Disneyland!

Dorothy and I drove to California in late October, with my perfect traveling dog Mandy, to support my nephew Brighton in holding a surprise birthday party for his girlfriend Marissa at Disneyland! Little did we know, he was also planning to propose marriage to her. She accepted! Here's my first pic of our trip, with Mandy resting comfortably in her backseat nest.

On our first driving day, we stopped and used the Glenwood Hot Springs for an hour. What a treat! Then Dorothy found this wonderful local polish restaurant, Polanka, where we had a delicious lunch, served by two very nice cooks. If I had better social skills (ref: Kristan), I'd know if they were also the owners, and the story behind the restaurant. Sigh.

We spent our first night on the road in Cedar City at the La Quinta Inn. Loved it. They were dog-friendly, really nice to talk to, took the reservation while we were driving, and gave us an AARP discount for their last room. Everything was super clean, the bed was comfortable, and even though it's close to the highway, the room was very quiet. Mandy was really happy to be traveling with us. I brought her big fluffy fleece blanket, and she loved cuddling up in it, snug and warm.

The next morning, we got going early, and decided to take a detour through Zion National Park. I've heard so much about it, but had never found the time to tour through there. It really is a beautiful place. And it was pretty fun, to finally get to use the lifetime National Parks pass that the gave me, the last time I went into RMNP. We went completely through the park in both directions, then headed back to I-15 to complete our trip.

We made it through Las Vegas uneventfully, but then Waze started suggesting some very strange and circuitous routes, down through Henderson and Searchlight, which seemed like such a huge detour, that we couldn't bring ourselves to go that way. Then we realized why, as we got stopped on I-15 for over an hour, probably due to an accident ahead. We experienced another long stoppage, and an extended period of very slow speeds, before getting to normal traffic flow somewhere around Zzyzx. So frustrating. But we eventually made it to the California border, and to our highly anticipated dinner stop at In-N-Out Burger in Barstow. Not sure why we like it so much, but it's gotten to be a tradition, to stop at the first one we can find, after crossing the border. Dorothy likes her cheeseburger "animal style" and since we split that meal, I discovered that I like it that way, too!

Dorothy started her night driving shift at Barstow, and unfortunately ran into heavy rain around Bakersfield, but she's a good driver, and handled it just fine. With our detour through Zion and all the delays on I-15, we only got to Atascadero at 11pm. Bob was nice enough to wait up for us, and helped Mandy and I get settled into our room. We injected ourselves into their lives for two weeks, and they were very gracious hosts. I shared coffee and his usual scrambled eggs and salmon breakfast with Bob before his work every morning. We picked up Mikele from her work at Cal Poly, and took her for a birthday lunch at the Apple Farm restaurant in San Luis Obispo. We went for lots of dog walks around the lake at Atascadero Lake Park, and checked out the flamingos and turtles at the Zoo, on our way by. It was nice to see the lake filling up again.

Bob was nice enough to take some time off work to play with me. We ran some errands, like getting Mikele a birthday present of a patio furniture set for their new and beautiful backyard patio. It was fun packing all that furniture carefully into the bed of Bob's pickup, and we were proud that we got it all to fit for a single trip home. We played disc golf at the local Heilmann park, in light rain, and enjoyed every minute. We walked the Avila Beach Bob Jones Trail, and then rushed back in time to pick up Mikele for lunch at Splash Cafe in SLO.

I was very nervous about leaving Mandy at my sister's house, while we drove to Disneyland for two days, but Tim was there to feed her in the mornings and evenings, so I took a deep breath, and off we went. We had a wonderful time! Brighton proposed on Saturday night, and we met them on Sunday morning to celebrate. Marissa was in shock to see all of us greeting her in the morning, but she handled it so well. I enjoyed meeting a bunch of their close friends, and hanging out with Marissa's mom Jodi. Most everyone headed home on Sunday evening or Monday morning, but Bob, Dorothy and I stayed for a day at the California Adventure park, and had a really fun time. We had to leave before the park switched over to their Halloween party mode, but it was fun seeing everyone coming into the park in costume. We grabbed dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory nearby in Fullerton, then hit the road for the four hour drive home, and made it to Atascadero at midnight.

Our drive back was more direct, with fewer traffic jams, just the one in Las Vegas during rush hour. Waze did a pretty good job of routing us around that, through surface streets. Dorothy found us an awesome dinner place in Cedar City, called the Pizza Cart, and a great lunch place in Grand Junction, called Bin 707. We managed to hit a storm that aligned itself along I-70 from Green River all the way to Denver, but all it did was drop some rain on us. All in all, a very pleasant trip.