We were headed for beautiful sunny southern California or more specifically “the happiest place on Earth”, Disneyland. We left Albuquerque in the beginnings of a snow storm, which only got worst as we headed west to the state line. The roads were icing up on a couple of the hills where the truckers were driving on the shoulders of the road trying to gain traction. We had thought that the highway may be shut down, but we managed to make it through. The rest of our drive was fairly uneventful until you hit the ever present, non-stop LA traffic.
Our first night was spent at a Holiday Inn. We had gotten in later than we had planned and were tired. So, we just went to the hotel restaurant. It was actually pretty good food. The hotel is in a good location next to the Mickey and Friends Parking Garage. It’s $25/day to park and includes in and out. The good thing about this garage is you go through security before getting on the tram which takes you to the parks.
We had gotten a good deal on tickets for Disneyland. They were not park hopper tickets, but they were only $70/day. So, having been to Disneyland a number of times, we thought that worked for us. We woke the next morning to rain, so, much for beautiful, sunny southern California.
We had taken a look at the weather and thought we were pretty well prepared for a rainy day. The great thing about rainy days in Disney is that the lines are short and the crowds are nowhere to be found. The bad thing is; it’s raining. We still had a good time and got to do the favorite rides multiple times. The vast majority of the rides at Magic Kingdom are indoor, so Alyssa picked the rainiest days to go there and the driest day to go to California Adventure (with more outdoor rides). She called that one right and we had a great time in spite of the weather.
We all got tired on occasion but we’d take time out to stop and eat; or jump on the train and ride around the park. It was great not fighting for a table or needing a reservation because of the lack of crowds. Disney does a great job with food allergies. Most sit down restaurants have a food allergy menu available and even offered to have the chef come out and talk to me in case I had further concerns. It made dining choices so much easier. By the third day, I had enough of the rain and left after dinner back to the hotel. We stayed at the Homewood Suites which worked out great. They are across the street from the Toy Story Parking lot. So, we were able to walk to the lot and take advantage of the free Disney shuttle. That’s a great option for families especially those who have little ones or big ones that need to come back and take a nap. The hotel does charge for parking, but that is typical of a number of hotels in the area. The other great thing is since it’s a suite it comes with a kitchen. We did manage to cook one dinner there. The hotel also has a nice pool and hot tub area with a basketball court, putting green, and arcade. Just watch out for boys with the putters in the hallway. We saw 2 brothers about ready to take swings at each other ’til the mom saw what was going on. The older boy did tell his mom they moved away from the baby. Well, yeah, that makes it totally okay!
On to our 4th straight day of rain, we were moving on to Joshua Tree National Park. After dropping Alyssa at the airport, we headed out. The original plan had been to do a couple of hikes and camp for a night in the park. Well, we ended up booking a hotel in light of the government shutdown. Now with all the rain, we decided no need to rush. We’ll go see a movie instead and then check-in. We saw the movie, the Mule with Clint Eastwood. It was pretty good and it was nice to be out of the rain. We stopped at one of our favorite places for lunch when in California, El Pollo Loco. This is one of the very few fast food places that I frequent. While they can’t certify anything to be gluten-free, because of cross contamination concerns, I’ve never had any issues there.
Finally on Friday, a sunny day and we headed to Joshua Tree National Park. We wanted to hopefully get in a couple of hikes for the day. We first headed to the Lost Horse Mine Trail. It was listed in our national park book as a “not to miss”. In spite of the government shutdown Joshua Tree was open and with a different funding source the park service was able to open previously closed parts of the park and still they weren’t charging fees. Yeah! Upon arriving at the trail head, we discovered that there was an option for a loop trail. So, we chose to do the 6.2 mile loop. The mine was a fully functioning gold mine until 1908 and is interesting to see. The 2 miles up to the mine was not hard and the trail was easy to follow and provided some great views of the surrounding mountains. It is rated as hard, but only has about 900 feet of elevation change. We did the loop counter clockwise making the trail easy to follow. Hiking in a clockwise direction first takes you through the valley where there are numerous dry washes that could easily lead you astray.
We then drove on to Keys View which is an overlook area with the best view of the area. It was extremely windy at the overlook and chilly, but you could see all the way to the Salton Sea.
We had time to get in one more short hike and drove to the Barker Dam parking area. We saw a number of people rock climbing as we were driving by the huge boulders in that part of the park. We did the Wall Street Mill hike which is 2.2 miles out and back. It is the mill where the gold found in the area was processed. Most interesting were all the abandoned vehicles that look to be from the 1930’s.
It was then time to head on over to our friend Dan’s house. We were quickly invited to join in on a pickleball game. We were newbies to pickleball, but finally managed to at least score a couple of points. Pickleball is described as a mix of tennis, badminton, and ping pong. It’s played outdoors on a smaller sized tennis court and played with a solid paddle and a wiffle ball. It really was a lot of fun. I may have to find a place to play out here in New Mexico.
Somewhere along the way Will managed to pick up a cold and woke up the next morning coughing and sneezing. While Dan and I left him at home to rest, we went off to hike a trail Dan had told me about called the Ladder Canyon Trail. It’s a 4.5 mile loop outside the city of Mecca, CA. And yes, there are ladders to assist in climbing to various sections of a slot canyon. After driving through Mecca you’ll see a number of signs letting you know that the road is closed. The Box Canyon road is closed, but that is okay, take the Painted Canyon Road and it will take you straight to the trail head. It’s a dirt road that is labeled as 4-wheel drive, but we saw a number of 2WD cars that made the trek just fine. Although, I would recommend a higher clearance vehicle as the road gets bumpy in spots. This hike was a lot of fun, however if you reach a section where it’s telling you to turn around. Just turn around. We were stubborn and didn’t, well it’s fairly long stretch of nothing but a spur trail. So, we eventually had to turn around anyway. After that little mishap, we didn’t end up hiking the whole trail as we wanted to stop by the date farm for a date milkshake. We made it to the date farm with about 10 minutes to spare. Quite tasty. The dates were subtle, but gave it a nice flavor. Give it a try, if you’re in the Palm Springs area.
We headed back to shower and pick up Will. We had tickets for to see the Four Tops and The Temptations. Well, at least there’s still one surviving member from each group alive and touring. Before the concert we hit the buffet at the Fantasy Springs Casino. I walked in and saw the chocolate fountain at the dessert table. Let me tell you it was hard to turn my attention elsewhere, but before I knew it I had a plate of meat. There really were a number of options and the food was good.
The next day, Will was still out of commission, so Dan and I went to the Sunnylands center. It’s an estate previously owned by the Annenbergs. The Walter and Lee Annenberg were business people, diplomats, and philanthropists. It is now a place where world leaders can meet and discuss issues of national and international importance. When the center is not holding one of these meetings, it is open for tours of the house and the grounds. Tours of the house sell out extremely quickly and are quite limited. They were sold out the day we were there, but there were openings for the tour of the outside grounds. Unfortunately, we were a little disappointed in the lack of knowledge of the tour guide for the grounds. She wasn’t able to answer a number of the questions that were asked by the group. Not sure if she was filling in for someone or normally conducts the house tour, but clearly we were expecting a bit more.
Well, it was time to head back to Albuquerque and again as we approached the state line between Arizona and New Mexico, we were again greeted with snow.
