Roadtrip! Feb '11 Disneyland Pit-Stop

[momto2nenas]

Wow, this starts my 4th trip report and made our 5th visit to Disneyland, California!

My husband recently cross-trained into a new career with the US Air Force. For his training we relocated to San Angelo, Texas for 6 months for his Intelligence School. We were beyond thrilled when his new orders were to CALIFORNIA! I immediately started planning our road trip to NorCal/Gold Country California and new Disneyland would make a perfect pit stop along the way.

With only a few weeks to plan, I had to get on the ball! Our stop at Disneyland was the easy part and the best part was the military was practically paying for our vacation since it was enroute to our destination and part of our alloted "travel days and expenses"!

First we had to get out of Texas! We started early in the morning with White Sands National Monument in Alamogordo, New Mexico our "scenic destionation" for the day. The scenery went from flat and boring to hilly and beautiful. I thought the view from the rearview mirror was the best.

We spied the white sand in the distance and soon found ourselves at the park. So eerie out there in the middle of nowhere! Pretty in a "feel like you're on the moon" kinda way.

We drove on to Las Cruces, NM for the night and would be Phoenix, AZ bound in the morning.

 

[momto2nenas]

We headed out from Las Cruces early with the sun rising behind us.

We were taking the scenic route to Phoenix and wanted to see a few things along the way. Our first stop was at the Shakesphere Ghost Town....it was such a bust! It was way out on some dirt road and it ended up being someone's personal residence and they had a few old shacks set up as a "ghost town"...Okay then. Plus it was closed, darn. But Picketpost Mountain and trails were our "scenic destination" of day 2 and that proved to be beautiful.

We were so excited to see the "stick em up" cacti! DD#2 and I played "stick em up" all over the trails, she really got into it!

Our first stop in the city limits of Mesa/Phoenix was In and Out Burger! It was as good as we remembered from our Disneyland trip last year! We spent the night at Luke Air Force Base and were excited to be arriving in Anaheim the following day. We had 1 more "scenic destination" the following afteroon before rolling into Southern California.

 

[jlindley9]

You have a lovely family. Looking forward to the rest of the report!

 

[skiingfast]

Our first stop in the city limits of Mesa/Phoenix was In and Out Burger! It was as good as we remembered from our Disneyland trip last year!

Yes I make the In and Out / DL association too.

Your tripe for a while reminded me of a book I read. Dead Man's Walk, good thing you were driving through the desert.

 

[momto2nenas]

Yes I make the In and Out / DL association too.

Your tripe for a while reminded me of a book I read. Dead Man's Walk, good thing you were driving through the desert.

Ha! I wouldn't care to go through the desert at night either. Back in '07 we drove East on I-10 from CA... it started getting dark somewhere outside of EL Paso, TX and we decided to stop for the night... FINALLY a town came along and we took the first motel that looked decent. What a shock to see the town the next day in the daylight! It was almost like a forgotten ghost town, so eerie!

 

[SnowWhite09]

Looking forward to reading more!

 

[kylie71]

I can't wait until you post more! Enjoying this very much!

 

[TinyDancer]

I'm here! Loving the TR so far.

My favorite pic is the one with the whole family.. even the cat! lol! Very cute.

 

[mommy2allyandaveri]

I'm on board. You have a beautiful family and I really enjoyed your last TR. More please...

You inspired me to have my mom make my 2 girls matching outfits. They turned out so cute, she just gave them to me yesterday. I can't wait to take pictures!

 

[reyasmommy]

I hope you decide to come back and update your TR. I was enjoying the photos VERY much! You have a VERY beautiful family.

 

[kindakrazy2]

I'm hoping there is more coming too! Love the photos so far!

 

[momto2nenas]

*Finally back to my trip report! And so excited to say that we are also now Deluxe AP holders! We kicked off the summer with a week at Disneyland and in less than 3 weeks will be celebrating our first ever Halloweentime there!

Now, let's "get on with the show" and back to February, shall we?!

We started out of Phoenix, AZ bright and early (p.s. we loved Luke AFB, where we'd spent the night. PHZ in February was beautiful, not sure I could say that if I were there in August).

Driving through the desert towards California, we were so excited to see that California state line sign it really brought how that WE were MOVING to California!

Right after Palm Springs we had a scheduled scenic stop at the famous dinosaurs. We explored the tiny little park and had a picnic right there under Dinny himself!

We were soon on our way and my excitement began to rise when I saw the hills and knew that our Disneyland was down there somewhere and we would be there within hours! 3 days of driving behind us we were ready to "pit stop" and relax for a few days at our Happiest Pit Stop on Earth!

We got checked into our hotel (Best Western PPI -thank you government rate and Air Force travel pay!) and headed over to the parks. We had to wait in a decent sized slow moving line to get our park hoppers. We couldn't complain too much though because we got to take advantage of the Salute to Heroes $99 3 day hoppers. Thank you Air Force and Disney! My husband works hard and we appreciate your gratitude!

I didn't take too many photos the first night but we did see the Fireworks show and the castle all beautiful at night. Well DH, DD2 and I saw the fireworks. DD1 was asleep on the pavement and DD3 asleep in her stroller....

 

[momto2nenas]

We woke up bright and early (still on Central Time, Mountain Time.. what time zone are we IN?!) and ate our continental breakfast offered through the hotel, the typical pasteries, fruit, cereal and juice.

This was the closest we'd ever stayed to Disneyland, we were literally right at the Disneyland arch way entrance to the parks, it was awesome and would really be needed over the next 2 days.

Today also happened to be Valentine's Day! We were at the gates for opening and went straight to Fantasyland!

I was so excited to take DD3 on the rides this trip, she was only 9 months old last trip so I knew this one would be more exciting for her! She LOVED Dumbo! We rode it several times in a row, yay for quiet mornings!

The Evil Queen from Snow White was waiting for us when we finished our last ride, the big girls were happy to pose with her but DD3 said No. Way.

I switched out my camera lens for our next ride, Teacups! I had bought a cheapy Fisheye lens off Amazon for pretty much Disneyland only, lol. My favoritest of favorites pictures was taken on the ride.

And this was a fun one too:

 

[momto2nenas]

We explored New Orleans square a bit and took some photos. The big girls decided they both want to be Sally for Halloween...

We had PS reservations at Carnation Cafe and I while the food was good (service as usual was "okay") I discovered a piece of plastic in my potato soup! I had my server take it and bring me a new one and that seemed to be all he was going to do about... however the One and Only Oscar himself came by to chat and asked how was our lunch, I mentioned about the plastic in my soup and he immediately went and got someone to take care of it. We received free lunch, an apology AND a huge bag of cookies for our troubles. Since it was only plastic in the soup I was kinda happy the way it worked out, lol

The big girls and I went next door for coffee and hot chocolates to go with our bag of cookies while DH took the baby back to the hotel ACROSS THE STREET for a nap.

Oh, the best white chocolate mocha raspberry latte I've ever had was made better by drinking it from a bench in front of the castle. The girls and I sat and relaxed for a long time, just talking about our favorites, what we wanted to do the rest of the day and just plain ole' people watching!

We ended up going to visit Pixie Hollow since there was no line, we saw TinkerBell and Rosetta.

My memory escapes me on what else we did our 2nd day.. I don't seem to have any picture to show for it either, lol.
*Edited to add, we did ride Space Mountain at some point during this day b/c looking back at the photos, on Day 3 I saw the big scrape on DD3's chin that she got by falling against the stone benches in the SM waiting area...

 

[momto2nenas]

Our 3rd day we started the morning at California Adventure. We rode Soarin' first and were the FIRST people on the FIRST ride of the day in the FRONT row, talk about awesome!

I just love Soarin' and could ride it over and over again. This time it was more special because we now LIVE in California and decided we want to visit each scene of the ride during our time out here.

We moved on to Toy Story Midway Mania and King Triton's Carousel. I rode it over, and over, and over again with DD3 while the big girls took turns riding with DH. I think seriously in the beginning I rode it 7 times without getting off....yikes.

Now for some reason I'm not coming across any photos of DD3 on the carousel and she's the one who rode it over and over... weird, lol

http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k220/momto2nenas/Disneyland%20Feb%202011/IMG_0710.jpg[/IMG

We went and had our Visa Meet and Greet photo taken, DD3 again wanting nothing to do with characters and saw Sully on our way out.
[IMG]http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k220/momto2nenas/Disneyland%20Feb%202011/IMG_0686.jpg

We took turns riding Tower of Terror with the big girls and then moved on through Its A Bugs Land with the "new to us" entrance by ToT.

 

[momto2nenas]

We decided since it was our final day at the parks we would skip the afternoon nap/rest time at the hotel.... big mistake. By the end of the day I think all 5 of us were ready for a meltdown and 1 or 2 of us might have actually had one.....*ahem myself and DD3... her's first

We did the required family photo stop in front of the castle back at Disneyland, met some characters, and rode the rides. This was a great day of touring b/c it was such low crowds.

We tourned Innovations for the first time too and it was awesome! A great way to spend some time if you have a lot of it and you've done everything else 1 million times.

We were back at California Adventure that evening for The World of Color show. We had gotten the blue ShowPasses that morning, got there very early like recommended and still didn't have a good viewing spot. It's just not set up for kids at all. My girls could not see a thing. The baby was asleep in the stroller so at least that left each of us adults to hold 1 kid and hope that they could see. We just were not enjoying it at all, then when the rainy drizzle started we made a command decision to leave before it was over. Sorry WOC, we didn't like you at all for our first time, but everything else looked pretty.

And that wraps up our cross country road trip with the Happiest Pit Stop on Earth! We left early the next morning straight up the I-5 in the rain and drove all day until we reached our new home for the next several years.

Living in California is not something we'd ever anticipated but we are loving the state and so happy to be a 1/2 day's drive to our beloved Disneyland!

 

[WDWJonasGirl]

Love the trip report!!

 

[MAGICFOR2]

Hi! I'm loving your TR! Your girls are so beautiful - you too! I love the little polka dot outfits! Tell your DH thank you for his service. I enjoyed your roadtrip photos - what a fun trip for the girls. Looks like your first day is off to a great start! I'm sorry WOC was a disappointment - maybe next time it will be more fun. Your night time pics are great! All your trip pics bring back so many memories -
1. DS lives in Texas - we drove that route backwards starting in OR to move he and his family there.
2. My dad worked at White Sands when i was little - we used to picnic at that park - it is strange - I love your family photo there
3. We just came back from Phoenix - we will be living there next year - yes, it is still beautiful in August - but it was hot!!! Of course Texas wasn't much different.
4. We were stationed in "Gold Country" at our last base before coming up here to Kingsley - DH is in the Guard - retiring next year!

Thanks for sharing and enjoy your new home!