February 20, 2008

Wednesday, February 20, 2008 9:39:30 PM

Hope to write more about it later.  Disneyland was incredible.  Actually it was more California adventure that we went in but we had a lot of fun there.  I was amazed at the quality of the rides.  The day was rainy with a little wind.  I think that helped keep the lines down.  I have heard horror stories about Disneyland lines.  The longest line I saw was an hour.  The longest line I stood in was 25 minutes.  Well not counting the Aladin play we were in line for that for 40 minutes but it would have been possible to show up at the last minute and still get a balcony seat.  What an incredible play!  I haven’t ever seen a performance done to the level that one was.

Ty and I had a lot of fun on Splash Mountain.

I believe this picture was a wild mouse style roller coaster.  I am not extremly fond of these either.

Grizzly River Rapids.

Our stroller, or battle wagon as I called it was great for carrying lots of food and water.

The Bug's Life 4D show was great.  It was a first for the entire family ot see a show like that.

We road a tram to get from the parking lot to the main park.

Tyrell explained that he was "rain tanning".  I don't expect this will catch on in high numbers.

Monday we went swimming, and returned to the chocolate factory.  The free tour unsurprisingly wound up costing about $28 in the gift shop at the end.  I felt a bit of defiance as I bought US made truffles.  I am sure it was a bit of my moving on ritual as I make my separation from AMIS. 

Any recipe that calls for that much butter has to be capital 'G' Good!

Ty shows off a fancy strawberry.

There is a wonderful cactus garden next to the Ethel M Chocolate factory.

It was surprising how little driving we got done Monday.  We did take a short involuntary tour of east Las Vegas for a while but we were straightened out pretty soon.  We had a wonderful family home evening in Baker California under the largest thermometer in the world.  I was amazed at how undeveloped the largest thermometer in the world was.  The most convenient parking to the thermometer was in a Del Taco parking lot.  We played a game of steal the flag.  It won’t be much farther into Lexie’s pregnancy until the kids are able to out run her flat.  It won’t be too much longer in their development until they are giving me a real challenge.  Even Davey got into the steal the flag game he was very intent on getting to the flag (one of Natalyn’s shoes) and seemed very aware that someone was after him once he had it.

I was surprised how undeveloped the thermometer was.  I guess it isn't that bit an attraction afterall.

We played steal the flag for family home evening.

After driving a short way from Baker I decided I was too tired to drive much more.  We found a small gas station with a large parking lot that allowed people to park over night.  I was happy to find some free camping in as much as we had some catching up on the camping budget to do from Vegas.  I was shocked to see gas at over $4 a gallon.  I could understand though.  It was the kind of place that if a person needed gas they would pay what it would take to get the gas.  The place and others like it along I-15 on that stretch had 24 hour tire service.  We got the idea a lot of people lose tires on that stretch of highway.

Tuesday we stopped at the Calico ghost town.  It is a reconstruction of an old silver mining town.  We were very pleased with the stop.  I didn’t know anything about hard rock mining before the stop.  Something that perhaps caught my attention the most was that on the train tour the guide told us they had accessed the ore at the mouth of the Silver King mine to contain about 6 million dollars in silver however the cost to extract it would be about 10 million dollars.  It makes it clear why the mine is shut down now.  It also makes it clear what got miners so excited in the days of the mining boom towns.

We all had a lot of fun "gold" panning for iron pyrite.

This kids made crafts.

We were able to walk through one of the old mine shafts.

We were able to take a train ride.

 

The drive into Anaheim was a bit nerve wracking but otherwise uneventful.  It is really nice to be through that part of the trip.

February 17, 2008

Sunday, February 17, 2008 8:37:41 PM

Church went really well today. We used the showers at the RV park and that proved to be a much more efficient way to get ready. I think finding an RV park with showers for Saturday and Sunday nights will become a staple of our schedule.

We spent most of the afternoon just puttering around the trailer. The kids played reasonably well and I was able to even get a little bit of a nap. We enjoyed visiting with our neighbors Angela and Bryan. The kids love their dog Hazer. The dog is a rotweiler that has a wonderful temperament. The Ty and the dog would play tug of war with a mostly flat basketball. Hazer’s 130 pounds proved to be more than enough to win over Ty’s 50.

I don’t remember if I have written about our first impression of when we pulled into our space but in case I haven’t … When we pulled toward our space after registering we pulled in to see a man smoking a cigar with a rotweiler attacking a basketball right in the middle of our trailer spot. We considered talking to management immediately about getting a different site. As with many first impressions ours was wrong. Bryan, Angela and Hazer have been wonderful neighbors. The boys even made a valentine card for Hazer that included money to get him dog treats.

February 16, 2008

 

Saturday, February 16, 2008 8:45:34 PM

Friday was a really good school day for the kids.  They got their math worksheets done in the morning.  Then they were able to go to two museums the first was a history of atomic testing museum which included a room which simulated a bomb blast.  The other museum was a collection of replicas of Leonardo Divinci’s work.  They heard at the museum that as of two weeks ago there was official documentation uncovered which revealed the secret of the Mona Lisa.  She was a silk merchants wife and her secret was that she was pregnant.

I didn’t get very much done.  I mostly just laid around the trailer with my cold.  I did cook dinner and lunch for the family which took a bit of time.  After the museums the whole family went to M&M World.  I knew it wasn’t the best thing to do on a cold but I really wanted to go and Lexie really didn’t want to drive down town.  We parked at the MGM Casino because the brochure said it was right by it which it was however the MGM Casino is huge.  There is a lion exhibit in the MGM Casino which we wanted to see so we walked through to see that.  I was a bit under whelmed with the lion exhibit in that it only contained a couple of lions however something that was unique was that it allowed a person to walk under the lions and look at them through clear glass from their underside.  I am pretty confident yesterday was the first time I saw the underside of a lion.

M&M world was a lot of fun it is a four story store dedicated to M&M memorabilia.  My favorite part was their bin candy which allows people to buy M&M’s one color at a time to create their own color mixes.  We let all of the kids pick out a few colors.

I imagine heaven will have a room something like this.

Hanging out on the strip.

I thought this motel 6 sign was pretty cool. Vegas wouldn't be Vegas without lights.

Today we went to the Hoover Dam and took the power plant tour.  It was a very nice tour. 

The Hoover Dam

On the way to the tour we saw $29 dollar helicopter rides advertised.  The kids were very excited by the prospect of a helicopter ride.  I spent some time stewing over how to justify the expense.  I really wanted to do the $59 version of the tour which would go over the dam.  In the end it was decided that we could go if the kids paid their own way.  Davey was too small to go.  Lexie volunteered to stay at the car with him.  I felt guilty going because I had been on more helicopter rides than Lexie but I was also confident that I would get better pictures so I decided to not put up much resistance to her offer of sending me.  As one would guess from the price the ride lasted all of two minutes however that was plenty to excite the kids and enough to check “ride in a helicopter” off their list.  I think Dallin was the only one who felt the wallet flattening effect of the $29.  He was brainstorming on the way home about how to make some money.  He said “I know one thing mom won’t let us do.”  “What is that?” We asked.  “Let someone pay us money to sleep in one of the extra beds in our trailer”.  He was very right that is something mom wouldn’t let us do.  He sort of missed the point that there isn’t an extra bed in our trailer however I was very pleased with the range of his thinking.

Several of the roads gave great views of the city of Las Vegas.  Las Vegas is an intereting city because there is so much of nothing and then all of a sudden a relatively large city.