Hi All! Well we got home last night so here is my first installment of trip report. If any of you have read my reports over the years you know that as an past english major I write LONG, Detailed Reports. If you want a quick view, read someone elses report cuz' I write 'em like a story. Now on with the Story...
(One more time if you can't find my pre trip: Who :Me, my Dad and my Mom, I'm 21 by the way. Mom and dad lived in LA about 23 years ago and I had never been to CA. We went for DL, the pacific, the cemeteries, the light houses, and the military bases)
Day 1 Monday June 16, 2003
The day started at 4:00am CST when we got up and changed luggage. On Friday-Sunday (as in the 3 days prior to our CA trip) we were participating in a Civil War Reenactment in Wisconsin. We are part of an Artillery battery and had just purchased our Full Scale Cannon on the way to the event. In preparation for both trips we had two sets of luggage going. The downside was the pollen was SO bad in Wisconsin that when we hosed off our camper trailer it ran yellow and guess who is allergic to pollen. I woke up Monday morning having a bad reaction to it. I brought more antihistamines to LA than most pharmacies stocked.
At 5:00am we picked up my Grandfather who was going to drive our car back from the airport and set off downtown Minneapolis. We reached the airport at about 5:45 and got all checked in and searched by about 6:15. Our flight left at 7:00am and flew into Denver. From there we flew into Orange County Airport in Santa Ana, CA. I had never see the Rockies or anything west of them before so I was taking a lot of pictures out the plane window, even of the Grand Canyon as we flew over.
We landed in Orange County on time at 10:30am PST but a US Airways plane was in our gate and broke down there. the tower wouldn't give us a new gate so we wated a half hour until that plane was just pushed out of the way. (Orange County only has 7 gates so they were pretty busy). We got our car and luggage just fine. Mom and Dad had theirs searched and United almost broke the zipper on mine. (I just bought it 3 months ago because another airline broke the last one on my way to Jacksonville FL) With the help of a really weird road map the rental company gave us and my dads GPS unit (He likes his toys) we drove right to the Tropicana Inn where we were staying and found out, It was under Construction! No one had told us this, we didn't even know how or where we could check in.
The person checking us is was suprised we hadn't been told but told us they crews didn't start until 8am and stopped at 4pm. We figured we would be gone during these times anyway so we got a third floor room about as far away from the construction as we could. It was a great room, classified as a standard. We had 2 Queen beds, a vanity, Entertainment center/dresser type thing, 2 small tables, a full bath, a night stand, a dorm fridge and microwave, and a coffee pot. I thought it was a connecting room because we had a door next to our fridge but then I realised the "room Next door" in that direction was the stairwell so I have no idea what that door was for.
We spent the rest of the day in Disneyland being able to finish Tomorrowland and the majority of Toontown. Dad and I got mom on Star Tours, (She gets motion sick but we thought she would do fine) She said it was just about too much and then followed the little red triangles on the maps closely, taking pictures of dad and I on any ride she didn't want to go on. A few times when we were riding a rollercoaster or something she would go on something else so she was happy too. Most of the time she went on Small World (her favorite).
We ate dinner at the MacDonalds on Harbor Blvd. that night and realising just how tired we were (It's 9:30ish at home and we had been up since 4:00am) we went in search of a Vons Grocery store before turning in for the night. It had to be a vons because that was the chane where mom remembered shopping when they lived out there 23 years ago. It turns out there was one only a few blocks from the hotel off Harbor Blvd. When we got back to the hotel though we had a whole new mess to figure out.
Because of the construction about a third of their parking places were blocked and I think they had given out too many parking passes. We ended up parked on a round curb, in the middle of the driveway. They put another van next to us leaving barely enough space to drive a car theough between us and they were infront of a hydrant. They had cars parked literally everywhere. We went to bed that night at about 9:30pm PST hoping I would get better, (I had gone through a half box of kleenex already that day and had aproximatley 205mg of antihistamines in me. Fortunatly thought I am a pharmacy employee and major so I knew what and how to properly do that), and that our car would not get creamed in the night.
Coming soon: Day 2. Did the car survive? Did the kleenex last? What happened next? Check back soon to find out!
Minnesota
(One more time if you can't find my pre trip: Who :Me, my Dad and my Mom, I'm 21 by the way. Mom and dad lived in LA about 23 years ago and I had never been to CA. We went for DL, the pacific, the cemeteries, the light houses, and the military bases)
Day 1 Monday June 16, 2003
The day started at 4:00am CST when we got up and changed luggage. On Friday-Sunday (as in the 3 days prior to our CA trip) we were participating in a Civil War Reenactment in Wisconsin. We are part of an Artillery battery and had just purchased our Full Scale Cannon on the way to the event. In preparation for both trips we had two sets of luggage going. The downside was the pollen was SO bad in Wisconsin that when we hosed off our camper trailer it ran yellow and guess who is allergic to pollen. I woke up Monday morning having a bad reaction to it. I brought more antihistamines to LA than most pharmacies stocked.
At 5:00am we picked up my Grandfather who was going to drive our car back from the airport and set off downtown Minneapolis. We reached the airport at about 5:45 and got all checked in and searched by about 6:15. Our flight left at 7:00am and flew into Denver. From there we flew into Orange County Airport in Santa Ana, CA. I had never see the Rockies or anything west of them before so I was taking a lot of pictures out the plane window, even of the Grand Canyon as we flew over.
We landed in Orange County on time at 10:30am PST but a US Airways plane was in our gate and broke down there. the tower wouldn't give us a new gate so we wated a half hour until that plane was just pushed out of the way. (Orange County only has 7 gates so they were pretty busy). We got our car and luggage just fine. Mom and Dad had theirs searched and United almost broke the zipper on mine. (I just bought it 3 months ago because another airline broke the last one on my way to Jacksonville FL) With the help of a really weird road map the rental company gave us and my dads GPS unit (He likes his toys) we drove right to the Tropicana Inn where we were staying and found out, It was under Construction! No one had told us this, we didn't even know how or where we could check in.
The person checking us is was suprised we hadn't been told but told us they crews didn't start until 8am and stopped at 4pm. We figured we would be gone during these times anyway so we got a third floor room about as far away from the construction as we could. It was a great room, classified as a standard. We had 2 Queen beds, a vanity, Entertainment center/dresser type thing, 2 small tables, a full bath, a night stand, a dorm fridge and microwave, and a coffee pot. I thought it was a connecting room because we had a door next to our fridge but then I realised the "room Next door" in that direction was the stairwell so I have no idea what that door was for.
We spent the rest of the day in Disneyland being able to finish Tomorrowland and the majority of Toontown. Dad and I got mom on Star Tours, (She gets motion sick but we thought she would do fine) She said it was just about too much and then followed the little red triangles on the maps closely, taking pictures of dad and I on any ride she didn't want to go on. A few times when we were riding a rollercoaster or something she would go on something else so she was happy too. Most of the time she went on Small World (her favorite).
We ate dinner at the MacDonalds on Harbor Blvd. that night and realising just how tired we were (It's 9:30ish at home and we had been up since 4:00am) we went in search of a Vons Grocery store before turning in for the night. It had to be a vons because that was the chane where mom remembered shopping when they lived out there 23 years ago. It turns out there was one only a few blocks from the hotel off Harbor Blvd. When we got back to the hotel though we had a whole new mess to figure out.
Because of the construction about a third of their parking places were blocked and I think they had given out too many parking passes. We ended up parked on a round curb, in the middle of the driveway. They put another van next to us leaving barely enough space to drive a car theough between us and they were infront of a hydrant. They had cars parked literally everywhere. We went to bed that night at about 9:30pm PST hoping I would get better, (I had gone through a half box of kleenex already that day and had aproximatley 205mg of antihistamines in me. Fortunatly thought I am a pharmacy employee and major so I knew what and how to properly do that), and that our car would not get creamed in the night.
Coming soon: Day 2. Did the car survive? Did the kleenex last? What happened next? Check back soon to find out!
Minnesota
