Last day

On our last day at the Disneyland Resort, we checked out of the hotel and went to early entry at Disneyland. During early entry, the rides in Fantasyland and Tomorrowland are open an hour before the rest of the park. Once the rest of the park opened, we rode some of the things in Frontierland, Adventureland, and New Orleans Square that we hadn't done yet. It was another beautiful day, and Disneyland was fairly crowded for a weekday in February.

In the afternoon, we spent a lot of time talking to several members of the Dream Squad about how the "Year of a Million Dreams" giveaway worked, about stuff around the resort, and about life in general. They were all really nice. In the evening, we headed north toward home, stopping for the night at Kettleman City. 

The last day of our trip was spent driving. And driving. We left Kettleman City about 9 am, and drove for almost 11 hours straight. After getting stuck for almost an hour in a traffic in Sacramento, we decided not to stop for lunch, and arrived home in the evening. During our trip, we had visited 14 states, driven over 10,000 miles, and completed over 40 Junior Ranger programs.

Around the Resort

We slept in too late Saturday morning to make it to early entry at Disneyland, so we hit California Adventure instead. It was a beautiful day in the park. We caught the High School Musical Pep Rally and watched Golden Dreams, and rode some rides. The kids enjoyed an encounter with a talking, moving trash can. Then we took a break at the hotel for a bit before heading to a late lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. After that we headed back to the hotel for a scavenger hunt. We were named the "Grand Family" of the day, and were awarded a trip to the Concierge Lounge for free deserts, storytelling, and fireworks viewing.

This morning we were at the Grand Californian Hotel gate into California Adventure before it opened, and a cast member let us be the first guests in the park. We rode Soaring over California all by ourselves. After that we walked over to Disneyland, and went on Small World and Roger Rabbit, and walked around Toontown. We then took the train to the front, and headed back to the hotel. We ate lunch at Storytellers Cafe and went on a tour of the hotel, learning about the arts and crafts influences in it. The kids went for a swim, and then we headed back into Disneyland for a few rides.

Montezuma Castle

Thursday morning we visited Montezuma Castle National Monument. The "castle" is a 5 story pueblo structure built in the 12th and 13th century by a tribe of native Americans called the Sinagua, but abandoned by the 15th century. It was named by Spanish explorers who named it after the famous Aztec king, even though he had no connection to it. The site had a small visitor center with some displays about the Sinagua and how they built the structure. It took the kids about a half an hour to complete the Jr Ranger program by looking at the exhibits, and then we walked out to view the ruins, which took about 15 minutes. We then drove to Palm Springs to meet some friends for dinner, and stayed the night there.

After breakfast in Palm Springs, we finished our journey westward by driving to the Disneyland Resort, where we checked into the Grand Californian Hotel. We took the monorail into Disneyland, rode a couple of rides (mostly in Tomorrowland), worked on VMK quests, and watched the parade. We headed back to the room fairly early, so we could get up the next morning for early entry.

Painted Desert

It had started snowing as we pulled into the campground in Grants, so on Wednesday morning we waited a few hours to let the snow melt before heading out on I40 over the continental divide. As they had in Oklahoma, many little stores along this stretch of the interstate had signs advertising that they had once been on Route 66. I found it funny that they put such emphasis on being on a road that people used primarily just to get through this area, rather than the fact that they were now just off a road that people now use just to get through the area. Originally, we had planned to stop at El Morro NM, and some of the NP sites around the Flagstaff, Arizona area. However, with forecasts of snow and below freezing temperatures in the Flagstaff area, we thought it best to forgo those and try to get down to lower ground south of Flagstaff for the night.

We did stop at the northern visitor center for the Petrified Forest National Park, where we watched a movie about the park and the kids earned Junior Ranger badges. The southern part of the park is where the petrified forests are located, while the northern section is noted for its views of the painted desert to the north. We would have loved to travel the length of the park, but decided we needed to push on through Flagstaff, so we just drove out a few miles to the painted desert overlook. It was a good thing we didn't take the extra time, because as we approached Flagstaff around dinner time, snow began falling. We crawled along for almost an hour through a minor blizzard before we got down low enough and far enough south that the snow turned to rain. We stopped in Camp Verde for the night.