Disneyland Journal, Part 1. Going To Disneyland? Don't Start In Prescott.

As I sat down to try and blog about our recent Disneyland vacation, I realized that trying to recap it all would take a whole lot of time and I would leave stuff out and the post would be eons long, so I decided to do it a little different. I will give a running journal of our days, one day at a time over the course of the next couple weeks. This way, I can cover everything and get more pictures in and hopefully keep the posts manageable. We will see how it goes. With that said, the first day of our vacation went as such:

10:05 - Kissed Kate and said goodbye as we left her with Shannon's Aunt Charlene in Prescott. Stopped and went back and kissed Kate again.

10:09 - Got all the kids loaded in the van and then couldn't help it. I went back in and kissed Kate again and tried not to cry.

10:13 - Realized I had left my Dr. Pepper in the refrigerator and went back in to get the most important traveling item I had. Would rather forget all hair care items than my Dr. Pepper...Just checking if you are awake out there.

10:15 - Kissed Kate a third time and finally get out the door. At this point I lost an argument with Shannon about whether we really needed to leave Kate at all. She would be fiiinnnneeee!!!! Oh well, here we go.

11:15 - Braden is car sick. I am pretty sure he doesn't really know what car sick means. To him, I think car sick is that he is sick of being in the car. However, we are on a curvy mountain road (if you want to go to Disneyland, never start from Prescott, AZ) so we let him out of the car for some fresh air. He gets back in and goes to sleep. When he awakens, all is fine.

11:45 - Not being on an interstate is proving problematic. Shannon is starting to really need a restroom. However, the "towns" we are passing through on this back way are proving not to be ideal bathroom locations. I love my hometown, but imagine trying to figure out where to use the bathroom in Duncan if you were passing through. By the way, Duncan would have been the biggest town we passed through if it were on this highway. We did see one promising place, Big Mama's Roadhouse, but the sign underneath saying, Bikers Welcome, tipped the balance in favor of not stopping.

11:55 - Pass through Yarnell, AZ. Prior to this trip, I didn't know there was a Yarnell, AZ. I mention this only because Shannon saw that they had a museum which had a big sign announcing, "We Have Brand New Dead Things!"

12:25 - Pass through Hope, AZ. It took 20 seconds and at the end of the town, a sign stating, "You are now beyond Hope." This had special significance for us as Shannon had still not found a suitable bathroom. Also, we had passed no less than 15 RV parks during this stretch and realized the movie, RV, is not that much of an exageration. Hallelujah, I-10 is only 10 minutes away.

12:45 - Reach Quartzsite, AZ. Stop at McDonald's and Shannon finally gets to much needed bathroom, except...line is out the door. Could someone explain Quartzsite to me? Thousands of senior citizens gather each winter to park their RVs five feet from each other and go look for rocks...That's it as far as I can tell. Town doesn't even appear to have a pizza restaurant firmly attached to the ground, but has the largest RV dealership I have ever seen. I am sure it makes sense to someone, I am just not that someone.

2:30 - Shannon again is needing a restroom. She started with four water bottles in the front seat. You do the math. However, rain has begun to fall in CA (yes, we had made it to CA) and traffic on the Interstate has begun to crawl. We covered 10 miles in 1/2 hour. None of those miles happened to have a bathroom.

6:30 - (This is the last entry with Arizona time. The local time in CA was 5:30, we shall now refer to everything in the pacific time frame.) We finally reach our hotel. If you do the math, that is 8 hours and 15 minutes in the car. Sure glad we were able to break up that 9 hour drive from Thatcher to Anaheim by stopping in Prescott over night. Very glad at this point Shannon won the argument about bringing Kate.














6:30 - Arrive in Disneyland. Logan very very excited and our first ride is....The Disneyland Railroad. It had been raining all day, but had blown over. However, still pretty cold. In our previous trips we had never made it on the train and so this was all of our kids' first ride on the train. Result...Braden loves it and demands a verbal contract that we ride it 5 times every day that we are in CA.














7:30 - Logan had said he wanted his first ride to be the Dumbos. He changed his mind when he saw the train, but the Dumbos were then officially next on the agenda. As we get on the Dumbos, it begins to rain again. Did I mention it was cold?














7:40 - We sit down in the Village Haus to eat dinner. My favorite part of Disneyland is...I spent $18 for my kids to eat Mac and Cheese. I don't complain about the prices because it is what it is. But the irony of this particular meal, knowing that Shannon is usually able to get a box of mac and cheese that will feed all three for 50 cents, is not lost on me.

8:40 - Fireworks start. This is the whole reason I paid for tickets for this day. It is the only day they will have the fireworks and I love them. Amazingly, they did not get rained out. For the first time ever, Braden actually watches the fireworks without freaking out. Plugged his ears, but watched them. Logan however, hated them. I held him as he cried a bit and he buried his face in my shoulder. He was so scared that he...fell asleep on my shoulder. What do I expect from a four year old who just spent 8+ hours in the car. What this does mean is that I get to carry him all the way back to the hotel. My back was a little tired when we got back. Oh if I had only known what was to come.

Good Times With Mickey

I will admit up front that I have an unhealthy fascination with Disneyland. This is not to be confused with "All Things Disney" because I refuse to buy the direct to video sequals of the Disney classic cartoons, I think the Power Rangers are possibly the result of a very bad acid trip, I feel the Disney Channel could be destroying my children's brain cells and I know that any company which fascilitates the return of Billy Ray Cyrus deserves to have their stock price cut in half on principal alone. But when it comes to Disneyland...there is nothing like it. I have some of my greatest memories there. They are as follows:






-I can barely remember when I was 4 and I went the first time. Mickey Mouse kissed me on the head, I met Captain Hook and I told my mom after we rode Space Mountain that we didn't need to go on that one anymore.






-My second visit as a teen is remarkable for one reason only. It provided me with the only picture I know of where my dad has a beard. He was growing one for the Duncan Centennial's Beard Growing Contest and I got a picture. That has never been seen again.






-We went there on our honeymoon. Of the parts we can talk about, it was my first time to ride on Indiana Jones. That is one of my all time favorite rides. It was funny because Shannon had never been on it either. If you have been on this ride, you know that the queue to get to the ride is incredibly long and incredibly detailed in its decorating. After about two full minutes of walking, we began to wonder if the queue was the ride. Finally got to the ride and...AWESOME! Also, we bought matching shirts that were some of the best t-shirts we have ever owned. They were green and very good looking and they lasted forever. Also on that trip, we went to Universal Studios. On the ET ride, you would give someone at the beginning of the ride your name and then ET would say goodbye to you by name at the end of the ride. We got such a kick out of giving out fake names and having ET try and say them. I don't remember what we said other than I said Lionel at one point. My gosh were we really that juvenile? The answer is yes and if that ride still existed, I would do it again.






-We went again on our five year anniversary. California Adventure had opened just three weeks before we went and it was so awesome. It was pouring rain the day we went to California Adventure and we bought ponchos and then rode the Grizzly River Run over and over. We got very wet, but who cared. We were getting wet anyway. Also, it was our first time to experience the best theme park ride EVER (Didn't I recently make a comment that I shouldn't make claims like that...Oh well, screw it, it is the best theme park ride EVERRRRRR!!!!!)Soarin' Over California. I think we rode on it 5 times that day and we would have done it more had we had the time. I still ride that ride multiple, multiple times, everytime we go.






-Shannon's Dad passed away five months after our five year anniversary trip. To help pull the family out of the funk that we were all in, I suggested to David maybe we should plan a trip to Disneyland. It became a rallying point. We were all so excited. Shannon and I, Marilyn, Cody, David and Clinton went and I have to say, it is still probably my favorite trip ever. They talk about the Disney "magic", well I saw it on full display as three boys (you can't even really call Cody a boy at that point)experienced Disneyland for the first time. It also provided some joy and happiness that the family hadn't had for a while. It was so funny trying to convince the guys to leave just about every ride we went on and go to the next because they thought what we had just done was so cool. Clinton was a bit nervous about California Screamin' at first, but when he finally went on it, it was his favorite. I think he and Cody went on it like 9 times in a row because there was no line. Absolutely a great trip.






-The first time Abby went, she was pretty nervous about everything and then she had six adults (Shannon, me, my parents and Danae and Lamar) trying to get her to "look at this" and "look at that". It was all a little overwhelming for her. Then after about an hour, we went to Toon Town and all of a sudden, she says, "I want to get down and see Pluto." We didn't see Pluto, but we let her out of the stroller and she ran over to a Pluto who was squatting down at kid level and she just hugged him and petted him. Heart melter right there. Same when she got to hug Cinderella and Aurora. This trip also provided the great story of Shannon and the berm between the freeways while we were dead stopped in traffic at 10 p.m. at night.






-Braden's first trip was great, but the best was when we finally made our way to Toon Town at night. We just hadn't gotten there yet and so it was dark and mostly deserted. We went through Mickey Mouse's house and then at the end, we were the only people there and didn't realize that there was a meet Mickey area at the end. They opened the door and had our family come in and seeing the look in Braden's eyes was a once in a lifetime experience. He couldn't blink and he couldn't take his eyes off Mickey. We got it on video and it is one of our prized possessions.




So as we get ready to go again, we are so excited and look forward to what memories we will add to our already great stash. We are also super excited for Logan to experience this place. So is he.

Potpourri Or Mini Posts 2

The Legend of Sleepy Church Street Canal
For those who haven't heard, a dead body was found in the Church Street Canal Monday. When I first heard about it, I was told it was a young woman or girl in just her underwear which implied the worst. Within hours, conjecture and rumors were swirling around the valley about the "murder" victim. As it turned out, it was an older lady in her fifties who had been known to have drug and mental illness issues. She apparently had been making her way alongside the canal and decided most of her clothing was a nuisance. After a while, she apparently made her way under the bridge or somewhere in the canal and it is believed, succumbed to the elements and froze. Very tragic. But it was interesting to be reminded of just how small a town we live in. Had this occured in our old neighborhood of Gilbert or Mesa, it would have been viewed as just another day in paradise, but in Thatcher, not so much. My friend, Rhett Dodge, whose home was near where the body was found, told me he had a lady come into his business and emphatically declare that anyone who had a daughter should get her home immediately because they had found three dead bodies between Safford and Central, all young women, and they had had their heads shaved. Another rumor floating around was that there were three young women found under the Pima bridge with their hands and feet cut off. My aren't we a morbid little group here.

Compare this to the morning I went out my front door in Gilbert to go to work and four police officers with shotguns and shields were walking down my sidewalk and asked (told) me to go back inside my home. Apparently the man who lived in the home right across the street from us had gone and got his ex-wife's current husband and kidnapped him. When the kidnapped individual tried to escape, my neighbor shot him. We knew none of this at the time, we just huddled in our home praying not to be shot. Shannon got to be on the news later that day in the typical "He was a quiet kind of guy" interview. But the next day, life returned to normal without much thought to it anymore. This, by the way, happened in the "#1 Housing development in the Phoenix Area." My what a difference a few million people make.

Logan Quote
As we get ready to go on our Disneyland trip, I, as any good Disney nerd would do, ordered the Disneyland Vacation Planning DVD even though I could probably make one after all of our trips. Anyway, it came and I had the kids sit down and watch it with me. Right as it started, Logan said, "Is that Disneyland?" I said, "Yes." To which he replied, "So Disneyland is a real place?" I guess we have provided a little to much hype and not enough solid proof.

Bailouts and Stimulus Packages
Can we bankrupt the country and mortgage our grandchildren's future? YES WE CAN! YES WE CAN!

Root Canal Update
Shannon finally reached a milestone in her root canal saga. After three visits and 6 hours in the chair, they finally were able to finish the basic root canal and fill in the "mysterious void" that appeared during her second visit with some sort of oral cement concoction. Now we get to wait to see if it gets infected and puss starts gushing out of her mouth. Nothing says Happy Valentine's Day like your sweetheart oozing puss from her satanically possessed tooth. If all goes well, after 6 months, she will return to have a crown placed on said possessed tooth. If all does not go well, Shannon will likely have to have the tooth removed and we will be forced to move to Mississippi where she will not feel out of place. In what I am sure is an unrelated topic, our dentist is finishing up a major home expansion project that appears to be going very well. Just kidding Dr. Lee. Our dentist is in our ward and he has been great and more than fair. We love Dr. Lee. Any contribution we could make to his new home addition is done so happily.

Lost
Lost is the best show on TV. Period. Actually, period is kind of weak after a declaration of that kind. So, Lost is the best show on TV. Exclamation Point. I have realized just how often I make very bold declarations. The best this and the best that. Oh well, at least no one can say I don't take a firm stand on things, regardless of how silly those stands may be.

Vacation Hallucinations
We must be getting close to our Disneyland trip. Everything is reminding me of something. I walked into the hospital cafeteria and smelled something that made me think of how much I was looking forward to a Churro. I have caught myself with my eyes shut a couple of times at my desk daydreaming about being on the Soarin' Over California ride. Lastly, a couple of time, I have smelled a slightly musty smell that isn't necessarily unpleasant, but it has reminded me of the ride queues for both Indiana Jones and Splash Mountain. My gosh, I need this vacation.