4th of July 2009

This year’s celebration was a change of pace from the last 2 years. Heidi and family were off to LA for some Disney time, so no gathering to watch their crazy neighbor launch missiles from the driveway. No, this year I made a trip to LA too. Chuck is there for work for a couple of weeks and I decided to drive out and visit.

He is staying near the convention center in Anaheim which is right across the street from Disney. I got there Friday night and we went over to the Downtown Disney area for dinner and a movie. We ended up seeing the Transformers movie which I thought was pretty bad.

We didn’t really have any plans made for the 4th which was fine with me. The next morning we went to breakfast and discussed options. We though about going out to Catalina Island for the day, but based on price and the amount of time we would get to spend there it didn’t make much sense. Still, I think I have a location to check out for a future girl’s weekend!

Instead, we decided to go out to Long Beach and check out the Queen Mary. Apparently, it’s been there my whole life and I never knew it. It’s a hotel and museum. It was interesting to say the least. In addition to being a working hotel, they have various tours and things to do onboard as well. They have a tour called ghosts and legends which looked like fun, but we decided to skip it and explore on our own. We wandered all over the ship trying to open locked doors to get a look inside some of the rooms, but no luck. The Promenade deck had some fun shops in it, so I loaded up with some souvenirs.

Right next to the ship is a Russian submarine. Kind of weird, really. No idea what it was doing there, but again they offered a tour to go through it. Now, I’m not claustrophobic or anything, but I wasn’t really in to crawling around an old submarine for fun either. Still, it had its own gift shop so we wandered through that too. I was so excited to see the Russian nesting dolls! I was hoping to maybe get inspired again for my Russian Christmas tree theme, but nothing really jumped out at me except the dolls.

The ship was also gearing up for a 4th of July party. We thought about staying all day to see the show, but after a couple of hours, we had explored everything we could and decided to go find something else to do. Besides, Chuck had access to a suite on top of our hotel where we could see fireworks from Disney and pretty much the rest of the valley. So once we got back to the hotel we made a reservation for dinner at a Hawaiian Fusion restaurant called Roy’s. Granted, it was a sushi place, and I don’t do sushi, but I figured there would still be something for me to find on the menu.

Turns out I was feeling a bit adventurous once dinner rolled around and decided to try the sushi. Um….yeah, still not really a fan. It’s a texture thing. And frankly, I don’t find a lot of flavor in any of it. Still, I was proud of myself for giving it a shot. The rest of the meal was excellent. We each tried a sampler of their most popular fish dishes and it was amazing.
After dinner we walked back to the hotel to go watch the fireworks. In the suite on top of the hotel, people from the convention started to wander in. Interesting crowd. The group Chuck is with is the National Episcopal Church. He explained it as a sort of Church Congress. Every 3 years they all come together to discuss church business and pass laws? Rules? Not sure what to call them…anyway, an interesting crowd to be sure.

While we were waiting for the Disney fireworks to start someone looked up the Declaration of Independence and the started to recite it for the group. And then the singing started. Really? It was like Christmas caroling gone wrong. There was a rousing sing a long of the Star Spangled Banner, America and God Bless America. Oh, and in mostly perfect harmony. The Disney fireworks were good, although another Internet search indicated that although in past years they normally did a special fireworks show for the 4th, this year they were not. And the Recession strikes again…..

Still, all in all it was a nice time. The next morning we went to breakfast and then I hit the road to come home. The traffic was nice and light as usual. It’s always worse going in the other direction. Even with the Michael Jackson business going on, the traffic side of the highway was all about people heading to/ from Vegas for the weekend.