If you want to skip the narration and go straight to the full size photos, go to the photo gallery and check under April. As always, if you want prints of any of the photos, let me know which ones and I can either share my walmart.com albums with you, or send them to you myself. Hope you enjoy the little tour of California and Route 66!
I'm sure just about everyone heard about my recent road adventures. My very sweet friend Andrea and I drove my car from Oklahoma to California. We had a good time, especially considering there were two and a half days of driving involved. We basically followed the old Route 66, driving along I-40 through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. The first day we pretty much just drove, stopping for snacks and the occasional picture. We got to New Mexico too late to do anything interesting, so we just kept going to Flagstaff. We amused ourselves by counting license plates (by the end we got up to around 29, including Hawaii!) and memorable events like hitchhikers and crazy tumbleweeds.
Day two was more leisurely and touristy. We stopped at the Grand Canyon Caverns in Arizona. They were very beautiful. I especially liked one rock formation that looked like wet snow, which is strange as there was no water in the caverns at all. Andrea liked Mummy Bob, the mummified bobcat that lived in the caves. Also there was a model of a giant sloth named Gertie, whose bones had been found in the cave. There were still claw marks from where she had tried to climb out.
Later that day we stopped at the world famous Baghdad Café. Ok, so neither Andrea or I really know why it's world famous. It was on this tourist map Andrea had bought, so we stopped. Apparently it was in a movie of the same name, which my mother and Andrea's grandmother recognizes. The food was great, very unhealthy hamburgers. Andrea has a great story about General Bob, which I can't do justice. Mostly because every time she tells the story it becomes a little more exciting. . .
Finally we got to L.A. We basically collapsed at this point, so it was good that we'd scheduled a weekend stop at Doris's house. It was so good to get to stay with Doris! We had a blast! Two days at Disneyland. Well, one day at Disneyland and one at California Adventure.
At Disneyland the first order of business was to ride the Indiana Jones ride. It is by far my favorite ride. Actually, my only ride really. I like Indiana Jones, but it's the only real ride I manage at all. Pirates of the Caribbean was even too much for me, although that's really Andrea's fault. Since the ride was way too tame for her tastes, she livened it up by taunting me at every curve, saying "the BIG DROP is coming soon." I was so anxious about this big drop I barely enjoyed the ride, although I love the scene where the dog is holding the keys to the prison, and the prisoners are trying to coax him with bones and such.
Andrea really IS a Slytherin
I mostly went on the tame rides after that. Doris insisted on going on the Winnie the Pooh ride, because she is in love with Elebees. These are little elephant/bee combinations that are from Winnie the Pooh apparently. She is lobbying to get Disney to make Elebee merchandise
We took the Jungle cruise, which was fun in a sarcastic and silly kind of way. The tour guides on those things are hilarious. Our boat was the Yangtze Lotus, which made us happy. We all decided that Andrea should work at Disney on that ride. At least for a day or two.
My favorite Disney moment was meeting Goofy. It was raining early in the day so most of the characters weren't out until later, but when Goofy showed up Andrea had to have a picture. We chased him across toon town, leaving poor Doris with our lunch. When we got there, after waiting for our turn (I thought Andrea showed real patience not shoving over all the little kids to get to Goofy, even though you know she wanted to) Andrea finally got to get her picture taken with Goofy. Then she stepped on his foot. You can see the whole thing, because I took about a dozen pictures! Poor Goofy! She even tried to apologize, but Goofy was in too much pain. =)
I brought a book and did a little reading and shopping while Andrea and Doris went on the real rides. I didn't even ride the teacups. Yes, I admit it. Now all of you know what a wimp I am =) I did go on the Alice in Wonderland ride, which is Andrea's favorite Disney movie.
We were luckily on Main Street when the parade started. Doris and Andrea enjoyed Tarzan way too much. So we went by his treehouse later on.
Later that night we went out with some of Doris's friends, John, Kamillo and Julian. We went to Gordon Biersche and hung out. By the way, they have very good garlic fries. Yum.
We had so much fun at Disney that we went again the next day, for free since Doris is a So Cal resident.
Speaking of which, true Southern California refer to there highways, not as Highway 69, or I-40, as we do in other parts of the world. You're supposed to call them The Five, or The 210. They had us doing it too by the end. Anyway, back to California Adventure. This is a much more adult theme park, and so much fun! We spent about four hours in the Hollywood Backlot, learning about animation, watching muppet 3-d shows, and seeing a musical version of Aladdin. Very fun!
We also went to the Mission Tortilla Factory and the Boudin Sourdough Bread Factory, where we learned how they make tortillas and sourdough. Did you know that sourdough doesn't use yeast? Instead, you use "mother dough" which is leftover from previous bread. The mother dough they use goes back a couple hundred years! Every time they make bread, they save a bit to start the next days batch. I preferred the tortilla factory for their free samples, but the other one was fun too. The dough has a little roller coaster all its' own to go through, as the bread rests before being pounded out or shaped into loaves, depending on if you want a tortilla or a loaf of sourdough.
Finally Doris and Andrea got to the scary rides, and I got to shopping. Yes, I had to get little Casey a Playhouse Disney souvenir. They rode the ride I named "Pick them Up and drop them Down." They also went on some water ride and probably other scarier things I don't really need to know about. We met up at the Brother Bear adventure area and wandered around a playground that's really designed for kids 12 and under, but we liked climbing up rope bridges as much as they did.
Oh, I almost forgot. We visited the Cheesecake factory for brunch. True to my Mimi training . I planned my meal so that I could order a brownie fudge sundae for dessert. However, this was the Giant Brownie Sundae. It was so monstrous every eye in the room watched as my dessert was served. It came with three brownies and enough ice cream and whipped cream that you could hardly see the three brownies. Needless to say, I didn't come close to finishing it. But I did my best. The others had gotten cheesecake of their own, but they helped me out anyway. Good stuff.
The next day we headed out of town. After a brief stop at Mann's Chinese Theater, we got the heck out of L.A. because the traffic was scary, even at 11 in the morning. We took our time along the drive, stopping to look at vinyards, the ocean, a little Danish town called Solvang, Buellton, the split pea capitol of the world, outlet malls, you name the cheap tourist attraction, we stopped at it. =)
Finally we parked the car in Cupertino. I don't know why I drove the thing across the country, because now I never want to see a car again. THANKYOU ANDREA! I don't know how I would have made it without her. =)
We had a few more days before Andrea's plane left, so we kept playing tourist. John and Ann took us to the Egyptian Museum and the Winchester Mystery house here in San Jose. One interesting fact I learned at the Egyptian Museum is that wearing makeup was considered a part of worshipping Hathor, and Egyptian Goddess. It was also fun to see so many things I'd read about in my Elizabeth Peters novels! We only looked at the outside of the Mystery House. It cost 23 dollars to go in. After looking at some of the statistics of the house, we decided that everyone who came had to buy a gallon of paint. It takes 20,000 gallons of paint to repaint the exterior. I don't want that job!
Later that evening when Eric got off work we went mini-golfing. The mini-golf courses around here are one of my favorite things. The courses are amazing! They have windmills, and courses that you aim for large circles like ski-ball, dragons… amazing stuff! If you like that kind of thing I'm always up for mini-golf.
We spent one day visiting a winery. I know a lot more about wine now... but that wasn't hard. My favorite bit of trivia is that vinyards always have rose gardens, because pests and disease will attack roses first. As long as the roses are healthy, they don't worry about the vines. I got that knowledge thanks to Gabe, our Italian tour guide who said "a meal without wine is like a day without sun." Yes, I did have to buy a bottle of wine after that. =) We went to an art museum at Stanford too, where we saw this crazy banana sculpture and a casting of Rodin's Gates of Hell, which Andrea was very intrigued by.
Friday was Andrea's last real day in California. We spent the day hiking in Big Basin. We got to see Redwoods! It was very beautiful and peaceful. And strenuous. We climbed like mountain goats all over the rocks and pathways. I found a detour or two that turned out to be fun. You can't tell in the pictures, but I swear there was a path there. And at the top, there was a rock formation that felt just like a recliner. The best recliner ever, since we were getting tired! We finally got to Buzzard's Roost, approximately 3 miles from where we started. We think. Then we walked back!
