WCRT - Day 4 - Vegas !

We hit the road early for the thrilling ride through the Mojave desert to Vegas.


If you ever feel the need to exposure your kids to half naked women and chain smokers you need to book a trip to Vegas - pronto.


We pulled into our hotel (The Excalibur) late afternoon and I went over to meet the rest of the Bachelor Party group at the ESPN restaurant at the New York New York. I left the group after the first bottle of Jack Daniels was polished but before things got too interesting. I am way passed my prime.

WCRT - Day 3

It was a bright and sunny day here in Southern California. The morning was spent taking care of some housekeeping items. I went up the road to the Burbank airport to swap my car and then brought my daughter to the CVS Minute Clinic to have her ear checked out (she was in some pain last night). Turns out she does have an ear infection and we were able to get some anti-biotic. Those Minute Clinics are pretty cool - it was great to be able to get our problem resolved quickly on a Sunday morning. Looking forward to the government stepping in - so we can get the long lines and inefficient service of every other government run operation.

Our hotel has a very liberal definition of 'heated pool'. This has not stopped my youngest son from taking a dip each day. Not surprisingly he has had the pool to himself.

The afternoon was spent trolling Hollywood Blvd with the rest of the tourists. Some of the kids favorite stars.

We then headed down to the Staples Center to watch the Clippers take on our Celtics. It was a great game with a disastrous ending for the good guys. A good time was had by all....

Off to Vegas tomorrow....

WCRT - Day 2

Our hotel (Hilton) is directly across the parking lot from Universal Studios - so we are able to walk over to the park. After breakfast at the hotel - the kids were anxious to get going over to the park.

We had an awesome day at the park and were able to take a afternoon break back at the hotel. Here are the highlights:

Favorite Ride: "Ay Carumba!" The Simpsons Ride. A virtual thrill ride. The added benefit is that the show Simpsons clips while waiting in line. Close second was the Mummy ride.

Demographics: "Toto were not in Kansas anymore". Southern California is quite the melting pot and it is a bit odd being an American Caucasian and in the minority. Large numbers of Mexican, Indian and Japanese at the park.

Crowds: "Every crowd has a silver lining" The crowds were very reasonable and looking at the vast queue system that was setup for most rides - I can't fathom the waits at some of rides during peak times. I think the longest we waited is 40 minutes for a ride.



Weather: "There is no such thing as bad weather - just different kind of weather". Despite my best efforts - not exactly t-shirts and shorts weather. I think I was one of three people wearing shorts at the park. Certainly an improvement over New England weather. Our kids were amused at all the kids playing with the fake snow they manufactured around the Grinch Christmas tree.

Biggest Mistake: “I went to a restaurant that serves 'breakfast at any time'. So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance.” Going to dinner at Hard Rock Cafe at 8:00 (11pm Boston time). The kids were beat and really had no appetite. So we paid alot of money for our kids to push food around their plate for 45 minutes and look at memorabilia from bands they do not know.

WCRT - Day One

Christmas Day ! The kids let us sleep until after 7am - so that is a victory. The gift mahem was over by 9 am and I was then broke out my new waffle maker. The focus then turned to packing and prep for our trip.

Our non-stop flight to LAX was uneventful. We bought our two youngest new games for their Nintendo DS units in the hope this would buy us a few hours of entertainment on the flight. The actual entertainment time was about 10 minutes. Although seeing a few other families with the strollers and car seats made me thankful of my relatively easy travel gig.

The only safu was Budget did not have the size rental car we reserved - so we had to jam into a smaller vehicle. I will need to rectify that later.

We made it to our hotel outside Universal Studios without incident. Everybody was pretty tired - as it was 1 AM Boston time when we finally made it to our final destination.

West Coast Road Trip (WCRT)

My college buddy Brad is tying the knot on January 2nd in San Diego - so we thought that was a good excuse to tour Southern California/Nevada.

The original plan was to start in AZ and work our way around to Vegas,LA and then San Diego. That was before I realized that I am not currently retired or independently wealthy. I also discovered the drop-off charge for the rental car is more than I paid for my first car.

So now the plan goes something like this....

LA (3 nights)
Vegas! (3 nights)
San Diego (3 nights)
LA (3 nights).

Should be fun.