Travel

Welcome to Southern California

Day 3 of our epic road trip isn’t a long distance, but it’s a long drive. I lived in Southern California for a year and I have never been a fan of driving down there. It’s a Sunday, traffic shouldn’t be bad. Ha!!! Boy was I wrong about that one. Who knew 140 miles would take HOURS????

We finally get to Anaheim and the wonderful people at the Fairfield Marriott (across the street from Disneyland) got us checked into our room early. The rooms are themed and I’d already arranged for a “Cars” Theme, but the guy at the front desk made sure to tease the boys and let them know their “Princess” room was all ready for them! They were pretty stoked to open the door and see Cars everywhere. The theming was so great, the outdoor pool looked very enticing and we were so thankful to be there.

After we got settled, it was time for food. When you get to California, there are rules about where you have to eat. (Trust me, it’s a rule) And number one on that list? In-N-Out!! And, of course, I have to find the most ghetto one around. Ha ha! As we were sitting outside eating our burgers & fries, we watch 3 young men check out the truck to make sure it was locked up for us. Wasn’t that nice of them? I’m sure they weren’t trying to steal it in broad daylight or anything. (Thank you hotel for letting us check in early so there was nothing in the back of the truck anymore!) Sigh...big cities…

Off to Knott’s Berry Farm. A little history of Knott’s & me. Growing up, we went to Southern California every summer. We had family in Anaheim & Huntington Beach that we stayed with and those trips always involved time at Disneyland and Knott’s. I have such fun memories there and I’m old enough I remember when the Alligator Farm was next to Knott’s. When I was a freshman in college we may or may not have skipped school on occasion to spend the day at Knott’s (it was less than $20 for a full day, cheaper and a littler closer to campus than Disneyland). It has changed and grown so much over the years, in good ways. I was really excited to share this place with my kids.

It had been many years since I’d been to Knott’s and I knew it had grown but boy was I surprised at just how big it had gotten! When we first entered, to the right we found ourselves in Camp Snoopy. Back in the day, this part of the park was lame. It really was. A couple of cheesy rides, more like a toddler playland than what I’m seeing now. It worked out really well because I have a kid who loves Peanuts. Peanuts has always been a part of the park (as long as I can remember anyway) so it was really awesome to see them FINALLY get a bigger role in the experience. Needless to say, the majority of our time was spent in Camp Snoopy.

This was the boys’ first experience in a large theme park so you can imagine how overwhelmed they were by the magic of it. The rides, the theming, the characters, the food, the sounds, the people, the sheer joy. There was a lot to see and do in the other areas of the park, but honestly, they were having so much fun we just let them be and bask in the moment.

We would eventually make our way through the rest of the park riding a lot of fun rides, but Knott’s has a ton of “thrill rides” and they weren’t too excited about those so we skipped them this trip. Camp Snoopy, Fiesta Village, The Boardwalk, The Ghost Town & Train Ride...it was such a great day and we stayed until park closing.

One major bummer is that Mrs. Knott’s Chicken Dinner was closed for remodeling. (If you find yourself there, that is a must-do!) And all of the other restaurants had already closed. So as we were leaving the park we realized there would be no fried chicken for dinner and we didn’t have a plan B. We went back to the hotel knowing there had to be an option close to us. There was and for fear of getting sued or hate mail I won’t name the French restaurant within walking distance of the hotel. Let me summarize it thus: over-priced, tiny portions, edible but not amazing, stuffy, pretentious, not impressed.

It’s super late when we get back to the room so there will definitely be no pool tonight, just sleep. Oh, and we discovered on the way back into the hotel that there is a Pizza Hut in the hotel. Of course it would be after the French food. Ha ha!

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