Stompin' Grounds

Day Three (12/01/08)
Free Day

Monday was our “free day”. Our tickets for Disneyland were not valid until Tuesday so it was a free for all, at least for us to go our own directions. There three families in our group, but only two cars. So Cort, Emily, O’Dell and the boys went to Carpentaria, CA to visit Cort’s friend Burdean and Tammy, Chris, Clark, Carley, Gabe, Selah, and Reece went down to Oceanside, CA to see the ocean and where I served my mission. Then we were to meet in Simi Valley, CA at the home of Dad’s cousin Rita at 6:00 PM.

We first went to the Disney Character Warehouse in Fullerton, CA. Where you can get Disney resort items for a large discount over what they charge in the park. They had all kinds of stuff; Mickey ears, cups, mugs, toys lots of shirts and other clothes. Some of the pricing was crazy for example; “buy 1 get 9 free”. It was an interesting store to see all the over-ordered Disneyland merchandise. There were plenty of toys for the kids to play with while we browsed in the store.

Then we headed south to Oceanside. To get there we took the scenic route down PCH (Pacific Coast Highway). This was the way we traveled from Mission Viejo to Carlsbad on my last day in the mission. It was a fun drive. It had been more than thirteen years since I had taken that drive. We saw some cool houses and shops, but the best part was the ocean. I had forgotten how much I loved the smell of the Pacific. Now it being December, there was fog.

So it was not as clear as it would have been in the warmer times of the year.

The drive takes a little longer on PCH than the freeway, but it was worth it.

Then we arrived in Oceanside. We had lunch at Church’s Chicken, since the Alberto’s we were looking for had closed. It was interesting being there after all those years; especially with my wife and kids. I hope to return with them and have more time to spend in the areas I served in while a missionary in southern California. Back to the trip, we went to the beach. By the time we arrived and had lunch we had about an hour at the beach, and then we had to load up to go to Simi Valley. This was Reece’s first time at the ocean. Gabe and Selah had visited the coast when we went and saw Tammy’s brother in Portland. We all had fun walking along the shore looking for seashells and feeling the water under our feet as the tide came in. So much fun that Gabe, Selah, and Reece got more wet that we had planned for and rode in the car for a while with wet clothes.

With no time to spare we loaded up the van and headed north to Simi Valley. We left at about 2:45 PM thinking that we might be able to stop at the hotel in Anaheim and get the kids some dry clothes. Needless to say we did not have time to stop. Afternoon traffic though Los Angeles is a bear. From Oceanside to Anaheim it took a little over an hour (as it should have) but driving through LA north to Simi Valley was the longest part of the drive. We arrived in Simi Valley, CA with about ten minutes to spare. Now I need to take a minute to sing the praises of Google Maps mobile; this handy little tool on my Palm Centro made it very easy to find our way through the maze of freeways in LA. It actually helped many times to get us from one place to another in Southern CA. It also helped us to see where we were along out route and figure out the time to reaching our destination. Back to our trip, once at Rita’s we had a tour of her home and then went to dinner at Yolanda’s in Simi Valley. After dinner we headed back to our hotel in Anaheim to rest up for our big first day in Disneyland.



This was our route.