1998/9 Baja, Mexico / California Trip

We left the hotel in Orange, CA at 9:30 and ate breakfast at Denny's. A Mexican waiter came to take our order and the first thing the kids say is 'gracias.' The waiter kind of smiles and Jacob started laughing after realizing what he had done. It was time to leave for Disneyland but I noticed that the truck almost didn't start this morning. So we stopped at the closest gas station and had them check it out. The battery needed to be replaced and that cost us $75. It was too expensive but I didn't have time to look for a sale so we had them put it in. It was going to be much cooler today as a cold front had come in and was overcast. It was probably 50 degrees their morning. The sun never did come out. We finally arrived at Disneyland around 12:30 and it was pretty crowded by then. Most of the lines had a waiting time of 45 minutes. The Matterhorn and It's a Small World were the two rides that we went on first. It was the first time we'd ever been on the Matterhorn and we weren't very impressed. I guess because we like Splash Mountain better. We did get in line one more time for the Matterhorn but they had shut it down for some reason. It's a Small World is Shawna's and my favorite ride. I think it's because it so long and you get to sit. Other rides we went on were Splash Mountain, Autopia, Star Tours, Disney RR Train, Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse, the raft to Tom Sawyer Island and the Critter Country. It doesn't seem like we went on that many but then all we did is stand in line today. Shawna waited in line for 45 minutes to get her picture taken with Minnie in Toontown. We ate lunch at the New Orleans Restaurant and. watched the 7:00 parade from Main Street.

At around 8:00 they started handing our hats and horns as they have two celebrations at Disneyland. They celebrate at 9:00 for the eastern standard time zone and then again at 12:00. There would also be a light show by the Mark Twain Riverboat tonight. The kids were pretty tired by 10:00, we decided to have them both split a cup of tea and hoped that this would help until 12:00. We also ate a late meal at the Carnation Restaurant on Main Street. This one always seems to be bypassed and is one of the better places to eat in Disney. The tea seemed to help the kids as we started walking down Main Street and going into some of the small shops. There are two or three groups singing tonight for the countdown to 1999. Disneyland would stay open until 3:00 am, this is the only day of the year that they stay open so late. It's a great idea as it gives kids a place to go where no alcohol is involved. There were still a lot of high school and college kids here tonight along with parents and their smaller kids. Around 11:30 I started looking for a place where the kids would be able to see the fireworks. We finally ended up in Tomorrowland where there was a group playing R&B music. At 12:00 they started playing Prince's '1999' and the fireworks started going off for about ten minutes over the Castle.

After the fireworks we walked around in the crowd seeing if the lines would get smaller and they didn't. At around 12:45 we started walking back towards Main Street. There were a lot of people still there and we had to wait for a trolly when we got out to take us to our parking spot. We didn't get back to the truck until 1:30 and traffic was awful. It took us one hour to go a couple miles. Although it was nice to go to Disneyland on our way back, we probably should have came on our way down, so the crowds wouldn't have been so bad. It's always busy around Christmas but New Year's Eve is the second busiest day of the year behind July 4th. It was 2:30 am when we got to bed and we were thinking about getting up and going to the Rose Bowl parade tomorrow. It starts at 8:00 am which meant we should be in Palo Alto by 7:00 to stand in line and would have to get up in a couple hours. We had a vote and everybody wanted to sleep. I kind of had a problem with that because I wanted Shawna see the parade. But she voted also and she decided to go along with mom and her brother. So I shut off the alarm and we all crashed.

I drove 10 miles today. That must be a record.