It's not been as easy to keep up with this blog as I thought it would be! When you spend several years in Alaska you start to think that there's a blanket of wifi that covers the entire lower 48, but we're quickly learning that is not the case at all.
Our last week in Sacramento went a little awry. Our Expedition was in the shop most of the week for a double manifold leak, so we weren't able to fit in several of the things or people that we had hoped to. During that week we also realized that our military rate Disneyland tickets were going to blackout for Spring Break, which would have either kept us in California for an extra two weeks or forced us to come back sometime later. Neither of those plans were really reasonable for us, so as soon as we left Sacramento we drove straight to Anaheim.
The drive from Sacramento to Anaheim is about eight hours and the trip was fairly uneventful until we reached the Anaheim city limit. In rush hour traffic someone waved us down on the I-5 to let us know that our bike rack, loaded with four bikes, had flown off the back of our camper. We were terrified because we thought there was no way that a flying bike rack on the freeway during rush hour traffic had not caused an accident, but we weren't sure how to get back to where they had flown off. When we pulled over a gentleman who had seen the whole thing pulled over and told us that, miraculously, the rack had landed on the shoulder and no one had been hurt. Needless to say we were incredibly relieved, though Patton's bike was completely totalled and both of the adult bikes are in need of some TLC. When we were buying bikes Gunnar opted for a durable trick bike, so it was unscathed but for some scratched paint that he would have done anyhow. It wasn't how we had hoped to start our trip to the Happiest Place on Earth, but thankfully it was not an indicator of how our time there would be.
We couldn't have had a better trip to Disneyland. We collectively met princesses, fought the dark side, rode all of the fun rides, and saw the best shows. At the end of the trip I realized that I had taken over 1,000 pictures. I didn't even want to think about how long that blog post would be, and since I had significantly more pictures about Disneyland than words those pictures are on our FB page if you're interested in seeing them. Not all thousand, but pretty close.
We spent five days doing Disney stuff, but because we anticipated the need for some down time after Disney we booked an RV park for eight days. It was one of the best decisions we made. When Disney was done we spent a day swimming and napping and reorganizing the camper to move. We were able to have breakfast with a rarely spotted creature -- my cousin Brian who had only previously met a 1-year-old Gunnar, and we got to doing a little bit of Los Angeles exploring.
Admittedly, it was difficult for us to brainstorm family and budget friendly LA area activities, so we set out for Griffith Observatory for the best view of the Los Angeles area and a little bit of science. It was a fun visit, but it was a bust on both parts. We failed to check the website for operating hours and arrived to find that it was closed! Still, we explored the grounds.
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| The Hollywood sign is just up the road from the observatory. I thought I'd try for the touristy shot, but I couldn't get my family or my fancy new camera to cooperate. Still, I love how John is smiling in this picture. |
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| See all of those people? You would never guess that it was closed! |
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| Even in Hollywood people can't resist McDonalds sweet tea! |
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| Here's the view from the observatory. The smog really limits visibility and we had a long conversation about the possible way that Hollywood edits it from movie clips. |
Despite the limited view and the fact that we couldn't go inside we still spent about an hour at the observatory. The building and grounds are beautiful and they have several astronomy related displays on the grounds, so we were still able to work in some science.
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| John and Patton are exploring a scaled solar system in the concrete outside the observatory. |
After checking out the observatory we decided to head to the beach. In an odd series of events and navigation we took a wrong turn and ended up here...
As you probably guessed, Rodeo Drive was not on our itinerary, nor will it be on any future itinerary. There was a shocking lack of Target and school supply stores, so I don't think I'll ever need to go back. :)
We quickly got back on track and headed to the beach. You'll notice, though, the absence of any photos from the beach. That is because we decided to go to Venice Beach. LA people, I feel a little bit led astray that no one said "wherever you take your kids in LA, do not take them to Venice Beach!". Venice Beach has a well known reputation for being unique and fun, but apparently my naivete shone through on this one, because unique and fun translated into sorta gross, containing all sorts of "stuff" that you don't want your children exposed to, and sporting a heavy police presence (they were patrolling on foot, bike, and by helicopter). Let our hard learned lesson be your easy learned lesson, friends. Don't take your kids to Venice Beach. :)
We left Los Angeles the next day and started heading east. It took several hours for the scenery to start looking less like a beach movie and more like this...
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| The advantage of pulling your house behind you all the time is that you can stop almost anywhere for a potty break. |
We changed our plans while we were in LA and decided that instead of going to Death Valley National Park we were going to head to Joshua Tree National Park. We devised a plan to drive to Anza Boreggo State Park for a few days so that we could take a side trip to San Diego and do some constellation studying. John found a great campground in Julian that looked like this...
...empty but for us, with no noise or light pollution and a beautiful low desert landscape.
The day after checking into the campground we headed toward San Diego to take care of a few logistics (we ended up with a flat tire that needed patching and a school issue that John needed to take care of) and spend the afternoon seeing the SD sights.
Our friends gave use the excellent advice to use our limited time in the area to go to Seaport Village on the water in San Diego. We were able to spend about an hour walking the boardwalk and checking out the ships and subs that were in the water.
And then Sayer got sick. Horribly sick. Vomiting all over the herself, the car, and both John and I sick. We had planned to leave for Joshua Tree the next day, but Sayer was so sick that we actually spent the entire next day in El Centro at the Emergency Room. Because we left there still unsure about what was wrong with our baby we ended up staying for a few extra days. After some time Sayers fever went down and she seemed to be feeling better, so we were able to do some desert exploring.
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| John was convinced that there was gold in the hills because of all of this decaying quartz. |
Because we have lived in places that are so extremely different than the desert I find it to have a really odd beauty so I was glad that we were able to spend a few days exploring. After the delay of Sayers sickness, though, we were really anxious to get to out of California (we felt like we had been there forever!), so we loaded up and headed to Joshua Tree...
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