving style is much more Californian than Utahan. Eileen was trying to sleep some more. James was playing a Gameboy game whose theme music is still stuck annoyingly in my head. Elizabeth was trying to do her math homework and practicing her flute…at the same time. She was missing a week of school for this trip, so she had brought a bag full of textbooks and the flute. The flute wasn’t so bad. As practicing goes, it is a fairly innocuous instrument. Unlike a sour note on the violin, mistakes on the flute usually don’t make my neck skin crawl. But the math. Oh, the math! Periodically Elizabeth would say, “Dad, can you help me with this story problem?” I would agree, as though I really had a choice, and she would begin reading the problem: “This scatter plot shows 327 pine trees in the shape of an equilateral triangle. If you plant ten more trees of varying types within the upper right quadrant, what is the ratio of pine trees to bulldog puppies in the lower left quadrant? Explain.”
I was glad to finally see a sign indicating that San Pedro was close. San Pedro is clearly a Spanish name, as are most of the cities and streets in California, but I have noticed that for some reason white people purposely mispronounce all the Spanish words. They say San Pee-dro, not Pay-dro. If it were an honest mistake caused by unfamiliarity with the word, I could let it pass, but if you see the name Pedro in a story, NO ONE pronounces it Pee-dro. We all know the correct pronunciation is Pay-dro. Why then do people who know better continue to bastardize the pronunciation? I suspect that it is because they want to separate themselves (linguistically as well as any other way) from the Mexican people who populate the state. It is a subtle form of racism. I will continue to pronounce it the correct way, grácias.
My brother-in-law Scott -- Captain Jones to those in his unit – had sent us a set of instructions so detailed as to make it impossible to miss his house. He’s obviously a military man. He even included approximate times and alternate routes in the event of traffic congestion or an air raid. Speaking of traffic, we had yet to encounter any significant enough to cause us to slow down. This is not to say that California roads are not crowded, but, unlike in Utah, traffic in California seldom drags to a standstill.
The secret is simple, and I hope all Utah drivers reading this will heed the advice and pass it on to their friends: Respect the sanctity of the passing lane! For those who don’t know (and that would include most Utahans), that’s the left lane. It’s a simple policy: If you aren’t passing, get the hell out of the left lane! The problem in Utah is that many of our self-righteous faithful are so accustomed to controlling every aspect of so many other people’s lives that they also become our self-appointed guardians of the freeway. They will casually putter along, three abreast, at just under the speed limit, not allowing anyone to pass. Of course their logic is that no one should be going faster than the speed limit, so they feel it is their holy duty to prevent anyone from doing so. There are ways around the self-appointed guardians of the freeways. And such self-righteousness only breeds contempt and road rage, which endangers far more lives than a single speeding motorist. Californians understand this. They never drive in the left lane, but only use it to pass, and if a Californian is in it and sees you barreling up behind him, he will happily move out of your way. The only cars I saw driving in the left lane in California were those driven by idiots talking on cell phones and those with Utah license plates. There is such a thing as a Utah Driver, and the disgust those words engender is well deserved.
Back to the trip. Scott’s instructions got us to within a mile of the house, and then Barb took over. It seems that Scott had simply told us the most direct route, silly man! He would have taken us through downtown San Pedro where we might have seen (gasp!) poor people, or worse: people with skin darker than our own! Barb wrote out the scenic route along the beach, where we were certain to see only the ocean and the $600,000 to $1,500,000 houses that overlook it. We drove up to her place about 11 hours after leaving our own, so with the loss of an hour due to crossing time zones, we still had much of the afternoon and evening to “vacation.”
Barb and Scott’s house is located in a military housing complex, right next to the gate where all who enter are checked in by a uniformed (and armed) soldier and/or police officer. Despite all I had heard about the dangers of California streets due to gangs, terrorists, and drug addicts, I was not to feel any such fear or witness any such problems while at Barb’s house. The scariest thing that happened the entire time I was there was when the guard asked me for my picture ID and it took me longer than ten seconds to extract it from my wallet. This was because I began to shake uncontrollably when I noticed his hand drop to release the safety on his 9 mm. While parked inside the housing complex, under the aegis of military security, I would have felt totally comfortable leaving all my credit cards and cash on the dashboard of my open van, as I am sure that any evidence of thievery would have resulted in punishments so immediate and harsh as to induce seizures just contemplating it. Nobody messes with the U.S. Military.
Barb and her kids took us to the tide pools shortly after we arrived. This involved a short drive down to the beach where we paid a month’s salary to park in the nearly empty lot. It was the first time James and Elizabeth had been to the ocean, so while I was taking pictures to record the moment for posterity, the kids hopped across a trail of rocks, stopping periodically to look at ocean life in the rising tidal pools. I made my way out to a large outcropping that ran parallel to the beach, and I was about to start snapping photos of the kids when a huge wave hit the reef and splashed my back with 55-degree salt water. The tide was coming in. Fast. We frantically started looking for our trail of rocks, but it was now underwater, so we waded into the drink and sloshed back to shore. Along the way, James scraped his leg on some piece of ocean rock that was about as keen as a Ginsu knife, so by the time we were back on dry land, blood had covered his entire lower leg. The salt water made it sting, but he was brave. Hannah (Barb’s six-year old), on the other hand, who had been the first to race out to the farthest reef, totally freaked out when the waves splashed up behind her, and Barb had to carry her to shore in a headlock to keep her from hurting herself. Elizabeth did not want to leave, but since one child was bleeding and another was hysterical, we dragged her away.
Upon returning to the house, we quickly learned why Scott had not accompanied us to the tide pools. He was home cooking dinner. This was a pleasant surprise, as Scott (when he is not directing the capture of Saddam Hussein or overthrowing the Taliban) makes a mean steak. As it turned out, this was one of the only wholesome meals we were to have during our stay in the Golden State, and a darn fine one it was!
Barb had arranged for Eileen and me to steal Hannah’s room, including her queen-sized bed. Having been awake for almost 24 hours with minimal sleep on the road, I was ready to crash long before anyone else. Also, I had been furiously battling what I had hoped was just allergies but now feared was a cold. For the week previous to leaving, I had been consuming my weight in vitamin C every day, and I had made it a point to blow my nose frequently and wash my hands often in hopes of avoiding the sore throat that usually accompanies post nasal drip. So far, I had avoided the sore throat, but my nose was running steadily that evening, so I tried to sleep with my face leaning toward the mattress so any “drainage” would collect in my nose rather than go down my throat and make it sore. Armed with a roll of toilet paper to stanch the flow, I fell asleep.
Hannah’s bed was in the corner of her room. In an effort to prevent Eileen from having to climb over me when she came to bed, I took the side nearest the wall. This was fine until I woke up at 2:00 A.M. (California time) with a sopping wad of tissue under my nose and a bladder so full I was having flashbacks to the climactic scenes in Titanic. I was also sweating profusely despite being on top of the covers. Remember, this was California, where it is always summer. The room was stuffy, and the fan in the corner was not on. Getting over Eileen in the dark without crushing or seriously maiming her proved a difficult task, as I had to keep one hand clamped to my faucet of a nose while balancing precariously above her on the opposite arm as I tried to fling my legs over. Also keep in mind I was trying to do this quietly. Suffice to say we are both lucky to be alive. I stumbled across the room to the fan, fumbled for the switch, discovered the fan wasn’t plugged in, knocked a small appliance of some sort on the floor, briefly electrocuted myself by shoving my dripping finger into the socket, and finally gave up. Fortunately, after a stop in the bathroom, I made it back to the bed safely (and with a fresh roll of toilet paper) and slept reasonably well for the rest of the night. Eileen had figured out how to turn on the fan.
Sunday, September 26, 2004
By morning, my sinuses had quit dripping. My efforts to keep the drainage out of my throat had been successful, but it had apparently collected in my nose and dried into the hardest, crustiest, sharpest little booger boulders imaginable. Pulling them out was unthinkable as the pain would have been unbearable when they ripped away from the inner surface of my nose, taking large quantities of flesh and nose hair with them. My nose was uncomfortable, but I felt otherwise fine. I liberally applied some Vaseline and went down to breakfast ala Scott.
I decided after this meal that I could not live with Barb and Scott much longer or I was going to develop coronary artery disease within the week. Scott is a great cook, but everything he prepares has a significant quantity of meat in it. I believe there were three varieties of sausage to choose from that morning. Now on to the beach….
Redondo beach is a well-known place, but it was not especially crowded that day. It was a little overcast, and it was a Sunday; although I had no reason to believe that the latter fact had anything to do with the lack of a crowd. California is open all the time, unlike many parts of Utah. Scott and Barb brought their boogie boards and wet suits to ride the waves, and everyone got a chance to try that. Scott asked me at one point if I wanted to wear his wet suit. I replied, “Do you ever want it to fit you again?” Apparently large quantities of meat do not affect Scott the way they do me. I could feel myself growing fatter by the minute, and I was only two days off my exercise routine. I did get into the surf for a while, and after trying fruitlessly to go for a swim, I did some boogie boarding, but only after making sure no one anywhere on the beach had a camera.
Parker (Barb’s nine-year old) went into the water (in his wet suit) for all of about ten minutes. The novelty of beach play must wear off after you’ve been there so many times. When he tromped back up the sandy slope for a drink, he said, “I’m done!” and promptly sat down to wait for everyone else to finish up. He was in for a long wait because my kids had never been to a beach like this one: sandy, big waves, salty water, and enough seaweed to pull down an aircraft carrier. Hannah and James built a castle on the beach, and then destroyed it themselves before the tide could do the job. Elizabeth, after four hours, was still sitting on the sand, water lapping at her feet, looking longingly out to the ocean. When we said it was time to go, she pretended not to hear. When we said it louder, she grudgingly followed us to the changing rooms.
They were actually little concrete buildings with “showers” and concrete benches in them. I suppose they were suitable places to get the sand off and some clean clothes on, but it was a little creepy going in there. James and I went in with our towels, a bag full of “valuables” and three drunk guys on bikes. They were speaking slurred Spanish, and one of them actually lay down on the wet concrete to take a rest. I shudder to imagine the list of potential substances that could have made that concrete so wet, but he didn’t seem to mind. He parked his bike in a shower stall. James, being little and able to stand on the bench, well above the unidentifiable fluids on the floor, changed in no time. I, however, had to hop around on one foot, flailing desperately to keep my swimsuit and/or any of my clothing from dropping into the primordial ooze. Carefully covering my bag of valuables with a towel, I stepped into the “shower” (an ice cold jet of water that ran as long as you held the button in) until hypothermia set in, and then dressed in clean clothes (which were full of sand ten seconds after I put them on) and went to dinner.
Bubba Gump Shrimp Company is a restaurant based on the characters in Forest Gump. Barb recommended the hushpuppies as an appetizer, and they were excellent. I had fish and shrimp. By the time I was done, my face was slick with the grease that was oozing from my pores. Darn fine eatin’! The waiter came around to quiz us on our knowledge of Forest Gump trivia. Parker answered more questions correctly than anyone else. At one point, James commented on how many “people with dark skin” there were in the restaurant. These included people of various races and cultures (and even some white folks with good tans). One sad limitation of living in Utah is that kids here grow up with very unrealistic beliefs about what constitutes humanity.
After Bubba Gump, we headed across the plaza to the Long Beach Aquarium. (I’m not sure if that’s really the name, but it was something to that effect.) It was a large building full of underwater life. Barb had her own family pass and a couple free tickets for us, but we had planned to pay admission for both kids. However, after standing at the box office window for ten minutes and not having anyone take our money, we followed Captain Jones over the red rope and into the dark recesses of the aquarium without paying. We could have spent a lot more time there than we did, but we gave it a whirlwind tour, checked out the freaky fish and the outdoor exhibits, and headed back to San Pedro with a stop at Coldstone Ice Cream on the way. Scott took out a small business loan in order to buy us all a treat, and then we sat outside the shop enjoying our dessert. I could feel my arteries filling with fat and the pounds collecting on my posterior.
The second night at Barb’s was much like the first. Josh (Barb’s less-than-one-year old) was scooting around squawking most of the time with Elizabeth in hot pursuit. Parker and James spent almost every waking minute of their time in the house playing video games. Hannah bounced around between these pairs with regular stops in the “adult area” to look at my driver’s license and ask, “Is that what you used to look like when you were skinny?”
Monday, September 27, 2004
I woke up with pink eye. Another night of dripping sinuses drying into spiny nose boulders had apparently caused some sort of goo to back up into my right eye, which was matted shut and pulsating red when I dragged myself off (the outside edge, this time) of Hannah’s bed. I looked in the bathroom mirror with equal parts anger and self-pity. Why me? Why now? But by the time I had stepped out of the shower, I had resolved to make the best of it. While Scott was up preparing a breakfast of bacon, sausage, steak, pork chops, and other assorted meats, I called first my insurance company, then my doctor. The hour time differential insured that I was the first phone call of the day, and I asked him to call in a prescription for some kind of eye medication to the Von’s around the corner from Barb’s house. He did.
Barb said she would go with me on the walk to Von’s to pick up my prescription. She decided to take Ayla, the oldest German Shepherd in America, along for a walk as well as push Josh in the stroller. I ended up being dragged into the parking lot by Ayla, who, despite the fact that she veritably reeks of the grave, still has the strength of a Clydesdale. Barb and Josh followed us, laughing.
At the pharmacy, I met the most sour-faced woman in California. My insurance card was unlike any she had ever seen, and she worked with the deliberate slowness of a DMV employee. Clearly, my very presence offended her in countless ways, so, half a lifetime later when she handed over the medicine, I was vaguely surprised.
Ayla dragged me back to the house, and I had time to put a double dose of medicine in my eye before we headed out.
Disneyland is about an hour from Barb’s house, and since Barb’s family was going with us, we just followed Scott right to the parking lot, where we emptied our wallets for the privilege of parking on the Goofy Level. According to Scott, getting such a parking spot was comparable to winning the lottery. Apparently the parking structure is divided not into numbers and letters, but rather Disney characters, and they aren’t necessarily in alphabetical order. The Mickey level is ground zero, closely followed by Minnie and Goofy. Scott’s eyes goggled in wonder at our incredible good luck. “You don’t want to end up on the Simba level,” he said emphatically. The last time Scott and his family had been to Disneyland was over spring break. They had been on the Simba level, and everything about the trip had been terrible, most notably the fact that they had only got to ride three rides all day long because the park was so crowded. This experience scarred Barb so badly that the mere mention of Disneyland in her presence was enough to cause her to beat you about the head and neck with a tennis racket as soon as she finished throwing up. We were keeping our eyes on her as we strapped on our fanny packs and checked to see that we had all the traveler’s checks.
I know that I will probably keep mentioning the outlandish prices of everything we did while in California, but I do so in good humor because I went there with the attitude that I would rather pay 6 dollars for a bottle of water when I was thirsty than have to cart all my own supplies in. And we did, after all, have plenty from the Disneyland Pepsi bottle. My attitude from the beginning was that I wasn’t going to worry about how much everything cost, and I didn’t. But I did notice.
Since Eileen had pre-purchased a voucher for our tickets, it was simply a matter of trading it in at one of the numerous ticket windows. We were in line for about five minutes to get the passes, and that comparatively short wait was indicative of our entire three days at Disneyland. The place was, to quote a good-natured restaurant employee in Tomorrow Land, “dead.” In fact, of the hundred or so ticket windows that lined the oversized booths outside the main gates of The Happiest Place on Earth, only about ten of them were even open. Throughout our visit, in front of the most popular attractions, we found ourselves walking unchecked at top speed through the miles of winding, roped-off pathways designed to make the usual unfathomably long lines seem deceptively short.
To say that Disneyland wasn’t crowded seems absurd, but given what I had been expecting, and what I remembered of my last visit some twenty years previous, I almost felt like we were the only ones there. In a strange way, I almost felt cheated. Because we could ride all of our favorite rides over and over as many times as we wanted, they somehow lost that magical anticipatory quality that can make a mediocre experience seem much cooler. Disneyland is designed to make waiting in line part of the fun; many rides even include little shows and activities to entertain those waiting. We never had to sit (or stand) through any such diversion, and at times we even found ourselves letting other riders go ahead of us so we could get an idea for what Disneyland might be like on all the other days of the year. Outside Star Tours (a Star Wars-based motion ride) there was a show with an animatronic C3PO and R2D2. Scott said that when he had last been at Disneyland, he had memorized all the characters’ lines by the time he got on the ride because he had to sit through the show so many times. He was in awe of the complete lack of crowds or lines. Before leaving home, we had done some research on Fast Passes, little tickets that would save you some time in line if you checked in and picked up such a pass about an hour before you wanted to get on the ride. Outside every popular ride, there were two “wait times” listed, one standard and one “Fast Pass.” The fast pass time was always much shorter, but after trying them out, we discovered that it took more time to get the fast pass and make our way back to the ride later than it did to just get in line and ride.
Speaking of rides, the first one we went on was the Jungle Cruise, virtually unchanged from my last visit – not terribly exciting, but sort of a classic. The “guide” tells cheesy jokes the entire time and the animals all move in the jerky and endlessly repetitive patterns of all animatronic creatures, of which there are thousands at Disneyland. There was, however, one sound effect (a roar or a crashing sound) that scared Hannah and caused her to dive for cover immediately after leaving the shore. She spent the cruise under her bench, whimpering. This reaction was mirrored by James on his first experience with Indiana Jones, an underground thrill ride full of loud noises, darkness, and huge snakes. I thought it was the best ride in the park, and we went on it six or seven times over the next couple days, but it was a bit much for James on that first morning. He did conquer his fear and ride it again later, but he kept his eyes covered the entire time. James likes rides that are outside, in the sunshine, and there are plenty of those too, but it seems that Disneyland was founded on the principle of dark adventure. The stygian blackness of Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, and the many attractions that were movies before they were rides seems to indicate a perverse predilection for the bizarre. Even It’s a Small World, although not at all scary, is a bit like a midnight LSD trip, what with all that creepy animatronic movement and the infernal repetition of that song in 75 languages. What was it about Walt Disney that made him include elements of the bizarre and horrifying in everything he did? Even the so-called kiddie rides like Peter Pan, Snow White, and Pinocchio include dark animatronic montages of torture and black magic. After a day’s worth of such things, I wanted to cover my ears and scream when I realized that even Splash Mountain (a glorified log flume) included a long, freaky series of images in which Brer Fox was making fricassee out of a sad-eyed and teary-faced Brer Rabbit.
With Captain Jones in charge of the map, we traversed the entire park, riding every attraction that seemed even mildly amusing. The adults took turns sitting out with Josh, who spent most of his day in the stroller in a fairly good mood. The other kids were frantically euphoric the entire time. There were a lot of strollers at Disneyland. In fact, it was the preponderance of strollers that frequently slowed us down. Had the park been as crowded as usual, I probably would have been ticked off, but as it was, I just sort of looked in wonder at the sheer number of people who bring infants and toddlers to Disneyland. How much fun can that be? Certainly the little kids themselves are too young to appreciate or remember the experience, and it just seems like a huge pain in the ass for the parents. In our party on that first day, there were five people (including Elizabeth) who could take care of Josh for short periods of time while the others enjoyed themselves. That ratio (five adults per toddler) is the smallest I would recommend if you are going to bring a little kid to Disneyland, yet it seemed that every other person we saw, and all of those in front of us, impeding our progress, were pushing strollers. Go figure!
Even with Scott finding us the most efficient routes from one place to another, we walked many miles that day. The weather was glorious by my standards – slightly overcast, not too much sun, warm but not hot – but by the time the sun started to go down, we were exhausted. We could not leave, however, without souvenirs. There are gift shops all over the park, but we had avoided them most of the day. Just short of an eternity in the big gift shop by the entrance netted some unbelievably expensive silly hats for the kids and a host of reasons for Eileen to return the following day. Parker and Hannah, who would not be coming back the next day with us, talked Scott out of the last of his cash and then into using his credit card for various baubles and trinkets that are certainly broken or in complete disuse as of this writing.
Other than Scott’s near beheading of an innocent Asian family while trying to balance the semi-folded stroller on his lap, the tram ride to Goofy Level was uneventful, but it was nice to sit down. We said our thank yous and good-byes to the Joneses, and then went looking for our hotel.
It was dark, and we weren’t really sure where the hotel was, but Eileen had booked us a place so close to Disneyland, that even with three wrong turns we were there in less than twenty minutes. The Coast Anaheim Hotel was a fine establishment with big rooms and all the amenities, including a pool, which our room on the tenth floor overlooked. Because the kids are now old enough to carry much of their own baggage, we got everything out of the van in only two trips, and we were settling into our room around 9:00 P.M. We had eaten nothing since our ($75) lunch at the Tomorrow Land Restaurant, so we decided to try the hotel’s “1950s-style coffee shop” for dinner. I didn’t notice anything particularly “1950s-style” about the coffee shop. Even at the poshest restaurant of the 1950s, I can’t imagine anyone ever paid eight dollars for a kid’s hamburger. I think I had the fish and chips, and it was pretty good, but it was the first of a week’s worth of meals made up almost exclusively of starch and grease. I could already feel my pores dripping with the slick detritus of a meal designed to clog the arteries and still the heart before I could finish the final bite. I took a long shower when we returned to the room. We all slept well that night.
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
I put the in-room coffee pot to good use when I got up, and then James and I went down to the snack shop to see if there was anything breakfast-like. He got something that vaguely resembled a McMuffin, and we got orange juice and some muffins for the girls. One element of this vacation that was completely unlike our many trips to Vegas was that we virtually ignored the pool for the first 24 hours of our stay. On all of our previous family trips, we generally hit the pool within moments of arriving and return three or four times a day. The thrill of Disneyland left us with no urge to pull out the swimsuits.
Again thanks to Eileen’s research, we knew that there was a shuttle bus to Disneyland that stopped right in front of our hotel. I initially thought we would be able to save the parking fee, but as it turned out, the price of the shuttle for all of us was the same price as parking on the Goofy level. There is no way to save money around Disneyland.
We began this day not at Disneyland, which we had pretty well covered already, but at Disney’s California Adventure, a park right next to Disneyland that has sprung up since I was last in California. The (lack of) crowd was exactly as it had been the day before. Our first ride of the day was a roller coaster called California Screamin’. It begins by “launching” you up the first hill at 60 miles per hour and then proceeds into a series of plunges and loops that illustrate where it got its name. It was a great ride, but I must admit to being winded and flushed when I got off. Eileen’s face was frozen into scream of terror and her jaw has been popping ever since. The kids, however, rode it three more times in quick succession, at one point making the return trip through the (non-existent) line so fast that there was only one group of riders between trips. As was the case with every thrill ride we encountered, there was always a camera snapping pictures at the point in the ride when riders we most likely to be soiling themselves. At the end of the ride, people stood waiting for their photos to appear on the digital screens in the little booths at the exit. We never actually purchased any of these photos, but it was fun looking.
James insisted that we ride “The Boomer,” on which you are strapped into your seat and blasted 1000 feet into the air. I tried that one, too…once. “The Sun Wheel” was another highlight. It is a gigantic Ferris wheel with a twist: you are in a gondola that hangs from a track that causes the car to slide and drop with the motion of the wheel. Eileen freaked out, screaming, clutching my arm tight enough to leave marks, and burying her head in my shoulder. I tried to get the car rocking at one point.
“Michael….”
We spent most of the day at California Adventure, our longest wait of the entire vacation being at “Soaring Over California,” a movie-motion ride that is by nature a long wait. We were in line for 25 minutes, and we actually started to get impatient. At this point I realized that we can never return to these theme parks on a more crowded day because we have been spoiled by this crowdless experience.
Later in the afternoon, we walked back to Disneyland to catch the famous parade. It was fine, as parades go, but it was the first thing we had done that involved any significant crowd. I began to grind my teeth when the crying children around me were so numerous that I couldn’t hear anything else. It was good to get back to the hotel. The kids and I went down to the pool for our first swim. There were three other folks in the pool, and a few more than that in the hot tub, but otherwise we had the run of the place. The water was cool, but we still had to find somewhere other than the coffee shop to get dinner, so Eileen rounded us up.
We got cleaned up and headed down to the restaurant where I ate my only vegetable of the entire trip: I ordered the salad bar with my pasta, and I returned to refill my plate with leafy greens many times. I would pay dearly for this the following morning, but it was good to “cleanse the system” of all the meat and grease.
The kids were so exhausted that as we sat in the lonely restaurant, probably underdressed for the occasion but having no other patrons to compare ourselves with, they began to giggle insanely at things that really weren’t funny. Eileen resisted the urge (for the most part) to tell them to be quiet. It wasn’t like they were disturbing anyone. Our server, Roberto, a nattily dressed fellow with a Spanish accent tried his best to meet all of our insane dietary requirements. James ordered spaghetti, but he didn’t mention that he doesn’t like sauce, so he got sauce and didn’t eat it. We asked for Parmesan cheese, and Roberto disappeared for a while; I’m pretty sure he drove to a store to buy some. Elizabeth probably had the chicken strips. It’s all she ate, at any restaurant, the entire time we were on vacation. Eileen had one salad and one bowl of soup. I had everything else. By this point I had given up trying to keep track of how much we were spending on meals – clearly it was the bulk of our costs – and just started charging them all on the VISA.
Upon returning to the hotel, the kids giggled themselves to sleep. I was not far behind them.
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Our final day in Anaheim was spent between Disneyland and California Adventure, reliving all of our favorites. We made it a point to be there when Disneyland opened, so we were in a semi-large crowd of people at the gate when the security guards stepped aside and let us charge through. While waiting, I noticed not just the staggering number of strollers, but also what would turn out to be one of my favorite parts about Disneyland: You get to stand and walk in the middle of the street. There are no cars driving around Disneyland, so although they have a “Main Street,” it is actually just another place to walk. The idea of safely standing and/or walking in the street appealed to me for some reason.
We spent the morning revisiting all of our favorite rides and hitting a few we had not yet seen, like Snow White’s Scary Adventure – as if the other ones aren’t scary enough, along comes a kiddie ride specifically designed to traumatize kids with a host of horrifying, dark images, cackling witches, fire, and brimstone.
Eileen, for reasons none of us really understood, wanted to ride the Mark Twain riverboat, and I worked to get the kids to concede that it would be a nice gesture to let Mom do something she wanted to do, even if it was stupid and boring. By the time we had made our way to the “river,” the boat had set sail, so we stopped in at the Golden Nugget Saloon to catch a show by Billy Hill and the Hillbillies. One of my students (Pierce Smith) recommended this show to me when he heard I was going to Disneyland. I hadn’t specifically intended to seek the show out, but since the Golden Nugget was right across from the river boat, we figured it would be good to get out of the sun for a while. Billy Hill and the Hillbillies were hysterical, but I can’t explain why. It would lose something in the translation. If you’re ever at Disneyland, though, make sure you go see them.
We finally got to the riverboat ride, catching them just as they were shutting the gates. The “captain” let us come aboard, and it was during the ten-minute trip down the Mississippi that I realized every employee at Disneyland was exceptionally nice. They were all helpful and smiling ALL THE TIME. In the three days we were there, there was only one employee that did not smile happily and ask if there was anything else he could do to help. And although he did his job efficiently and well, causing me no grief in the process, I felt like I should report him to management. Disneyland really does try to be the Happiest Place on Earth. This is not to say that all the patrons are happy, but that is no fault of Disneyland. I heard more than a handful of mothers angrily screaming at children that were too young to enjoy the park and therefore essentially became baggage for parents to carry around and keep track of. Upon returning to our hotel room one night, we heard from a neighboring room what we can only assume was the father of a family drunkenly screaming at his wards: “We’re at f***ing Disneyland for **** sake! Now be happy!” I suppose the expectation of Disneyland sometimes doesn’t match the actual experience in some way, and people get uptight. I could be such a person, but I had made an effort not to fall into such a trap, and I was having a great time.
We returned to California Adventure briefly to hit the kids’ favorite rides one more time and to visit Bug Land (based on the movie A Bug’s Life) where we had not been the previous day. By this time, Eileen and I were content to not “enjoy” any more rides. We just watched the kids, and sat down wherever there was a place to do so.
We made one more stop at the big gift store in search of a t-shirt that would actually fit me, no luck, and we left Disneyland in the late afternoon. James, while waiting for Eileen and Elizabeth to emerge from the gift shop, fell asleep on a metal bench. After walking almost non-stop for three days, we were all exhausted. My feet had even started to get sore, something that hadn’t happened since my last attempt to run the mile in under 21 minutes. My eye infection appeared to be clearing up, but I still had nose boulders that were sharp enough to cut diamond. These complaints, however, were small enough to ignore for the rest of the trip.
After another quick swim, we ate at Joe’s Crab Shack that night. It was the first (and only) time we actually drove the van away from the hotel while we were staying there, but it was worth the trip. There is a Joe’s Crab Shack in Salt Lake, but we’ve never been. I suspect the one in Anaheim is a bit more fun. The kids were again a bit punchy and goofy, but the atmosphere at Joe’s was a stark contrast to last night’s dinner in the hotel restaurant. In place of Roberto and his tuxedo, a teenaged girl wearing a shirt that said “Got Crabs?” on the front served us. The food was great, and we made it back to the hotel without difficulty. Other than the kids’ usual shenanigans in the elevator (which includes battling over who gets to push the button every time we get in or out of one), our last night in Anaheim was uneventful. We got our things together and took some stuff to the van in preparation for our drive the next day…to Sea World.
Thursday, September 30, 2004
The drive to San Diego was not bad. There were moments of traffic congestion, but it never actually came to a dead stop. Thanks to Scott’s instructions, we hit all the right freeways at all the right times, and we arrived at Sea World shortly after it opened. Eileen had arranged and paid for a “Behind the Scenes” tour, but other than that, we were free to roam the park.
I have to confess that I almost groaned when I realized that Sea World has rides too. The kids and I went directly to the biggest one, rode it, got a little wet, and then I sat out with Eileen while they rode it again. Sea World was even less crowded than Disneyland. The weather on our first day in San Diego was overcast, so some folks probably stayed away thinking it would rain. It never did, and we again reaped the benefits of a popular theme park with no crowds.
The maps of Sea World that they hand out at the door are little help. Since the park is laid out in a series of circles that interconnect at odd junctures, I never actually knew where I was. We set our sites on the Shamu show, the dolphins, and various other attractions. Elizabeth was mad that we would not allow her to swim with the dolphins, but such an experience costs 150 dollars per person, and that was money we no longer had. It was expensive enough just to buy drinks, so we actually purchased one of those special containers (for a phenomenal fee) that you refill at greatly discounted prices for as long as you are at the park. I figured it was worth it since we would be returning tomorrow. Then we went to see the killer whales.
It all started as an innocent trip to see Shamu, the killer whale, in her show. Eileen, who absolutely refused to get wet, sat somewhere up in the stratosphere, while the kids and I marched down to the row that was just high enough to see over the edge of the tank. This area is commonly called the "Soak Zone" because there is little question that you will get wet. But I had no idea what was in store for me that day.
We hadn't been in our seats long when a representative of Sea World approached me and asked, "Would you and your son like to be volunteers in the show?"
I looked at James. He was skeptical, but she assured him: "You'll get to touch Shamu!"
He agreed.
Then the Sea World rep. looked at me, and in a tone that I now recognize as ominous, she said, "You will get wet."
"Wet Shmet!" I said. "How bad could it be?"
"You will get wet," she repeated, same tone.
"I'm game!" I almost mocked her. "Bring on the water!"
She then pulled out the waivers we had to sign, at the bottom of which were the words YOU WILL GET WET.
I signed them with a patronizing chuckle, and she led us down to the tank.
A Sea World photographer was kind enough to take our picture. (I was later kind enough to double mortgage the house in order to buy the set of pictures from the Sea World photo shop.) It was the last time I would be dry for a long time.
After Shamu did a few laps around the pool for the cheering crowd, James got to go up near the water with the trainers. They told him (and the rest of the audience) about training killer whales. He got to touch and feed Shamu.
While James was having a good time interacting with the orca, I was taken down to the front part of the tank and told to wait for my cue, at which time I was to get down and put my cheek next to the glass so Shamu could deliver a "kiss" from James. I was thinking what a great picture this would make: me with my head up against the glass and a killer whale on the other side. I was thinking how cool it would be to tell my students about it and show the picture to my family. Such a sap!
The trainers were giving James the final instructions on how to get the whale to deliver the “kiss,” but little did I know that I was the sucker. Hunched down next to the glass, I heard the trainer say, “Okay, James, give the signal so Shamu can give your dad that kiss.” James gave some signal, and I strained my eyes to see the big killer whale head I was expecting in the glass next to me, but no such thing appeared. I did, however, see a flicker of motion as the whale darted from the bottom of the pool towards the top. There was a great “Ahhhh” from the audience. Although I could not see it at the moment, right above where I was poised with my head against the tank, a 3000-pound killer whale was floating above the water, about to create an unimaginable splash. When I noticed people in the front rows frantically abandoning their seats, I knew my “kiss” would not be what I had expected.
When Shamu hit, ten-thousand gallons of salty, 55-degree water splashed over the edge of the tank, covering me in an endless downpour. The second-wave ripple from the initial splash was even worse. I was battered almost to the ground, not just wet, but soaked over every inch of my person. The audience got quite a kick out of it.
One of the trainers gave me a towel that said, Soak Victim on it, and they sent James and me back to our seats for the rest of the show. That was the highlight of the first day at Sea World.
I had to go out to the van to change clothes, which fortunately was an option because we had come straight to Sea World without going to our motel first. With only slight contortions and minimal risk of being arrested for indecent exposure, I was able to change every stitch of clothing I had for dry ones, and we went on the guided tour of Sea World.
Due to the fact that neither Eileen nor I had changed our watches when we lost the hour coming to California, our timing was off, and we somehow ended up late for the tour. We had to meet up with them at the killer whale enclosure, and we followed along for the rest. It wasn’t terribly exciting, but we did get to see a few interesting things.
We left Sea World that evening when the park closed, with obligatory stops at the gift shop on the way out, and made our way to the Days Inn in San Diego. Driving in California, where so many freeways intersect, is an adventure in itself, but Eileen reads signs well, so we arrived there in time to check in just ahead of the busload of senior citizens who had parked and unloaded their luggage in the main entranceway.
We risked driving again to find a restaurant. Chevy’s has pretty good Mexican food. It was the first place we saw that looked safe, and we figured it would be a nice change from the usual fare. Elizabeth surprised me by having something that wasn’t chicken strips, but it did have chicken in it.
We got back to the motel in time for a late-night swim. It was a bit creepy because not only were we the only people there, but the pool lights were not yet on, and the water was very cold. We did a few laps, speculating about the various monsters that were surely swimming around in the dark depths, and then we sat in the hot tub until our blood pressure dropped so low we were fainting. The Days Inn wasn’t as fancy as the Coast Anaheim, but it served us well.
Friday, October 1, 2004
Our second day at Sea World was spent mostly with the dolphins, which had been unavailable the previous day. Elizabeth, I believe, has a special kinship with water mammals, and she spent much of the day at the interactive dolphin encounter. For a nominal fee, you are allowed to feed them, and I think we spent the last of our cash on little boxes of fish with which to do so.
More walking. More being lost in the maze that is Sea World. More rides for the kids. More refilling the giant cup with Shamu’s head on top. We revisited our favorite attractions from yesterday (although we did not volunteer to be in any shows), and we saw the dolphin show. The sun was out, so it was actually pretty hot for the first time since we arrived California. Elizabeth had her caricature drawn (as a mermaid, of course), and we left Sea World before the gates closed.
Our trip winding down, we ate that evening at In-and-Out Burger, a California staple we couldn’t miss. We did some more midnight swimming, draining the dregs of the last day on vacation, and then we went to bed early. We’d be up before sunrise the next day for an incredibly long drive back home.
Saturday, October 2, 2004
We left San Diego at 6:00 A.M., California time, a week to the day after leaving our home in Utah to head for the coast and all the adventure it included. We took an elaborate network of winding freeways back to I-15 and headed north. There were periods of congested roads, but not enough to cause us to go much less than 70 mph. Our first stop (after three or four quiet hours on the road) was Baker. It pained me to stop there again, but we had to get lunch and some gas. Eileen drove us north to St. George. I then took us to Nephi, and she did the home stretch, which proved the most frustrating part of the entire journey. Not only were we anxious to get out of the car and into our own home, but also there was a construction zone in south Salt Lake that held us up for an hour. Oddly, no construction was going on, but lanes were narrowed and sections of road were closed. My blood boiled as we sat in the motionless line of traffic. We’d been to Los Angeles and San Diego, two places famous for their traffic, yet the only time on our vacation we were slowed to a standstill was on a Saturday afternoon in Salt Lake City. There is something wrong with that. Seriously wrong.
Another by-product of the frustration of the long drive was my tendency to notice how Eileen apparently likes to stay in the slow lane, behind oversized vehicles carrying loosely packed and highly dangerous payload. “Why will she not pass?” my feverish mind wondered. I bit my tongue, and we made it home without incident.
I should say a few words here about how glad I am to have my kids. I don’t know of any other pair of siblings who could spend 13 hours next to each other in the car and not kill one another. They were great travelers, uncomplaining to the point that I often adjusted the rearview just to see if they were actually back there. We stopped only three times the entire day, and they never whined. I suppose sheer exhaustion had something to do with it.
Upon arriving home, we dumped a week’s worth of laundry on the floor and started sorting the piles. There were phone messages and e-mails awaiting response, but we just started the tired process of cleaning up and getting ready to go back to normal life.
We’ve been home now for two weeks, and I am only now recovering from the trip. It was hard to get caught up, but I’m glad to be back. Good vacations are hard work, requiring lots of planning, patience, and money.
But this one was definitely worth it.
*<%^) MRT
(This should make up for the weekly 500 words I've missed these last two weeks.)
We have talked about it since two years ago when my mom gave us a giant plastic Pepsi bottle to fill with loose change. It had a Disneyland postcard taped to the side to remind us that when the bottle was full of coins we should use that money to go to California. We never actually filled the bottle all the way, and the money in it was nowhere near enough to pay for the whole trip; but it was heavy enough to induce a hernia when I picked it up, and the extra couple hundred dollars allowed us to pay for a breakfast at the hotel where we stayed.
I should make clear up front that the only reason we were able to take this trip was because of Eileen. She planned it, scheduled it, arranged it, and her job paid for it. If it had been up to me, we would have arrived in California with only the clothes on our backs, nowhere to stay, no itinerary, and the naïve hope that the Visa card and the giant Pepsi bottle could be used to solve all those problems. Eileen started cobbling this trip together back in February or so. She arranged everything online, and we actually started paying for the trip a few months before we left because she charged our hotel rooms and the tickets to Disneyland and Sea World on the credit card, which we had almost paid off by the time the trip rolled around. This was not only nice from a financial standpoint, but it was also nice to have the tickets in hand when we arrived, rather than to have to wait in line to purchase them. So, because I am probably going to tease her mercilessly throughout the rest of this journal, I’ll tell you now that Eileen was really the champion of the vacation.
We chose the timing based on James’s “year-round” school schedule, which isn’t really year-round at all; the kids are in school for nine weeks and out for three. (It is the work of Satan.) James’s first session off-track began the last week in September, and since we had no plans as to where he might go during this time while all the rest of us were at work and school, we decided to take our family vacation then. We figured it was easier (and probably cheaper) than finding daycare for that week. As it turned out, we chose the only week during the school year in which there are no crowds anywhere in California. I am not complaining. In fact, I almost fear ever having to go again because I don’t see how it could be any better than it was this time. But let’s start at the beginning, shall we?
Saturday, September 25, 2004
Having packed the van the night before, we got up insanely early, strapped the still-groggy children into their seats and took off by 4:30 A.M. We have often taken trips to Las Vegas (Lost Vegas, as Elizabeth and James used to call it), and we were to pass that city of sin on our journey, but our trip today would be significantly longer, significance being measured by the length of time in the car: probably 12 hours. Envisioning the hours of traffic delays we were certain to be trapped in around Los Angeles, I did not want to be arriving at my sister’s house in San Pedro at midnight, so I figured an early start was the best bet. We could be past the Salt Lake City Permanent Road Construction Zone before the sun was up. With any luck, the kids might even sleep until we got as far south as St. George. The rest of the time could be spent doing 80 (or so) on the vast open roadways between the crowded terminal points of the journey. And, as it turned out, things went according to plan. In fact, they went better than I could have imagined.
The first thing I was grateful for was that the kids did, in fact, go to sleep. This cuts down on the backseat nattering, induced by boredom, which makes me want to kill them after three hours trapped in the car with them. The second thing I was grateful for was that Eileen fell asleep too. This made it possible for me to let my foot weigh a little heavier on the gas pedal, if you know what I mean. There’s a tone that creeps into her voice sometimes. It’s hard to describe in writing because you have to hear it, but if you did, you would recognize it for what it was: a warning. “Michael…,” spoken slowly and with the obvious pretense of calmness that belies that simmering volcano beneath. Whenever the speedometer creeps into the 80 range, I hear that tone, a reminder that someone is watching. But as long as she was asleep, I was free to blast across the desert that is most of Utah before the sun came up.
I don’t mean to brag, but I must mention that our first stop was Cedar City, far beyond the usual bladder-busting first-stop length of Fillmore. According to MapQuest, it is 280 miles from our house to Cedar City, and the trip should take 4 ½ hours. We arrived there at 8:00 in the morning, having left home at 4:30. You do the math. The kids woke up with the sunrise, and Elizabeth (more like her mother than either of them care to admit) immediately asked, “Dad, how fast are you going?” We had been talking the day before about how long it would take to get to my sister Barb’s house, and I had noted that it depended on how fast we went. Her question then had been, “How fast will the van go?” I didn’t have an answer at that time, but when I looked down at the speedometer to answer her current inquiry, the needle was quivering at 110. Eileen, whose eyes were not yet open, apparently heard the hesitation in my voice when I answered.
“Michael….”
Stepping out of the van in Cedar City, I was like a newborn foal. My legs were so wobbly from almost four hours in the car that I staggered into the gas pump and had to cling to it for balance until I regained the ability to walk upright. While I was clinging, I filled up the tank, and then we made our way to a nearby McDonald’s for breakfast and a lengthy stop in the restrooms. We made it a point to not spend a great deal of time dithering around, as this is what often slows our trips to Lost Vegas. We were back on the road in half an hour, this time with Eileen at the wheel.
She wanted some music to accompany her driving, but since I was the only one who thought to bring CDs, there seemed to be nothing coma-inducing enough in my bag. She agreed to something between the Fleetwood Mac she would have preferred and the Judas Priest I would have preferred, adjusting it to her standard of proper volume: turn it down so that you can just barely hear it, and then turn it down a little bit more. I went to sleep for a while, hoping that the miles would go by more quickly if I were unconscious. I later awoke, the sun shining on my face through the window, a small blot of drool on my shoulder, and the hum of the wheels on blacktop drowning out the music. We were five miles outside of Cedar City. Old rickety cars were passing us like we were standing still. Eileen doesn’t exceed posted limits. Two geological ages later, we arrived in Baker, California.
The only thing I have to say about Baker is that the price of gas is ludicrously high. Being in the middle of nowhere allows them to stick it to the tourists. Had I known this, we would have stopped in St. George just for gas and then been able to afford an extra day on vacation. My advice for drivers: Do not stop in Baker, California!
The final leg of the journey to Barb’s house is blurry in my memory. All of us were fully awake and working at cross-purposes. I was learning that my driving style is much more Californian than Utahan. Eileen was trying to sleep some more. James was playing a Gameboy game whose theme music is still stuck annoyingly in my head. Elizabeth was trying to do her math homework and practicing her flute…at the same time. She was missing a week of school for this trip, so she had brought a bag full of textbooks and the flute. The flute wasn’t so bad. As practicing goes, it is a fairly innocuous instrument. Unlike a sour note on the violin, mistakes on the flute usually don’t make my neck skin crawl. But the math. Oh, the math! Periodically Elizabeth would say, “Dad, can you help me with this story problem?” I would agree, as though I really had a choice, and she would begin reading the problem: “This scatter plot shows 327 pine trees in the shape of an equilateral triangle. If you plant ten more trees of varying types within the upper right quadrant, what is the ratio of pine trees to bulldog puppies in the lower left quadrant? Explain.”
I was glad to finally see a sign indicating that San Pedro was close. San Pedro is clearly a Spanish name, as are most of the cities and streets in California, but I have noticed that for some reason white people purposely mispronounce all the Spanish words. They say San Pee-dro, not Pay-dro. If it were an honest mistake caused by unfamiliarity with the word, I could let it pass, but if you see the name Pedro in a story, NO ONE pronounces it Pee-dro. We all know the correct pronunciation is Pay-dro. Why then do people who know better continue to bastardize the pronunciation? I suspect that it is because they want to separate themselves (linguistically as well as any other way) from the Mexican people who populate the state. It is a subtle form of racism. I will continue to pronounce it the correct way, grácias.
My brother-in-law Scott -- Captain Jones to those in his unit – had sent us a set of instructions so detailed as to make it impossible to miss his house. He’s obviously a military man. He even included approximate times and alternate routes in the event of traffic congestion or an air raid. Speaking of traffic, we had yet to encounter any significant enough to cause us to slow down. This is not to say that California roads are not crowded, but, unlike in Utah, traffic in California seldom drags to a standstill.
The secret is simple, and I hope all Utah drivers reading this will heed the advice and pass it on to their friends: Respect the sanctity of the passing lane! For those who don’t know (and that would include most Utahans), that’s the left lane. It’s a simple policy: If you aren’t passing, get the hell out of the left lane! The problem in Utah is that many of our self-righteous faithful are so accustomed to controlling every aspect of so many other people’s lives that they also become our self-appointed guardians of the freeway. They will casually putter along, three abreast, at just under the speed limit, not allowing anyone to pass. Of course their logic is that no one should be going faster than the speed limit, so they feel it is their holy duty to prevent anyone from doing so. There are ways around the self-appointed guardians of the freeways. And such self-righteousness only breeds contempt and road rage, which endangers far more lives than a single speeding motorist. Californians understand this. They never drive in the left lane, but only use it to pass, and if a Californian is in it and sees you barreling up behind him, he will happily move out of your way. The only cars I saw driving in the left lane in California were those driven by idiots talking on cell phones and those with Utah license plates. There is such a thing as a Utah Driver, and the disgust those words engender is well deserved.
Back to the trip. Scott’s instructions got us to within a mile of the house, and then Barb took over. It seems that Scott had simply told us the most direct route, silly man! He would have taken us through downtown San Pedro where we might have seen (gasp!) poor people, or worse: people with skin darker than our own! Barb wrote out the scenic route along the beach, where we were certain to see only the ocean and the $600,000 to $1,500,000 houses that overlook it. We drove up to her place about 11 hours after leaving our own, so with the loss of an hour due to crossing time zones, we still had much of the afternoon and evening to “vacation.”
Barb and Scott’s house is located in a military housing complex, right next to the gate where all who enter are checked in by a uniformed (and armed) soldier and/or police officer. Despite all I had heard about the dangers of California streets due to gangs, terrorists, and drug addicts, I was not to feel any such fear or witness any such problems while at Barb’s house. The scariest thing that happened the entire time I was there was when the guard asked me for my picture ID and it took me longer than ten seconds to extract it from my wallet. This was because I began to shake uncontrollably when I noticed his hand drop to release the safety on his 9 mm. While parked inside the housing complex, under the aegis of military security, I would have felt totally comfortable leaving all my credit cards and cash on the dashboard of my open van, as I am sure that any evidence of thievery would have resulted in punishments so immediate and harsh as to induce seizures just contemplating it. Nobody messes with the U.S. Military.
Barb and her kids took us to the tide pools shortly after we arrived. This involved a short drive down to the beach where we paid a month’s salary to park in the nearly empty lot. It was the first time James and Elizabeth had been to the ocean, so while I was taking pictures to record the moment for posterity, the kids hopped across a trail of rocks, stopping periodically to look at ocean life in the rising tidal pools. I made my way out to a large outcropping that ran parallel to the beach, and I was about to start snapping photos of the kids when a huge wave hit the reef and splashed my back with 55-degree salt water. The tide was coming in. Fast. We frantically started looking for our trail of rocks, but it was now underwater, so we waded into the drink and sloshed back to shore. Along the way, James scraped his leg on some piece of ocean rock that was about as keen as a Ginsu knife, so by the time we were back on dry land, blood had covered his entire lower leg. The salt water made it sting, but he was brave. Hannah (Barb’s six-year old), on the other hand, who had been the first to race out to the farthest reef, totally freaked out when the waves splashed up behind her, and Barb had to carry her to shore in a headlock to keep her from hurting herself. Elizabeth did not want to leave, but since one child was bleeding and another was hysterical, we dragged her away.
Upon returning to the house, we quickly learned why Scott had not accompanied us to the tide pools. He was home cooking dinner. This was a pleasant surprise, as Scott (when he is not directing the capture of Saddam Hussein or overthrowing the Taliban) makes a mean steak. As it turned out, this was one of the only wholesome meals we were to have during our stay in the Golden State, and a darn fine one it was!
Barb had arranged for Eileen and me to steal Hannah’s room, including her queen-sized bed. Having been awake for almost 24 hours with minimal sleep on the road, I was ready to crash long before anyone else. Also, I had been furiously battling what I had hoped was just allergies but now feared was a cold. For the week previous to leaving, I had been consuming my weight in vitamin C every day, and I had made it a point to blow my nose frequently and wash my hands often in hopes of avoiding the sore throat that usually accompanies post nasal drip. So far, I had avoided the sore throat, but my nose was running steadily that evening, so I tried to sleep with my face leaning toward the mattress so any “drainage” would collect in my nose rather than go down my throat and make it sore. Armed with a roll of toilet paper to stanch the flow, I fell asleep.
Hannah’s bed was in the corner of her room. In an effort to prevent Eileen from having to climb over me when she came to bed, I took the side nearest the wall. This was fine until I woke up at 2:00 A.M. (California time) with a sopping wad of tissue under my nose and a bladder so full I was having flashbacks to the climactic scenes in Titanic. I was also sweating profusely despite being on top of the covers. Remember, this was California, where it is always summer. The room was stuffy, and the fan in the corner was not on. Getting over Eileen in the dark without crushing or seriously maiming her proved a difficult task, as I had to keep one hand clamped to my faucet of a nose while balancing precariously above her on the opposite arm as I tried to fling my legs over. Also keep in mind I was trying to do this quietly. Suffice to say we are both lucky to be alive. I stumbled across the room to the fan, fumbled for the switch, discovered the fan wasn’t plugged in, knocked a small appliance of some sort on the floor, briefly electrocuted myself by shoving my dripping finger into the socket, and finally gave up. Fortunately, after a stop in the bathroom, I made it back to the bed safely (and with a fresh roll of toilet paper) and slept reasonably well for the rest of the night. Eileen had figured out how to turn on the fan.
Sunday, September 26, 2004
By morning, my sinuses had quit dripping. My efforts to keep the drainage out of my throat had been successful, but it had apparently collected in my nose and dried into the hardest, crustiest, sharpest little booger boulders imaginable. Pulling them out was unthinkable as the pain would have been unbearable when they ripped away from the inner surface of my nose, taking large quantities of flesh and nose hair with them. My nose was uncomfortable, but I felt otherwise fine. I liberally applied some Vaseline and went down to breakfast ala Scott.
I decided after this meal that I could not live with Barb and Scott much longer or I was going to develop coronary artery disease within the week. Scott is a great cook, but everything he prepares has a significant quantity of meat in it. I believe there were three varieties of sausage to choose from that morning. Now on to the beach….
Redondo beach is a well-known place, but it was not especially crowded that day. It was a little overcast, and it was a Sunday; although I had no reason to believe that the latter fact had anything to do with the lack of a crowd. California is open all the time, unlike many parts of Utah. Scott and Barb brought their boogie boards and wet suits to ride the waves, and everyone got a chance to try that. Scott asked me at one point if I wanted to wear his wet suit. I replied, “Do you ever want it to fit you again?” Apparently large quantities of meat do not affect Scott the way they do me. I could feel myself growing fatter by the minute, and I was only two days off my exercise routine. I did get into the surf for a while, and after trying fruitlessly to go for a swim, I did some boogie boarding, but only after making sure no one anywhere on the beach had a camera.
Parker (Barb’s nine-year old) went into the water (in his wet suit) for all of about ten minutes. The novelty of beach play must wear off after you’ve been there so many times. When he tromped back up the sandy slope for a drink, he said, “I’m done!” and promptly sat down to wait for everyone else to finish up. He was in for a long wait because my kids had never been to a beach like this one: sandy, big waves, salty water, and enough seaweed to pull down an aircraft carrier. Hannah and James built a castle on the beach, and then destroyed it themselves before the tide could do the job. Elizabeth, after four hours, was still sitting on the sand, water lapping at her feet, looking longingly out to the ocean. When we said it was time to go, she pretended not to hear. When we said it louder, she grudgingly followed us to the changing rooms.
They were actually little concrete buildings with “showers” and concrete benches in them. I suppose they were suitable places to get the sand off and some clean clothes on, but it was a little creepy going in there. James and I went in with our towels, a bag full of “valuables” and three drunk guys on bikes. They were speaking slurred Spanish, and one of them actually lay down on the wet concrete to take a rest. I shudder to imagine the list of potential substances that could have made that concrete so wet, but he didn’t seem to mind. He parked his bike in a shower stall. James, being little and able to stand on the bench, well above the unidentifiable fluids on the floor, changed in no time. I, however, had to hop around on one foot, flailing desperately to keep my swimsuit and/or any of my clothing from dropping into the primordial ooze. Carefully covering my bag of valuables with a towel, I stepped into the “shower” (an ice cold jet of water that ran as long as you held the button in) until hypothermia set in, and then dressed in clean clothes (which were full of sand ten seconds after I put them on) and went to dinner.
Bubba Gump Shrimp Company is a restaurant based on the characters in Forest Gump. Barb recommended the hushpuppies as an appetizer, and they were excellent. I had fish and shrimp. By the time I was done, my face was slick with the grease that was oozing from my pores. Darn fine eatin’! The waiter came around to quiz us on our knowledge of Forest Gump trivia. Parker answered more questions correctly than anyone else. At one point, James commented on how many “people with dark skin” there were in the restaurant. These included people of various races and cultures (and even some white folks with good tans). One sad limitation of living in Utah is that kids here grow up with very unrealistic beliefs about what constitutes humanity.
After Bubba Gump, we headed across the plaza to the Long Beach Aquarium. (I’m not sure if that’s really the name, but it was something to that effect.) It was a large building full of underwater life. Barb had her own family pass and a couple free tickets for us, but we had planned to pay admission for both kids. However, after standing at the box office window for ten minutes and not having anyone take our money, we followed Captain Jones over the red rope and into the dark recesses of the aquarium without paying. We could have spent a lot more time there than we did, but we gave it a whirlwind tour, checked out the freaky fish and the outdoor exhibits, and headed back to San Pedro with a stop at Coldstone Ice Cream on the way. Scott took out a small business loan in order to buy us all a treat, and then we sat outside the shop enjoying our dessert. I could feel my arteries filling with fat and the pounds collecting on my posterior.
The second night at Barb’s was much like the first. Josh (Barb’s less-than-one-year old) was scooting around squawking most of the time with Elizabeth in hot pursuit. Parker and James spent almost every waking minute of their time in the house playing video games. Hannah bounced around between these pairs with regular stops in the “adult area” to look at my driver’s license and ask, “Is that what you used to look like when you were skinny?”
Monday, September 27, 2004
I woke up with pink eye. Another night of dripping sinuses drying into spiny nose boulders had apparently caused some sort of goo to back up into my right eye, which was matted shut and pulsating red when I dragged myself off (the outside edge, this time) of Hannah’s bed. I looked in the bathroom mirror with equal parts anger and self-pity. Why me? Why now? But by the time I had stepped out of the shower, I had resolved to make the best of it. While Scott was up preparing a breakfast of bacon, sausage, steak, pork chops, and other assorted meats, I called first my insurance company, then my doctor. The hour time differential insured that I was the first phone call of the day, and I asked him to call in a prescription for some kind of eye medication to the Von’s around the corner from Barb’s house. He did.
Barb said she would go with me on the walk to Von’s to pick up my prescription. She decided to take Ayla, the oldest German Shepherd in America, along for a walk as well as push Josh in the stroller. I ended up being dragged into the parking lot by Ayla, who, despite the fact that she veritably reeks of the grave, still has the strength of a Clydesdale. Barb and Josh followed us, laughing.
At the pharmacy, I met the most sour-faced woman in California. My insurance card was unlike any she had ever seen, and she worked with the deliberate slowness of a DMV employee. Clearly, my very presence offended her in countless ways, so, half a lifetime later when she handed over the medicine, I was vaguely surprised.
Ayla dragged me back to the house, and I had time to put a double dose of medicine in my eye before we headed out.
Disneyland is about an hour from Barb’s house, and since Barb’s family was going with us, we just followed Scott right to the parking lot, where we emptied our wallets for the privilege of parking on the Goofy Level. According to Scott, getting such a parking spot was comparable to winning the lottery. Apparently the parking structure is divided not into numbers and letters, but rather Disney characters, and they aren’t necessarily in alphabetical order. The Mickey level is ground zero, closely followed by Minnie and Goofy. Scott’s eyes goggled in wonder at our incredible good luck. “You don’t want to end up on the Simba level,” he said emphatically. The last time Scott and his family had been to Disneyland was over spring break. They had been on the Simba level, and everything about the trip had been terrible, most notably the fact that they had only got to ride three rides all day long because the park was so crowded. This experience scarred Barb so badly that the mere mention of Disneyland in her presence was enough to cause her to beat you about the head and neck with a tennis racket as soon as she finished throwing up. We were keeping our eyes on her as we strapped on our fanny packs and checked to see that we had all the traveler’s checks.
I know that I will probably keep mentioning the outlandish prices of everything we did while in California, but I do so in good humor because I went there with the attitude that I would rather pay 6 dollars for a bottle of water when I was thirsty than have to cart all my own supplies in. And we did, after all, have plenty from the Disneyland Pepsi bottle. My attitude from the beginning was that I wasn’t going to worry about how much everything cost, and I didn’t. But I did notice.
Since Eileen had pre-purchased a voucher for our tickets, it was simply a matter of trading it in at one of the numerous ticket windows. We were in line for about five minutes to get the passes, and that comparatively short wait was indicative of our entire three days at Disneyland. The place was, to quote a good-natured restaurant employee in Tomorrow Land, “dead.” In fact, of the hundred or so ticket windows that lined the oversized booths outside the main gates of The Happiest Place on Earth, only about ten of them were even open. Throughout our visit, in front of the most popular attractions, we found ourselves walking unchecked at top speed through the miles of winding, roped-off pathways designed to make the usual unfathomably long lines seem deceptively short.
To say that Disneyland wasn’t crowded seems absurd, but given what I had been expecting, and what I remembered of my last visit some twenty years previous, I almost felt like we were the only ones there. In a strange way, I almost felt cheated. Because we could ride all of our favorite rides over and over as many times as we wanted, they somehow lost that magical anticipatory quality that can make a mediocre experience seem much cooler. Disneyland is designed to make waiting in line part of the fun; many rides even include little shows and activities to entertain those waiting. We never had to sit (or stand) through any such diversion, and at times we even found ourselves letting other riders go ahead of us so we could get an idea for what Disneyland might be like on all the other days of the year. Outside Star Tours (a Star Wars-based motion ride) there was a show with an animatronic C3PO and R2D2. Scott said that when he had last been at Disneyland, he had memorized all the characters’ lines by the time he got on the ride because he had to sit through the show so many times. He was in awe of the complete lack of crowds or lines. Before leaving home, we had done some research on Fast Passes, little tickets that would save you some time in line if you checked in and picked up such a pass about an hour before you wanted to get on the ride. Outside every popular ride, there were two “wait times” listed, one standard and one “Fast Pass.” The fast pass time was always much shorter, but after trying them out, we discovered that it took more time to get the fast pass and make our way back to the ride later than it did to just get in line and ride.
Speaking of rides, the first one we went on was the Jungle Cruise, virtually unchanged from my last visit – not terribly exciting, but sort of a classic. The “guide” tells cheesy jokes the entire time and the animals all move in the jerky and endlessly repetitive patterns of all animatronic creatures, of which there are thousands at Disneyland. There was, however, one sound effect (a roar or a crashing sound) that scared Hannah and caused her to dive for cover immediately after leaving the shore. She spent the cruise under her bench, whimpering. This reaction was mirrored by James on his first experience with Indiana Jones, an underground thrill ride full of loud noises, darkness, and huge snakes. I thought it was the best ride in the park, and we went on it six or seven times over the next couple days, but it was a bit much for James on that first morning. He did conquer his fear and ride it again later, but he kept his eyes covered the entire time. James likes rides that are outside, in the sunshine, and there are plenty of those too, but it seems that Disneyland was founded on the principle of dark adventure. The stygian blackness of Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, and the many attractions that were movies before they were rides seems to indicate a perverse predilection for the bizarre. Even It’s a Small World, although not at all scary, is a bit like a midnight LSD trip, what with all that creepy animatronic movement and the infernal repetition of that song in 75 languages. What was it about Walt Disney that made him include elements of the bizarre and horrifying in everything he did? Even the so-called kiddie rides like Peter Pan, Snow White, and Pinocchio include dark animatronic montages of torture and black magic. After a day’s worth of such things, I wanted to cover my ears and scream when I realized that even Splash Mountain (a glorified log flume) included a long, freaky series of images in which Brer Fox was making fricassee out of a sad-eyed and teary-faced Brer Rabbit.
With Captain Jones in charge of the map, we traversed the entire park, riding every attraction that seemed even mildly amusing. The adults took turns sitting out with Josh, who spent most of his day in the stroller in a fairly good mood. The other kids were frantically euphoric the entire time. There were a lot of strollers at Disneyland. In fact, it was the preponderance of strollers that frequently slowed us down. Had the park been as crowded as usual, I probably would have been ticked off, but as it was, I just sort of looked in wonder at the sheer number of people who bring infants and toddlers to Disneyland. How much fun can that be? Certainly the little kids themselves are too young to appreciate or remember the experience, and it just seems like a huge pain in the ass for the parents. In our party on that first day, there were five people (including Elizabeth) who could take care of Josh for short periods of time while the others enjoyed themselves. That ratio (five adults per toddler) is the smallest I would recommend if you are going to bring a little kid to Disneyland, yet it seemed that every other person we saw, and all of those in front of us, impeding our progress, were pushing strollers. Go figure!
Even with Scott finding us the most efficient routes from one place to another, we walked many miles that day. The weather was glorious by my standards – slightly overcast, not too much sun, warm but not hot – but by the time the sun started to go down, we were exhausted. We could not leave, however, without souvenirs. There are gift shops all over the park, but we had avoided them most of the day. Just short of an eternity in the big gift shop by the entrance netted some unbelievably expensive silly hats for the kids and a host of reasons for Eileen to return the following day. Parker and Hannah, who would not be coming back the next day with us, talked Scott out of the last of his cash and then into using his credit card for various baubles and trinkets that are certainly broken or in complete disuse as of this writing.
Other than Scott’s near beheading of an innocent Asian family while trying to balance the semi-folded stroller on his lap, the tram ride to Goofy Level was uneventful, but it was nice to sit down. We said our thank yous and good-byes to the Joneses, and then went looking for our hotel.
It was dark, and we weren’t really sure where the hotel was, but Eileen had booked us a place so close to Disneyland, that even with three wrong turns we were there in less than twenty minutes. The Coast Anaheim Hotel was a fine establishment with big rooms and all the amenities, including a pool, which our room on the tenth floor overlooked. Because the kids are now old enough to carry much of their own baggage, we got everything out of the van in only two trips, and we were settling into our room around 9:00 P.M. We had eaten nothing since our ($75) lunch at the Tomorrow Land Restaurant, so we decided to try the hotel’s “1950s-style coffee shop” for dinner. I didn’t notice anything particularly “1950s-style” about the coffee shop. Even at the poshest restaurant of the 1950s, I can’t imagine anyone ever paid eight dollars for a kid’s hamburger. I think I had the fish and chips, and it was pretty good, but it was the first of a week’s worth of meals made up almost exclusively of starch and grease. I could already feel my pores dripping with the slick detritus of a meal designed to clog the arteries and still the heart before I could finish the final bite. I took a long shower when we returned to the room. We all slept well that night.
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
I put the in-room coffee pot to good use when I got up, and then James and I went down to the snack shop to see if there was anything breakfast-like. He got something that vaguely resembled a McMuffin, and we got orange juice and some muffins for the girls. One element of this vacation that was completely unlike our many trips to Vegas was that we virtually ignored the pool for the first 24 hours of our stay. On all of our previous family trips, we generally hit the pool within moments of arriving and return three or four times a day. The thrill of Disneyland left us with no urge to pull out the swimsuits.
Again thanks to Eileen’s research, we knew that there was a shuttle bus to Disneyland that stopped right in front of our hotel. I initially thought we would be able to save the parking fee, but as it turned out, the price of the shuttle for all of us was the same price as parking on the Goofy level. There is no way to save money around Disneyland.
We began this day not at Disneyland, which we had pretty well covered already, but at Disney’s California Adventure, a park right next to Disneyland that has sprung up since I was last in California. The (lack of) crowd was exactly as it had been the day before. Our first ride of the day was a roller coaster called California Screamin’. It begins by “launching” you up the first hill at 60 miles per hour and then proceeds into a series of plunges and loops that illustrate where it got its name. It was a great ride, but I must admit to being winded and flushed when I got off. Eileen’s face was frozen into scream of terror and her jaw has been popping ever since. The kids, however, rode it three more times in quick succession, at one point making the return trip through the (non-existent) line so fast that there was only one group of riders between trips. As was the case with every thrill ride we encountered, there was always a camera snapping pictures at the point in the ride when riders we most likely to be soiling themselves. At the end of the ride, people stood waiting for their photos to appear on the digital screens in the little booths at the exit. We never actually purchased any of these photos, but it was fun looking.
James insisted that we ride “The Boomer,” on which you are strapped into your seat and blasted 1000 feet into the air. I tried that one, too…once. “The Sun Wheel” was another highlight. It is a gigantic Ferris wheel with a twist: you are in a gondola that hangs from a track that causes the car to slide and drop with the motion of the wheel. Eileen freaked out, screaming, clutching my arm tight enough to leave marks, and burying her head in my shoulder. I tried to get the car rocking at one point.
“Michael….”
We spent most of the day at California Adventure, our longest wait of the entire vacation being at “Soaring Over California,” a movie-motion ride that is by nature a long wait. We were in line for 25 minutes, and we actually started to get impatient. At this point I realized that we can never return to these theme parks on a more crowded day because we have been spoiled by this crowdless experience.
Later in the afternoon, we walked back to Disneyland to catch the famous parade. It was fine, as parades go, but it was the first thing we had done that involved any significant crowd. I began to grind my teeth when the crying children around me were so numerous that I couldn’t hear anything else. It was good to get back to the hotel. The kids and I went down to the pool for our first swim. There were three other folks in the pool, and a few more than that in the hot tub, but otherwise we had the run of the place. The water was cool, but we still had to find somewhere other than the coffee shop to get dinner, so Eileen rounded us up.
We got cleaned up and headed down to the restaurant where I ate my only vegetable of the entire trip: I ordered the salad bar with my pasta, and I returned to refill my plate with leafy greens many times. I would pay dearly for this the following morning, but it was good to “cleanse the system” of all the meat and grease.
The kids were so exhausted that as we sat in the lonely restaurant, probably underdressed for the occasion but having no other patrons to compare ourselves with, they began to giggle insanely at things that really weren’t funny. Eileen resisted the urge (for the most part) to tell them to be quiet. It wasn’t like they were disturbing anyone. Our server, Roberto, a nattily dressed fellow with a Spanish accent tried his best to meet all of our insane dietary requirements. James ordered spaghetti, but he didn’t mention that he doesn’t like sauce, so he got sauce and didn’t eat it. We asked for Parmesan cheese, and Roberto disappeared for a while; I’m pretty sure he drove to a store to buy some. Elizabeth probably had the chicken strips. It’s all she ate, at any restaurant, the entire time we were on vacation. Eileen had one salad and one bowl of soup. I had everything else. By this point I had given up trying to keep track of how much we were spending on meals – clearly it was the bulk of our costs – and just started charging them all on the VISA.
Upon returning to the hotel, the kids giggled themselves to sleep. I was not far behind them.
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
Our final day in Anaheim was spent between Disneyland and California Adventure, reliving all of our favorites. We made it a point to be there when Disneyland opened, so we were in a semi-large crowd of people at the gate when the security guards stepped aside and let us charge through. While waiting, I noticed not just the staggering number of strollers, but also what would turn out to be one of my favorite parts about Disneyland: You get to stand and walk in the middle of the street. There are no cars driving around Disneyland, so although they have a “Main Street,” it is actually just another place to walk. The idea of safely standing and/or walking in the street appealed to me for some reason.
We spent the morning revisiting all of our favorite rides and hitting a few we had not yet seen, like Snow White’s Scary Adventure – as if the other ones aren’t scary enough, along comes a kiddie ride specifically designed to traumatize kids with a host of horrifying, dark images, cackling witches, fire, and brimstone.
Eileen, for reasons none of us really understood, wanted to ride the Mark Twain riverboat, and I worked to get the kids to concede that it would be a nice gesture to let Mom do something she wanted to do, even if it was stupid and boring. By the time we had made our way to the “river,” the boat had set sail, so we stopped in at the Golden Nugget Saloon to catch a show by Billy Hill and the Hillbillies. One of my students (Pierce Smith) recommended this show to me when he heard I was going to Disneyland. I hadn’t specifically intended to seek the show out, but since the Golden Nugget was right across from the river boat, we figured it would be good to get out of the sun for a while. Billy Hill and the Hillbillies were hysterical, but I can’t explain why. It would lose something in the translation. If you’re ever at Disneyland, though, make sure you go see them.
We finally got to the riverboat ride, catching them just as they were shutting the gates. The “captain” let us come aboard, and it was during the ten-minute trip down the Mississippi that I realized every employee at Disneyland was exceptionally nice. They were all helpful and smiling ALL THE TIME. In the three days we were there, there was only one employee that did not smile happily and ask if there was anything else he could do to help. And although he did his job efficiently and well, causing me no grief in the process, I felt like I should report him to management. Disneyland really does try to be the Happiest Place on Earth. This is not to say that all the patrons are happy, but that is no fault of Disneyland. I heard more than a handful of mothers angrily screaming at children that were too young to enjoy the park and therefore essentially became baggage for parents to carry around and keep track of. Upon returning to our hotel room one night, we heard from a neighboring room what we can only assume was the father of a family drunkenly screaming at his wards: “We’re at f***ing Disneyland for **** sake! Now be happy!” I suppose the expectation of Disneyland sometimes doesn’t match the actual experience in some way, and people get uptight. I could be such a person, but I had made an effort not to fall into such a trap, and I was having a great time.
We returned to California Adventure briefly to hit the kids’ favorite rides one more time and to visit Bug Land (based on the movie A Bug’s Life) where we had not been the previous day. By this time, Eileen and I were content to not “enjoy” any more rides. We just watched the kids, and sat down wherever there was a place to do so.
We made one more stop at the big gift store in search of a t-shirt that would actually fit me, no luck, and we left Disneyland in the late afternoon. James, while waiting for Eileen and Elizabeth to emerge from the gift shop, fell asleep on a metal bench. After walking almost non-stop for three days, we were all exhausted. My feet had even started to get sore, something that hadn’t happened since my last attempt to run the mile in under 21 minutes. My eye infection appeared to be clearing up, but I still had nose boulders that were sharp enough to cut diamond. These complaints, however, were small enough to ignore for the rest of the trip.
After another quick swim, we ate at Joe’s Crab Shack that night. It was the first (and only) time we actually drove the van away from the hotel while we were staying there, but it was worth the trip. There is a Joe’s Crab Shack in Salt Lake, but we’ve never been. I suspect the one in Anaheim is a bit more fun. The kids were again a bit punchy and goofy, but the atmosphere at Joe’s was a stark contrast to last night’s dinner in the hotel restaurant. In place of Roberto and his tuxedo, a teenaged girl wearing a shirt that said “Got Crabs?” on the front served us. The food was great, and we made it back to the hotel without difficulty. Other than the kids’ usual shenanigans in the elevator (which includes battling over who gets to push the button every time we get in or out of one), our last night in Anaheim was uneventful. We got our things together and took some stuff to the van in preparation for our drive the next day…to Sea World.
Thursday, September 30, 2004
The drive to San Diego was not bad. There were moments of traffic congestion, but it never actually came to a dead stop. Thanks to Scott’s instructions, we hit all the right freeways at all the right times, and we arrived at Sea World shortly after it opened. Eileen had arranged and paid for a “Behind the Scenes” tour, but other than that, we were free to roam the park.
I have to confess that I almost groaned when I realized that Sea World has rides too. The kids and I went directly to the biggest one, rode it, got a little wet, and then I sat out with Eileen while they rode it again. Sea World was even less crowded than Disneyland. The weather on our first day in San Diego was overcast, so some folks probably stayed away thinking it would rain. It never did, and we again reaped the benefits of a popular theme park with no crowds.
The maps of Sea World that they hand out at the door are little help. Since the park is laid out in a series of circles that interconnect at odd junctures, I never actually knew where I was. We set our sites on the Shamu show, the dolphins, and various other attractions. Elizabeth was mad that we would not allow her to swim with the dolphins, but such an experience costs 150 dollars per person, and that was money we no longer had. It was expensive enough just to buy drinks, so we actually purchased one of those special containers (for a phenomenal fee) that you refill at greatly discounted prices for as long as you are at the park. I figured it was worth it since we would be returning tomorrow. Then we went to see the killer whales.
It all started as an innocent trip to see Shamu, the killer whale, in her show. Eileen, who absolutely refused to get wet, sat somewhere up in the stratosphere, while the kids and I marched down to the row that was just high enough to see over the edge of the tank. This area is commonly called the "Soak Zone" because there is little question that you will get wet. But I had no idea what was in store for me that day.
We hadn't been in our seats long when a representative of Sea World approached me and asked, "Would you and your son like to be volunteers in the show?"
I looked at James. He was skeptical, but she assured him: "You'll get to touch Shamu!"
He agreed.
Then the Sea World rep. looked at me, and in a tone that I now recognize as ominous, she said, "You will get wet."
"Wet Shmet!" I said. "How bad could it be?"
"You will get wet," she repeated, same tone.
"I'm game!" I almost mocked her. "Bring on the water!"
She then pulled out the waivers we had to sign, at the bottom of which were the words YOU WILL GET WET.
I signed them with a patronizing chuckle, and she led us down to the tank.
A Sea World photographer was kind enough to take our picture. (I was later kind enough to double mortgage the house in order to buy the set of pictures from the Sea World photo shop.) It was the last time I would be dry for a long time.
After Shamu did a few laps around the pool for the cheering crowd, James got to go up near the water with the trainers. They told him (and the rest of the audience) about training killer whales. He got to touch and feed Shamu.
While James was having a good time interacting with the orca, I was taken down to the front part of the tank and told to wait for my cue, at which time I was to get down and put my cheek next to the glass so Shamu could deliver a "kiss" from James. I was thinking what a great picture this would make: me with my head up against the glass and a killer whale on the other side. I was thinking how cool it would be to tell my students about it and show the picture to my family. Such a sap!
The trainers were giving James the final instructions on how to get the whale to deliver the “kiss,” but little did I know that I was the sucker. Hunched down next to the glass, I heard the trainer say, “Okay, James, give the signal so Shamu can give your dad that kiss.” James gave some signal, and I strained my eyes to see the big killer whale head I was expecting in the glass next to me, but no such thing appeared. I did, however, see a flicker of motion as the whale darted from the bottom of the pool towards the top. There was a great “Ahhhh” from the audience. Although I could not see it at the moment, right above where I was poised with my head against the tank, a 3000-pound killer whale was floating above the water, about to create an unimaginable splash. When I noticed people in the front rows frantically abandoning their seats, I knew my “kiss” would not be what I had expected.
When Shamu hit, ten-thousand gallons of salty, 55-degree water splashed over the edge of the tank, covering me in an endless downpour. The second-wave ripple from the initial splash was even worse. I was battered almost to the ground, not just wet, but soaked over every inch of my person. The audience got quite a kick out of it.
One of the trainers gave me a towel that said, Soak Victim on it, and they sent James and me back to our seats for the rest of the show. That was the highlight of the first day at Sea World.
I had to go out to the van to change clothes, which fortunately was an option because we had come straight to Sea World without going to our motel first. With only slight contortions and minimal risk of being arrested for indecent exposure, I was able to change every stitch of clothing I had for dry ones, and we went on the guided tour of Sea World.
Due to the fact that neither Eileen nor I had changed our watches when we lost the hour coming to California, our timing was off, and we somehow ended up late for the tour. We had to meet up with them at the killer whale enclosure, and we followed along for the rest. It wasn’t terribly exciting, but we did get to see a few interesting things.
We left Sea World that evening when the park closed, with obligatory stops at the gift shop on the way out, and made our way to the Days Inn in San Diego. Driving in California, where so many freeways intersect, is an adventure in itself, but Eileen reads signs well, so we arrived there in time to check in just ahead of the busload of senior citizens who had parked and unloaded their luggage in the main entranceway.
We risked driving again to find a restaurant. Chevy’s has pretty good Mexican food. It was the first place we saw that looked safe, and we figured it would be a nice change from the usual fare. Elizabeth surprised me by having something that wasn’t chicken strips, but it did have chicken in it.
We got back to the motel in time for a late-night swim. It was a bit creepy because not only were we the only people there, but the pool lights were not yet on, and the water was very cold. We did a few laps, speculating about the various monsters that were surely swimming around in the dark depths, and then we sat in the hot tub until our blood pressure dropped so low we were fainting. The Days Inn wasn’t as fancy as the Coast Anaheim, but it served us well.
Friday, October 1, 2004
Our second day at Sea World was spent mostly with the dolphins, which had been unavailable the previous day. Elizabeth, I believe, has a special kinship with water mammals, and she spent much of the day at the interactive dolphin encounter. For a nominal fee, you are allowed to feed them, and I think we spent the last of our cash on little boxes of fish with which to do so.
More walking. More being lost in the maze that is Sea World. More rides for the kids. More refilling the giant cup with Shamu’s head on top. We revisited our favorite attractions from yesterday (although we did not volunteer to be in any shows), and we saw the dolphin show. The sun was out, so it was actually pretty hot for the first time since we arrived California. Elizabeth had her caricature drawn (as a mermaid, of course), and we left Sea World before the gates closed.
Our trip winding down, we ate that evening at In-and-Out Burger, a California staple we couldn’t miss. We did some more midnight swimming, draining the dregs of the last day on vacation, and then we went to bed early. We’d be up before sunrise the next day for an incredibly long drive back home.
Saturday, October 2, 2004
We left San Diego at 6:00 A.M., California time, a week to the day after leaving our home in Utah to head for the coast and all the adventure it included. We took an elaborate network of winding freeways back to I-15 and headed north. There were periods of congested roads, but not enough to cause us to go much less than 70 mph. Our first stop (after three or four quiet hours on the road) was Baker. It pained me to stop there again, but we had to get lunch and some gas. Eileen drove us north to St. George. I then took us to Nephi, and she did the home stretch, which proved the most frustrating part of the entire journey. Not only were we anxious to get out of the car and into our own home, but also there was a construction zone in south Salt Lake that held us up for an hour. Oddly, no construction was going on, but lanes were narrowed and sections of road were closed. My blood boiled as we sat in the motionless line of traffic. We’d been to Los Angeles and San Diego, two places famous for their traffic, yet the only time on our vacation we were slowed to a standstill was on a Saturday afternoon in Salt Lake City. There is something wrong with that. Seriously wrong.
Another by-product of the frustration of the long drive was my tendency to notice how Eileen apparently likes to stay in the slow lane, behind oversized vehicles carrying loosely packed and highly dangerous payload. “Why will she not pass?” my feverish mind wondered. I bit my tongue, and we made it home without incident.
I should say a few words here about how glad I am to have my kids. I don’t know of any other pair of siblings who could spend 13 hours next to each other in the car and not kill one another. They were great travelers, uncomplaining to the point that I often adjusted the rearview just to see if they were actually back there. We stopped only three times the entire day, and they never whined. I suppose sheer exhaustion had something to do with it.
Upon arriving home, we dumped a week’s worth of laundry on the floor and started sorting the piles. There were phone messages and e-mails awaiting response, but we just started the tired process of cleaning up and getting ready to go back to normal life.
We’ve been home now for two weeks, and I am only now recovering from the trip. It was hard to get caught up, but I’m glad to be back. Good vacations are hard work, requiring lots of planning, patience, and money.
But this one was definitely worth it.
*<%^) MRT
posted by MRT at 1:59 PM
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