It's all over but the credit card bills.....day 20

7:00 AM - Oh not a great night of sleep, but we made it through a night at Super 8 without being murdered in our sleep so that's a win. The free breakfast doesn't look or smell appealing so we head to Denny's for breakfast.

Yes, you read that right, Denny's was the higher quality option.

After breakfast consisting of the usual Denny's options (lots of half decent food, more than most humans could eat), we're back in the car and headed home.

The drive home is fairly uneventful. Tracey is crazy tired so I take over for her for the lousy part of the trip; through Tacoma and Seattle. They really need to do something about the traffic. I mean, I get it is bad at rush hour, but it's 3 PM on a Saturday for chrissake.

Five lanes of traffic, and I can't get by them. I haven't seen a line like that since the Washington Redskins 'Hogs' of the 1980's. 

After we get through there, nothing of note until we get to Bellingham. We stop at Fred Meyer, not far from the Bellingham airport, to pick up a few things that we can't get at home..... and holy crap, they have really upgraded that store! Their wine section (yes I know, like we need MORE wine) has gone from average to INCREDIBLE. They have Opus One! Opus One in Fred Meyer!!!

Hey, it's $6 cheaper here than it was at the winery?!?!? Hmm I wonder if I should get another bottle?

Tracey shoots that idea down pretty quickly. We do pick up a couple bottles of her favorite Chardonnay though and head back to the car to finish our trip. Really not sure exactly what to expect at the border, I've heard some horror stories about trying to bring wine across the border at Sumas.

6:30 PM - We arrive at the border and declare our wine. The guard couldn't be any friendlier, but he informs us we do have to go in and pay a bit of duty and tax on our wine. He says it might be "quite a bit". Hmm that doesn't sound good.

We get inside and organize our receipts so that we know which four bottles we are claiming as exempt and which 11 bottles we will have to pay duty on. We get helped out by another very friendly gentleman who calculates our amount owing at only $75! That's about 1/3 of what I expected, so we head over to the cashier and happily pay them what we owe. The cashier is ANOTHER very friendly guy. Best experience I've ever had at any border, ever. What a difference good, friendly service makes, even at the border. I get that they have a tough job, and it's nice when they can still be pleasant to deal with.

7:00 PM - Home and sooooo tired, but satisfied after a terrific vacation.

Thus ends The Amazing Vacation Blog (TM), 2014 edition. Thanks for reading, and I hope you had a chuckle or two (maybe even three!).

The Amazing Vacation Blog (TM), Day 18 and 19

That's right, true believers, two blog entries for the price of one! And if the price you paid for this blog entry was anything other than zero, you might be crazy.

Thursday, September 25th - Our 10th wedding Anniversary

9:30 AM - Heading out the door, leaving our resort on our way back to Disneyland, which is the only place on Earth we should be celebrating our 10th Anniversary.

This resort had some good points and some bad points. I've already mentioned some of these, but here are a couple more. The good:

The view from our patio. A lovely view of the mountains (what passes for mountains here, anyway) and a golf course. A lovely place to sit and enjoy some wine and relax. Except for this....the bad:

So that chair in the foreground is mine. The other two are our neighbors'. Yes, behind that flimsy excuse for a wall, is our neighbors' patio. Those of you reading this know me pretty well, do I seem like the kind of guy who wants a couple of blue-haired neighbors sitting 2 feet away from me, hearing and seeing everything they say and do? No, didn't think so.

Oh, if you ARE the type of person who would enjoy that, let me know what time the kumbaya sing-along is, I'll be sure to book a colonoscopy for that day....or something more painful.


11:00 AM - Back at Disneyland and checked into the Disneyland Hotel, but of course our room isn't ready so we drop off the luggage and hit the park. It's a freaking zoo in the park today, so we only hit one ride, Pirates of the Caribbean, and do some shopping and say goodbye to the Happiest Place on Earth. It's truly special to us, and there is nowhere I would rather be.

Since we probably still have a few hours until we get our room, we hit the pool. This is actually our first time in this particular pool; the last time we stayed in this hotel it was winter and not really appropriate poolin' weather. It's another hot one today, though, so some pool time is just what the doctor ordered.

4:00 PM - Up to our room. Wow, it's gorgeous. There is no doubt that the Grand Californian Hotel is 10X nicer than the Disneyland Hotel, but the room itself here is more "Disney" than the rooms at the GCH. Our headboard has fireworks that light up :-)

We head down to the ESPN zone for a quick snack to get us through to our 9PM dinner reservations. We consider staying there to watch the first half of the Giants/Redskins game but decide against it. We can watch the game comfortably in our room while we get ready for dinner.

By midway through the third quarter the game is a blowout, so we finish getting ready and head down to Steakhouse 55 for dinner. We get there a bit early but they are able to seat us immediately. It's pretty crowded, given the day and time, but not full.

The food is amazing, the service impeccable, and we have a great dinner on a very special night. Pretty much a perfect ending to a perfect trip.

Except it's not QUITE the end of the Disney trip, just yet.....

Friday, September 26th

8:30 AM - We are up and off to Storyteller's Cafe for their breakfast buffet. Our favorite breakfast buffet, probably ever.... the food is so good and the characters (not the big characters, but all the critters....chipmunks, monkeys, raccoons, bears, etc) always add a little something with their antics.

The food MUST be good, as we keep coming back here despite the obvious varmint infestation.

Off to the World of Disney store to finish up our shopping for the trip, and then we're done. We get our luggage and car (which, incredibly, still fits everything we acquired this trip) and we're off. Leaving here is always the saddest part of any vacation.

And then there is the drive. Holy crap. This is always the worst part of this trip..... driving driving driving driving and not getting anywhere. Well of course we get SOMEWHERE, but we don't get HOME. Still lots more driving left tomorrow, but at least at the end of that day, we are home.

Clearly the weather Gods are trying to welcome us home....we drive through a rainstorm in Stockton, and lightning in Redding. Rain and lightning in California. I am going to call someone and complain.

10:00 PM - We decide to finish the trip like it began, by spending the night at the La Quinta in Grants Pass. Seemed like a good idea at the time....but they are full. FULL. The La Quinta in Grants Pass, Oregon, is full.

You can't make this shit up.

So it's across the street to the Super 8. EW. EWWWWWW.

Best part about it? Cheap as Hell.

Worst part? Cheap as Hell.

Oh well, it is what it is....the room is clean and seems comfortable enough for one night. All we need is a pillow to put our head on for 7-8 hours, since Tracey refused to drive all through the night to get us home.

So THIS is how the next decade of marriage begins.....with her outlandish selfishness.

Oh and before anyone points out that she does ALL the driving, that is not true. I drove like an hour and a half today. So there.

The Amazing Vacation Blog (TM), Day Seventeen!

9:04 AM - Up and Tracey is beginning The Process as we head to the San Diego Zoo. We had planned to leave around 8:20 to get to the gates by 9. Seems as if we missed our wake up call (in other words, Tracey didn't set her alarm). No big deal, we have all day in the park if we want it, but the animals tend to be more active in the morning before it gets hot.

2:00 PM - Back after a couple hours of the Zoo. It's a great zoo, but it never quite measures up to the Safari Park. We did get some great pictures, but ironically the extra care that they give the animals by ensuring their enclosures are as natural as can be can get in the way of seeing the animals or getting great pictures.

They have a lot of the same animals from the Safari Park of course, but the stars of this Zoo are some of the more unusual animals. When did you last see an African Serval?

Mugging for the camera. What a ham.

Or how about this Amur Leopard? Sadly they estimate there are less than 45 of these gorgeous cats left.

Even seen one of these? Me neither. It's a Borneon Binturong. Sorry it's not a great pic but he was in full on "lazy" mode and didn't move an inch.

Lots of other good stuff I'll post once I've gone through all the pics.

2:30 PM- Off to the pool for the last time here. Tracey puts in a couple hours as usual; I can only handle about an hour, as it's really busy today. The pool is packed with people, especially kids.

4:15 PM - Down to the market to replenish a couple supplies we need for our trip home (ie Diet Coke) and then start to organize our clothes to pack up. With tomorrow being a one-day stop at the Disneyland Hotel, we are going to try to get everything we need into a duffle bag so we can leave our big luggage in the car overnight.

OMG, I found Fanta Pineapple and Fanta Strawberry pop! You don't understand the level of excitement I am experiencing right now. I can't remember how many trips across the border we used to make to pick up Strawberry and Pineapple Crush! They stopped making it a million years ago, so although it's a different brand name, I bought one of each and I hope they live up to my expectations! Giddy with anticipation.....

5:00 PM - No time for pop, however, as it's 5PM which means it's Chardonnay time! Of course, given how much wine we have to try to bring across the border we should probably drink until we pass out tonight, but given that we have a big day tomorrow (which happens to be our 10th wedding Anniversary), perhaps a drunken stupor isn't the best plan.

After the first bottle of wine, a simply SPECTACULAR Chardonnay, I break into the Pineapple Fanta...and it's pretty good. Not as good as the Pineapple Crush used to be, but still a nice trip down memory lane if nothing else.

7:00 PM  - Tracey has finished making dinner, basically the rest of the food we had bought, so we crack open the 2003 Tempranillo that we bought the other day. Quite nice for the bargain basement price of $15. It was normally $30 but it was on their "half price" rack.....perhaps because Tempranillo doesn't always age as well as other red wines, so maybe 11 years old is getting close to the end. This bottle was fabulous though, I'd say it had peaked but if it was on it's way down, it was going down very slowly. For $15, an absolute steal.

8:00 PM - On Twitter participating in BC Wine Chat (a weekly wine discussion) while I'm in California enjoying a BC wine! Kidding, of course, if I were enjoying a BC wine down here it would have to have been something I brought down myself. They have zero BC wine here. They've heard of us..heard good things....but we ship none here. They do have a few different Inniskillin Ice wines from Ontario (which are probably quite good) but that's it.

Thankfully, it seems logical to me to participate in BC wine chat while drinking a United States version of a grape from Spain. Sure. Whatever.

If you enjoy wine, check out the #bcwinechat every Wednesday at 8PM. Always a different topic, always informative.

Packing continues as we watch TV and prepare to head out in the morning. Still some things we want to accomplish in Disneyland before our special Anniversary dinner so we have to get moving!!

If you only skip one blog entry, this might be the one...

....because we did nothing today.

Tracey has a bit of a sore foot, so we decided to push our San Diego Zoo day to tomorrow and just relax today. There was some pooling, some napping, some relaxing, and a couple really great bottles of wine. Th-th-th-th-that's all, folks!!!

Hoping and expecting that Tracey's foot will feel good enough in the morning to hit the Zoo and tomorrow's blog entry will be more entertaining.

Let's face it, could it possibly be worse??

Oh, but if you don't follow my wine blog, you might have missed the entry I wrote today about our most amazing tasting of our Napa trip, here:

http://deanswineblog.blogspot.com/2014/09/two-words-opus-one.html

The Amazing Vacation Blog, Day Fifteen!

7:30 AM - Tracey's alarm goes off...much too soon. She informs me that she was having a great sleep before the alarm woke her up. I suggest that this means she gets to enjoy two words today: Afternoon nap!

She brings up two different words: Grouchy Bear.

Uh-oh.

9:30 AM - We arrive at the Safari Park to finish up everything we missed the other day. We came early on purpose, as the animals don't care for the heat any more than we do, and they are much more active in the morning. We are so lucky, as we get some great pictures of many different animals, including this beautiful tiger:

These gorgeous eagles:

A condor, who seemed to be posing for our pictures:

Oh, did I mention two three-week old Cheetah cubs????

Yeah, that's a pretty good day right there. And there was lots more.

12:30 PM - Done what we wanted to do and back at the resort for some lunch. After lunch, off to the pool, where Tracey spends a few hours ( I manage an hour or so, my usual limit).

1:30 PM - While I'm back in the room, our maid, Lupe, comes in and cleans up a bit. Of course her name isn't really Lupe, but if you watched Seinfeld, you'll get it. Every maid is named Lupe.

One tuck, one no-tuck, Lupe.

5:00 PM - After some relaxing we head down to dinner at the restaurant on site, called Canyon Grille. My first impression is that it's a pretty crappy restaurant that is masquerading as a high end restaurant. I'm wrong, however, as the food is actually pretty damn good, and we have a really nice meal for only $60 (it was a lot more than that of course, but only 60 before the wine). Quite impressed.

7:00 PM - I Google "wine" and "Escondido" and find one really nice wine store in Escondido, so we go there and spend way too much money on wine we can't possibly bring across the border without paying duty. Seemed like a good idea at the time. They had a little automated tasting bar in their basement where we got to try a bunch of wine for a nominal charge. Very cool. Great store.

11:00 PM - We had planned to go to the San Diego Zoo early tomorrow but since it's already past 11 PM and we are finishing up our second bottle of wine, that ain't gonna happen. Hopefully we'll get there early enough that some of the animals will actually be awake. If not, I'll have the wife yell and scream and wake them up so I can get some good pictures. Seems like a plan.

Can't believe this trip is in it's home stretch. What a terrific vacation so far!

The Amazing Vacation Blog (TM), Day Fourteen!

8:45 AM - Up for today's relaxing day of football and notice that the wife is already up; that either means she's REALLLLY looking forward to today's day of football or, more likely, she had a terrible sleep and is just up.

It's the latter.

After I cook up an omelet and some bacon for breakfast, we do a little channel surfing only to find out the only game being televised here is San Diego at Buffalo. I'd rather drink turpentine than watch that abortion. This actually reminds me of my childhood and the reason I absolutely despise the Seahawks...back in the day, before the NFL Sunday Ticket package existed, the Seahawks were always the only game we were able to watch. Being a 49ers fan (who were in the same time zone and who's games were generally on at the same time as the 'Hawks) it was pretty damn irritating to never get to watch my team (and remember, the Niners were dominant then and the Hawks were a joke, so that made it even worse) on TV and constantly be subjected to the clowns from Seattle.

So now you know the genesis for my Seahawks hatred. Oh, and I also want to set the 12th man on fire, so there's that. Oh, and the steroids. Let's not forget the steroids.

1:00 PM - I head off to the bedroom to watch the Niners/Cardinals while Tracey stays in the living room to watch the Broncos and Seahawks. It occurs to me that if we were home, we'd be watching both of these games at the same time in our living room. Watching them in two different rooms is not quite the same.

We're having hot dogs for lunch, we picked up all the necessary goodies for hot dogs at Target the other day.....except for wieners. Hmm. That's a fairly important ingredient in hot dogs. Without the wiener, I believe it's just called a "mustard bun". Guess I'll head down to the market here at the resort to pick some up.

4:30 PM - After watching the Broncos make a miracle comeback only to lose to the Seahawks in overtime, I have to clean up the blood splatters and broken pieces of the TV.

6:00 PM - Tracey is cooking Filet Mignon with mashed potatoes for dinner, while I crack open a nice bottle of Syrah we picked up at Miner Family Vineyards in Napa.

Dinner is lovely and the wine goes excellent with the steak. Man I sure wish it were easier to find these wines in Canada. Although we tried to focus our Napa tastings on wineries that we could find back home, there are still only certain wines available; it's not like we can find Joseph Phelps' entire portfolio. The Syrah we are having tonight, and last night's beautiful Cabernet Franc, are impossible to find. I need to make some friends who live just across the border in Bellingham or Sumas.

Outside of the wieners trip, I didn't leave the room today (and Tracey didn't at all). Now THAT'S a pretty good vacation Sunday!!!

Hopefully we can both get an excellent sleep tonight, as our intention is to go back to the Safari Park tomorrow morning to try to catch up on some animals we missed the other day. Since the animals tend to be more active in the morning, we're hoping to get some action!!

The Amazing Vacation Blog (TM), Day Thirteen!

6:00 AM - Hmm, the wife has not had a good sleep and is not enjoying this bed, so she heads out to the pull-out couch to try to get some sleep. Amazingly, I sleep much better after she leaves :-)

9:30 AM - Up and Tracey is making some bacon and eggs for breakfast. Definitely one of the big advantages of a resort over hotels....food in a fridge and making your own meals from time to time.

12:00 PM - In the car and off to the San Diego Safari Park. This park, which used to be called the San Diego Wild Animal Park, is always a favorite of ours. SIXTY-FIVE acres big. Always lots to see and do. Also, kudos to them for having special parking for Hybrids; we get to park about 30 feet from the gate.

After touring a ton of exhibits and getting some great pictures, including some adorable meerkats and rather intimidating gorillas, we sit down for a bit of lunch before our scheduled event.

3:10 PM - We get to the area for our encounter with a cheetah. It's called the Cheetah Run Safari; the cheetah runs, of course, which everyone can see, but we have a better view and get to "meet and greet" the cheetah after the show. What a gorgeous animal.

And one happy kitty cat. He spent a lot of our encounter time purring and licking his trainer.

Before the run, we get an added bonus, a face to face (almost) meeting with another cat, an African Caracle. Tracey and I have encountered this species of cat once here before and we are the only guests who know the name of the species. We feel pretty smart :-)

The cheetah runs twice, so fast that I can hardly keep up with him with our camcorder. It's an awesome experience. Cats rule!! So much better than stupid humans.

Kidding. A bit.

4:30 PM - done for today but we have some other things we want to see here so we are going to come back on Monday morning for another couple of hours. Love this park.

6:30 PM - Dinner time, and we've opened up our Turnbull 2010 Cabernet Franc to go with the Parmesan chicken and rice we cooked. It's absolutely terrific. Tracey called this the "best Cab Franc" ever during the tasting and she reiterated that fact tonight. I agree. It's really terrific.

8:30 PM - It's Saturday night, which means it's ice cream time. Why? Because it is. EVERY night should be ice cream night.

No big plans for the evening but relaxing and trying to get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow is a resort day, with a rather large amount of football to be consumed...maybe. We'll miss our NFL Sunday Ticket so we'll have to watch whatever game they put on TV. Hopefully they make some good picks, if I have to watch the freaking Patriots I might have to shoot my TV a la Elvis.