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Saturday, November 26, 2016

A November to Remember

Time to step it up a bit here.  I am 9 days behind on memories and so I'm going to try and catch up a bit in this post.

Cherished Memory #19 - Road trip to Disneyland with my roommate, Debbie.

We were in our mid-twenties and we decided to take a road trip to LA and see Disneyland, Universal Studios, the Hollywood Wax Museum and visit my cousin, Tony, who was going to UCLA at the time.

We planned things in advance, making reservations at a couple of different hotels since we were going to be gone for a week and were traveling to different parts of town.  We used her car and started the trip.  We took turns driving and as we got closer to LA it was my turn.  First adventure, I got a ticket for speeding (or riding too long in the fast lane, which I didn't know was a bad thing, or something silly like that).  We made it to Disneyland.  Two wild and crazy girls.




Star Trek
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Next stop was the Hollywood Wax Museum...Star Trek must have been pretty popular.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Then came Universal Studios.  The big attraction was Jaws and I remember sitting on the water side of the tour trolley.  I got a good scare when the shark came jumping out of the water at me!  I'm pretty sure we went to Knott's Berry Farm as well but I don't have any pictures from there.   Same thing with Hollywood and Vine and Grauman's Chinese Theater.  I know we saw the stars on the Walk of Fame but for some reason I have no pictures.  Kinda bummed about that.  
I think it was about this time that we changed hotels.  We had reservations at a hotel but got it into our heads that we might be able to save some money by picking a different one.  Not knowing the area very well, we found a hotel that was cheaper than the one we had our reservations at and decided to give it a try.  Adventure #2 - We used a Traveler's Check to pay for the room and when they gave us the key and we went in, it was such a sleazy place!  I think it might have been one of "those" hotels!  At any rate, we immediately decided we didn't want the room and asked for our money back.  We went to the hotel where we had made our original reservations and were definitely glad we did.  We had to make a slight detour in our plans to go to the bank to try and get the money back for our Traveler's check, which fortunately we were able to do.  

Last stop was to see my cousin, Tony.  He was either a freshman or sophomore I think and was sharing an apartment with a couple of other guys.  It was nice to see him and we went out to a restaurant down the street for dinner.  We made the trip home without any more tickets.  I'm sorry I didn't get more pictures but at least I have the Cherished Memory!  


Cherished Memory #20 -- Another road trip, some years earlier than the one to Disneyland above.  This one was a trip to Carmel with my girlfriend from high school, Margie.  It must have been about 1974.   Unfortunately, I have NO pictures from this trip.  Here's a picture of us from our 40th high school reunion. 



I can remember it well, though.  We stayed at this really neat hotel that had an indoor swimming pool.  We cruised downtown and went to a movie, The Great Gatsby.  




OMG Robert Redford is such a hunk!  It was a great movie and I cried at the end.   
We also went into Carmel and ate at the Hogs Breath Inn, Clint Eastwood's restaurant.  



Unfortunately, he wasn't working that night - LOL.  I can remember it being such a relaxing, fun experience.  I think I need to do some fun road trips like that again!  

How about you?  Any fun road trips?  Experiences in sleazy hotels?  Meet any celebs?  Love to hear about it. 



   






4 comments:

  1. I remember that trip..we were oh, so grown up! It was very fun to get away and "practice" being an adult. We weren't 21 yet, that I do know...

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    1. Yeah, I don't think we were able to drink at the Hog's Breath but I still remember it being kind of expensive. Do you have pictures?

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  2. We went to Disneyland when I was 11 and stayed at the Disneyland Hotel. Not exactly a sleazy place, but not what you'd expect at those prices.

    Re "The Great Gatsby": I liked the book better than the movie, and I didn't like the book much. Might have had something to do with having to read it in junior year of high school and getting into a discussion about why Gatsby wore a pink suit. I wasn't really popular for suggesting it was because his purple one was at the cleaners...

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    1. LOL, John, I wondered about the pink suit myself but truthfully, I wasn't really looking at his clothes :) He is one of my all time faves.

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I'd love to hear your thoughts!