Captains Log: Saturday, 26 July 2014.
11:30 a.m.Weve all changed out of slightly damp swimsuits. Casual-hang-around-the-resort wear for the girls, and proper professional golf attire for the boys. David, Scott and I have a 2:00 tee time, but we need to grab lunch first. Andyou knew this would happen eventuallywere all sick of PB&J sandwiches. So were heading just a couple of miles down the road to try out a West Coast institution:
In-N-Out Burger.
Whenever I talk to someone from the West Coast, at some point the conversation will turn to food (inevitable when youre talking to me), and at that moment, the West Coastie will sigh, shake his/her head wistfully, and mention how much he/she misses In-N-Out Burger, and then give me a chastising look as they wish we had them here on the East Coast. As if I had something to do with preventing their expansion here. Cmon, people. Like I would stop a burger joint from moving in.
Anyway, the point is that West Coasties really love their In-N-Out Burger. It seems to have achieved almost mythical status. So we had to try it for ourselves.
I have been burned in the past by a burger joint being over-hyped. On the East Coast,
Five Guys burgers are all the rage, and that chain has spread through the Atlantic states like Drews slobber around our house. Five Guys was hyped for months as the Greatest Burger Ever ® before I finally got around to trying one, and when I finally did it was
ok. Better than McDonalds, sure, but not the life-changing experience I had been expecting. Their hand-cut fries were excellent, but the burger didnt seem like anything special to me. As far as chains go, I liked
Red Robin,
Fuddruckers, and Delaware-born
Jakes Wayback Burgers better.
11:45 a.m.A good sign: the place is packed. Well, its not exactly good in that we really have to stalk some other families in order to get a seat, but its good in that popular places typically mean good food. We get our order placed: double-doubles for me and Julie (meaning 2 meat patties and 2 slices of cheese), singles for the kids.
Side note: there is a not-so-secret menu (
they post it on their website) where you can get more meat and cheese (a 3x3 or 4x4), or order one animal style, which is basically more of everything. It is here where I will disappoint my readers by saying we didnt order off the secret menu. Moreover, I must also disappoint my West Coast readers by saying that we subbed ketchup and mustard for the secret sauce. In-N-Out burgers typically come with a secret sauce that is basically a derivative of Thousand Island dressing.
Why anyone would put Thousand Island dressing on a burger mystifies me. Blech. As far as Im concerned, salad dressing is a condiment that is strictly for pouring over a salad before you shove it uneaten to the side of your plate and devour the meat and potatoes.
Ok, Ive dragged this out long enough. We thoroughly enjoyed our burgers. Better than Five Guys, much better than McDonalds. I dont know where Id ultimately rank them on the list of chain burgers, but it would be fairly high, and I wouldnt mind seeing a few of these places pop up a little closer to home.
The fries, however? Not so hot. McDonalds wins there. As does Five Guys.
12:20 p.m.Weve splurged on a couple of milkshakes (not bad) and moved outside. Julie and I have decided to spill the beans on
Disneyland.
We just wanted to try something different. So far, weve had
Disney trips where the kids knew everything ahead of time. The positive side of that approach is the buildup of anticipation and excitement. The downside is that there is less magic and the wait seems to take forever.
Weve also had one where we took them completely by surprise, only revealing the destination when we pulled up to the Disney World gates. Obviously, the fun was all in the surprise. The downside was the lack of anticipationthis gets replaced by a little bit of wait, what? confusion.
So we decided to try and have the best of both worldskeep it a secret until the day before, and then spill the beans so wed have a 24-hour period of excitement. Thats the plan anyway.
I should tell you a bit about how Disneyland became a part of our trip. Originally, we werent going to make it. Of course, Julie and I looked hard at the map, figuring this was probably our best chance to get to Anaheim since none of our other plans would take us to the Southwest. And we tried to rationalize making the drive to Anaheim as best we could. But no matter how we priced it out, it just seemed too expensive to take a family of five there, especially since we could probably only afford to spend a day in the area given our other plans and places we wanted to see.
It just didnt fit in the budget.
But Disneyland is the original park, and we were so (relatively) close. Also, the original plan for the trip was to finish our loop by seeing Joshua Tree National Park and the Mojave National Preserve. Even non-Disney geeks would admit that Disneyland beats 2 days in the desert, especially as the culmination of a vacation.
In sheer desperation, I put the question out there on the DISboards: was it worth the expense to go if we only had one day? Many of you chimed in, but out of the blue I got a message from Alison (franandaj). The gist of it was: Go to DisneylandI will hook you up!
Ill leave the details out, but suffice it to say, Alison was amazing. The idea went from this is too expensive, and a bad idea to wed be stupid NOT to go.
Alison, we literally could not have done this without you, and we are indebted to you forever. Thanks for being an amazing friend.
12:22 p.m.That was a lot of backstory to fill just two minutes. Anyway, Ive pulled out the video camera and started rolling. Drew is asleep in his car seat, but the other kids know something is up. I start explaining that the kids have a choice on how to end the vacation. 2 days in the scenic Mojave desert, or
1 day in Disneyland!!!!!
The reaction is
muted. Something like, Cool. Or, Yay. I sure am glad we went to all this trouble.
Sarah explains that they knew something was going on, since I had the video camera out. And theyd heard us mention Disneyland a couple of times several months ago, so they thought it was a possibility, and it wasnt a hard leap to make. So, she said, they were excited to go, and much preferred Disneyland to 2 days in the Mojave, but the surprise didnt hit with full force this time.
Obviously, the moral is: leave your ungrateful kids at home (or in the desert) and go to Disneyland by yourselves.
Ok, maybe thats not it. The moral is: the kids get self-conscious in front of video cameras way too young these days. Anyway, here they are faking a were really excited photo:
And while were at it, heres a whatever, you guys are lame photo:
There is one bright spot. This actually happened: I lean over to Drew in his car seat.
I whisper, Hey, Drew! Youre going to Disneyland! And he smiles in his sleep.
Honest to goodness, that happened.
1:37 p.m.The women and baby have been dropped off at the resort, and Scotty, Dave and I have made our way to the
Troon North Golf Club north of Scottsdale.
Golf is very cheap in Phoenix during the summer. Mostly because only idiots go outside in Phoenix during the summer. Its even cheaper with their twilight rates during the afternoon. Mostly because only absolute morons go outside during the hottest part of the day in Phoenix during the summer. But I do love golf, and my boys love golf, and I can only afford to play when its extremely cheap. Id found a deal here where kids play free during the afternoon. 3 for the price of 1? Sold!
Desert golf is very different from normal golf courses. Youre either on the fairway, or in the desert. You would think it might be easier to find your ball after a wayward shot in the desert, but thats not the case. Even if you do find it, hitting off of loose stones is almost impossible. Not to mention the rattlesnakes. So it puts a premium on controlling your shots, and being able to hit various targets.
I failed miserably. But we had a good time.
Rather than bore you with an account of the round, here are some quick photos you can skim through:
Meep! Meep!
This hole cracked me up. The builders ran into an incredibly large boulder in the middle of one hole. Rather than try and move it, they just left it in place as another obstacle. It didnt present a problem to me, since I never hit it down the middle of the fairway anyway.
Desert golf presents some unusual hazards. Look closely and you can find some golf balls nobody wanted to retrieve (not mine, I promise!):
All in all, it was a great time with my boys. The heat really didnt bother us too much. After all, its a dry heat. And there was a bit of a breeze, as well as an ice water station every 3 or 4 holes.
On the ride back, we saw a nice sunset.
By the time we got back to the resort, it was dark and the girls were getting HANGRY. So we set off for our dinner.
In my research, Id found the perfect place for an Oblivious Family TR. A young restaurateur had taken an old bank building and turned it into a pizza joint. And not a chain, but genuine wood-fired pizza. Even better, they kept the drive-through window operating for carryout orders. So we called up
Federal Pizza, placed our order, and hit the drive-through 20 minutes later. Then it was just a matter of grabbing sodas and heading back to our hotel room to eat.
Everything went fine until I tried to park back at the resort. There werent any spaces at our building. There werent any spaces at the buildings next to our building. There werent any parking spaces available IN THE ENTIRE RESORT. The only empty spaces I could find were way down by the entrance, blocked off by a sign that said STAFF PARKING ONLY. Remember all those stay-cationers? Apparently theyd each invited a dozen of their closest friends to come party at the resort on Saturday night.
I dropped Julie and the kids off at the room and then drove to the front desk. When I told them my predicament, a guy told me I could park in the staff lot and hed drive me up to my room. Which was nice of him, but that situation was still a big pain in the rear end.
Anyway, problem solved, we found the pizza to be delicious. Not your usual drive-through fare, thats for sure.
Coming Up Next: We head west. What would you choose? The hot, dry, barren desert, or Disneyland?
And I'm going to assume the caring and doting groom, attempted to defend his new bride against this ferocious creature? Or were you the first one out 
He really did like Judy. Hopefully Judy liked him, too. 
Drew's reaction is priceless! I'm really sorry I didn't try harder to steal him this week. 
