On Wednesday Feb 11th, we had a VERY short drive to our next hotel near Disneyland. We could have just stayed in Redondo Beach and commuted, but we decided to move a bit closer and avoid potential traffic and longer days. We arrived early and headed to Downtown Disney to start the immersion into all things Disney (which actually started on Monday with our tour!). We walked around and did a little shopping, and then headed to our hotel for an early check-in. The rest of the day was taken up with grocery shopping and laundry, the necessities of a long trip.

Thursday we headed to Disney California Adventure, home to Pixar Pier, Cars Land, Avengers Campus, and more. As is always true of Disney, the theming is incredible. Each land is distinctive and so true to its inspiration. Grizzly Peak is modeled after National Parks, from signage to lush trees. Cars Land and “radiator springs” resembles Monument Valley (they call it “ornament valley”), and houses the absolute best ride, “Radiator Springs Racers”. It’s similar to Test Track at EPCOT, with unbelievable scenery at every turn. Just a wow ride, so glad we experienced it! Some of the attractions have counterparts in Orlando, and others do not…we did a mix of both. One thing that’s immediately apparent with this park is how small it is – there’s not all that much land in Anaheim and Disney has tried to cram in as much as possible in a small space. There were lots of special things going on as part of a month-long Lunar New Year celebration, too. Just a really fun park that absolutely lives up to Disney standards!

Take a minute to read how they’ve named all the rock layers to fit Cars Land – brilliant!

On Friday, we went to the original Disneyland, which is about halfway through their “Celebrate Happy” 70^th Anniversary celebration. It’s incredible to think about how Walt Disney dreamed this up and found a way to build it in just one year, opening in July 1955. The park is decked out with 70^th anniversary décor and merch everywhere you turn. We spent an afternoon at Disneyland several years ago, so it wasn’t completely new for us, but not nearly as familiar as Magic Kingdom. We enjoyed a bunch of rides that are unique to Disneyland, or have the same name but are very different from their Orlando counterpart. Again, the park is pretty small, so it seemed very crowded although it was probably a relatively quiet day. We managed to spend about nine hours at the park enjoying a truly magical Disney day!

I think this is my favorite photo from the day…

Saturday was another travel day, to our final destination near Palm Springs. It’s another short drive, so we stopped at the Richard Nixon Presidential Museum & Library which is about 20 miles East of Anaheim, in Yorba Linda, CA. We were both curious how the museum would handle Watergate, and they definitely tackled it head-on. The intro movie starts with the story of Watergate, and then moves backward through time, and the museum is arranged somewhat similarly, with the story of his childhood and early years saved for the final galleries. It was well done and informative. Nixon’s birthplace and childhood home sits on the property, and it was interesting to tour that, as well. We’ve now been to almost all of the Presidential Libraries – just the two Bush libraries remain, both in Texas.

We arrived at our Airbnb in Morongo Valley around 4:30pm; the location is about halfway between our two key destinations here – Joshua Tree National Park and the city of Palm Springs. It’s a rustic place but perfect for the last four nights of our trip!

On Sunday, we ventured out to Joshua Tree National Park, about 30 minutes East of us. From the moment we stepped foot in the visitors’ center, we could tell it was going to be a very busy day at the park – a Sunday, and part of a holiday weekend, no less. The park is named for the tree that dots the landscape and is native to the Mojave Desert. I’ve always found them to be such an interesting and unique tree…did you know that Joshua Trees do not have rings, so they measure the age based on the height of the tree (they grow about one foot per decade) and the branching patters? In addition to the trees, there are massive rock formations throughout the park, caused by volcanic activity. The shapes and cracks are fascinating.

We spent two hours on a special ranger-led tour of “Keys Ranch”, an area of the park where Bill Keys and his family lived and made their living from 1917 until 1969. It’s been preserved by the National Park Service since 1969, and is a fascinating look at life in the desert.

That makes 27 National Parks we’ve visited, and this one is definitely in my top 10 – I loved it!

Monday was a pretty quiet day because it actually rained most of the day – so here we are, in the desert, dealing with rain for the first time on this trip. In the desert. So weird! We did have an architecture tour booked, and fortunately, the rain held off until near the end of that tour. It was just five of us, in a mini-van with a guy who is extremely knowledgeable about Palm Springs and the “desert modernist” architecture that dominates the area, and it was a fascinating tour. We learned so much about the city’s history, its many famous residents, and we saw such an interesting variety of homes.

Fortunately, the weather cleared up and Tuesday was a beautiful day! There was snow at the higher elevations overnight, so we were treated to a nice view of snow-capped mountains as we drove toward downtown Palm Springs to see a few things we didn’t catch on Monday.

Palm Springs has their own “walk of fame” that honors people who have lived in the Palm Springs area…

From there, we headed to Indian Canyons which sits on a Cahuilla Indian Reservation just South of Palm Springs. We hiked the Andreas Canyon loop trail and it was absolutely wonderful! It’s an oasis, with water running through it and it is one of the largest California fan palm oases. It’s surrounded by massive rock formations, making for beautiful scenery along the entire hike. It was just over a mile and we enjoyed all of it!

Wednesday morning, we packed up and headed to the Palm Springs airport for our 11am direct flight to Chicago. The drive to the airport was interesting…several roads were flooded after overnight rain, and it was VERY windy. Well, that wind was so bad that our inbound plane could not land in Palm Springs. We watched the flight tracker as it circled the airport again and again, and finally, we watched it head West to LAX – it was diverted. Ugh. United said the plane would be coming to Palm Springs eventually, but they didn’t know when, so there was no timetable for when we might actually leave. Mark and I weighed our options – wait for the unknown, take a flight later in the day that had a connection in Denver, or spend one more night and fly out at 7am on Thursday, direct to Chicago. We chose the last option…the Palm Springs airport is incredibly small with very few food options, so sitting at the airport all day was not particularly interesting to us, and the flight with the connection wasn’t going to arrive in Chicago until really late…plus connections always add more opportunities for issues. So, we got rebooked on the 7am Thursday flight, finally retrieved our checked bags, booked a hotel in downtown Palm Springs, and got an Uber to take us there. I guess there are worse places to be ‘stranded’ for an extra day! We’re fortunate to have the flexibility to stay an extra day – many others on our flight were scrambling to get to Chicago or their final destination…lots of missed connections! We’ve been delayed in the RV because of wind, and now in the air, too!

I went for a walk around town and enjoyed some more of the architecture, and we walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner; it was an early night since we had to get up around 5am, get an Uber back to the airport, and try it all again. Success! No wind, no delays, no issues – we even arrived in Chicago about 30 minutes early.

And that wraps up our time in “Hollywood’s Playground”…and it also wraps up this incredible trip! It’s been three weeks full of fun and interesting days – it’s hard to even remember all that we’ve done! It was a long time to be traveling without the RV – we missed having our own comfy pillows and mattress and a kitchen with everything we need, but we managed really well and only ate dinner out seven times in three weeks – not too shabby! I got pretty creative with cooking meals with limited supplies, and we did not go hungry. And we did enjoy that getting to/from our destination took hours and not days or weeks. But I missed RoVer Too!