Southern California - 2002 - Intro

Southern California - July 2 - 9, 2002

This is a re-print of an original post to the ThompsonFamilyWeb site about a trip we took to Southern California in July 2002. It is mostly unaltered from my original post.


Intro
Angels Baseball game
Old Towne Orange
Disneyland
California Adventure
Downtown Disney
Harbor Blvd Hotels


Our last 2 trips to visit my parents - who live in Orange California - were in March. We went to Orlando in March of 2000, then we visited them in California in March of 2001. We had originally booked a trip for March of this year but very quickly realised that we did not want to go to Southern California in March again. Why did we change our minds? Simple. The weather. The bottom line is, despite what you might think, the weather in Southern California is not always perfect. They do have winter there - albeit very mild. The weather during our kids' Spring Break is simply not that good in Southern California. Oh sure, it's warmer than New York, but it's not warm enough to hang out at the pool which is, essentially, what we would want to do.

So, we cancelled the trip in March and (after paying an arm and a leg in airline fees) re-scheduled for early summer - during the 4th of July holiday to be exact. Instead we went to Puerto Rico in March - where it was most definitely pool weather.

There were different parts of this trip, and reading about them will or will not appeal to many of you reading this. As is my standard way of doing things, there is a navigation bar at the bottom of each page, feel free to read about whatever appeals to you. This first part serves as sort of an overview, and the other sections are as follows:

• An Anaheim Angels baseball game
• Antique shopping in Old Towne Orange
• A day at Disneyland
• A day at Disney's California Adventure
• Several meals and some shopping at Downtown Disney
• Some thoughts about staying at a motel on Harbor Blvd.

When we booked the trip both my parents and my brother Todd and his wife offered to put us up for at least a portion of the trip. So, this is how our schedule ended up - we flew out from New York to LAX on Tuesday, arriving in the afternoon. We got a rental car and drove to Todd and Kim's house near Lake Elsinore. On the way, we had a minor accident on the freeway (lovely way to start a vacation.) A little side note: when we returned the car, they told us that the damage already existed. I had already reported it to my insurance company, and I couldn't very well just say "never mind" - insurance companies don't do that. Still, I'm quite sure the other driver was at fault so I'm not too worried about it. Regardless, as of this writing over two weeks have past and I have not heard a word. We'll see…

Anyway, we got to Todd's place Tuesday evening. Now, our original plan was to do something local to them on Wednesday. Todd, however, "wanted to go to Disneyland with the kids", so we went on the 3rd instead. If you read about it, you'll see it turned out to be a very nice day in the park.

On the 4th of July we went to a baseball game - mostly to see the fireworks. That night we moved to my parent's place and stayed a couple of nights there. Now, Todd and Kim and my parents were both very hospitable and we thought they were both wonderful for putting up out little troop for a few days. And how did we feel about staying with family for those 4 nights. Never again. Now, don't get me wrong, there were no problems and everyone had a grand old time. However, Andie and I are both just too old for sleeping on a mattress on the floor or a futon. No thank you, next time we spend a bit extra and have a real bed to sleep in.