We had a few days off from baseball but there was Disneyland to be done so we were all definitely not without fun! (and now I could partake in the fun because I looooooove Disney!)

Disneyland is way different than Disneyworld. To me, it didn’t have that same “magical” vibe you feel at DW, the cast members weren’t nearly as cheerful and excited and there were definitely fewer cast members than at DW. There is no feeling of Disney Immersion at DL since there are only two parks (a few 100 feet from each other) and you walk thru Downtown Disney to get there, so there is no real monorail or bus service or boats. We stayed at the Disneyland Hotel which was lovely and as close to being “on campus” as you can get. But it just wasn’t the same. Some rides were better, some worse, some totally different. But all in all, I’m still a DW girl. But DL is something you have to do.

The first day we went was 8/8 and we started with Disney’s California Adventure. And Timmy & Patrick actually braved the big roller coaster in the background and rode it. They loved it! Definitely more of a Six Flags type of setting in this park, but with a Disney flair to it.

Swings were super fun.
Patrick got a zillion compliments and a zillion people looking at his sneakers the whole trip. This jumping jellyfish ride was lame, but it made for pretty pictures.View from the tippity-top of the ferris wheel.

Grizzly River Rapids was awesome. And very wet. 

Cars Land was amazing. You walked right into the movie. We didn’t ride this day, but on our last day we did ride the Radiator Springs Racers (a Cars version of Test Track from Epcot) and it was sooooo fun!! Loved it!Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree ride.Cozy Cone Motel was actually like a food court- with “pop cone”, ice cream cones, and “chili cone queso”. Clever.Cute bumpers car ride which would be better if you could steer with a wheel instead of by moving your body side to side. Then on 8/9 it was the big boys birthday and Disneyland all day- well, until the Dodgers game that night. Hit both parks that day. The castle is way too little. Like teeny tiny. But its still Disney.

Cannot even believe they are 14! But couldn’t think of a better way to spend the day than at Disney with my first babies. We did as much as we could that day before having to leave for the game. Haunted Mansion. (much more scary looking in DW, same on inside). But I did like the whole New Orleans Square area. Big Thunder Mountain (our favorite Disney ride) was closed, but we did  Splash Mountain. Pretty much the same except the flume was single file at DL as opposed to 2 per row in DW. Patrick ended up in the front seat and was soaked. Totally soaked. The Matterhorn Bobsleds. Was not a fan. Not fun and no drops, not twisty and too jerky. Felt like I had whiplash after this one.Fake smiles from the real birthday boy.

Then it was off to the Dodgers game. I was prepared with my Kindle fully charged. We had to leave much earlier than the game time because of the famed LA traffic. It’s all true.
Dodgers Stadium, with bug guts thru the windshield.
Hakka was very excited for the Dodger dog. Notice how there were no pictures of him at Disney? Yeah, he hates it there and didn’t come.I tried to embrace it. I did. I did like the Dodger dog (and that was John’s beer and the boys shirts and crap in the bag) but that was about it. I just can’t like it. And no one can make me. But they were happy.We got their names up on the board for their birthday. On the blue part below the big screen it says “Happy 14th birthday Jack & Patrick”. 
I was in a total panic because at the bottom of the 9th the Dodgers came back and tied it up. No extra innings, please! I could barely handle the 9 that there were. I made the executive decision that I am done with baseball games. Not going to anymore. Ever. (Well, unless the boys start playing or owning a MLB team, I’m  otherwise officially done.)

Saturday 8/10 was our last day in California so we decided to forgo all the typical LA sightseeing stuff (like the Hollywood sign, or Walk of Fame, or Venice Beach, etc) and just hang at Disney for one last full day. We hit both parks and rode some of our favorites again and the rides we didn’t cover yet. The Jungle Cruise (same as DW, but the rivers were in a different order and the guide not as funny), Indian Jones Adventure (I thought it was fun, boys didn’t love it), Pirates of the Carribean (much better at Disneyland- the ride was longer, two drops instead of one and the drops were bigger, and the ride was cooler going thru restaurants and stuff).

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (much shorter wait- well, no wait at all- from DW, but no fun queue stuff to do. Ride seemed a bit shorter.), The waits in Fantasyland for Dumbo, Snow White, Casey Jr Circus train, Mr Toad, Peter Pan were all hugely long so we just skipped them. We did do the Pinocchio ride which they don’t have at DW and it was cute. We didn’t make it to small world either, or to Mickey’s Toon Town. The DL train that circles the park was good- same as DW but the seats sat facing one direction like stadium seating. Guess theres nothing to see on the other side. Tomorrowland in DW is overall much better and I really missed Carousel of Progress! The Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage ride was cute and fun (and reminded me of the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride from ages ago in DW, except w a Nemo twist.)

Mine. Mine. Mine.
Outside of ToyStory Mania. And the Buzz ride in DL, called Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters instead of BL Space Ranger Spin, was actually much better in DL. Better blasters that came out of the holsters and vibrated and chimed when you hit a target. Star Tours was pretty much exactly the same, and so was Soarin. But the waits were super short on both compared to DW which was nice!

And then  we finished up the day with fireworks. MUCH better in DW. The castle was too short and the fireworks were too high (I guess so they could be seen from different areas) and they weren’t exactly over the castle but more to the left. Doesn’t work for my type-A issues. Music for fireworks was ok, but it was no Wishes. Flying Tinkerbell and flying Dumbo were a nice touch though. 

The next morning it was getting on our way to Arizona. So just one more trip report to go.

We left San Francisco early in the morning on the 6th to head down to Anaheim where we’d be staying at the Disneyland Hotel as our “home base” for the rest of the California portion of the trip. The original plan was to take the Pacific Coast Highway at least part of the way down, but being that they had an Angels game that evening to make there just wasn’t enough time no matter what we tried to figure out. As it was taking I5, it was about 6+ hours so there was no way we could’ve made it to Anaheim in time on the PCH. I was definitely sad about that part since I knew I would be able to get some great pictures and see stuff I would never see at home, plus I really wanted to visit Santa Cruz boardwalk which was the “santa clara” boardwalk in the movie Lost Boys. Oh well.

The drive down I5 was long and boring, but still kinda pretty in its own way.

Oranges. Jack was thrilled.We got an awesome room in the “fantasy” tower of the Disneyland Hotel. The headboard lit up and the lamp played “a dream is a wish your heart makes” when you turned it on. Ahhhhh….The boys took off for the Angels game and I hung out and did laundry. Got my New York on when people didn’t come to pick up their shit from the dryers. So I took it out. A lady told me it had been in there for a long time (it was dry and done) and that I shouldn’t feel guilty about taking it out to put mine in. I told her I was from NY. There is no guilt. The boys, John and Hakka sat in the “trout farm”. I am clueless but the hats were beyond. After the laundry was done, I met up with my good friend Derich from University of Miami days. Haven’t seen him in a really, really long time (probably about 20 years!) but we had a great time catching up for a few hours. The next morning (8/7) we left bright and early for San Diego so that the boys could catch their Padres game and I could go to the Hotel Del Coronado for a big fat massage and some pool/beach time. It kinda freaked me out a little how the clouds over the ocean looked like a giant tsunami. Come pray at the Church of Flash Gordon & Ming the Merciless. Heading over the bridge to the hotel. So pretty. (sorry about the glare off the car window).I had a 90 minute massage, including some hot stones. Then hung out by the spa-specific pool, grabbed some lunch a few feet away and walked around the hotel. Meanwhile, the boys were enjoying the game. I think I need a rack like this for their hat collection. They have to be over 300 hats by now.Don’t really know what to say about these.After leaving this very vacation part of the trip, we move onto tons of fun at Disneyland, a birthday and yet another baseball game. Coming up next…

Spent the rest of the day on Sunday 8/4 over at Alcatraz Island. I was really looking forward to this part of the trip- you know me and my twisted sense of whats awesome. All I could think was Walking Dead (prison) meets Shutter Island. Unfortunately, whatever we had for lunch at Pier 33 made me sooooo sick to my stomach so what I really got was a great tour of the Alcatraz bathrooms. Awesome. So I didn’t take the tour, just stayed outside (and close to the bathrooms) and shot from there.

The boat on the way over. I told Jack that the boat was reeeeeeeally little and they had to take one person over at a time. Like in Splash. “where are you going mr. fat jack??”  “to get the little boat” “the LITTLE boat?!?”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-bw_1n5tJA (you HAVE to watch it. You’ll laugh, guaranteed.)Again, one side sunny the other side cloudy. Its like a schizophrenic city.I knew container ships were huge, but this was crazy huge in real life.Those are people on the second level from the bottom. All I could hear in my head was the Shutter Island music. (you should keep the music playing in the background while you view the rest of this post.)My favorite part of the whole Island. Visions of photoshoots right there.Need this super big in my house. This picture and the next one were taken within minutes of each other (how long it took me to walk from one side to the other). Crazy city.The next day (Monday 8/5) we did the next touristy thing (after another delicious breakfast at Sears) and took the cable car down to the wharf area.We lucked out and got the outside standing area. However, I couldn’t change my camera settings or hold the camera correctly cause I was busy trying not to fall off and to hold onto Timmy who was standing too. Not an easy task I can tell ya.Where they turn the cable cars around. Reminds me of Thomas the Tank engine days.You can barely make out the bridge in the background just to the left of Patrick’s head.Lombard St. Can’t see the curvy part from where we were very well.Our trip wouldn’t be complete without it.
Ice cream for lunch.And then we (I) had the bright idea to walk back uphill to Lombard St and take the cable car back from there to the hotel. The cable car part was a great idea. The walking uphill not so much.Francisco. That’s fun to say! (name the movie)Yeah, we walked up that shit. Stopped quite a few times leaning on trees and mailboxes and having a few small heart attacks.He was particularly good on the bells.When I asked Jack to take one picture where he didn’t look annoyed, a few other tourists found that quite amusing. Jack, however, did not.Ok, who in RVC remembers Swensens??! He was NOT happy with me after the hill. That’s kinda the “get the fuck away from me” smile. Then all was good when they went shopping at the team store before the game (this store was in SF city). Mommy Dearest, I’m so sorry I didn’t get you this shirt. It would go great w the Florida toll-takers one you have. Happy because there is baseball stuff around. Then they headed to the Giants game (and I found another sushi restaurant nearby the hotel. Thanks, Yelp!)I’ll leave you with this total amazingness to end the SF part of the trip. Next up, SoCal  including Disney, San Diego & driving. 

So I think pretty much everyone already knows that we went on a big trip this summer to California and Arizona. John wants to take the boys to every major league baseball park (so the trips are centered around the games, and the sights are just an extra.) and they are now up to 26 out of the 30 parks at the conclusion of this trip. Timmy is a little behind so they’re going to have to go back and do a few twice, but I’m pretty sure they’re not too terribly upset about that. It was a GREAT trip, so much fun (well, except for the baseball for me. You all know how I feel about that.). Big thanks to John for setting it all up and funding the trip for all of us, and to Erin at Top Shelf Travel for all the arranging of flights, rental cars & hotels in accordance with the game schedule. And here comes total picture overload for the next few days until I finish up the trip.

We flew into San Francisco from JFK on 8/2. Those of you who know me, know that I am not a fan of flying. I did manage to do it drug free, however but man that was a loooooong ass flight. Read a lot and watched a lot of JetBlue TV. And flying into the SFO airport so soon after that big crash didn’t help much either. But we made it. A little (disclaimer: a mix of iPhone, fujix100 and the canon 5d mark ii pictures all mixed in here.)

Went to Lori’s diner our first night for dinner (at like 5pm sf time, so 8pm ny time.) Took some getting used to for the time change but by the following day, we were doing much better. 
We waited 1.5hours (yes, hours!!!) for a rental car in the sfo airport. And then when we got to the counter they said they had no more minivans left. Yeah, the NY came out just about then. We ended up getting a minivan but the brakes were metal on metal grinding at every stop and the change oil light came on immediately. The rental car line from across the street from the hotel wasn’t any better. And it looked like that through our entire stay in SF. We did eventually get a new car the following day which the company delivered, but I never understood the last rice truck in the world long lines during the trip. While the boys went to the A’s game on Saturday 8/3, I took a cab to Japantown for some sightseeing and lunch. Sushi of course. (hey, they can visit every park. I can visit every sushi restaurant.)Selfiies and sushi. Grandpa Ken (aka Hakka) snapped a few on his cell. The boys in their “natural habitat” (the stadium store).
It was a Zuba’s giveaway. There are no words.More from Japantown.Ah, the elusive Queen of Pakiscandinavia.I walked back to the hotel from Japantown after a little walking tour around the area. Met a nice mailman who showed me Janis Joplin’s first house (not pictured). After a few hills, I called it a day and headed back to the hotel to meet up with the boys. Do you notice that everyone is dressed super warm? It was freaking freezing in San Francisco. In August. Whatever.Waiting on line for Sears Fine Food for breakfast the next day. Totally worth it- best waffles ever. Good call, Hakka. Then Sunday 8/4 it was the double decker bus tour all around San Francisco. The first “sight” on the tour. Yup. When we checked into our hotel, John upgraded us to a suite. As it turns out, the suite was on the smoking floor (seriously? I had no idea that there even WAS a smoking floor anywhere anymore!) and the whole floor and our room reeeeeeeeeeked like cigarette smoke. Not to mention the pot smoke that filled the hallway. We “graded” right back to a regular room that was non smoking (pot or otherwise). However, you can get a good contact high pretty much anywhere in the whole city. The building on the right is the Coppola’s studio, both father and daughter. Sophia Coppola directed one of my favorite movies- Marie Antoinette. Is it just me or does anyone else think of Jan Brady ” F-F-FIL-L-L-LMO-O-O-ORE. Fillmore Junior High!Chinatown- one of the things we didn’t have time to do. Heading across and back the Golden Gate bridge. The fog/mist was so cool and ever-changing. Patrick is NOT a fan of bridges. One side of the city is all cloudy/foggy/misty and the other is all bright and sunny. Looks like a toy out of the 50’s. Love it. Alcatraz. That’s the next blog post. Coit tower. People kept telling us we could go up. Too many stairs. Dinner at Tadich Grill was amazing. Another win by Hakka. Next up: Alcatraz, Giants & CableCars. Ohmy.