carierraine

Risky Business and Top Gun. 

Are you kidding?

 

I can think of a bunch off the top of my head: Taps, Risky Business, Top Gun, Cocktail, Rain Man, Born on the 4th of July.

 

Oh, you don't mean Tom Cruise?

 

Nevermind.

 

TCD

{drum rim shot}  I was just punned by the best two punners here... Thanks guys... 

thank you! 

OOOH Trees!  You always sleep best in a tent!

WARNING:::   SHIELD YOUR EYES

COMPARE AND CONTRAST

I am so going to get a cruise.... off to look for an appropriate '80's cruise movie to torture the boys with

No. Those guys, Bill and Ted are hippies, right?  I'm not going to watch any hippie movie.

 

TCD

Oh my, you just made me seriously LOL...  I think they are as far from Hippies as one can get....  Think more AC/DC Van Halen....  Kinda how I picture TCD Esquire during the late '80's... trust me on this

Wow, that sounds like an adventure for sure! Love the format!

Sounds like a great trip! I really want to camp out West one of these days.

Great descriptions of your activities.  Definitely an adventure.

Wha-Hoo.... someone read my trip report. 

I am exhausted from reading about it all! 

 

That campground in San Diego sounds horrid.  4 white lines?  I was curious what that looked like, and found this picture online....is this like what you had?

 

 

 

That looks....interesting. 

 

And letting your son drive in San Fran.....BRAVE!  I haven't even let my daughter drive on the interstate yet.  LOL> 

 

Thanks for sharing!

Yup, that is exactly what it looked like. But you know what?  We voted, and that is the place we would go back and stay again. The vibe and activities were worth it.  hmmm... I did have two teenage boys and we were at the beach... you know what you see at the beach... I wonder if that had anything to do with swaying the vote....

Fantastic trip report! I can't believe you packed so much fun and number of campgrounds into one trip and so much trip into one trip report post. I'd love to see a picture of your traveling phone booth camper. 

I know that was a long post, but that is exactly how I experienced the last 20 days! All just like that... all smushed together epically! I can now set up my tent in 3 min and take it down in 2.  Excellent!

Great report!

 

Very original.

 

And funny!

 

I am trying to think of how I would react if I returned from a long day at Disneyland to find all of my stuff gone.  I am thinking not good. 

 

I am not going to mention the tetherball to Rocky.  I know he would pester me until we got a phone booth camper and followed in your footsteps.  Some of those steps I don't think I want to follow.

 

TCD

My reaction was disbelief, then trying to keep my cool and be excellent in front of my boys. Then I really understood that it was not done BY the night guard, he was just the bearer of bad news. I tried to be Excellent to him, but it took some walking away and deep breaths to keep it done. Side note to TCD... have you seen the movie?  The "footsteps" might be all about the journey.....

What an adventure!  Would love to see pics.

I am going to wrangle some pics from the teenagers....  not like I am even allowed to touch the phone that is able to InstaGram or anything....

Be excellent to each other....

Hello all of my Mickey-loving Camping Friends!

We all love Mickey, and we all love camping, and I just introduced my boys to the most excellent movie, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, (air guitar)  so it was time for a road trip!  Sadly, I had no time to plan, and as excellent adventures never go as planned....  We headed the wrong way on I10 and made it no where near Florida..... But to make it totally Awesome Sauce, I decided to share the trip with you so you too can experience what it is like to camp with Mickey out west.

Into the traveling phone booth, also known as my bodacious minivan turned camper van went me, MOM, 15 year old dear son, and 18 year old dear son's friend....  save me now. How much junk can we shove in here? Oh and to add to the fun, both boys just got their driver's licences/ permit. PRO: I was chauffeured.  CON: Do you think they could slow down just a little? EPIC: Driving lessons at 80mph though the dessert and down Lombard street in San Francisco

Our first stop after a late start from Austin, Tx was Balmorhea State Park.  (insert your own teenage boy potty humor here). Great state park build by the CCC many years ago, PRO: Huge springwater swimming pool. CON: I forgot my swim suit EPIC: Clearest sky EVER during a meteor shower  HOW IS IT SIMILAR TO FORT WILDERNESS (HIISTFW): umm...  no privacy between sites, power and water included, vampire bunnies greet you upon arrival  HOW IS IT NOT SMILIAR TO FORT WILDERNESS (HIINSTFW): price- I think I paid $17. No looping, you can see everyone's site from your picnic table. Only activity is the pool

Next morning after a delicious camp breakfast, we continued on our way.  Except.... I forgot to gas up. We drove and drove, and guess what.... There is no gas in the desert. None. for Miles. up mountains, down mountains, no gas. So we had to turn around and go back to the last gas station, several miles behind us. Lesson learned.... what not to do while driving. So after feeding the boys again, we drove and drove and drove... and I couldn't find a place to camp. Finally around 11pm, I gave up and used Hotwire for a hotel. PRO: I didn't have to set up the tent  CON: I didn't want to spend that much money  (insert ominous foreshadowed music here)  EPIC: Internet service to figure out where we would sleep tmrw... because I sure didn't want to do this again HIISTFW: ... I got nothing  HIINSTFW: free breakfast.  YUCK.... but free breakfast at FW would be epic!  (air guitar)

So, I got us a place to go... CAMPLAND ON THE BAY, in San Diego....  RIGHTEOUS! After all that desert driving, coming over the mountain into the city then right up to the Pacific Ocean was amazing! And we have Sea Wold annual passes.. sweet! You have to see this place. They assign you a site that is a number in 4 white lines. Your neighbor is in the next square of 4 white lines, with everyone all over next to everyone, separated by 4 white lines. I have never camped like that. I pulled in the camping van, set up a tent, a screen room, and a changing tent, well that is, after someone put the changing tent on their head and ran down the road scaring little kids, and just had enough room left for the picnic table and a fire ring. No one better trip at night. My back neighbors had their eleven hundred bikes parked over my white line, and my next door neighbors had their picnic table over that white line, but I got them back by putting my changing tent right next to their picnic table and changing my swim suit (thank you Walmart) during dinner. Kinda really get to know your camping neighbors. We stayed 3 or 4 nights here we loved it so much. PRO: party time! everyone there was really in a good mood (but I might add, they really respected quiet hours). CON: no shade. close neighbors EPIC: loved the bay right there, and water sports. we did swimming, paddle boarding, kyaking, and helped a guy pull his boat on shore  HIISTFW: lots of activities. One night they had a Beatles tribute band playing in the grassy area. AWESOME. price~$90~heart attack  HIINSTFW: no Mickey. 

After that  we really needed to see Mickey. So google told me Anaheim RV resort was like camping in Mickey's back yard. It really is! I could see the Matterhorn from my campsite. The staff told me it was a mile walk to the gates of Disneyland, but I would not personally walk it. It was on the opposite side of I5 and not "walkable" areas in between. We drove the traveling phone booth each day to the parking lot and :gag: paid the parking fee. This park is a tribute to years gone by. I had an incident with this rv park which led to a long conversation with the owner. The park really only survives on people who rent RV's and park them there for a few days so as to not have to pay high prices at local hotels. These are not "campers" but families who only sleep and shower in their rental RV's. So the rv park doesn't have a camping adventure vibe. People were intrigued that I cooked outside. It was interesting.  It is kept meticulously clean. There are maybe 4 full time mobile homes there that are for family and management. The park is not fenced in, and is in a housing neighborhood, butting up against a mobile home park and across from an elementary school. PRO: owner is very nice and was diligent in resolving my incident. KOA style individual bathroom/shower- LOVE IT  CON: again no need for looping, there is nothing to see EPIC: not a single blade of grass out of place HIISTFW: SO CLOSE TO MICKEY!!!!!!  It was great to not have to drive far after the parks, but we did drive to IN AND OUT burger... they loved the traveling phone booth. 24 hour roving security. there was a pool, but closed too early to use after the parks. There is a shuttle between the rv park and Disneyland. HIINSTFW: no wilderness for sure. no activities. no reason to be there except to sleep and shower.

(Side note: because I don't have a dog to worry about, next time I would get a hotel close by. After site fees and parking, I did not save much money and pitched my tent on concrete. The incident I had with the park was pretty traumatic. I arrived back to my site late after Disneyland closed to find all of my stuff gone! I checked with security and found out it was confiscated because I had not paid for the site. .. umm wrong... I have my receipt...  Oh, so then it was because I had my stuff on the grass which did not belong to my site, but the site next door which I had not paid for. Right, because I paid for my site, and not the site next door. So long story short, it seems through 20% fault in my not noticing where the edge of my site was, 30% fault in it not being clearly defined where my site ended, 10% fault that there happened to be an nonpaying camper in the site next to me, 20% fault of some poor maintenance guy tasked with confiscating stuff, and 20% fault of a comedy of errors, I got my stuff back and set it all up again after a sweaty day at the parks. The owner very kindly listened to me the next day and we had a nice conversation about his business. I told him I was going to come and tell all of you about his park. He welcomed that.) 

Now the boys and I really needed some wilderness. True wilderness. No better place for that then the KOA in North Santa Cruz, CA. It is called Coastonoa.  I was trying to decide if it was a campground with a lodge attached, or a lodge with a campground attached.  The registration people called this place "Glamping"! It was totally wicked awesome. The views, the trees, the mist, the coolness, the horses, the real grass, the ocean, the surfing, the waves, the bathrooms, the campfire rings, the... I could go on and on... Oh the hot tub, the lodge, the spa, the games, the bike rentals... the campstore, the onsite restaurant (real restaurant, uses veggies from their own onsite garden)...  I can't stop.  PRO: I got some real fresh air after LA smog, real camping restores my insides. CON: not anywhere near Mickey or any theme park... but we did have an adventurous day touring SANFRAN. EPIC: Redwoods hike at the state park almost next door tied with the view of the ocean tied with the mist that rolled in every evening tied with the smell of campfire all around  HIISTFW: looping! yes! store and restaurant! yes! very clean! yes! activities and bike rental yes! HIINSTFW: no Chip and Dale, no Mickey. 

So if you put it all together, it took us 3 different campgrounds to equal 1 Fort Wilderness. The only thing we got in California that FW does not have is cool weather in August. Let me tell you, we slept good. 

Unfortunately, my phone booth camping minivan does not actually time travel, or as Ted learned, time still runs in San Dimas even when you forget to wind your watch. At this point, we had to hurry home for school start... so our last 2 nights were at 2 very forgettable KOA's. Banning, CA and Las Cruces, NM. They were KOA's. They were clean. They had pools. They had power. We stayed less than 8 hours at each of them. Only to sleep and shower. side note, Las Cruces had tether ball. We LOVE tether ball. (the word tether looks weird. You know, that game that TCD's Dog Rocky loves to play... ) We also stole power to charge stuff here. Don't tell anyone. 

Got any questions? I would love to answer them, oh, and, PARTY ON!!!!  (AIR GUITAR)

Me? A TCD Kool Aid drinker?

Guilty as charged.

I definitely drink the Kool Aid. Everyone knows that if TCD says something, it's gospel.

See?!

brilliant! too funny

This picture is painful!!!! I wanna be there too!!

Wow! That video needs to be a commercial for Disney Parks!

Sorry, but that is a trade secret.

It's not hard to do if you bel13ve in magic.

:484grumpy11: :badmood:

The girls had snagged some Space Mountain Fastpasses when they were in the MK that afternoon, and they were good from between 9 and 10.

Good thing they got them.

Check out the stand-by time at 9:56 pm:

In case you're slow, 180 minutes is three hours.

Would anyone in his right mind wait three hours to ride Space Mountain?

Well, there were people getting in the stand-by line.

That danged hidden camera caught us off guard and in a candid pose again:

Whoa Whoa Whoa, This is the second time I've seen this and now I have to ask HOW?!?!?! Two people go in, Three people end up with FastPasses..... Disney Magic?

TMI alert!!

Last year I stayed two sites down from this display and every night on the way to the comfort station this Santa scared the pee out of me when he moved. EVERY NIGHT!!!

I could read a bit more of the label than the photo suggests. There is a phone number there toward the bottom right that I was able to make out. It has a 407 area code, so this piece isn't all that old. I could also read an address in Orlando at the bottom center of the label, and over to the left of that, it says "science for a changing world." What the heck is this?

Well, that phone number is 407-803-5500. If you google that number, this site comes up:

http://fl.water.usgs.gov/index.html

If you take a look at that site, you will find that it belongs to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Florida Water Science Center. And we can see their logo:

To which I say, WTF?

What does the US Government have to do with a canal in Disney World?

My tax dollars at work?

This does explain one thing.

This dam fence definitely seems to be the work of government contractors. Even the dingalings that work at the Fort don't screw up stuff this bad.

So that metal pilgrim hat is probably some kind of government monitoring equipment and not really a metal pilgrim hat.

We are getting closer to solving this mystery.

If anyone wants to read all the government doublespeak on that website and report back, feel free.

oooooh oooh pick me!!!!! They are measuring the flow of the "creeK" to see if there is a drought. Real time. As in they update per hour! So they need the pilgrims to tell them how much water has passed.

Do I get a spike now?

After two week at the Fort its laundry day I’m helping dad as my sis sleeps on the couch

Ummmmm does the owner of those under_things know you just posted them all over the InterWeb? :bugeyes:

this Pic made me come out of lurk-dom and pick something to snack on....

I choose... I choose.... I choose..... ARG! I can't decide..... I'll have to let the people behind me in line go first.....

:wave1: hi DVC camper..... great minds think alike

In the Space Mountian pic, it looks like Twin #1 is signing the word 'help'. Appropriate since she's about to plummet into space! (I can understand the turkey but as an ASL interpreter, my brain automatically sees signs lol)

Hey, me too!

TCD, thank for the continuous trip reports, I love it! I was just at the Fort and was looking for you everywhere!

I love it! I am for sure getting some hammock time this trip. 4 sleeps, only 4 more sleeps!!! then 4 days driving! so does that make 8 days for me? anyways soon soon! hammock time for me!!! Warm weather please! :worship:

If you stay home alone with your kids, you can for sure do vacation with them!

The only tricky part I see would be using the comfort station. Going as a group would be the best but tricky to schedule. I think jumping in the pool counts as a shower when you are camping.

I say just make sure you have plans in place to feel safe ie: Do you have a trailer that the oldest can stay in and be safe if needed? Do you have cell phones or radios for them to carry so you can keep track of everyone? Set some clear rules about not wandering off alone... etc.

I think you will have a blast

Carie, single mom who would not travel if she could not travel alone... with kids... always.... :jumpforjoy towing, about 1,000 miles...

Thanks for the tip!! I tried to book in Feb for the Princess Half in Feb, and it said it was full....then I tried with the package like you suggested (and for longer days) and wa-la! Availability! Thanks again...will def try this tip again!

I am so glad that worked for you!

I can't believe I came up with something that actually works.....yay! :rofl2:

Credit card.

MUST. HAVE. PATCH!

Worth every penny. And I am typing this as I sit under my awning at the Fort during an afternoon rain shower. I passed the time drinking beer and watching the rain. I'm feeling no pain, and typing on this tiny keyboard on my phone is really difficult!

It RAINS at the Fort?!?!?!?!?!?!?

once again, we're the stupid ones who pay those high amounts for a concrete pad, rusty grill and an odd shaped picnic table that none of our tablecloths will fit. But we keep coming back. I wish I was as smart as Disney....lol

and to have my own bed, not have to pay parking, a cool slide at the pool, the ability for my teens to get around on their own instead of me playing taxi, deer in the morning, armadillos at night, campfire with Chip and Dale and s'mores, riding a boat to the MK, the smell of Meadow trading post that let's you know you are finally home..... all pushed the decision onsite for me... while my wallet screamed.