Doodle Bug Chronicles: Back to Reality

We had a great time on our family vacation to Palm Springs. We stayed at Grammy and Papa's vacation home. 10 hours in the car with a Doodle Bug, he was ready for the jacuzzi.

He loved the warm water. Makes me think we need one here...but then I'd always worry that he would escape and find his way in there; like it might be a new OCD for him, so we'll settle for a warm bath for now.

The weather was nice, much warmer than it has been here. I forgot what short sleeves and sunshine felt like.

We hung out and relaxed and didn't have to be anywhere or do anything. We went to a movie and out to lunch. Grammy and Papa watched the Doodle overnight so that we could attempt two days in Disneyland.

Coffee and Go-Girl Energy Drinks. Even tremendous amounts of caffeine could not prepare us for the record Holiday Crowds at Disneyland...it was sold out! Two days in a row! We pulled up to the hotel and saw these big flashing traffic-type lights that actually said: 'DISNEYLAND SOLD OUT'. I wanted to cry--we had just left the Doodle back in Palm Springs and now we were in Anaheim, stuck paying for a hotel, with no place to go. Luckily, or rather, unluckily, the hotel had two day park hoppers--so we were thrilled! We checked in and took a shuttle over to the park...where it was so unbelievably over-crowded that it was even more heartbreaking. News reports estimate that there were 80,000 to 100,000 people there. The lines were wrapping around everywhere. You couldn't tell where one ride's line started and another one's ended. The pirates of the Caribbean ride was 2 1/2 hours long. So we left. It was miserable and it's not fun fighting crowds like that--Disneyland was a bust. Jimmy was really disappointed and I felt so bad for him. We had been looking forward to this trip! Obviously we knew it was going to be crowded...we expected holiday crowds. But this was not manageable. They way over-sold the park. They could have stopped selling tickets about 25,000 people earlier and been just fine financially.

It's really hard to be in a bad mood when you're in Disneyland. Something happens once you arrive. But, I've never seen so many pissed off people at the Happiest Place On Earth--you could see the frustration on the sea of people's faces; usually it's happy and magical; this time it was just stressful and ridiculous.

Jimmy put on a brave face--and took it like a man.

We considered attempting another nearby amusement park: Knott's Berry Farms or Universal Studios, but it was getting late and there was no guarantee the crowd situation wouldn't be the same everywhere, after all, it was during a holiday break. We went back to the room and Jimmy picked a movie to watch...then we went to a Van's Skate Park and an outdoor mall.

I bought him a couple of video games to make up for the let-down of Disneyland...

We had a nice dinner outside at the Fresh Market, Shirley Temples and Clam Chowder. So we did our best to make the most of our trip. The next day we met Grammy and Papa in Ontario, they brought us the Doodle and we made our way home (10 longgggggggggggg hours home).

It didn't help that the Doodle got really sick while we were there.