california adventure 1 :: part 3.1 disneyland :: day 1

wednesday 6/20 :: day 5

Wednesday morning me and Pat got up early, gathered up our things, and began the next portion of our trip, road trip style! We agreed to drive his moms car back to Oregon for her, but wanted to make it an adventure, so we picked a few stops along, or not so along the way, that sounded like fun to us. Originally we were interested in doing Napa or Sonoma County for some wine tasting, but pulled a 180 when we weighed our options and figured out just how expensive that would really be. Disneyland in Anaheim was our decision instead!

The drive was pretty quick and in just a few hours of minimal traffic and a lot of weird California freeway "veer left, veer right" instructions from our GPS, we arrived at our hotel, dropped off our stuff, and headed for the park to get our tickets. 

Though Disneyland is not cheap, and we are in our mid twenties, we still love it and had a ton of fun acting like little kids. 

[[ snow white. sleeping beauty's castle. me & pat. storybook land. the sword in the stone. alice in wonderland tea party. ]]

[[ big thunder mountain railroad. ]]

[[ pirates of the caribbean, our first ride. ]]

[[ the haunted mansion. ]]

[[ tomorrow land. buzz lightyear and my really low score. ]]

[[ adventure land. indiana jones. turkey leg shirt. snakes! ]]

[[ california adventure. cars area. route 66. v8 cafe. hollywood tower of terror. ]]

[[ ice cream on the boardwalk. cars. bugs life. mad hatter. ]]

[[ splash mountain. star tours. ]]

[[ winnie the pooh. ]]

We got in to the park around noon, walked through "Main Street" and decided to go right on Pirates of the Caribbean (one of my favorites). The good thing about having me around as a tour guide is that I have been here several times now with my family and am pretty good at figuring out Fast Pass tactics, so I made sure we got on everything. After Pirates we grabbed Fast Passes to Splash Mountain and Indiana Jones before stopping to eat some lunch. Next we went on Thunder Mountain Railroad, played around in the Storybook Land (with all of the little kid rides), got our picture taken in front of the castle (of course), went on The Haunted Mansion (another favorite), a Buzz Lightyear arcade shooting ride I am really really bad at, tried on some Mickey Mouse ears in the Tomorrow and Adventure Land shops, used up our Indiana Jones Fast Pass, and then decided to head for California Adventure until it was time to go on Splash Mountain. 

I was feeling parched, so I insisted that we first head for the boardwalk area so that I could get us some frozen yogurt. Unfortunately the roller coaster was shut down at this time, so we pretty much just wandered around the park looking at all of the different areas (like the new Cars section which is really freaking cute). We made our way back in to Disneyland and had a few minutes before we could use our passes so we went on the Winnie the Pooh ride (super cute, I love little kid rides). By then it was finally time for Splash Mountain! YAY! Too bad we got stuck on it for about half an hour before finally going down the drop... and I sort of missed the mark on our muscle man poses for the picture... The good news was me and Pat were nice and dry, while the people in front of us got SOAKED! Our last ride of the evening was the newly revised Star Tours, which now has a 3D component and was WAY better than before. Then it was time for some dinner and drinks in Downtown Disney. 

Two of the people who work with Pat live in Anaheim (mother and daughter), so they came to meet us for some dinner. We ended up staying at the Uva Bar until the parks closed, and then said goodbye and made the twenty minute walk back to our hotel to check in and get some sleep. 

The weird thing about our hotel was the Murphey bed since we were in a studio. I had never even seen one of those before, and we had a hell of a time getting it down and situated. Eventually we were able to get some sleep. 

I will post about day two tomorrow. 

california adventure 1 :: part 2.2 joshua tree national park (continued)

Here is the second half of my pictures from our trip to Joshua Tree National Park (on 6/19). 

After we left the Keyes viewpoint, we drove back down and found a new area of the park that contained HUGE solid rock formations composed of what seemed to be sand. This was by far my favorite part of the park! I had never seen anything like these before, and the best part was that we could climb around on them. You will notice in many of the pictures, that me and Pat apear as tiny specks, I wanted you to be able to see how small we were compared to these giants. Just sorting through my shots makes me want to go back to this area.

Next we headed to the Cholla Cactus Garden where a large amount of Chollas grow naturally. These were some of the weirdest plants I have ever seen, and not quite what I expected when thinking about cactuses. They were largely hallow and little tumbleweeds of the plant would fall off and float around your feet. Hayden was the first to try and pick one up, and soon had both me and Pat following him. They are silly fuzzy little things.

Since we entered at the North West area of the park, we decided to just drive through the remainder and exit somewhere to the South East towards the Salton Sea. It is truly amazing how much the terrain changed throughout the park as we made our way through it. From desert with loose rocks and plants everywhere, to an amazing viewpoint surrounded by Joshua Trees, to a sandy canyon filled with giant rock formations, to a wide open valley filled with cactuses, back to mountains and a whole lot of wide open space. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and fully intend to experience a sunset and star gazing here one day.

[[ joshua tree national park part II: giant rock formations. terrain changes. cholla cactus garden.  all photos taken by me & pat in california, june 2012. ]]

california adventure 1 :: part 2.1 joshua tree national park

Tuesday (6/19) Me, Pat, Hayden, and Maggie drove out to Joshua Tree National Park to explore the desert, climb around on rock formations, take a million pictures, and experience something new. I had been really excited about getting out there since we started planning our trip. I think the boys were a bit skeptical at first but I know for a fact that Pat at least, thoroughly enjoyed himself.

Below is part one of our explorations. I had to divide this post up because of how many pictures I took. The really unique thing about this park is how vastly the terrain changes from one mile to the next, so we really got the whole experience. Here is a link to a park map to give you an idea of its size.

Included in this post are the loose rock formations that line the windy road at the West entrance of the park, as well as the Keyes viewpoint, which is several thousand feet up above the park. The nice old man I gathered our park map from said that on a clear day you can see all the way in to Mexico from here. You can also see the Saltan Sea, the San Andreas Fault,  and the entire Coachella Valley below. If we went back here, I would make sure to stay until sunset and experience that up here, I can't even imagine how gorgeous that is. And of course, I had to take pictures of some of the Suessian Joshua Trees before we made our decent and went on to other park areas.

[[ joshua tree national park part I: rock formations at west entrance. keyes viewpoint. joshua trees. all photos by me & pat in california, june 2012. ]]