The only problem was that we didn’t get enough back for all of us to fly out to California, and then rent a car for the whole week. I knew we should have had more kids. So we decided to pile all six of us into the Honda Odyssey minivan, and head west for a nine day adventure. God help us.
So we all jumped in the van last Friday, full of enthusiasm. This was our first big vacation together, and we were all fired up. Here we are right before we took off.
Sterner family, ready to rock and roll
In the front is Sam on the left- 12, and Mike-13. That's Annie next to Sam (she says none of your goddamn business on the age), and Captain Stubing above Mike. The top row is Ben-8, and finally Lauren- 4. From now on Lauren will be only be identified as “The Girl”. You’ll see why as we progress.
In order to tell this saga correctly, I think I’ll break it down into the different locations we traveled to as the week went on. We could have gotten to California sooner if we had spent more time daily in the car, but we didn’t want to coop the kids up for too long, especially The Girl. Plus we weren’t really pressed for time, so we went at a fairly leisurely pace.
So like I said all week, buckle up kids, we’re headed for Disneyland!
Friday, July 19- Richfield Utah
This was our longest leg of the trip (seven hours), but we thought it would be okay, since it was the first day. We bought some of those portable DVD players for the kids, so they could watch movies and leave me the hell alone.
The Hampton Inn had a decent pool, which turned out to be a huge factor as the week went on. We could have left The Girl at that pool for the whole nine days, gone to California without her, and I think she would have been perfectly happy. In retrospect, we should have done that.
Isn't she just precious? Tell you what, if you have $4.95 on you, she's all yours
Richfield doesn’t exactly rock on a Friday night, but we found a restaurant. Three of us had what they described as prime rib, but we never were sure what species of animal it was. One of us would pay the ultimate price for that dinner the next morning.
Saturday, July 20- Las Vegas, Nevada
We had just a four hour jaunt to Vegas, so we took off at around 10:00. I thought this would be the ugliest part of the trip, being mostly desert. I was wrong. That would be coming the next day.
About halfway there, one of my boys (I promised I wouldn’t say which one) had a sudden, severe intestinal reaction to the prime rib of yak from the previous night. I said, “No problem. I’ll just pull off at the next rest stop, and you can take care of it there.”
He said, “No, dad. Now.” He had urgency in his voice, and, by coincidence, in his bowels. Uh,oh…
So I skidded to a halt near some tall brush, and he was out of the van before the wheels stopped turning. He grabbed the roll of toilet paper that Annie had stolen from the hotel in a terrific instinctive mom move, and made a beeline for the brush. He was in such a hurry, he lost both of his sandals about halfway to the vegetation, and didn’t come back to pick them up. He returned five minutes later, feeling much better after serving up a hearty helping of “ass soup” for the local desert wildlife.
I’ll bet a pack of coyotes happened upon that scene later on, looked at each other, and said “Jesus Christ, that’s nasty. Did you do that?”
Anyway, we drove into Vegas without further incident, and checked in at the Orleans Hotel and Casino. We thought the kids might enjoy seeing the Strip, and riding the great roller coaster at the New York, New York. Plus we’d be able to barricade the kids in the room at bedtime, and then Annie and I could go downstairs and play our favorite game, Pai Gow Poker.
Believe it or not, it’s a little warm in Vegas in late July. In fact, as my dad likes to say, “It’s hotter than two cats fucking in a sock”. Now, your doughy little pal doesn’t function very well in the heat, which was around 106. And if you even think about uttering anything about dry heat, I’ll punch you in the gonads, even if you don’t have any. Dry heat, my chafed ass. It was hot.
So we hit the giant pool at the Orleans for awhile so The Girl would stop bugging us about it, and then got the roller coaster ride in, which the big kids really enjoyed. Then we headed over to see the pirate show at the Treasure Island. After waiting in the early evening heat for almost an hour, we were told that the show was cancelled because of high winds that would affect the boats. We looked up and the flags were barely moving. We decided they didn’t feel like performing, and gave us a bullshit excuse. Goddamn lazy pirates.
This would not be the last time that we got screwed because of some kind of incident like this. More to come later on.
Then my older boys got a whole new experience while we walked along the Strip. There are these maggots all over the place that hand out cards that have a mostly naked girl on them, and a phone number where you can call to get a “date”. Well, I guess they thought my kids were old enough to do the Wild Thing, because they kept trying to hand them cards. Real sweet family town, that Las Vegas.
We decided to call it a night and head back to the room. Annie and I went down to the casino, slammed three Long Island Iced Teas apiece, and got bitch-slapped playing Pai Gow for an hour and a half.
All in all, though, not that bad of a day. Ass Soup boy may disagree.
Sunday, July 21- Anaheim, California
We caught a decent break on Sunday in Vegas, because when we left, there was actually some cloud cover and it was only around 93 outside. So we decided to stop off at the Buffalo Bill’s Casino at Primm, Nevada, right on the border, and ride another big, famous, roller coaster.
But when we got there, the goddamn coaster was shut down all day for repairs. That was twice in two days we got boned by technical difficulties, but we figured we could maybe ride it on the way back through the following Friday. So we loaded ourselves back in the van for the five hour trip to Anaheim.
I had never driven this stretch of highway before, and I wasn’t prepared for two things. First, this maybe was the ugliest country I had ever seen (and I’m from Wyoming, for Christ’s sake), and second, California drivers are the craziest sons of bitches in the world.
Vegas to Barstow is around 200 miles, and features nothing but desert. And, to throw in another of my dad’s sayings, it’s “uglier than a sack full of assholes”. (Writers note: Much of the reason that I’m a warped little bastard is because of my dad. But that’s an article for another day.)
We hit the California border around noon, and I was sure that we would beat the traffic going back to Los Angeles from Vegas. I was a tiny bit incorrect on that last part.
I-15 is two lanes in that stretch, and the speed limit is 70. For that whole time, the highway traffic was what I would compare to Denver at around three in the afternoon. Not quite jammed, but certainly not open. Plus there was a lot of stop-and-go traffic.
Now, California drivers are divided into two groups- those that go 50 MPH, and those that go 95. There is no in between. And the 50 group has no problem being in the fast lane. So that means the 95’s spend their time weaving in and out of traffic like friggin’ maniacs, they wedge themselves into tiny spaces between cars, and then slam on their brakes.
I’d like to think that I’m an experienced driver, but I don’t mind telling you that I was scared shitless for about three hours. I couldn’t keep a safe distance back from the car in front of me, because one of those 95 dickheads would pull into that space. And then we would go from 70 to stop for no apparent reason.
I felt the same way as I do when I’m trying to drive on icy highways here at home: ass clenched, just waiting for something bad to happen.
Well, something bad happened about 100 miles from Barstow. There was an RV pulling a “fifth wheel” trailer two car-lengths ahead of us, in the right lane. Then one of those jackrabbits in another truck, trying to weave his way through, changed lanes too quickly from the left to the right, and hit the trailer, knocking it off the hitch.
Now the trailer, with nothing pulling it but still doing around 60, started weaving back and forth across the highway, totally out of control. Then, just to make things interesting, the bastard caught on fire. I suppose that it was the sparks that it generated when the trailer hitch was scraping the highway that set it ablaze.
This was not good. If there was a big propane tank on this missile, it could explode like the Challenger.
Everybody hit their brakes hard, and finally the Flaming Trailer of Death took a hard right and crashed into the desert. My kids all said, “Wow dad, that was cool!” I may have agreed if my heart wasn’t beating like a hummingbird.
Welcome to California, Sterner family. Enjoy your week.
Once we got past that, and through Barstow, it went a little better the rest of the way to Anaheim. The highway expanded into four lanes, we got out of the goddamn desert, and except for a pretty good jam when we hit Orange County, we got to the hotel without any more problems. Well, Annie had to borrow a screwdriver to pry my hands off the steering wheel after we parked, but that was the only thing.
So it was four o’clock, and we were settled in at the Staybridge Suites for the next four days. Naturally, The Girl wanted to hit the swimming pool first, so we did that for an hour. I noticed straightaway that the pool water was weenie-shrinking cold, and it would stay that way the whole time we were there. I determined right there that between the drivers and their frigid swimming pools, California was trying to give me a heart attack.
After that, we grabbed a bite to eat, and got ready for a quick evening trip to Disneyland. We had passes for three days, so this was kind of a bonus night for us, in order to get an idea of where to go on Monday when we would really hit it hard.
But boys and girls, nothing could really prepare us for the experience that is Disneyland.
Coming next time in part two: SFG almost gets removed from the Magic Kingdom, Los Angeles traffic sucks donkey balls, and a day trip to Sea World turns into a day trip to Hell.
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