Day 5 - Disneyland: Memories Are Made Here

Arise and shine!!  We were up early with the sun to start our day at Disneyland.  Anxious to be the first through the gates, we drove about a mile to the Toy Story parking lot and caught a shuttle bus to Disneyland. 

We made a mad rush to ride Space Mountain first thing, but Carol wasn't too excited about losing her breakfast until she'd enjoyed it a bit longer.  Instead, she bought surprise gifts for all of us while Kathy and Diane loved having no wait at all.  Some of our main goals for today were to ride "It's A Small World" because it was a highlight of our 1966 trip; to get our picture made at "The Mad Hatter", for obvious reasons; and to ride the newer rides to create new memories.  We accomplished all of that and much more.  We surprised ourselves with our resilience and stamina, as evidenced by our staying at Disneyland until 5pm.  Never in our wildest dreams did we expect to make it that long.  We all had a great time and we're so glad we came.

Gotta go!  We're about to go look in the gate of Knott's Berry Farm and then enjoy a slow-paced evening in our lovely Motel 6.

Enjoying Space Orbitor

It's a Small World

The end of a memorable day!

Wearing the hat I bought back in '66 and holding Robert's.

Day 4 - California Here We Come

Up earlier today than we wanted.  We slept better in the Venetian than we have the rest of the nights combined.  We found a Denny's for breakfast and did a lot of people watching.  After checking out of the hotel and packing up the car, we walked up and down the strip for awhile, then drove to downtown Las Vegas to visit the Golden Nugget and Freemont Street.  A vendor called out to us and referred to us as Charlie's Angels.  How did he know it was us?  We thought we were shopping incognito!  We had to get pictures in front of the Golden Nugget since that's where our parents gambled on the '66 trip while we stood on the front sidewalk and watched through the windows.

We decided to part with no more than $20 each for gambling purposes.  $5 at a time, we played the quarter slots until we had each won a little bit back.  (We didn't even use the entire $20.  Big-time gamblers we are.) 

We headed for Anaheim around 4pm and the temperature reached 118 degrees at one point.  From Las Vegas to San Bernardino there was a lot of nothing except desert.  James said he saw on CNN where Arizona State Police found underwear along the highway in the desert.  After lengthy DNA analysis, they determined that the underwear were actually clean and no further investigation was warranted.  They surmised that they must have just accidentally blown out of someone's car.  Such a relief!!

In Barstow we stopped at a Travel Center and used their facilities.  While Carol and Diane checked out the maps and brochures, Kathy went to the bathroom.  She came out laughing her head off and told us she had used the men's bathroom.  She claimed to have done it accidentally, but she told us all about the urinals and how she wondered why they were in the women's bathroom.  Likely story.

We thought this was the day that we'd get to our motel early enough to relax and update our blog before going to bed, but we didn't get to Anaheim until 9pm.  Once again exhausted and having the slowest internet access ever, we gave up doing anything on the computer and went to bed.  From now on, we think we'll be best off finding a McDonald's, grabbing a Diet Coke or coffee and blogging in the presence of hungry diners.

Stay tuned for Disneyland!!!

The Venetian

Day 3 - Hot Time in Vegas

It was another long day with us getting up early to drive to Hoover Dam, about 184 miles from Williams.  It was Carol's turn at the wheel, but we ended up having to pull over lest she send us flying over a cliff, she was shaking so bad.  At one point, we caught sight of some of our underwear flying out the window.  (Wonder how that could have happened??)  The thermometer read 108 degrees at 10:30, so we knew it would be hot at the dam.  Wow!  Did we underestimate JUST HOW HOT it would be!  It didn't take long to see what we wanted to see, to recreate our picture from '66 in front of the plaque, and get the heck out of there. For some crazy reason, we still wanted to have a picnic lunch, by which time it was 113 and very little breeze.

Another hour or so and we were in Sin City.  Kathy couldn't get over how much it has changed since she, James and the boys came to Vegas several years ago.  We made our way to the Venetian and decided this beats the heck out of Motel 6!  The room is beautiful and the hotel amazing.  We went to the Blue Man Group show at 7 and loved their energy.  After walking awhile on the Strip, we came back for ice cream and then to enjoy our fancy room.

It feels a little odd not to be out partying but the bed is so inviting and the air conditioning feels great.  Maybe tomorrow we'll explore Vegas a little more before we head to California.      

In Arizona

Is someone losing their underwear???

Ready to hit the town!!!

Day 2 - America the Beautiful

There's no other way to describe what we saw today...beautiful.  After unsuccessfully trying to find a place to upload our pictures and publish our notes from yesterday, we finally headed to the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest in Arizona.  We spent the entire morning there....it was VERY hot and dry.  From there we drove to Winslow, AZ, "such a fine sight to see."  We took pictures on the corner.  We found a McDonalds and had a late lunch, which is when we finally published our blog post.

From there we drove north to the Grand Canyon.  Kathy was lucky enough to be driving when we got hit with heavy rain and lightning storms.  Thankfully it was gone as quickly as it came.  We drove on the south rim of the Grand Canyon and stopped at several scenic overlooks.  The views were spectacular.  We surprised ourselves by being able to get a little bit closer to the edge than we were able to do at Pike's Peak a few years ago.  Three female elk wandered near our picnic table as we enjoyed sandwiches and Shastas again for dinner.

Motel 6 in Williams is a teeny bit nicer than the one in Gallup but it smells of urine and has no elevator.  Hauling 20 pieces of luggage up stairs was no fun.  Kathy is finding crumbs in her bed and hairs on her pillow and it's creeping her out.  Actually, it's creeping ME out!  But we are dead tired and hope we all sleep better tonight.

Sweet dreams!

Painted Desert

Kathy holding the Petrified Forest postcard booklet from '66

Diane and Carol resting on a petrified log. 

Such a fine sight to see!

Grand Canyon

Diane and Carol getting brave.

Nope!  Never mind!

Day 1 - Moseying Along to Gallup

Oh my!  It was ONE LONG DAY!  We started out at 5:30am when Kathy came to Diane's to load the car.  We headed out at 6 to get Carol and exchanged gifts. Carol gave Betty Boop pajamas; Kathy gave "What Happens with Sisters Stays with Sisters" shirts.

In Jacksboro Carol popped in a CD she created for our trip and handed out songbooks with all the words.  We sang from Jacksboro to Seymour, all songs from 1966, including our theme song, California Dreaming.

Mark took a picture of us in Seymour in front of our family home.

Did we really think it would only take 12 hours to get to Gallup?  WE WERE SO WRONG!!!  Including the time it took to make numerous stops to go to the bathroom, get cold drinks, and have a picnic lunch, we didn't get here until 9pm, which was 10pm Texas time.  Our bottoms were sore before we got to Seymour!

Not much else to tell when you spend the day on the road and exhaustion sets in.  Hoping for more adventures tomorrow, when we head to Arizona and the Grand Canyon.
 

We've Been Upgraded!

I went to pick up the SUV today at Budget and found out that we've been upgraded to a Chevy Traverse.  Woohoo!!  Might that mean we get the executive suite at Motel 6?  We can only hope.

The Journey is Half the Fun!

What fun we've had on this journey so far and we haven't even started on the trip yet!  We've spent a whole year dreaming about, planning, anticipating this trip and it's finally here!

Back in December we got together to map out our route, decide on the things we want to do, how long we want to spend at each place and make hotel reservations.  Since then we've been filling in the gaps.  All of our motel reservations are made--Motel 6 will be leaving their light on for us all the way, except in Las Vegas where we'll be staying at The Venetian, rental car reserved (thought about renting an RV, but decided against it when we pictured us driving up and down the streets of San Francisco in it--or any street, for that matter), and tickets bought for The Blue Man Group, Disneyland and Alcatraz.  A week ago we got together to go to our Stevenson family reunion and while together we watched "Escape From Alcatraz" to get us more familiar with what we'll be seeing on our tour (if we get lost like we did at the Air Force Academy in Colorado on our '08 trip, we may have to know an escape route).  We also got to go to a wine tasting so I could show Carol and Diane how it works.  Well...we just happened upon it in United Market Street, but at least they got the gist of it!  (Just a side note: We're hoping the experience is more palatable in CA.)  We also did some shopping, researched wine tours and went through our packing list.

So now, here we are, just 6 days away from our departure.  We've shared ideas on packing light (hard to do for a 2 week trip), bought our Shasta drinks (and mace) for our roadside picnics, gathered up our memorabilia from '66 that will be going with us and bought gifts for each other (scrapbook stickers and Route 66 boxer shorts, plus others that we haven't given yet).  We've also started collecting mustard and mayo packets for our on-the-go sandwiches...who wants to pack jars of the stuff when we can just squeeze it on?  Hopefully Carol has made our music selections (no references to the Ol' Mississipp on THIS trip!) and has thrown in a couple of surprise renditions of long-ago favorites. 

Carol suggested we blog about our trip this year, since we always have such great adventures (see Air Force Academy above) and fun stories (remember the Fiber One Bar episode?) that we want to share with our families and friends.  One day, we'll look back and ask ourselves, "Were we crazy or what?"

A card Carol sent us letting us know how much she's looking forward to our trip.  So cute and so true!!