Maybe it won't be the last trip. Maybe that's just me being dramatic. Let's call it "the last journey across the Mojave Desert that I want to make for the rest of my 30s." I really hate that drive.
Originally, we planned to arrive on Jan 1 and stay until Jan 4. Usually we stay three nights, and the first night we arrive quite late so we'll be "in position" and rested for the first day in the parks, the next day.
However, after pricelining three nights at the Holiday Inn on Manchester (another notch in the new hotel experiences), I realized that the very last time I wanted to drive from Las Vegas to Southern California was on January 1, with all those Californians heading home after their big night of partying. Shudder deluxe.
So, on New Year's Eve, Mike suggested we just leave early. We consulted the Priceline oracle and it delivered a night at the Doubletree Orange. Ta da. We dropped off library books and stool samples (Mike is fine, by the way) and hit the road.
The drive is more pleasant in the dark. You can't as easily see how you're not there yet.
The Doubletree greeted us with the traditional warm cookies and was very pleasant.
We went out to find some food and, it being New Year's Eve and after 10, were not doing very well in that department. (We couldn't go to the parks because December 31st is a blackout day for everyone except the Premium passholders.) Eventually we ended up in a Vons on Chapman whose size hasn't changed since 1955. No one spoke English except the manager, who was running a register, probably because no one wants to work on party night. Our room at the Doubletree had a fridge and a microwave, so we shopped with that in mind.
Back in the room, we watched Vegas Vacation and chatted about who-remembers-what, and I think it was around 1 a.m. that Mike noticed that it was 2008. Oops. Happy new year!
Then we slept obnoxiously late (the Doubletree has an excellent checkout time of noon), got our gear together, and checked out.
While rolling around, watching TV, and gabbing away the end of 2007, we also looked through the fistfuls of brochures I'd brought up from the lobby. They were the sameold-sameold, but in one guide I noticed ads for two (two!) Indian buffets. MMMMMmm!
This was our wedding anniversary, and my aunt and her family had very nicely and unexpectedly given us a wedding gift in the form and funds to be used on a nice meal. Now here were these two Indian restaurants, priced so we could go to both. And one of them was literally right across the street from Disneyland, in the Ramada on Harbor and Katella. Free and easy parking, too. Fate!
So it was off to Gandhi, which was delicious. Mike is undergoing culinary spiritual ascension here:
They bring the nan fresh to your table, regular or garlic. The spread isn't as big as Tamba on the Strip, and they don't have pappadums (sp), but they had everything else we needed to be giddy. Pakora? Check. Basmati? Check. Kadhi or korma or a similar cream sauce? Check. Dal? Check. Paneer? CHECK!!
Mike and I both love the paneer. Even as I type this, I'm thinking of getting up and eating some cruddy foil packaged ready-made Indian just so I can have that wonderful cheese-in-spicy-sauce experience. Or maybe today I will make some paneer. All you need is milk and lemon juice and a cheesecloth. Or maybe I will write a 40-stanza poem about paneer, all in rhyme royal. All of these things are possible. Mmm. Paneer.
And also, mmm. Gulab jamun for dessert.
After this wonderful meal (thank you Aunt Donna, Uncle Richard, Emily, and Z.), a meal you should leave Disneyland to go eat if given the chance, we decided that it still wasn't time to go to the parks. Because, if we went to the parks now, then we'd have to leave later to check in to the Holiday Inn. (I can't believe we were going to a HI. My youth! It returns!) But, if we waited two hours, we could check in to the hotel then go to the parks and stay until closing.
So, we drove around. We drove down Katella and saw not only the other Indian buffet but another Indian buffet. That's three! Three! Then we found Tustin and looked for the Cost Plus World Market that we'd looked up in the phone book the night before. There we got the Bundaberg ginger beer from Australia that is so spicy and cane-sugary and gingery that I just want to cry when I drink it because I know it won't last forever.
Still with time to kill, we headed in the other direction and decided to look for the Pacific Ocean without using a highway. After the previous night's drive, not being on a highway for awhile was very important to me. Not being on an L.A.-area highway when, for all I know, it's like Las Vegas and traffic jams start at 1:30 in the afternoon, was especially important.
We drove down (and through) Garden Grove, saw "Koreatown," hooked a left down the promisingly named "Beach Boulevard," passed through Westminster where half (but only half) of the businesses have embraced a Tudor theme, and then there we were, Surf City USA: Huntington Beach.
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