San Jose is the town Rob grew up in. He's wanted to take us there for a long time. The kids are all old enough to remember it now, so it was a logical third-day stop. Rob and I spent our fifth anniversary in Santa Cruz, Rob's grandparents home-town. And did a very brief tour of San Jose....one in which we got very very very lost, and rather grumpy. LOL
But this time we had our trusty Navigator on our phone. So that made life much easier. We again left very early (5:30'ish) too early for Continental Breaky, so splurged on McD's. It was nummy! Mostly we ate out of our motel, so McD's felt like luxury. But I love McD's breaky anyhow.
Shortly after leaving Yreka. We got a GORGEOUS view of Mount Shasta. KK is totally in LOVE with volcanoes. So we stopped alongside the freeway and admired it for several minutes.
Our trip to San Jose was uneventful, and very quick. We hit our motel again about 12:45, checked in, and headed to Vasona Park, Rob's favorite childhood park.
As in love with Volcanoes as KK is, Jeremiah is in LOOOOVE with trains. And Vasona Park has a real working steam train (small) that you can ride. We had planned from the get go to ride on it, but didn't tell the kids until we got to the park. Jeremiah was sooooooooooooooooo excited. Unfortunately we were there on Fathers Day. So everybody else in San Jose apparently had the same idea. We had to wait in a rather long line for the train. We told the kids it was good practice for Disney. While waiting we amused ourselves with trying to send a picture to Grandma and Grandpa Signor of the kids at Vasona Park. It didn't go too well, as Grandpa S isn't too tech savy when it comes to cell-phones. But eventually about four hours later he got it. ROFL.
Xanga is loading very very very slowly. *sigh* Anyhow have a couple more pictures of the train coming. Jeremiah was so much fun to watch as he watched the train. He was shaking he was so excited about getting to ride on a "real" train. Every time we go to Olympia, he and daddy take a wee side trip to watch the trains go across (about a mile from the gym). That's how much he loves them. So to ride a real one, oh my goodness was that cool. And of course that meant that Thunder Mountain Railroad was jeremiahs favorite Disney ride. Awesome! Was the recurring theme each time he got to ride it.
Rob's recurring theme the whole day was "that was much bigger when I was a kid." He was quite convinced the park had shrunk. *snicker*
It was shortly after this picture was taken we had a little um set-to. Jamari, Sam and Zeria had ridden in a second car. Rob almost opted to sit with them, but he wanted to watch Jeremiah on his first train ride. It was a choice that wasn't great.
The kids were as good as gold. Sam had his flip video and was holding it recording all of the train and the ride. This is how we know that that the kids didn't do anything wrong. About half way around the park the train came to a hault. WE were a bit suprised, but so relaxed didn't think anything of it, until the guy on the caboose came up and began chewing out Jamari for "hanging out of the train." Jamari shrunk in his seat and got very quiet. The train started back up, and Rob and I groused about poorly behaved kids. We assumed it was Sam who was in trouble, because it always it. We got off the train, and fairly promptly forgot about it. Sam, Zeri and Jamari were the ONLY black people on the train.
Later in the day Samuel says "Look I have video of Jamari getting in trouble." I watched all of it. The whole train ride. Neither boys even ONCE had any part of there body out of the train. They had done absolutely NOTHING. We're pretty sure instead they were victims of being black in a all white community. We spoke frankly about it to our kids, and moved on.
After the train we ate hot dogs in the park bought from a concessions stand, and then headed over to the airplane that Rob and his brother used to play on. The kids loved playing and exploring on it.
Its a real airplane. Rob could tell you what kind. You could climb all over it. Very cool.
After a good long explore at the park, we left to find Happy Hound. A place that had hot dogs Rob used to love to eat. And yes we'd just eaten hot dogs, but its all good it was vacation. ROFL. We found it, ate, and then typed in the address to Rob's old house into the Navigator. When he showed it to us I suddenly understood why he couldn't find it the last time he and I'd been there. Such a generic neighborhood, all the houses look the same, and there all squished together. Blech.
But it was a wonderful house for him to grow up in, and full of great memories. Oh and he's glad he no longer lives there. LOL
I was amused by this. Rob's name for a very long time was Robbie. Its written on his stuff from when he was little etc. Its apparently a chain in San Jose. And apparently he used to design gas stations named Rotten Robbie to play with with his cars. His brother Devon was quite jealous that he didn't have a gas station named after him, so he ran a gas station called Devlish Devon. It all makes sense now.
By this time in California we had begun to spot Palm Trees. This meant for all of the kids but Jamari we were finally in California. Rob was highly amused as to how EXCITED they were over these things. They LOVED the Palm trees, and for several days played counting games, as to how many they saw.
Samuel tried on several occasions to climb them, but had limited success. Rob and I spent a good part of an hour contemplating how the heck they would remove these two palm trees should they even get rotten, as they were in the middle of a very tiny motel courtyard, and there was just no place to fall them. Yeah I might be a loggers daughter.