Our “California Adventure” a Road Trip to the West (Update: Day 17 - There and back again)

[MarbleBob]

Loving this couch-side roadtrip.
The salt lakes are amazing!
Old Town Sacramento....and that candy store.....what a fantastic candy store.

Vacaville? I only remember the Premium outlets.

Thanks! The area that we ate at was on the other side of the highway from the outlets. It looked fairly new, maybe no more than a few years old.

We found that as well in the past when traveling with other people/families that everyone gets ready at different speeds and it results in some extra waiting. Once you just kinda accept that as fact, things are easier to deal with though

Never eaten at In-and-Out yet - will have to rectify that at some point. have a lot of Shake Shack though so that will be the point of comparison for me

wow, didn't realize you were also a fruit smuggler That is pretty extreme to have the booths like that. There is a sign near us when we go into Connecticut that says "no out of state firewood permitted" - but all they have is the sign, no checking or anything.

ugh, I think Candy Heaven and Hershey PA are going to have to wrestle in a pool full of chocolate or something over the slogan "Sweetest Place on Earth"

The Disney vans are awesome. I so don't need them, yet I feel I need them at the same time. Those Hoth ones are really great though too. Decisions, decisions

Ok, now I want some Boudin Bakery. I too am a big fan of Panera (my sister is the catering director for Panera for Long Island so we get it for parties quite often) ... so knowing it was that much better has my mouth watering.

Ah Krispy Kreme - especially when the sign is lit up and they are making them fresh and you get one right off the conveyor belt and it is still warm in the middle ...

ok, is is lunch time yet?

You should plan on eating at an In-N-Out at least once our your upcoming trip!

The food smuggling was weird. They didn't look hard. I guess if I wanted to peddle some Missouri apples on the black market, I could have just told the guy that we didn't have any produce.

I ended up 3 pair of Disney Vans and the Star Wars ones too. I gave up on deciding, and just went a little overboard.

Mmm... warm Krispy Kremes. I really want one of those now!

To my understanding those fence things are to try to keep the snow off the roads. It gets so crazy windy through those areas that even on days when it is not snowing, the snow blows across the road so bad it can make blizzard like conditions. So those keep it off to an extent... as much as they can.

That candy shop looks like a kid's wildest dream! I totally forgot about tart and tiny's until you showed the picture. I loved those when I was a kid.
The vans! Those look awesome. I love Vans but I haven't had a pair in forever. So cute!
Boudin looks SO good. This looks like such a fun road trip so far.

Tart'n Tiny's for the win!!! I still have a small handful left and I'm rationing them out

In N Out is so good....I can't wait until we are out there next month so we can eat there!!!

The candy shop is great....I loved Tart N Tiny's when i was young too!!!!

We will definitely have to check out Boudin Bakery when we are at the wharf...I love brocolli cheddar soup bread bowls...yum!!!

Boudin at the wharf! I hope you like it and would be interested in what you think!

The chili in the bread bowls is really good too!

Thanks for the tip. Next time!!!

The wind is what keeps Wyoming from being any more populated!! The snow fences do an ok job but when it's blowing 40+mph it doesn't matter!!! We actually have a Starbucks in my town that they built from the old snow fences! now we're trying to make snow fences with trees (I'm sure you saw little rows of trees along the road). The only problem is the trees are about 6 inches tall and my kids will be old before they grow into anything!!!
I'm glad you came through when you did because we had a lot of rain this spring so everything was green. Usually by this time it's just brown! I think you take things for granted when you see them all the time so next time I drive I80 I'm going to look at it through your eyes!!
Really enjoying the trip report!
Kari
(I think the Wendy's you ate at would be in Rock Springs based on how far out of Salt Lake you said you were. My mom and dad lived there in the late 60's when the streets weren't paved!)

I googled the Wendy's and that's indeed the one. You nailed it!!! Yeah, I didn't have high hopes for Wyoming scenery, but it was really pretty. Glad for the rain. Probably relative to other areas in WY, not the prettiest, but a welcome change from the landscape in Nebraska. (I spent 6 weeks in the Wind River Range, near Lander, after college and also got to see a bit of Wyoming. Such an amazing state!!! I'm jealous of you )

The candy store, I work right near there. My daughter works in the building across the river by the pyramid building. Surprised you didn't do the train museum

Nice! It would be fun to work in such a cool area. We decided to skip the train museum (although Buddy was disappointed) to spare the girls, who aren't nearly as interested in trains. Another one for next time. I think we could do this same drive several times over and still have plenty of different places to stop on each iteration.

Just catching up...the salt flats look cool! I've never even heard of that area before. Definitely something your kids will always remember visiting.

And that candy store looks awesome, a kid's (and big kid's) paradise!

I hadn't known much about the salt flats either, other than the occasional references to land speed records being made out there. But I didn't really know what they were. Glad I did the research, because they were an amazing!!! And yes, that candy store was definitely worth the slight detour!!!

 

[MarbleBob]

Day 5 - Tuesday, June 16 - Japantown

It’s been a busy week since the last update, but I’m back and ready to share the next chapter in our California Adventure

We planned to start our day in Japantown with Tracy and Minh. Unfortunately, their hot water heater went out (immediately after we arrived.) Tracy wanted to stay back and either try and fix it himself or have a repairman come out. As bummed as we were about going without them, the desire to avoid additional cold showers over the next few days quickly put things in perspective

So yeah, Japantown is the largest enclave of Japanese culture in the United States. Tracy and Minh took me there once before, while I was in town for a business trip. The rest of my family had not been there, but I knew they would love it. It’s within a couple of miles of downtown SF, so we planned to start the day there and then explore more of the city in the afternoon.

Since most of the shops wouldn’t open until after 10:00 AM, we took our time getting up and heading out. We had a quick breakfast and then wished Tracy good luck on his repairs. (Minh had left for work fairly early.)

We headed north and crossed the bay bridge. Boy traffic was nuts!!! It took forever to get through the toll booth and then navigating traffic downtown was a challenge. But no issues, we arrived without incident.

The shops still had about 20 minutes before they opened, so we walked around and explored the surrounding areas a bit.



They had some self-guided walking tours, and a lot of informational plaques. Some really interesting stuff scattered around the blocks.







Once it got to be around 10:00 AM, we headed into the shopping center.

Princess was stoked and ready to shop!!!



Heading inside...



Lots of cool gardens and sculptures all over the place.



We started out in one of the smaller “dollar” stores walking up and down the aisles looking at all kinds of interesting stuff. We then headed to the anchor store for that part of the mall, Daiso, which is a giant dollar style store. Most everything is $1.50. The kids bought all kinds of candy and toys, and I got some cool kitchen supplies. We probably spent over 45 minutes browsing in there. Good stuff!

We window shopped for a little bit longer, hitting a few different stores. The kids especially liked the DVD/Anime store. They had all kids of plush animals, posters, action figures, and who knows what. They excited to see the giant Totoro doll!!



By then it was getting close to lunch time and we were all getting hungry. We decided to stop at one of the restaurants that were scattered throughout the mall.



The kids thought Mifune looked interesting, so we decided to give it a try.

It was more of a traditional Japanese restaurant than a sushi place, but that was fine. We eat a fair amount of sushi at home, so it was fun to go for something more traditional.



It was fairly dim inside and my photos didn’t come out too well, so pardon the blurry photos.

They had an interesting lunch menu and we all decided to try different variations of their specials.

Pickle went with the Niku (beef) udon noodles and rice bowl with Ikaru (salmon caviar.)



I was skeptical that she’d actually like the caviar, but Pickle's a very adventurous eater. She probably expected the "little balls" to be sweet. She didn’t find it gross, but she didn’t really eat much of it. She loved the noodles, beef, and broth though!!!

Princess went with with green tea soba noodles, unagi (eel) over rice, and miso soup. She likes unagi and was happy with her choice. But she LOVES green tea flavored things, and was eager to try the noodles. Score!! They were tasty. She shared a few bites and we all agreed that she made a good choice.



Buddy, Stephanie, and I also had the beef udon noodles, but we chose different sides.

Steph went with a California roll. (Despite being in Japantown, we are in California, aren’t we?)



We’ve had a LOT of California rolls in our lives. These were good, but nothing to write home about. We all really loved the noodles though.

Budd had niku don (beef over rice) with his noodles.



And I had tekka (raw tuna) over rice.



All in all, it was a delicious meal and we thoroughly enjoyed it. I imagine there are much better Japanese restaurants in the area, but compared to most places we’ve visited in the midwest, it was excellent.



After lunch, we went through a series of all kinds of shops. Toy stores. Clothes. House goods. Collectibles. Etc.

The girls picked up a couple cute alpaca dolls. Weird, but cool!



And who doesn’t love a giant Pikachu?!?!?


https://flic.kr/p/wjR8JT


They have a giant two story book store too. Like a Barnes and Noble or Borders, but full of Japanese stuff. Princess spent a LONG time looking at the manga books and princess even found some cool magazines geared for little girls.

After the book store, were ready for another break. Ice cream crepes? Oh yeah!!!



Princess picked out one with kiwi, ice cream, and whipped cream. Legit!



I went with strawberries, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream.



I can’t even begin to tell you how amazing these things were. Best snack/treat in a LONG time. I’m still dreaming about those right now. So good!!! Possibly worth a trip to Japantown just for those, if you are already in the area.

It was now about 2pm, and we were ready to move on and see some more of San Francisco.

Before we move on to the next part of the report, here's a photo of Princess's spoils for the day. YIKES!!!! (Worth noting, that some of these things were gifts for her friends back home.)

 

[Avery's mom]

Absolutely loving your report! Too many adorable details to mention specifically, but I nudged my DH and asked him when we could do a trip like this!

Our youngest is 19 months, so it will be a while, but you've given us a lot to look forward to in the meantime!

Can't wait to see/read more about your trip !

 

[PrincessInOz]

Japantown! What a great day you had there so far. I was amused to read that Daiso price their US stuff at $1.50. They are about $2.80 in Australia. The noodles look yummy...and you can tell Princess that I love unagi too.
Love those crepes.

I hope the hot water system got fixed.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Looks like Japan time was a good time - and looks like it lived up to what Princess was hoping for ... she certainly got a sufficient amount of stuff I would say - definitely looks like a lot of stuff that would be hard to get back home.

The lunch looks pretty darn good - especially the noodle bowls. I love places like that but always get anxious that I don't know which places are the good ones/which bad ... but seems like you did ok.

Those crepes look great! What a good idea to make like "cones" out of the crepe!

Sorry to hear that Tracy couldn't come though - hope they got the water heater fixed

 

[wiscbugs]

I have been waiting for the San Fran portion of the report. We aren't planning on going to Japantown....my son loved Pokemon so much for probably about 5 years but hasn't been much into it in the past year. The Japan store at Epcot was his favorite....but when we went in April he didn't seem too interested.

 

[annegirl]

Japan Town looks like a lot of fun. My girls would go crazy in those stores- all those cute things! They would want to bring that giant Pikachu home. Princess loaded up! Looks like a great haul.

 

[jedijill]

What a fun stop! Love that the store had everything at $1.50. Lunch looked delicious too! (except the eel!)

Jill in CO

 

[VandVsmama]

Following along!

You know, as a kid, I lived an hour from San Francisco and for all the times we went to San Francisco, we NEVER explored Japantown! Now I wish that we HAD!

 

[MarbleBob]

Absolutely loving your report! Too many adorable details to mention specifically, but I nudged my DH and asked him when we could do a trip like this!

Our youngest is 19 months, so it will be a while, but you've given us a lot to look forward to in the meantime!

Can't wait to see/read more about your trip !

Thanks for joining in!!! Yeah, I agree, 19 months might be a bit much for a trip like this, but you should totally plan on doing a road trip in the future!!!

Japantown! What a great day you had there so far. I was amused to read that Daiso price their US stuff at $1.50. They are about $2.80 in Australia. The noodles look yummy...and you can tell Princess that I love unagi too.
Love those crepes.

I hope the hot water system got fixed.

Hurray, Princess has another unagi fan to relate to. Stephanie doesn't dislike it, but the rest of us aren't really fans at all. And yes, Uncle Tracy was indeed able to fix it while we were out having fun

Looks like Japan time was a good time - and looks like it lived up to what Princess was hoping for ... she certainly got a sufficient amount of stuff I would say - definitely looks like a lot of stuff that would be hard to get back home.

The lunch looks pretty darn good - especially the noodle bowls. I love places like that but always get anxious that I don't know which places are the good ones/which bad ... but seems like you did ok.

Those crepes look great! What a good idea to make like "cones" out of the crepe!

Sorry to hear that Tracy couldn't come though - hope they got the water heater fixed

Yeah, we did verify the restaurant on Yelp before we went inside, and it had as good of reviews as most of its surrounding competition. I cold go for some of those udon noodles right now! No wait, hold on and skip that, I want one of those ice cream crepe cones!!!

I have been waiting for the San Fran portion of the report. We aren't planning on going to Japantown....my son loved Pokemon so much for probably about 5 years but hasn't been much into it in the past year. The Japan store at Epcot was his favorite....but when we went in April he didn't seem too interested.

Yahoo!! I think Japantown is awesome, but there are so many amazing places in the area, that I'd skip it if you guys aren't already fans. We skipped Chinatown this time around (ran out of town) and it's just as cool (if not cooler.) And of course, the list goes on. There are just too many things to do in San Francisco!!!!

Japan Town looks like a lot of fun. My girls would go crazy in those stores- all those cute things! They would want to bring that giant Pikachu home. Princess loaded up! Looks like a great haul.

Yeah, there are TONS of cute things. I'm a 40 year old dude, and I was even caught up in some of the cute stuff. Those little alpaca dolls are adorable. The girls got plain ones, but the dolls were in a bunch of the stores throughout the mall -- in all sorts of sizes, and lots of them came in costumes. Sort of reminded me of Duffy Bear and all his cool Disney costumes

What a fun stop! Love that the store had everything at $1.50. Lunch looked delicious too! (except the eel!)

Jill in CO

Yahoo!!!

Following along!

You know, as a kid, I lived an hour from San Francisco and for all the times we went to San Francisco, we NEVER explored Japantown! Now I wish that we HAD!

That's funny. Seems like everyone has something in their town that they take for granted. But it seems like it would be even easier in San Francisco because there is just too much cool stuff in the city and the surrounding areas!!!

 

[MarbleBob]

Day 5 - Tuesday, June 16 - Golden Gate Bridge

So after all the planning I had done for this trip, we didn’t have solid plans for the rest of the day. We wanted to be back to Tracy and Minh’s house around 6 for dinner. So we had a couple hours, but not a ton of time. We decided to drive down the infamous Lombard Street before deciding our next steps...



We drove down this road once before, when Princess was an infant. Must have been a different time of day or year, because there weren’t nearly as many tourists checking it out last time. More of an observation than anything, as was more fun seeing so many people excited about it.

Stephanie grabbed a video with her phone. Speaking of video, I took several hours of video over the course of the trip. I’ll probably make a several minute highlight video for the end of the trip report. So stay tuned, if you are interested in that sort of thing. In the meantime, he’s a quick drive down Lombard Street with my family

“Where do you want to go?"

We decided to head over to Fisherman’s Wharf.

It was beyond crowded. No open parking spots on the road, and the local pay lot was like $9 per 1/2 half hour. (Or something like that.) We drove around the block a couple times and then decided to head over to the Golden Gate bridge.



We arrived at the main parking lot, and it was PACKED. A line of cars waiting to find a spot. We followed signs to additional parking, but that lot was closed. So we kept heading up the hill. Which was another happy accident. We ended up at the site of an old fort battery (Battery Godfrey.) Looks like it used to have large cannons back in the day. We headed up to the battery area before trekking over to the bridge.



If you look to the left of Pickle in the above photo, you’ll see some of the battery.

Anyway, hiking up to the spot where the canons once were, you have a GREAT view of the Pacific Ocean, the bridge, and the bay. Too cool!





After we explored a few minutes, we started heading towards the bridge. Had to ask another family to get a photo of us on the way



The walk to the bridge was mostly downhill and it probably took 10 minutes or so. We spent a few minutes in the gift shop, getting our National Parks Passports stamped and stuff. And then outside, they have a cross section of one of the giant cables. Which is actually made up of lots of smaller cables. Petty cool!



OK. Time for another photo of the bridge….



And then we started walking.


That bridge is a LOT longer than you’d think. It took a good 10 to 15 minutes just to walk to the first tower.

And boy, those towers are a lot taller than they look.



There was a nice wide platform around the tower, so we hung out there for a while. Such great views!!!

Alcatraz!!!



And looking back towards the city.



Such breathtaking views. We watched a couple large cargo ships pass under the bridge too. After a while, we headed back to the visitor center area and took one more family photo.



At that point, the kids were sick of walking. I decided to walk back up to the car and come back for them. Which was probably for the best. It was a long/tiring walk and I’m sure they would’ve complained the whole way. For me, it was a way to have some alone time and just soak in the beauty surrounding the area.

I drove down to the main lot and picked up the others without incident. Just like we knew what we were doing!!!

Except for getting back on the highway, it became very clear that we didn’t know what we were doing at all... as we misread the confusing signs and missed our turn off for the more direct route back to the bay bridge.

No worries, we were 10 minutes from Kawaii Corner (another Japanese toy store), which Princess HAD to visit at least once during our week. So we just decided to knock it off the "must do" list before heading home. Princess and Pickle picked up a bunch more toys and collectibles, and then we were on our way… to a traffic jam. Maps routed us through the heart of downtown San Francisco... where they were having MAJOR construction. It probably took 30 or 40 minutes to make it through a 3 mile stretch. Nuts!!!!

We did see a Disneyland Diamond Celebration ad. Which made us smile. Hi Olof, we’ll see you next week!!!!



Eventually, we made it through the city and onto the bridge, and an hour later after that, we were back at Tracy and Minh's.

Great news!!! Tracy was able to fix the hot water heater himself. (Tracy is an engineer by trade and super smart. He figured out which piece was preventing the pilot light from staying lit, took it up to the plumbing shop, found a replacement, and installed it himself.) Yahoo, warm showers for everyone!!!

Minh made fajitas for us and we enjoyed our one and only home cooked dinner during the whole 17 day trip. Yum!!!

We ended up chatting into the evening and finally went to sleep around 10pm. We had wanted to get up relatively early, as we planned to meet up with Stephanie's family before heading to Santa Cruz early the next morning. And we'll pick up with that in the next post

 

[PrincessInOz]

Super cool video going down Lombard.
Shame you didn't get a parking at Fisherman's Wharf; but I think you did much better heading to the Bridge. Such wonderful views from there and what great shots you have.

YAY for a fixed hot water heater.

 

[jedijill]

What a fun day! SF is such a cool city. The Bridge is awesome. The Royal Gorge Bridge here in Colorado was built as a test of the design before they built the Golden Gate. Both engineering marvels!

Jill in CO

 

[wiscbugs]

Love the Golden Gate bridge pics....we are definitely going to check it out on our way up to Muir Woods. I wish we were doing SF and then Disneyland but the plane fares worked out better going to LA first and then out of SF so we're doing it that way!

 

[annegirl]

Looks very cool. I have been to the bridge but never walked across it. Duh. Don't know why I haven't done that.
Lombardi street is so cool and so crazy. I would not want to live on it!

 

[annie170]

Hey Matt! I enjoyed your trip report from last year and glad I stumbled across this one. It's so nice that you are able to vacation with extended family.

What an awesome road trip you're having and I love reading about the points of interest along the way. You certainly did your homework preparing for this!

The Lombard Street video was really cool and your photos are great as usual.

Looking forward to reading more!

 

[MarbleBob]

Super cool video going down Lombard.
Shame you didn't get a parking at Fisherman's Wharf; but I think you did much better heading to the Bridge. Such wonderful views from there and what great shots you have.

YAY for a fixed hot water heater.

Thanks! I agree about doing better by heading to the bridge.

What a fun day! SF is such a cool city. The Bridge is awesome. The Royal Gorge Bridge here in Colorado was built as a test of the design before they built the Golden Gate. Both engineering marvels!

Jill in CO

I didn't know that about the Royal Gorge Bridge. Pretty interesting. I haven't actually been to that bridge, but I've seen it from a distance. We visited that old cowboy town (Buckskin Joe's) a few years ago, and then road the little train out to the edge of the gorge. Sorry to hear that Buckskin Joe's is closed. I don't know if that little train is still running, if so, it was probably the coolest "mini train" that I've ever been on!!

Love the Golden Gate bridge pics....we are definitely going to check it out on our way up to Muir Woods. I wish we were doing SF and then Disneyland but the plane fares worked out better going to LA first and then out of SF so we're doing it that way!

We skipped Muir Woods on this trip, but when Princess was a baby, we did that same exact thing. Crossed the bridge on the way up. Muir Woods was awesome, but I think Muir Beach (just down the road) made more of a lasting impression on us.

Looks very cool. I have been to the bridge but never walked across it. Duh. Don't know why I haven't done that.
Lombardi street is so cool and so crazy. I would not want to live on it!

Yeah, I wouldn't want to live on that street either!!! Haha!

Hey Matt! I enjoyed your trip report from last year and glad I stumbled across this one. It's so nice that you are able to vacation with extended family.

What an awesome road trip you're having and I love reading about the points of interest along the way. You certainly did your homework preparing for this!

The Lombard Street video was really cool and your photos are great as usual.

Looking forward to reading more!

Hi Annie! Glad to have you reading along!!!!!!!

 

[MarbleBob]

So, I've been out of town most of the last week... which is why I haven't updated in a while... But I have the next day or two's worth of photos uploaded to Flickr and ready to go. So, I'll get started with our next full day in San Francisco this evening. In the meantime, there is exciting news coming out of Marceline, MO.

The Walt Disney Hometown Museum just started a Kickstarter program to bring back Midget Autopia. I know that this has been in the works for a few years, and I'm super excited to see that they are actually moving forward with it again. They'll have a booth at the upcoming D23 Expo... I sure hope they get a lot of momentum going!

If you are even remotely interested, please consider contributing to the campaign too

http://www.bringbackautopia.com

 

[MarbleBob]

Day 6 - Wednesday June, 17 - Santa Cruz!

For our second full day in the Bay Area, we decided to head about an hour south to Santa Cruz. The goal was to visit Wilder Ranch State Park, the Boardwalk/beach, and ride the train at Roaring Camp Railroad.

(Note from the PTR - We had to scrap the NHS Skateboard Museum visit. They let me know a couple days earlier that they were closing the museum for a week or two. I was incredible bummed out about that, but felt better when I learned that they temporarily closed to the public as they were installing an array of solar panels onsite. We did this at Stark Bro’s last year and that’s good stuff!!!)​

So… Tracy and Minh had decided to join us on this day. They’ve both lived in the area for years and years, but had never visited their boardwalk and they were unfamiliar with the Roaring Camp Railroad… So we all piled into our minivan and heading over to the Best Western to hook up with Stephanie’s family. A few minutes later, we were on our way!!!

It was a bit over an hour drive. Lot’s of traffic as we made our way through San Jose and Silicon Valley. It was fun having Tracy point different things out. We drove by the Tesla (electric car) factory, which was cool. And then the kids had a blast pointing out all the Tesla’s on the road for the remainder of our trip. At around $70,000 per car, I couldn’t believe just how many of them were on the roads throughout the bay area. Interestingly, they are allowed to drive in the carpool lane with a single driver (as an incentive to get people to buy electric cars). Tracy said that a lot of the rich Silicon Valley folks buy them for that very reason. Wow!!!

Anyway, before we knew it, we were in Santa Cruz. We headed over to Wilder Ranch State Park, which is supposed to be on the beach with cool trails, an old farm, and stuff. However, when we arrived, they had a self-service station where they wanted you to pay $9 per car for parking. We weren’t sure exactly what we were getting ourselves into (you couldn’t really see anything and they didn’t have a good explanation of what the park offered and there was nobody there to speak to.) We didn’t really want to waste money on parking… So we ultimately decided to pass. The kids were very happy to not stay, as they didn't want to waste any time getting to the beach.

And a few minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot for the boardwalk!



So yeah, this is pretty much a traditional "old school" beach boardwalk. I guess similar to what Coney Island would have been like. A nice beach area and then a bit back from it, a large sidewalk with lots of restaurant stands and carnival style rides.

A few people had to use the restroom before we headed out to the sandy beach, so we entered the main “hall” first.



This was a big open area with all sorts of attractions inside (food, video games, pool, mini golf, etc.) Pretty cool.

We decided to hit the beach first and then explore the boardwalk when it was closer to lunch time.

Looking back to the boardwalk as we scouted a spot on the sand...



And we found a cool spot to camp out!



It was cool to see that they had a working “skyway”. Too bad that they were removed from Walt Disney World and Disneyland years ago!



Oh, and I’d like to introduce my Uncle Tracy and Aunt Minh to you. I’m not sure why I waited this long to get a photo of them



It was cloudy/hazy when we arrived, but after an hour or so, the sun started burning it off and it was beginning to become a beautiful day.



And warm enough to get into the water without freezing to death...



Snapped a shot of Stephanie’s brother, Dave:



The kids all played in the water, built castles, buried themselves in the sand, etc. for a couple hours and then we were all getting hungry.



So we decided to go up and explore the boardwalk for a little while...



There was some sort of food stand every 20 feet or so. Mmm… Pineapple Dole Whips. Tempting, but I think I’ll wait for the “legit" stuff at the Enchanted Tiki Room!!!



We walked down the boardwalk looking at all the food options, checking out the roller coasters (didn’t ride anything), seeing the traditional carnival rides like the Tilt a Whirl and carousel. It was hard to want to spend money on these rides knowing that we’d be in Disneyland in just a few days. Luckily, the kids were OK with it.

OK… Time to eat. We split up as we all wanted different things. It was pretty chaotic trying to keep up with everyone, so I don’t really remember what everyone had. Pickle and I wanted corn dogs, so we headed that way. I think Steph, Buddy, and Princess, all had hamburgers (or something forgettable like that.)



So yeah, Pickle and I got a couple corn dogs, fried mushrooms, and french fries. (I think Dave and Angie's gang all had personal pan pizza's from the Pizza Hut stand.)



It was a decent corn dog. Better than average, but not as good as the ones at Disneyland’s Little Red Wagon or California Adventure’s Corn Dog Castle (both of which are amazing.) The mushrooms were just OK. I normally love them, but these were a little over fried. The fries weren’t good at all. Reminded me of the crummy fries that they served in my high school cafeteria. Probably a bad idea for me to have a completely fried meal anyway. Oh well. We’re on vacation, and it didn’t make me feel sick, so who cares, I guess….

We all scattered around and ate at our own paces. I just asked Stephanie what they had, and she couldn’t remember. I know that Buddy had a burger and onion rings...



Pickle sure had a lot of fun hanging out with Uncle Tracy and Aunt Minh.



Our next stop was the Roaring Camp Railroad. The train was to depart at around 2pm. So we decided to get a move on at around 12:45 PM.

 

[MarbleBob]

Day 6 - Wednesday June, 17 - Roaring Camp

Roaring Camp Railroad was highly recommended by a several people on the PTR (and a couple other threads that I followed too), otherwise we would have missed out on this gem!



So yeah, Roaring Camp Railroad is sort of an “old time town” up in the redwoods with a steam train that takes you through the forest. Pretty amazing place, actually.

http://www.roaringcamp.com

We arrived with about 40 minutes to spare, so we all explored for a while.

You enter the property through a covered bridge!



Which way do we go, George?



I don’t know, but let’s go get tickets and check out the general store...



There were lots of other people exploring the property too.



A little while later, and we all hopped on the train. I love that the cars are all open air.



All aboard!





And after a few more minutes, we were chugging along!



And headed into the forest



I don’t recall exactly how long the ride was, but probably about 30 or 40 minutes to our destination. It was a truly relaxing and enjoyable ride. Such beautiful views!







As we approached the destination, the conductor punched our tickets.



For most of the ride up, he had a microphone and explained a lot of the history of the area and pointed out interesting items. He was really talented at his job!

And we finally made it to our stop, “Bear Mountain”. They let everyone get off the train and explore for a while, maybe about 30 minutes total.

Buddy wanted to get a closer look at the locomotive.



Most everyone else explored the area for a while and then found places to relax in the shade.





The kids found a giant log to play on...





Of course, I had to get in on the climbing action! (on a different, smaller log)



A few minutes later, and we were headed back. The train turned around, but followed the same track back into camp. It was cool to see a lot of the sites/trees from the opposite direction.

And as we neared our destination, the engine needed to release extra steam. Whoa!



When we got back to camp, we explored the gift shop, got some ice cold water, and relaxed for a little while.

So what did we think? This was a highlight of the trip for most of us. Spectacular views and everything was top notch. The giant redwoods were amazing. The people who run this place know how to do it right!!! I’d come back here in a heart beat!!!

The train conductor suggested that if we have time to spare, that we should walk next door to Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. He stated that it has his favorite sequoia in all of California. Wow, that’s quite a statement...

Sounds good to me!!! Let’s go check it out!!!