Ana-heim Done With This Place

M-I-C...Cya real soon. K-E-Y...Why, because we've stared our trek back to Ohio.

Well, our cross-country trip officially started when we left Anaheim on Saturday. But before we get to that, there was a tiny little matter of buying a vehicle. After days and hours of scouring the greater Anaheim and LA area, we finally found the perfect Jeep Grand Cherokee. The frustrating part is, it was the very first one we looked at after we got off the plane. Oh well, we can pretty much direct you to any dealership in the area. But you should definitely buy from our guy just because his name is Jafar Bazar.

So we left Anaheim Saturday night and (thanks to Mom and Dad Hobbs) stayed at a very nice Marriott in Hesperia, which is on the way to Barstow.

After leaving there the next morning, we headed east and hit the world famous (not really) ghost town of Calico. Once we found out only 1/3 of it was original and it cost $6/person to get in, we quickly headed back to the freeway. But along the way, after passing a pet cemetery we quickly threw it into reverse and traveled down a dirt road (literally). While the pet cemetery was creepy, the burned out car, trespassers will be shot sign and crazy hillbilly running the establishment from his trailer was even more frightening.

Next we took a side road through the Mojave Desert and through the largest Joshua tree forest in the U.S. If anyone has seen the movie Breakdown, this is what it felt like. It was very beautiful, but very haunting- like the eyes of Kurt Russell.

Eventually, we crossed the Nevada border and stopped in Primm to admire the natural beauty of a real, live shopping outlet and casino with roller coasters. Leslie was especially enamored with Alpaca Petes. A fine retailer of the most beautiful llama wool afghans with scenes of frolicking cock-eyed Pandas and anything you could imagine.

After tearing Leslie away from Pete's, we at last hit the home stretch to Vegas for two nights of pure joy. Well, for me anyway.

Click here to see all the photos from this day!

When You Wish Upon A Star...

Day 2 was one of the most anticipated...Disney. Billy and I are both Disney World fanatics, having been there many, many times, both as kids and adults. He had gone to Disneyland once, but I've never been out there, so we were pretty excited. And we ended up being there for 16 hours.

First surprise...the castle is...well, it's a lot smaller than Disney World's castle. It's cute though.

Second surprise...it's not as clean as Disney World. or as friendly. You know how when you're at Disney World and there's not a speck of trash anywhere and everyone is smiling? Not really the case at Disneyland.

Third surprise. My favorite ride at Disney World is the Carousel of Progress. You probably don't even know what it is. It's this kinda lame ride where you ride in a revolving theater and you see technology through the century. It also has this great song "Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" which I know all the words to. At Disneyland, there is no Carousel of Progress. They pretend there is -- there's a revolving building and Nathan Lane sings some bastardized version of "Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" but when you go in the building it's no longer the animiatronic show...it's basically a giant commercial for a bunch of tech companies.

Oh, we did miss one ride--Small World! The line was ridiculous!

But Disneyland was still awesome!

We did every ride at least once, and in some cases two (Indiana Jones, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad) or three times (Pirates of the Caribbean --new with Jack Sparrow, the Matterhorn). We were also the last people to ride Pirates of the Caribbean and only shared the ride with 2 other people. Animatronics are spooky at midnight when you're the only people on a ride.

One ride that's better at Disneyland than Disney World? Space Mountain. How great was it at Disneyland!?!?!

For lunch we hit the Disney Festhaus for a quick bite but we got the coolest table in a little nook. Then for dinner we tried to eat in the cool New Orleans themed restaurant inside Pirates of the Caribbean, but it was completely booked up. Bummer. Instead we ate at this Mexican restaurant in Frontierland and WHOA! What a great deal. Huge portions, good food and good atmosphere and CHEAP!

So the lesson is, Disney World is much cooler than Disneyland but Disney doesn't know how to do anything wrong.

Want to See More Pictures? Click Here.

Stay tuned folks!

We've had some technical difficulties and couldn't post in the last few days, but expect a post and photos tonight....from Vegas!

Day 1

We've learned a few things during the first 12 hours of the road trip. Let's recap:

1. It's completely shady that airlines don't give you any food at all. I mean, nothing. Not a nut or a pretzel. And they charge for blankets. Which is gross because those are nasty anyway.

2. In-n-Out Burger really is as good as everyone says. We stopped at 11:30 and it was pretty delicious. Billy is reading over my shoulder and wishes to differ. He thought it was good but missing something. My shake was good. And the fries.

3. There was tons of traffic on the 405. At midnight. Why?

4. Sometimes you just get lucky. We stopped in Redondo Beach for a quick drink and something to eat at 10 pm. Everything was closing, but we went into a Irish pub (Kilkenny's Irish Pub) and ordered the Appetizer Sampler. (We were starving since it was the first thing we ate all day but we wanted dinner at In-n-Out). Anyway, the manager came over and told us he was comping our food since it was taking long. The best part about it?? We didn't even realize it was taking a long time. Free food is sweet!

5. Just because a hotel looks shady doesn't mean it is. We had a hard time booking a hotel in Anaheim last week because everything was pretty expensive. But "she-should-be-a-travel-agent" Mom Hobbs found an awesome hotel! The Hotel Peppertree looks a little skeezy on the outside but as soon as you walk in....WOW! And cheap too! Definitely stay here if you ever find yourself in Anaheim - the staff is friendly and the rooms are really big. It's a little far from Disney, but if you don't mind then stay here! So far so good but we'll let you know after a full night.

So far, we've been doing well. Except I've been navigating all day today which means we've been turned around about 2390123 times. If only I knew my left from my right and my north from my south.

We also tried to buy a car today but didn't really find anything that struck our fancy. But the lady who was helping us is originally from Columbus Ohio. Random!

Tomorrow's post will be Billy's so until then!

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Only a few hours until our flight to LA. We're both exhausted from planning the move and have been fighting sore throats and colds. Hopefully they only get better and not worse.

Mission as soon as we get into LA...buy a car. In three hours. Just kidding. It's more like two hours.

Anyway, we're hoping to have the car tonight, but if not, we'll have time on Friday.

I can't believe we leave Hawaii in a few hours. It doesn't seem real yet.

Wish us luck on our flight!

Credit: Freefoto.com

Funding a Road Trip, Part Deux

We've hit rock bottom. We've resorted to cashing in our emergency coin fund for the road trip. We took it into a Coin Star today and....

$63!

There would have been more but we sometimes used to dip into the coins to go to Taco Bell. Billy's crying right now because I'm updating the blog instead of packing. Wah wah.

Ok, we haven't hit rock bottom...I'm just kidding, but any little extra cash helps.

Sidenote: our bank does not take bags of coins. You have to count them yourself. Whaaaat??

Credit:freefoto.com

Funding a Road Trip

Road trips are expensive.

Well, they're less expensive if you camp out and don't stay in hotels like we're planning. We optimistically are only planning hotel stays in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and New Orleans. Other than that...the car and the tent are our hotels.

We were planning on being in Las Vegas on a Friday and Saturday...then we checked the hotel prices. Outrageous! So new itinerary. Now after Los Angeles we'll be sidetripping to Yosemite for 2 nights of camping. Then Las Vegas on Sunday and Monday.

Where do you like to stay in Vegas??