bobanddenisewanderlust

Saturday- We got the MH ready for travel and ran over to the “Shoppers Paradise” where we both bought belts. We returned to the MH, pulled up the jacks and drove out onto the street to hook up the car.

When Bob checked the traffic, he found that the 303 was closed at Grand Ave. So we ended up driving down Bell Rd. to leave. We had avoided driving on Bell as much as possible, as it is a very busy road with lots of traffic lights.

I pulled into the middle lane and we cruised along. The traffic was very light and I made most of the traffic lights.

Right after Happy Trails RV Park, the road narrowed and we sailed along at 55 miles per hour, as it had changed to the Sun Valley Parkway. From this point, it was 30 miles to I-10, far west of Phoenix.

Usually we take the 303 to I-10, but it is Nascar weekend in Phoenix, and everyone would be in that area, we re-routed to avoid the are near the racetrack.

We turned onto I-10 and drove to Fontana CA. The winds were okay until we arrived in Palm Springs. The area through the ‘wind farm” was pretty windy, but I was able to slow down and we cruised through at 45 mph.

We arrived at about 4, at Alfateers/Leisure Coach Works. We parked and set up for the weekend. The weather was colder, 64 degrees. We are used to 80’s during the day!

We ate dinner, watched recorded TV and went to bed.

Sunday- We went to the Bel Air Swap Meet just south of us in San Bernardino. It was very Hispanic, which did not bother us, but the items were targeting the Hispanic community. We did not stay long.

We continued into downtown San Bernardino. There is no ‘old town’, but we did visit the McDonalds Museum. That is an interesting story. In 1937 brothers Dick and Mac McDonald opened their first restaurant, (The Airdrome) in Monrovia CA, selling hot dogs, orange juice, coffee and tea. In 1940, they moved the restaurant to San Bernardino at 14th and E St., and the restaurant became McDonalds. It was a BBQ restaurant which became a teen hangout, complete with car hops! Dick McDonald realized that the majority of the sales were hamburgers and fries, With the end of WWII, they decided to make a change, and in 1948, they closed the BBQ, re-modeled, and opened selling hamburgers and fries, featuring fast service and 15cent burgers and 10 cent fries.

They had a slow start with the burgers and fries but hung in there. They added milk shakes and sold hundreds each week. This attracted the attention of Ray Kroc, who was a Multi-Mixer salesman.

In 1953, they replaced the old building with  anew restaurant, with two golden arches and a “speedy’ mascot. In 1954 they opened their fourth restaurant, in Downey CA, and remains the oldest McDonalds in the world.

In 1955, Ray Kroc visited #4,  and convinces the brothers to let him franchise McDonalds. Ray Kroc’s first McDonalds was actually the 9th one, but he named it #1. It is the site of the Official McDonalds Museum, which we visited.

BUT, the story continues! In 1958 they  hit 1 million hamburgers sold. In 1961, Ray Kroc convinces the brothers to sell McDonalds to him. They insisted on one million dollars, net, each, so the sale price was 2.7 million. Ray Kroc was not happy when he discovered that the original MdDonalds,, at 1th and E St,  was not included in the sale and he became vindictive.  He made them change the name to ‘Big M” and never spoke to them again.

He then opened his official McDonalds one block north of Big M. The public moved to the new McDonalds and the brothers decided to retire. Then Ray Kroc closed that McDonalds

In 1992 the San Bernardino Civic Light Opera bought the property to preserve it, and since they were a non-profit, the McDonalds corporation recognize the site as a the birthplace of McDonalds.

In 1998, Albert Okura, a big fan of McDonalds, finds out that the Opera is going to be foreclosed on and offered $135,000 for the property. He decided in 1998 to open an unofficial museum of early McDonalds history. He moved his headquarters to the property. The museum is free and is supported by Juan Pollo restaurants and the owner, Albert Okura.

Albert Okura is the founder and owner of Juan Pollo Rotisserie Chicken Chain. So we went to lunch at the Juan Pollo chicken restaurant, about 5 blocks away. It was excellent chicken! AND, Okura started his chair after reading Ray Kroc’s autobiography! Full circle, LOL.

There was not much else to see in San Bernadino, so we stopped at the WinCo, then returned to the MH.

In the afternoon, another Alfa arrived. They made #4. The Canadian gentleman who was driving the MH, had a problem trying to park on the passenger side of our coach. He almost his the passenger mirror, and Bob raced to the horn and honked at him to stop.

He did, and then tried to back into the drivers side. He hit the side of our MH! Actually, he scraped the slide topper. We were not happy! He was making me so nervous, that I was in the bedroom, cringing! Anyway, he is paying to have it repaired, but that was after he cussed out his wife for letting him hit us. She was mad at us, because we were parked there! Huh? We were within the lines and parked nice and straight.

We packed a lot of items in the car in anticipation of moving in the morning.

Monday-  We got up and started more packing, mostly the final stuff. At 8 we went in and met with Jon. We decided on carpeting for the slide and discussed the issues. Jon and Donovan, our service manager, went to the coach and Jon made sure that Donovan understood that we want communication! We also told Jon what had happened and he and Bob spoke with the Canadian guy who is paying for our paint repair.

They were ready for us in about 45 minutes, so we packed the rest of the stuff into the car, including the dogs, and we left to drive south to Menifee. It was an easy, 1 hour drive.

Check-in time at the Wilderness Lakes Thousand Trails was 4 PM for the cabin, but fortunately it was ready. So we were able to move right in. The unit is listed as a handicap cabin, but the only way that it is handicapped is that it has a ramp. There is no way that a wheelchair would fit in here! The cabin is 23ft long. Our MH is 40 ft, so it is almost half as long. It sleeps 4, but it would be tight for 4. It is great for just the two of us.

               

We settled in, ate lunch, walked the dogs, I rode my bike and we sat out enjoying the weather, which had cleared up. it was raining this morning, but in the afternoon, it was bright and sunny.

We ran to the Dollar Tree, which I had hoped to buy a measuring cup. They did not have any. We stopped at Ralph’s for some sandwich meat. We also bought some water, as the water tastes foul here.

We grilled some chicken for dinner and  I ran to my therapeutic massage. This gal was very interesting. She did a good job, but she is kind of wacky. When she was done, she circled a crystal over me. Oh well, we are in California!

We watched TV on a really small TV in our tiny living room..

Tuesday- We had a rough night. The mattress was soft enough, but we both kept rolling to the center of the bed. The bed is up against the wall in the small bedroom, and the dogs decided to sleep near the wall, so it was an interesting night!

At 3:38 AM, there was a truck that stopped and there was door slamming. Whoever it was left at 3:58. and we decided that the people in the cabin next door must have had an issue and that it was maintenance.

When I went to take a shower, I opened the shower door to start the water and the water shot across the room. Trying to take a shower was fun. The water went everywhere except on me. I finally used an plastic glass to collect water to rinse the shampoo out of my hair. Bob had the same problem.

There are several other issues with the cabin, like the fact that the kitchen sink stopper does not work so I had to do dishes in a pot. We needed to go actually grocery shopping, so we stopped at the ranger station. Tim who is in charge of the maintenance for the cabins, was there, so he mad an appointment to meet with us and see our list at 1:30. The reason we always report problems when we rent, is first because we do not want to be blamed for anything and second, when we owned the beach condos, we found that people do not report problems. We arrived one time in Myrtle Beach to find that 1/2 the condo had not electric and it had not been reported for who knows how long….

We continued on to  the Walmart in Hemut ,we where we grocery shopped and bought a lot more water!

Tim arrived promptly. He came with a new shower head, which he installed. He also fixed the light outside and gave us a cover for the kitchen sink drain stopper. He has to get a new stopper, Unfortunately, there is nothing he can do about the mattress.

He is also a TT member, so he stayed and we talked for about an hour and a half. Bob and I settled outside to read and enjoy the 80 degree weather. It started getting hot in the cabin, which we were walking and riding again, and I went to turn on the air conditioner and it did not work.

I rode my bike over and caught up with Tim and the air conditioner tech, who was just leaving. They came over and somehow got it running. They were not sure how, but it works right now.

We grilled some pork chops and ate a nice dinner, watched some TV and worked on where we are going after we pick up the MH. Bob had received  a call from Jon and an email, so we have an estimate. Fortunately, it is less than anticipated.

Wednesday- We realized that we forgot to bring the dogs shot records with us, so we drove up to Fontana to get them from the MH. At the same time we picked up a few other items. Bob discussed the issues with Jon and Donovan. The slide was still in the MH, but they are taking it out this afternoon.

We stopped at Costco on the way back for gas. $2.35, exactly $1.00 per gallon more than in Arizona!

We returned in time to eat lunch and set up the computer for a Thousand Trails webinar. Basically the guy called and talked to us, using slide presentation. He did not try to sell us anything, but basically said that they are aware that all the old timers are unhappy with the direction that the company is going and that is just tough, they want to make money! So it was a waste of time, but oh yea, they really care about us!

I also had to call them because when we tried to make a reservation last evening it the website would not let me because it said we owe money. Huh? So I called. It was because when I cancelled the reservation in Tucson, they charge me a $25 cancellation fee. We don’t pay fees for cancelling more than 24 hours in advance. I had cancelled in February, when we decided we were going back to Alfateers and the reservation was for April 1.

It turns out, that Voyager is not a Thousand Trails park. Huh? It is listed as one in the book and on the website. The worker explained that it is being loaned to Thousand Trails by Encore. I asked how I was supposed to know that. She said that I couldn’t, and she got the fee cancelled. She states that there are not other of these resorts in the system. Hmmm, we will see!

We took a much needed nap. Neither of us are sleeping well on the horrible mattress.Only a week to go!

We grilled some steaks, went to the hot tub for about an hour, watched some TV and went to bed.

Thursday- The alarm went off at 5. We were up and out the door, with the dogs in tow, at 6. We were on our way to Anaheim to the Disney California Adventure.  The drive was supposed to be about 1.5 hours. Of course, it was rush hour, so it took a lot longer.

The GPS kept re-routing us so I don’t even remember the route we took. We arrived, at the parking kiosk. I told the gal we were we were going and that we needed to get the dogs to the kennel. She called whoever to meet us.

We parked and walked the dogs to the bus stop. One of the employees pulled out a crate and told us to sit and wait. A bus pulled up and the driver and the parking employee put the crate in the bus, locked it in place, and told us to bring the dogs into the bus. We put them in the crate. Then they let other riders on the bus. Naturally the dogs were confused and kept a close eye on us, sitting directly across from them.

The bus took us to the entrance, they unloaded the passengers, then we unloaded the dogs and walked them through security. The security folks pointed us to the kennel.

They checked the dogs records and we put them into a small kennel, together. They were not happy, but seemed okay. We were required to return to the dogs every 4 hours to take them out. The employees never touch the dogs. They only make sure that they have a filled water bowl. The room is climate controlled.

We left and bought our tickets. There is no discount for buying online or we would have done that. We had tried and tried to find discount tickets. Disney has now gone with tiered ticketing. Today was the last day of the middle tier. We paid $105 per ticket and tomorrow they go up to $120 per ticket. Last week they were $95, but of course we were not here.  We also paid $20 per dog for boarding and $20  for parking.

We went to the lockers and put our backpack into the locker and put on our sunscreen. We stood in line to enter the park. We went directly to the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror ride.

We waited about 20 minutes in line. The line was 50 minutes by the time we left. The ride was really fun. It is described as the elevator ride of your life! Each time is different, based on computer programming.

We wandered through Buena Vista street,

We rode the Monsters Inc. ride, and the Red Trolly. We wandered through ‘A Bugs Land’. They have a bumper car ride there, but it was nothing like the bumper cars we had ridden as kids. It was much slower and I think that they might have controlled each car’s speed. 

In car land we stopped at the free fast pass kiosk to pick up tickets for the ‘Radiator Springs Racers’.  Unfortunately, our passes were for 4:40 PM, way too late.

The theme for Car Land was of course the ‘Car’ movies, but also Rt. 66.

We walked through the area and stopped to get our picture taken with the Larry the Cable guy truck, ‘Madder’. They take their picture, which went to the app on Bob’s phone, plus they will also take your picture with your camera. This is our picture. Madder was talking the whole time and his face changes.

We arrived at the racers entrance to find that the line was 55 minutes long. Forget that!

We wandered over to Pacific Warf. That is really a restaurant area, with a bakery tour. We decided not to do that as we did not want to be temped with the baked goods.

We walked back over to the kennel, leaving the park. The dogs we very excited to see us but did not do their business. We put them back in their kennel and left to go to lunch back in Pacific Warf at Cocina Cucamonga Mexican Grill. Bob had a tamale/taco lunch and I had the Fajita chicken soft tacos.

We rode ‘The Little Mermaid- Ariel’s Undersea Adventure” ride, as there was no line. We just beat the line there, as when we left the line was outside the building.

We wandered into Grizzly Park

and got in line for the Grizzly River Run. The line was listed as about 35 minutes and we kept count. At about 30 minutes, we left through an emergency exit, as we were not even half way through the line. I think next time we might look at purchasing the ‘fast pass’ ticket option.

We went over to Paradise Pier. The line was 75 minutes for the ‘California Screamin’ roller coaster.  We decided not to wait in the line. We did get in line for ‘Mickey’s Fun Wheel’. We decided to do the rocking cars. There are both kind of cars. It is a huge ferris wheel, but more than half rock. We waited in line about 30 minutes. It was fun, with the cage rocking back and forth the whole two times around.

The whole day we had wandered through a the shops. T-shirts were $20-50 dollars. Bob found one he liked, but it only came in kids sizes. So no souvenir.

We wanted to do the Toy Story Midway Mania, but again, the line was 50 minutes and by this time, with all the standing, I was having the buttock pain. I am okay as long as I am sitting or walking, but standing just does me in. Here is Mr. Potato Head, who if you talk to him, will respond. He was quite chatty!

We returned to the kennel and retrieved the dogs. We did the whole process in reverse, except this time we had our own bus. We put them in the car, and they still would not drink. They slept the entire ride home.

The ride was over  2 hours. The GPS kept re-routing us and we still got stuck in traffic, like we did this morning. We stopped in Lake Elsinore, as I had received an email that our mail had arrived, so on the way back, we stopped at the Post Office to pick up our monthly mail .

We arrived back at the resort exhausted. We ate salads for dinner and both fell asleep watching TV.

Friday-  We slept in until almost 7 this morning. We ate breakfast and at 9 went to the Activities office to get change to do the laundry. We lucked out getting to the laundry room early, as there were only 4 machines. So we did the first 4 loads, then 2 more loads. There were 6 dryers, so that was not a problem.

We finished the laundry, then went to Lowes. The dogs seemed to have gotten use to the cabin, as there was no behavior issues when we left. When we were in South Bend, it took them about 5 days before they would not bark when we left. This time is better, they seemed to have adapted quickly.  Bob bought some Allen Wrenches to change my handle bar on my bike

We went to Panera for lunch. I had the Cobb salad and Bob had a flat bread chicken sandwich.

We returned to the MH, walked the dogs, and took a nap. We were up at around 2:30 and went outside to sit and enjoy the beautiful weather. It is dry  and in the 80’s. Bob walked the dogs and I rode my bike around the park. It is Friday and RV’s are coming in constantly.  The weather continues to be nice. Days in the 80’s and evenings in the 50’s. This afternoon it became breezy, so we did not go t the hot tub. We ate dinner and watched TV.

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