May 29 - Thursday - Disneyland: California Adventure

Well, it's just 45 minutes till we leave Anaheim and head for the airport so it's the last minute packing and showers all round.  We did intend on having a rest here for an hour or so before leaving - that 15 hour plane ride is hard when you've been on your feet all day - but we're hoping we'll all be so exhausted that we'll sleep at the drop of a button.

I couldn't leave Disneyland/California Adventure without blogging (and bragging) of my big achievement just now.  I went on "California Screamin'"!  It's the biggest rollercoaster ever and it does a huge loop around mouse ears, then swoops up and around ever so high. Woo hoo!!!

Lorraine with John on the "California Screamin'" rollercoaster!!!!!

Claire and (California Adventure's) Minnie Mouse at "Planes World"

Claire made a friend on the very first ride we took this morning, "Soaring California" which was a fantastic ride.  So we hooked up with Lilly and her Mom and Grandmother and 3-year old brother, till we left at 6 pm.

Lilly and Claire

We went to the Maleficent and saw their "Exclusive Sneak Peek" of the movie.  It was truly fabulous in 3-D.  The very end of the show, we got a little excited when the seats sort of rumbled a bit - like a tickling of our fancies (John's explanation!)

Claire and Lilly at the Maleficent entrance.

We finished the day at "Car's Racers" and what a ride it was.  I didn't expect it to be quite the ride it was - in fact I was video-ing on my I-Pad for Connor - and Liv then all of a sudden, we started racing another car.  It was soooooo fast, but so much fun.  Thankfully I didn't drop the I-Pad.



For you, Connor - a ride on "Cars' Racers"

What a day it's been - what a "six weeks" it's been!  So many memories for all of us. 

 

 

 

 

 

May 28 - Disneyland

Last night John went out and bought pizzas while Claire and I had a good soak in the bath.  Our feet and legs were aching from all of the walking we'd done.  Claire journalled, I blogged, and we planned today.

We got a fairly early start this morning and after the security checks and having our photos taken at the Disneyland entrance, (to ensure we do not pass our valuable tickets on to anyone else), we headed straight for Minnie Mouse and Chip 'n Dale to get their autographs and a picture. 

The gorgeous Minnie Mouse.

We waited patiently in line to meet Chip 'n Dale, and their minder called out asking if anyone knew the song to "Frozen".  Claire's hand shot up, and she was asked to sing the song, while Chip 'n Dale both danced with her.  You'd think after that they'd offer to sign her book and have her photo taken - but no, we had to get back in the queue!


And Chip 'n Dale

We headed straight away to the "Fast Pass Distribution" for "Splash Mountain".  You can get one "fast pass" every two hours and they enable you to go in the speedy lane, bypassing all those who have stood in the queue for anything between half an hour to an hour and a half!  And boy, does it feel good when you're in that lane - and horrible when you're in the slow lane!

With the cards firmly in John's pocket, we then headed to Indiana Jones' Adventures.  We had such fun. We went flat knacker around the park at a cracking pace - I wished I had brought my pedometer with me!

I was so thrilled that I got through Splash Mountain last night without ending up a mess, I was keen to do it again today.  Claire was very encouraging, "Put your hands in the air, Nana"!!!  She's a real dare-devil and while I was trying to overcome my fear, she was planning what sort of pose she'd do for the camera that takes everyone's picture just as you start the steep descent.  It's quite terrifying - but Claire absolutely has no fear and loves them.

Melanie's favourite ride at Disneyland was the teacups, and her favourite colour, purple.  So we had a ride for Mel in a purple teacup.  More my cup of tea too!

Melanie's favourite ride - the teacups!

We queued for just 15 minutes to go on the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters - and what a fun attraction this one is.  I remember Joshua loved it too - and nothing's changed Josh in the last four years.  Except my score - I got a grand total of 518,300 and Pa got 442,200.  Four years ago we each got somewhere in the vicinity of 35,000. 

The ride got stuck today - and let me tell you, it was so much better than when we all got stuck in the, "It's A Small World" ride 30 years ago with Melanie and Travis!!!!!  We got to shoot the targets today, whilst we were stationary, for about a good five minutes, hence our huge scores. 

But after we alighted and walked down the tunnel to the exit, there up in lights was Claire!  Look closely, and you'll see her in this picture.  That's her in her spaceship shooting the targets!

The Top Space Ranger - Claire!

And here's her score (at #2) - with allegedly - 1,699,100 points - CC (Claire Cottle!)  Way to go, Claire.

We headed to Splash Mountain again after lunch, and although it's not as bad as last night's photo - I'm clearly terrified - Claire is clearly fear-free and doing the "duck face"!  What a hoot!

We nicked off for a couple of hours this afternoon and went shopping - a few last minute buys, like Sees Candy.  We will definitely be well over our kg limit for the plane, but what's new?!!!

We got back in time to get a ride on Indiana Jones again and this time we all held our hands high in the air - for the entire ride!

The parade tonight was fabulous - all of the characters appeared either in the parade or the light and water feature.  We had dinner sitting on the ground ensuring our place for the light and water show, then everyone was told we couldn't sit there.  Clearly we'd been there for some time - with half-eaten dinners in front of us - so on the quiet, we were told to go away for 5-10 minutes then when we got back, we were let into the VIP area.  Noice!




Snow White on her float.



All the characters on the "Mark Twain" paddle steamer.

Tony is coming in for brekky at frog's fart in the morning - and it's nearly 1 am.  We're heading off to Disney's California Adventure for the day tomorrow (well, in a few hours!), and I doubt I'll get to blog again.  Thanks for your posts and emails, glad you've enjoyed following our adventures.


 

 

May 27 - Disneyland

What can we say but - Disneyland is truly magnificent!  Straight after brekky we headed across the road and down one block and entered into the Magic Kingdom. 

Disneyland awaits!

Claire bought a photo album/autograph book and decided earnest to collect all of the characters.  The queues (lines) were often enormous and required a wait time of about an hour to an hour and a half. We think that many people, including students are here - having attached an extra day to the Memorial (long) Weekend.  Memorial Day (Monday) is similar to our ANZAC Day.

 

Claire with Pinocchio.

Big hugs with Tigger.

And the gorgeous Eeyore.

Basically, the day was fantastic. We rode many of the rides starting with Star Tours, 3CPO and R2D2 were the mainstays of this ride - although Claire didn't know who they were.  We didn't even think of it - Joshua certainly knew of them four years ago, but Claire's interests are in a totally different area, and clearly Travis' love for Star Wars has not rubbed off onto Claire.

 

We rode Autopia, where cars are ridden along a track in the outdoors, but being a little short, Claire found it hard to push on the accelerator, and I found it hard to keep it down for such a long ride too.  John's brother, Mike, loved riding this attraction whenever he came to Disneyland and we reminisced about our trip here with him and Travis and Melanie some 30 years ago.

 

Our favourite ride, Space Mountain is not running at the moment - it's being refurbished apparently, and with so many people here today, it was an attraction that was sadly missing, as it keeps hundreds of people off the streets and off the other rides!

 

For those interested, the other rides we took and attractions we saw:  Pirates of the Caribbean - FANTASTIC!; The Haunted House - Claire loved it; the Jungle Cruise (still as lame as before!); Roger Rabbit Spin; Toon Town rollercoaster; Indiana Jones - another FANTASTIC ride, Big Thunder and our final ride, Splash Mountain - which was super fantastic and we got absolutely soaked to the skin.  It was a very hot day today, but after the sun set the temperature dropped dramatically - and we were a bit chilly.  So we saw a small part of the light and water show, and the fireworks which was absolute magic. 

 

When you wish upon a star ... Makes no difference who you are ... all of those beautiful memories (apart from being at the Army at 7 pm on a Sunday night when we should have been at home watching Disney!) came flooding back.  Beautiful memories!

 

 

 

 

 

 

May 27 - Santa Clara 1 Anaheim

It was farewell's all round this morning after our buffet brunch in the bar where we enjoyed, "Lick, Sip, Suck" tequilas on Saturday night.  A few were bleary eyed, but not us ... we were up bright and early (even for the rest of you we were up bright and early!), at 8.30 am. 

Thankfully Tony suggested a big family picture - fancy us all getting together and not having a picture taken - but we managed to get organised and here tis:


Claire with her "American family".

Mandy and Ryan gave Claire a gift card to their favourite lolly shop, "Powells Olde Worlde Candy Store" in downtown San Jose, so before we left for Anaheim, we took a shortcut to this store.  WOW!  Ryan used to work here part-time, and the young man working in the store mentioned that Ryan was getting married the day before.  "We knew", we told him - "we were over from Australia for the wedding".  He was quite surprised.


Every kid's dream - a money voucher for a lolly shop!

We put "Disneyland" into the sat nav for directions, and pointed the car south, heading down the Highway 5.

We arrived safe and sound at HoJo's (Howard Johnson's) on the boulevard right opposite Disneyland and after unpacking, we headed over to the adjacent restaurant, Mimi's.  The fireworks display at Disneyland was magnificent - we can hardly wait to see them tomorrow.

Fireworks at Disneyland, through the window of the restaurant, Mimi's.

I decided that the washing needed to be done - I didn't fancy the prospect of having five loads to do when we got home, particularly seeing as we arrive home at 8.30 am on Saturday and Claire leaves on Sunday at frog's fart to fly home to the Gold Coast. 

John headed out to buy some supplies whilst Claire and I did the 'woman's work'.  There are three washing machines in the basement, one was whirring away.  I lifted the lid, and sure enough, it was a steaming whirlpool in there.  The other two washing machines had "125" showing on their dial.  Darn, we had missed each of the three machines - but if we hurried, we might be able to hand-wash all of our loads, then get them back downstairs to the basement and into the driers before the other three machines had finished.

On our way out, we ran into one of the staff who advised us that there was another laundry, but in the "back building".  The back building turned out to be three buildings away in a part of the block that we thought belonged to another hotel.  So we checked it out, and the three machines were all available.  Once I had our stuff loaded, the detergent in, and the $1.25 in quarters in the slots and the machine had started filling with water, the penny dropped (no pun intended).  The "125" was not the time left on the machines, it was how much money was required to use the machine.  Claire and I left the laundry, she checked out the gift shop while I double-checked the laundry in the basement in our building - and yes, two of the three machines were available - all for "125" cents!

 

25 May - Sunday - Wedding Day!

The kids all arrived with their kids!  And Claire was in seventh heaven. They all changed into bathers and hung out at the pool: Alexis, Anthony and Ariana; Thai and Tristan; David and Dalton and it was fun times for them all. Claire is thoroughly enjoying the down time here with the "cousins". She is very much into the family tree and wants to know the relationships between everybody.  Cassie and Ryan are Elise's children and Elise is the daughter of John's sister, Margaret. So it was John's niece's son who got married today.  Then you start taking into account the next generation and their relationship to Claire ... ... Well Claire ... simply put, they're all your cousins! LOL!

The Freedom Hall is right opposite the Marriott hotel so we didn't have far to go for the wedding. Mandy had six attendants and Ryan had five mates, and a young woman he'd known since primary school as his best man. The service was written by themselves with their celebrant guiding them and it was beautiful.  

The Groom's side of the family.

Bridal photos were taken in the gardens of Freedom Hall and we snapped a few of the kids too:


Anthony, Alexis, Claire and Ariana.

Dinner and dancing followed until 10 o'clock then it was back to our room to start the task of packing - eeeuuwwwk!  As always, too much stuff ... suitcases way too heavy!

24 May - Santa Clara

Claire's inbuilt alarm clock had her awake at 6.30 am - now that's a first in nearly six weeks!  Nana was slow to rise at 9.30 am, so nothing new there.  Brekky up in the business lounge then Lisa, Tony and the four kids (ie Claire in tow) headed north to San Francisco to do some exploring of their own in Japantown before having lunch in Chinatown.  Claire is eating well and trying new foods - and she's enjoying the experience.

Maggie May, John and I sat poolside and waited for Sandra and the boys to arrive from Oregon and we enjoyed catching up with all their news before John and I took off to do some last minute shopping.  So Livvy, and Daniel are now covered. Connor has been easy to buy for, but we have noticed a huge change in the quality of fabric and workmanship in the clothing here since John's last visit four years ago, and even since my visit last year.  NYDJ, which I've been hanging out to buy are just rubbish. Rubbish fabric and rubbish workmanship. Such a shame.  Clearly it's not just our shores receiving clothing from Bangladesh.

A quick bite at TGIF (unremarkable) and back to the hotel.  We are all very excited about the wedding tomorrow.

23 May - San Fran - Santa Clara

Who fell back asleep this morning?!  So a mad dash to get all of our stuff packed (read, "shoved anywhere!"), showered, house straightened, car packed, hello and goodbye to our host, Linda, and on our way.

We decided to take Claire to the Japanese Tea Gardens in Golden Gate Park, a lovely tradition of ours.

With the Tearoom behind us

The lush gardens

Loads of students are graduating here and the restaurants, card and balloon shops are all doing a huge trade with all the grad dinners. Golden Gate Park was hosting a graduation of liberal arts students all decked out in bright purple gowns and mortar boards with yellow and white trim. Huge stands of billowing balloons in the three odours adorned every available bare spot.

We visited the bison at the bison paddock, a marvellous site within the grounds of GGP.



A bison with a "passenger"

Two windmills stand as sentries at the Pacific Ocean entrance to the Park, at another time during the year, they tower over a blaze of tulips, but not now.  We pointed the car south once again, heading to Santa Clara via Pacifica.

John toured around all of his childhood haunts, as we always do when we come here.  His elementary (primary) school, his junior high and senior high schools, and the various houses he lived in - and of course 951 Rio Vista.

The welcome sign to Pacifica.

We set the sat nav and the cow took us down Highway 1 then across the I-280.  She then had us criss-crossing back and forth, taking us into areas that we need not have travelled, but like I said to John, not to worry ... she took us to parts of California I'd never been to!

We arrived at the Marriott and we were met by Margaret after a check-in hassle (an hour's worth of hassle). Having had not one room booked in our name, but three, we got a double queen room, but not until Margaret had to give up her room and move to another! Not good enough Marriott Hotels.

We had some snacks and cocktails and the gorgeous Liyani arrived to a rapturous response from Claire.  And at 8.45 pm Lisa, Tony and the kids and Pat arrived.  Cuddles and hugs all round and we were off to a local restaurant for dinner with cocktails and coffee to follow back at the Marriott - but alas, the cocktail bar closed at 11.30 pm. Boooo!

Claire bunked down with Liyani in Pats's room and I caught up with the last few days blogging before hitting the pillow at 2.45 am.  Hope you're enjoying the blog!!!

22 May - Streetcar, cablecar, Lombard St and Cassie.

This morning Claire continued working on her multimodal assignment - a brochure encouraging people to visit the La Brea Tarpits.  She's worked very hard on it. She also worked hard with Pa doing more maths work on decimals and fractions.

Thankfully I decided to iron the frock we bought for Claire to wear to Ryan and Mandy's wedding, because otherwise I wouldn't have known until too late that sadly, the black had run into the white fabric. So another trip to Nordstrom's to return and get another one, but none were available. But fear not, Claire is surely a seasoned shopper and we found another equally beautiful frock before hopping on a streetcar that took us in to the city.

At Powell, we took the cablecar up and over the hill and down to Hyde Street to the Wharf.



Hold on tight!

We hopped off at Lombard Street and walked 249 steps down this crookedest street in the world, crossed the road and climbed the 253 steps back up to the top.

At the top of Lombard Street.

Here are some stats about Lombard Street: there are 8 switchbacks ... over 2,000 blue and purple hydrangeas ... all planted in 12 flower beds. One house is adorned with the biggest purple bougainvillea we've ever seen and the views of San Francisco were fabulous.

 

We hopped back on a cablecar and headed for the Wharf but got as far as our favourite happy hour restaurant, Capurro's. They remembered us ... Claire got free Sprites and they extended happy hour for another hour.  Cassie, Patrick, Thai and Tristan joined us and we reminisced and laughed, and ate and drank for a couple of hours before we walked them back to their hotel on the Wharf and we caught a cablecar back to Powell and a streetcar back to Stonestown and drove the car the two miles 'home'.

Rocky road ice cream for dessert, then off to sleep our last night in San Francisco.

21 May - Alcatraz

We had a morning of catching up with family; Claire did some decimal maths, adding, subtracting and ordering; and we attempted, unsuccessfully, to buy tickets for Alcatraz. So we headed off towards the city, intending on catching BART or the streetcar, but ended up deciding to chance our luck for parking, and we drove in to Fisherman's Wharf - doing times tables chants to a rhythm en route with a reward of 10 cents for every time Claire beat the rhythm with her answer.  (We're not broke!)

Claire with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background

We headed to the Golden Gate Bridge for a photo of the Bridge with the fog rolling in. And having checked online for tickets, and phoning their 1800 number without any success, we fronted up to the ticket office at the Alcatraz pier to be told our only chance of going to the Alcatraz National Park ie The Rock, was getting there at 7 am tomorrow morning! Fat chance!

So we went about approaching nearly every couple and tour group that approached the entrance to the pier. We missed out on getting five tickets by a poofteenth, then after about an hour, a gorgeous bloke from Belgium gave me one ticket - and he wouldn't take any money for it, saying it was paid for months ago and one of his tour group hadn't fronted. So we were then in search of just two tickets, a much easier task.  Another half hour passed and couple from the UK had two spares so we purchased them, and it all looked sweet.  Then our mate from Belgium came over, and very apologetically explained that one of the members of his tour group didn't have a ticket and so I handed back the freebie :(

Once we had the two tickets, the security bloke took pity on us ... we had been there for over 1 1/2 hours and he asked his supervisor if they could let one extra person in - of course we said it was for Claire, and we got the third ticket.

While we waited, we checked out the information boards around the ticketing area:



On approaching The Rock, there's a message:



Alcatraz is a magical place - tough and hard and a prison for the ages - but they had some good philosophies.

They got three square meals a day, medical care, and warmth but anything else had to be earned.  The food  was some of the best in the federal prison system and guards and inmates ate the same meals. "Break the rules and you go to prison, break the prison rules and you go to Alcatraz."


Claire was astounded that the prisoners all had to shower together - no privacy!

The "communal" showers.

We all enjoyed the self-guided tour with individual headsets, complete with a narration by both the guards and the inmates. It was so realistic, you'd think the prisoners were actually standing up on the next levels running their metal cups along the prison bars ... calling out ... whistling ... But they were just the noises coming through the headsets.

Three floors of cells in each block.

The cells were sparse and very, very small.

We learnt about the antics of Robert Stroud, the Birdman of Alcatraz (in Alcatraz 1942-1959), Al Capone (in Alcatraz 1934-1938), and the inmates who tried to escape in 1962 and were immortalised in the movie, 'Escape from Alcatraz' with Clint Eastwood.

A clever ploy to escape - fake heads were made from cement, soap etc.

Due to deteriorating buildings and the high cost of running the facility Alcatraz's days ended as a federal prison with the last inmates leaving the island in 1963.



The view the prisoners had from inside the dining room - so close ... but yet, so far away.

Claire loved learning the history and stories if the Island and it's famous inhabitants and got to cross off another couple of squares on her Bingo card.

The view of the prison from the exercise yard.

After being given some directions to check out the exercise yard and the flower gardens, we were rounded up by the Rangers as it was time to catch the ferry back to the San Francisco harbour.

The gardens would have been a blessing for those allowed to work in them.

But Claire needed to be sworn in first.  So a Ranger was summonsed.  It was nearly 6.30 pm, and the last boat from the Island for the day was leaving ... Claire was frantically finishing the tasks - it had been a very full-on few hours. The Ranger checked Claire's book (very quickly), and Claire took the oath, once again - but this time she got to wear a specially made Junior Ranger's jacket and hat.

Decked out in the jacket and hat.

The Ranger was a sweetie and told Claire she was a true Ranger, and she had Claire walk onto the gangway on to the boat with all the other Alcatraz Rangers. What a hoot!

Clapping and cheers from all of the Rangers.

A great day out at The Rock.

There were loads of homeless folk around the piers and up on the marina so we did a quick food drop then stopped for an Irish Coffee (and a hot chockie for Claire) at our favourite place in San Francisco - the Buena Vista. (I'm sure the homeless would rather have had our deal.).

Phoning home from outside the Buena Vista.

Then off to the Olive Garden restaurant for dinner via The Avenues and Haight Ashbury (to feed some more homeless young folk) and a peruse of some beautiful San Franciscan architecture.  I swear the folk on the streets in HA could have sent the lot of us sky high within two minutes with what they were smoking. It was wild.

 

 

20 May - San Francisco

Yesterday was a slow morning - we shopped mainly at Josh's favourite store - Ross', and just like Joshua did four years ago, every time we see one of their signs - we hear, "Ross'" screamed from the back stalls of the car.

Dinner at the Elephant Bar again, yum. An early-ish night after some delish Rocky Road ice cream. More yummmm! So a fairly uneventful day.

Today we shopped at Nordstrom's - a more upmarket and expensive store and with service, something we've found to be in short supply on this trip.  Over the past thirty years or so, we've always marvelled and been in total awe of the service provided here in the States, however that's changed. Is it the economy?  Are people too stressed? Too few people employed to do the same work of colleagues who have been let go? Who knows, but it's certainly not the same. 

We stopped by the See's Candy Store - and Claire got to cross off another square on her Bingo board.  And we got a "sample" - delicious.  Claire and I opted for the chocolate covered molasses chips - you get three chips in one sample serving.  John got his usual, a raspberry cream chocolate.

Yummy - a See's chocolate sample!

It was a delightful day again today in San Francisco although the air was quite cool so we were rugged up against the cool of the late afternoon.  Anyway, back to shopping ... Claire and Nana managed to buy their outfits for Ryan and Mandy's wedding on Sunday. And some gorgeous shoes and sandals so were both feeling pretty chuffed.

Standing opposite San Francisco next to the Golden Gate Bridge.

Nana and Claire on the "other" side of the Bay in San Francisco.

The courtesy shown on the roads here has also changed. In the past you'd rarely hear anyone toot their horn impatiently, and changing lanes was never a problem, the other road users would always slow down and let you in ... not any more - you put your blinker on to change lanes, and the other driver will accelerate so you can't get in.  Not much different to home.  (Just a few observations.)

A notice in the Visitor's Centre at Muir Woods - disgraceful statistics and we all need to learn from them.

We went off in search of a deli but that was a difficult challenge. After passing over the Golden Gate Bridge, we pointed the car down the windy road into the magnificent town of Sausalioto where we found a great little deli, and after grabbing some freshly made sangers, we turned up I-101 north towards the magnificent Muir Woods National Park.

On the bridge at Muir Woods

In 1945, delegates from all over the world gathered in San Francisco to establish the United Nations and in May of that year, they travelled to Muir Woods to honour the memory of President Franklin Delanor Roosevelt who had died one month earlier.

It was President Roosevelt who believed in the value of national parks as sources of inspiration and human renewal.  He also believed that good forestry practices and sustainable developments of natural resources were keystones to lasting peace around the world.  The organisers of the event hoped that the profound beauty and serenity and peacefulness of Muir Woods would inspire the delegates to pursue the President's desire for world peace as they met to establish the United Nations.  Maybe all world leaders should come here to San Francisco now, and head north to this beautiful National Park and put into practice these hopes and desires of Roosevelt.

Claire signed up for the Junior Ranger Program and spent the next two hours enjoying the park, studying the park and completing the tasks in the book. Part of our journey took us through the track above the valley floor up into the canopy.  Claire saw something on the ground and knelt down to get a closer look.  Yeeeeeeek! It was some sort of slug - "was" being the operative word!  We found a body ... then the head ... then part of it on the knee of Claire's brand new jeans!!!

Slug head



Remains of slug!



Slug body





Claire continued with her program and when completed, she was then sworn in as a Jnr Ranger, once again promising to protect the parks and the animals and plants in this beautiful part of the world.

On the wall of the Visitor Centre, this is a poem hung - and the sentiments are beautiful:



We headed back south and took the turn into Sausalito to return once again to the Italian restaurant we enjoyed so much four years ago with Joshua.  (Do you remember it Josh?)  Like last time, there was a gentleman playing several instruments including the cello and a keyboard - it was all beautiful.  He even played, Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons', some works we've played to Claire over the years when she's come down to Melbourne.  Their 'spaghetti vongole' dish reminded us of our time in Italy (although not such a good memory as I broke a tooth on a clam shell there and it cost a fortune to get fixed!)

Homeward bound - 'rocky road icecream' awaits for dessert!