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!