California Dreaming Part 1

Our Trip to California this summer!!!

The Family at the peir in Huntington Beach, CA

So we packed up our Toyota Corolla at the end of June and headed west. Our ultimate destination was the beautiful sunny coastline of Southern California. We had previously arranged to drive with just myself, my husband Ryan, and my grandmother (aka “Nanny”). Nanny hadn’t had a vacation in years and I needed a driver to switch off with, so she happily agreed to go with us. The kids were both supposed to be flying with my in-laws to Vegas and then driving the rest of the way with us to Cali. However, two weeks prior to our trip we decided that we weren’t sure if Gabby was ready to fly (with her anxiety of new things) so we cancelled her ticket and added her to our car passenger list.

Our 2 hr traffic jam

Gabby getting a tour of a semi

Day 1: We left Indiana after a late morning start due to last minute unpreparedness about our schedule. We ran into some issues as soon as we made it to Illinois. There was apparently a very serious accident on the section of I-70 we were traveling. We ended up trapped on the freeway for 2 hours with a 6 year old with severe behavioral issues and very little patience. The first obstacle with this was the almost immediate need for her to go potty. We had to convince her that the only way to go was outside in the flora and fauna alongside the freeway. It was a very difficult task to get her to finally agree to pee out in nature, but mission accomplished! Then boredom set in after she decided that she had no interest in the coloring books, video games, or movies that we brought for our journey. This was alleviated when a trucker who was also trapped in gridlock asked my daughter if she’d like a tour of the truck cab and get to blow the horn. The rest of the time was passed by letting her pick wildflowers along that stretch of shutdown highway. That was fun! After leaving our highway incident behind, we traveled all the way through Illinois, Missouri, and most of Kansas before calling day 1 a night.

beginning of the Rockies

Gabby in the Rocky Mountains

 

Day 2: The following morning we left Kansas and made our way into the Colorado Rockies before nightfall. It was a beautiful sight, but letting my 70 year old grandmother drive our not fully paid off leased vehicle through the mountains was scary as hell!! We made it through the worst part of the mountains before dark and when night came I took over and drove the rest of the way out and into Utah where we booked it hoping to make it into Nevada overnight. It was good that the speed limit in Utah is like 90, we made good timing and I thought we were going to make it into Nevada before the next morning, but then exhaustion began to hit me. We ended up stopping at a gas station near the end of our Utah journey and sleeping until morning in the car. Having not anticipated how long the Utah section of our trip would be we failed to make plans on finding a hotel. We all slept pretty well for being crammed in a small model car and being at a gas station/truck stop area; I think it was mostly due to exhaustion and frustration.

Beautiful Colorado Rockies

View of the Colorado Rockies

Day 3: We woke up in the car at the truck stop, at dawn! Not at all surprising when considering our situation. I was very determined to get us to our next stopping point which was Las Vegas!! We got to drive trough some of Arizona on the way to Nevada. The desert is one of the least likely places I’d ever think to find beauty, but the scenery there is quite spectacular! I saw backdrops I’d only seen in paintings during our drive through the deserts of Arizona and Nevada. We finally made it to our hotel in Las Vegas where we were to stay for the weekend before heading to Cali.

Desert in Nevada

Desert in Arizona

Day 4: We met up with my son Dylan, and my in-laws, and my husband’s sisters who flew in from Indianapolis. Dylan loved his 1st airplane ride; he didn’t get sick and wasn’t bothered by his ears popping. We stayed in a very small 1br hotel with a pull-out sofa; it was quite cramped. We had Ryan, his mom Mary, his step-dad Ray, his sister Natalie, his sister Allison and her boyfriend Billy, and my daughter Gabby and I in this tiny hotel room. Luckily, Dylan and Nanny stayed in a hotel with my step-mom and sister who drove up from Arizona to spend some time with us in Vegas. We spent the evening at one of our favorite Las Vegas hangouts, Circus Circus Hotel & Casino. Dylan and Gabby really enjoyed the game area and the performances! We just happened to be visiting Sin City during EDC Las Vegas and the funniest thing that happened from our time in Vegas was when my 7 year old son, Dylan asked me if we had traveled to a country where people don’t where as many clothes, LOL!! He had never seen so many scantily clad women in his life, and we had to explain to him that this is just how people like to dress in Las Vegas. A drunk woman dressed in not much more than a string bikini actually apologized to my son in passing while we were out after seeing how distressed he looked at the sight of her!

Dylan in the window seat

Fun at 30,000ft

Day 5: We left Sin City in the afternoon and made our way to California, making a special trip to Running Springs to drop Nanny off at her cousin Wally’s cabin where she was going to spend the week. We stayed for a little while catching up with Wally and his wife before we headed back down the mountain and back on the freeway towards our hotel in Anaheim.

Beautiful View from Wally’s Cabin in Running Springs, CA