Southern CA Parks Day 3 - March 21, 2016

Monday March 21, 2016 – Day 3

We got up this morning, early, and had a great breakfast at the Fairfield Inn.  Then we drove back into the park, through the Oasis entrance (grabbing some pictures at the national park sign first). 

We then drove over to Ryan Mountain and climbed to the summit, approximately 5,450 feet.  The hike up was pretty challenging, only because of the steep climb but the view at the top made it worth it!  It took us about 1 hour 10 minutes to get to the top and only 37 minutes to get down.  I know this exactly because we all placed bets on how long it would take to get down and Ryan won by guessing 37 minutes. 

Around 11ish, we got back into the car and left out of the Joshua Tree entrance.  The kids had started Rookie of the Year in the car so I just ran into the Visitor Center and got the hat pins, magnets, etc. and we were on our way to Anaheim. 

The 122 miles to Anaheim was fairly eventless.  We stopped in Corona, CA, after driving through a Wind Farm, and had lunch at Goodfellas.  It was very good, which was a good thing because Ryan was very upset with me that she didn’t get her pick, which was Subway, and she didn’t understand how we got to choose dinner the night before AND choose lunch – she felt the whole thing was extremely unfair.

We pulled into our Anaheim Fairfield Inn (directly across the street from Disneyland (looking out at Space Mountain) and checked in around 2:30.  This is a neat hotel/motel and we’re on the 8^th floor so we have a pretty nice view.  As we were getting our things out of the car, Ryan found Grant’s knife that he thought had been left on the side of Darwin Falls Road so he was very excited.  After getting settled, we walked over to Downtown Disney and the kids looked at all kinds of souvenirs.  We all got Haggen Daas ice cream, and really enjoyed walking into the Lego store.  We also went  into the Rainforest café. 

Then back to the room and down to the pool/hot tub for a bit.  The kids and I went to the 3^rd floor market and picked up chicken noodle soup, mac and cheese, etc. and ate it back in the room and were literally in bed at 8:30 and totally asleep by 8:45.  That is until the Disneyland fireworks display kicked off at 9:10.  It scared the crap out of me – woke me up with a start!!  It lasted until 9:25 then back to bed.

I woke once in the night, having a “nightmare” about how we had all of these plans for Disneyland but all Ryan wanted to do was shop in the “Hebrew clothing store” and not ride any of the rides!?!