We Hopped All The Way To Disneyland Just For Some Dis Meets. Ch. 10. Added-7/14/14

[pkondz]

crept is a word that sounds like crypt which creeped me out.

 

[bankr63]

We added a night at the beginning so we could see Herman Hermits without being all tired and puckered out from the early plane ride.

Ummm, all puckered out? Smidgy, have you got a new plan for keeping Nebo's mind off of the ATOD?

 

[smidgy]

you guys crack me up!!!! um, guess it should be tuckered out? oops. ok where's that thesauras again?

we leave april 26 . plane leaves at 6 am yikes! it was that or 10:30 am, and by the time we get to pop it would hardly seem worth it , with just a 1 night stay . (cause it's much more worth it being there early and walking around like zombies...) I really don't like 1 night stays, I tried to get the night before but no luck.. busy weekend.
we'll see how we feel when we get there and if the room is ready early or not.. if we get in a nap (note to self, bring earplugs.. last stay at pop I slept for a few hours on the "lungers" at the bowling pin pool).
if we feel up to it, we might take a bus to a park (DHS is closest), use the tickets once, then bridge them at GR to an AP, and throw ourselves on the mercy of the CMs at GR for a DSA (channeling my Tom Clancy here..) to get that all out of the way.

 

[Thumper_Man's Wife]

We interrupt this TR to bring you a serious news bulletin..

Lady H and T_Man are sitting by the pool at the MGM Grand Casino/Hotel, and Lady H wanted to say...


HAPPY BIRTHDAY T_MAN.


Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

 

[pkondz]

Happy birthday Bunny Boy.

 

[Backstage_Gal]

Happy Birthday T-Man!

 

[MAGICFOR2]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY THUMPERMAN!!!!!! Have a great time in Vegas, you two!

 

[Mom&RN]

Oh I'm a day late, hope you had a great birthday T Man

 

[Thumper_Man]

We interrupt this TR to bring you a serious news bulletin..

Lady H and T_Man are sitting by the pool at the MGM Grand Casino/Hotel, and Lady H wanted to say...


HAPPY BIRTHDAY T_MAN.


Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Happy birthday Bunny Boy.

Happy Birthday T-Man!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY THUMPERMAN!!!!!! Have a great time in Vegas, you two!

Oh I'm a day late, hope you had a great birthday T Man

Lady H and I had a wonderful time in Vegas. Always too short, but very relaxing.

 

[pkondz]

Lady H and I had a wonderful time in Vegas. Always too short, but very relaxing.

Wonderful time? How much did you win?

 

[Thumper_Man]

Wonderful time? How much did you win?

Who said anything about gambling and winning to have a wonderful time?

To answer you questions though, yes wonderful time. Relaxed by the pool, had a nice dinner complimentary of MGM Grand. Well mostly complimentary. Did some site seeing and shopping. Visited with some of her family.

Did we win?



The casinos are the ones that win. They don't call it the city of Lost Wages for nothing.

 

[Thumper_Man]

Just as I thought. Everyone deserted us.

Or are you wondering if we deserted you? I bet it kinda feels like it.

I know I said it shouldn't take so long to post the next chapter, problem is, I haven't had time to finish. Both Lady H and I have been busy at work. We both have issues we're having to deal with and as the days go by, its not getting any easier.

I should have a little more time to work on the next chapter. Not much I can really do since we're broke. I made sure that Lady H and I will get paid though.

 

[MAGICFOR2]

Still here! Hope things start to go better at your jobs!

 

[pkondz]

Yup. Still here too. Patiently waiting.
Don't sweat it if you're busy. We'll still be here.

 

[Mom&RN]

Still here, and since my last disappearance from the DIS lasted a year who am I to complain about a few days!!

 

[Thumper_Man]

Still here! Hope things start to go better at your jobs!

Yup. Still here too. Patiently waiting.
Don't sweat it if you're busy. We'll still be here.

Still here, and since my last disappearance from the DIS lasted a year who am I to complain about a few days!!

Thanks for sticking around. Hopefully I can continue soon and get a chapter up.

 

[pkondz]

Thanks for sticking around. Hopefully I can continue soon and get a chapter up.

Hah! Beat ya to it!

 

[Thumper_Man]

Start with a little music video shall we. HOLLYWOOD!

Today we’ll take Nebo and Smidgy to Hollywood, and tour the Universe. Nebo better be nice to me today or I just might leave him there. We’ll travel back in time to when dinosaurs roamed the earth and the world was completely covered by water. Then we’ll fight along side robots and sing the blues, but not before having a little breakfast first.

As Lady H mentioned, we picked up some groceries the day before so we could give them a little taste of New Mexican style food. New Mexico is famous for…

Well yeah, there’s that. We told you that at the beginning of this TR. The International Balloon Fiesta is always a big event. NM is also famous for green chile peppers. No offense to the people of Colorado who think they’re famous for that, but chile has been a staple food here for years.

Anyways, the way most New Mexicans eat this stuff is to roast it, peel it and put it on just about anything and everything we eat. When Lady H and I travel, we take some along with us. This trip was no exception. Today we’ll wrap it up in a tortilla, with some scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon and cheese. AKA a breakfast burrito. Breakfast on the go.

Today is another day we won’t get to sleep in. We told them we would pick them up close to 7:30 am. Universal Studios opens at 10 am today. Why pick them up so early you ask? Just cuz we want to offer cruel and unusual punishment, and make them get up early. Because I’m driving and stone cold said so. But mostly because we have to drive through Los Angeles during rush hour traffic. I know we keep reverting to our first TR, but if you haven’t read it, then I suggest you go back and read it. Go ahead, we’ll wait. The link is in my signature if you need it.

Intermission



Are you done yet? Not yet. Ok, we’ll wait some more.


Intermission Continued


How about now? Well I guess you’ll have to finish on your own time then because the natives are getting restless. To sum it up, it will take about an hour and a half to get to Universal Studios through all the traffic in Los Angeles.

Anyway, as I was stating earlier, today we would not get to sleep in. I slaved all night over a hot stove. Literally. A lot of blood, sweat and tears went into my cooking. I hope no one notices while eating.

J/K.

Only sweat got in the food.

What?!

I needed some salt.

This morning, I will cheat and put everything I made into the microwave to warm them up and make the burritos. Once made I will wrap them up in foil so they stay nice and warm. Took me about another 45 minutes to get breakfast ready. I made a few extra burritos without green chile. Green chile can be a little bit hot. Spicy hot. Or it can be really hot. Like your tongue is going to melt off, call the fire department, hot. I don’t know how well Smidgy and Nebo will be able to handle spicy foods, so we’ll have a few back up burritos for them (no chile) just in case.

By the time I finished making breakfast and getting ready, 7:30 came awfully quick. We’re running late, AGAIN. We call Smidgy to let her know we’re running a little behind again. I can already picture Nebo trying to look at his watch and realizing we’re late. Last thing we need is another lecture about being on time. “You’re on time if you’re 5 minutes early. You’re late if you’re on time.” Good thing they’re only about 5 minutes up the road from us.

Prior to the trip, we told them we could probably save them a little money on USH tickets. I learned that Costco tends to have a good deal on them. You can buy a 2 day ticket for $70 per ticket. Still cheaper than buying a one day ticket at the gate or online. I had advised Smidgy about buying the So Cal City Pass like we did. She was worried that she wouldn’t be able to add the additional Disney days they needed and said they wouldn’t be going to Sea World. I let her know that it is still a cheaper option even if they didn’t use the Sea World portion. What I was really hoping was to sell them and make a few extra bucks. Still she remained a little leery and decided to buy the tickets separately. Being we had a Costco membership, we checked our local stores and sure enough, they still had the USH tickets. I made arrangements that we would buy the tickets for them if we did indeed find them cheaper than online; then they could reimburse us. This part of the plan worked out perfectly.

We grab everything we’ll need. Food, park bottles, tickets, more park bottles, keys to the car and backpacks. Hopefully we didn’t forget anything. If we did, oh well.

We hop in the car and off to granny’s house we go. We’ll stop and pick them up on the way. Stopping may not be an option though. We may slow down just enough so they can hop in and we can continue on our way. If the Dauntless can do it, surely Smidgy and Nebo can to. Nebo is good at doing his own stunts whether he voluntarily wants to or not. We take the short 5 minute drive down the road. As we pull up to their hotel, we noticed a couple of hitchhikers standing near the side of the road, right near the driveway of HOJO.

They look like they needed a ride. We pulled up and asked them if they needed a lift. They asked us which way we were headed. I told them Universal Studios in Hollywood. Turns out they were headed our way and offered to pay for parking if we took them along. Even though we had already pre-paid for parking, we took them up on their offer and off we went. These strangers had a striking resemblance to Nebo and Smidgy. They even had the same names. Close enough for us. They hop in and off we go.

Last year, Lady H and I encountered a lot of construction on the way to USH. This year, it promises to be a lot of the same. I have a new route I want to try out this year as well. See if we can avoid some of the downtown LA traffic. If I did my homework right, we can hopefully get a good view of the Hollywood sign. If not, this picture I got from the internet will have to do.

(Photo courtesy of latimes.com)


As we cruise up I-5, we give Nebo and Smidgy a breakfast on the go burrito. We learned something today. Nebo doesn’t like chile. I guess a visit to New Mexico is out of the question for their future. We asked if they wanted a burrito with or without chile. They both picked without, so Lady H handed them the burritos that were marked no chile. Well so we thought. I don’t remember if I was the one marking them or Lady H was, but instead of handing them what she thought were no chile burritos, turned out they had chile. Smidgy ate all of hers. She found the chile to be a little spicy, but not bad. Nebo is not a veggie eater, so therefore he only ate half of his. We told them there are still 2 more. We know for sure these one’s don’t have chile. Smidgy was content and Nebo I think was afraid we may give him a poisonous apple, so he declined. Thankfully, they didn’t get Lady H’s or my burritos. They are loaded with chile.

20 minutes or so on our ride, we hit the construction and come to a complete stop. We are moving really slow through this construction. I think I saw 2 snails and 3 turtles pass by us as we crawled through the traffic. At least this will give me some time to eat my burrito without having to worry too much about hitting the car in front of me. I just hope the person behind me don’t get to upset that I’m having breakfast and I’m not moving. Plus Nebo and Smidgy now understand the reason for us leaving so early. Eventually we make it through the construction and pass the tortoises. In my version, the hare beats the tortoise. Eat my dust tortoise.

As we continue up the road, we soon get to Highway 101 exit, and just drive on by it and continue on I-5.. This is how you would normally go to Universal Studios, via downtown Los Angeles, via rush hour traffic, via crazy drivers weaving in and out of traffic, and getting no where. Going on the 101 is slow going at this hour. Today it may have been faster though. Being I have never continued going up I-5, I didn’t know what to expect traffic wise. It’s the interstate, how bad could it be. At times traffic was moving slow and at times really fast. Either way, since I was depending on the sexy voice talking to me to get me to our destination, it seemed like it was taking a long time. Good thing I had on my bluetooth and Lady H couldn’t hear her talking in my ear. “In 200 feet, keep right on Interstate 5. Keep Right. In 10 miles take exit 141A for Los Feliz Blvd.” Well you get the idea.

Los Feliz Blvd is the new route I wanted to take and took. You would also use this road to access the roads that take you up to the Greek Theater and Griffith Observatory. I was hoping that this road was also provide us with a nice view of the famous Hollywood sign. All our views pretty much looked like this.



Nothing but hills, trees and houses. Somewhere up there is the Hollywood sign. I was hoping as soon as we got to the highway, we would be able to see it. No such luck. When we got back to Highway 101, the sign was at an angle towards us and you couldn’t see it. I apologized to Nebo and Smidgy for missing it. For what it’s worth, I’ve yet to see it myself. Lady H got to see it on our last trip. Being the driver has a few disadvantages, sightseeing being one of them. Maybe one of these years, we’ll stay in Hollywood. Take a drive up to see the observatory and theater. Visit USH again, after they build their version of Harry Potter. Go and visit the walk of fame. Take a drive up and view the Hollywood sign. Take a drive down Rodeo Drive and maybe do some shopping.

Now don’t get too excited there ladies. Window shopping that is. No way I could afford to do any shopping there. Unless of course we can win the lottery by then.

We did get to see the Capitol Records Building.


The designated photographer at the time almost didn’t get that picture. She was too busy admiring the houses in the neighborhood and dreaming of one day owning a house there. I had to give some subtle hints about some of the pictures to take. “Oh. I think that would be a good picture.”

Anyways, as I mentioning, we get back to the 101. USH is only a 5 minute drive from here. Timing it, it took us about 1 ½ hours to get there. Same as last time. It wasn’t any faster through this new route. Would’ve been better just going on 101 since the exit. At least that way, Nebo and Smidgy would’ve had a chance to see the Hollywood sign. Oh well. Live and learn.

Soon we arrive at our destination.


9:15am. We’re early. Here’s hoping the park itself opens early like it did last year.

 

[bankr63]

Hah! Beat ya to it!

PRAC! For days nothing, then suddenly Pkondz jumps ahead and a starts a new P(athetic)TR, while Thumpie finally gets busy himself. Actually, aren't the rabbits usually pretty busy in the spring?

How will I ever keep up?!?! (yes, it IS all about me!)

 

[Thumper_Man]

Hah! Beat ya to it!

Yeah. I noticed that. I'm willing to bet you finish that TR before we finish this one.