California: The adventure begins

[Johnie]

Cast of characters:

Johnie- that's me! A lover of all things Disney. I may be 36 but I feel like a teenager sometimes!

Alysia- my DD who is 17. Also a lover of all things Disney and loves vintage Hollywood

Jordan- 17 and Alysia's BFF. She's also my other daughter. She is also Alysia's twin apparently.

This is the very first trip to California for all of us.

I started the day off by getting up at 7am and going into work. I know, but there are a million things that need to be done. I finally managed to get out of there by 12:30pm. I was headed home. Mike was kind enough to go get Jordan and bring her back to the house. I tell people I want to leave by 1pm. I have to exaggerate time because Mike can never leave on time. So, around 2:20pm we are on our way to Norfolk to the airport. Our plane doesn't actually leave until 6:30pm but I wanted to make sure we had enough to eat and deal with traffic. The Norfolk airport is on the other side of the Hampton Roads bridge tunnel


This is not my favorite thing to go in. It's underwater for 3.5 miles! Way too often, people wreck their cars in there and we get stuck. Thankfully we did not get stuck.

We arrive at the airport in plenty of time. Yeah! I booked the most expensive one way flights via American Airlines b/c we had to change our CA dates. I had horrendous customer service from AA and was prepared for the worst. Thankfully, checking in was a breeze and they didn't charge us for our bags (since we did purchase tix before that rule came into effect). We ate lunch at a little crab cake joint in the airport. The flight was uneventful....just the way I like it. We had to stop in Dallas and book it over to a completely different terminal to get to our connecting flight. I was hoping to pick up a Dallas Cowboys souvenier for Mike but had no time to look around at all.

The flight to LA had tvs so we got to watch CBS' Monday night line-up. Big Bang Theory (my favorite!), Two and a Half Men, Old Adventures of New Christine and How I Met Your Mother. The girls laughed and laughed. I have already been watching these shows so I knew they were funny.

We landed in LA and had to sit on the runway forever. It was quite chilly at night in LA. I'm from the South where it is hot and humid even late into the night in the summer. No humidity makes for an interesting change. We got our luggage and took the shuttle to the AVIS lot. Got our car and were on our way. Traffic was not bad (note this for future trip reports). I just want to say that I have a lead foot and people on this coast drive fast. However, they have nothing to people on the west coast. I felt like I was in the Fast and the Furious!

We found our hotel, the Doubletree on City Drive. We made a quick stop through the Wendy's drive thru and then checked in. We got our cookies and went to our room. It was about 1am when all was said and done. However, that is really 3am our time

[Tink]

Nice beginning. Yep. California is life in the fast lane! Unless of course you are doing the craw, bumper to bumper. Then of course you can age a few years while trying to go a single lousy mile.

[Johnie]

Oh yes, we definately got to experience the traffic. That was the worst thing of all.

[Isafari]

great so far Johnie....looking for more now ::

[uscwest]

Great start Johnie. Umm, 1AM in CA would be 4AM here in VA. ::

[Johnie]

:: and I thought it was bad at 3am!

[SleepinCatz]

1am..is that really a time? I seem to remember something from my youth about the existance of 1am....

[Johnie]

I used to be quite friendly with 1am a million years ago.

[Beccaberry]

Since the Olympics have been on, I've gotten reacquainted with it....1:00 am is quite friendly actually, it's 2:00 am that is evil

[Jazmine]

Love the pic johnie, got some more ?
Jacqui