Ramblings from 85 Cunningham: Day 17 – 4036 miles … Heading the wrong way to Legoland

We woke around 730A, at least enough of the kids did, that we “had” to. Stepped out of the RV and onto Lia’s lawn, across to the front door and in to spend the morning with Wayne catching up before he heads back to the South Pacific. Within a half hour all the girls where on the sofa enjoying some TV and just relaxing.

We commandeered the washing machine and ram 3 loads through, while a steady stream of us used the shower. We topped up the water tank and I resisted re-enacting one of my favorite movie scenes and emptying my “tanks” onto the the street, wearing a bath robe … since I didn’t have a bathrobe, this will have to wait for another day.

We left Los Angeles and headed south … yep, I know … wrong way! But about 1.5 hrs south of us was Legoland, Kate and Jaci had found out about it from one of our books and it became a “must” stop destination. We braved the traffic and made the pilgrimage, arriving by 1P. If you remember, a couple of days ago we have acquired some balloon art from a clown … this had been haunting me ever since. I tried to explain to the kids, that as “art”, it should be admired and not played with … this didn’t work.

The noise that balloon “creations” make as they are handled and rubber together, is, for me, the same as scratching your nails across a blackboard … I tried everything to ignore it. I turn on the radio, I sang to myself, I pretended it wasn’t happing, I pictured my happy place … no avail … I was slowly losing it. I felt the stress build, I contemplated driving the RV into a bridge abutment to end it all … just then they started popping … my prayers, got answered. Typically lifespan of a balloon animal 2 days, some living as long as 3.

Now, being from the state of theme parks, I was very worried that this was going to be a great let down and a very busy place … to the contrary … while it was busy, we never had to wait for more than 10 minutes. The other very nice thing about this park, is that it caters to kids up to 12 yrs of age … not a destination for teens … but for little ones, it was great. The park is a combination of rides, mostly simple things and lego “creations”.

Kate and Jaci really enjoyed the “driving school”, which was basically a scaled set of city streets with working traffic lights, stop signs, yield signs, etc. The cars are electric (and not fast). The kids basically drive around “town” for a couple of minutes. I did see some southern California future drivers, cutting off kids, running stop signs, forgetting to yield … maybe there is something preventative that can be done … hmmm … at the end, the kids are rewarded with a drivers license, laminated with their picture.

Genna was too small for the cars, but we did do several other themed rides … she was fond of the helicopter ride, we prep for takeoff, she filed her flight plan, we climbed out of the airport and did a couple of fly bys. On our final approach, we experienced power loss and had to perform an emergency landing. The other would be helicopter pilots where a little surprised as to how fast Genna reacted and how well we put the helo down. The ride attendant suggested I not yell “emergency, emergency, look for a soft spot” the next time we fly.

My favorite was the “firefighter” race. It was I and the 3 girls, we had to “race” 3 other teams. You loaded the fire truck, used a pump to get it to move, got to the fire and used a set of monitors to put the water onto the fire … when you had enough water in there, you got back in the truck and raced home. Kate and I powered the truck, Jaci worked the gears, while Genna steered. At the fire, Genna and I maintained the pumps working (pressed the red button) and Kate and Jaci worked the monitors. We came in 2nd out of 4 … not bad … we will train more for next time.

We really enjoyed the tour of the mini-world, which had several US cities and sites done in Lego (complete with Obama inauguration) … very impressive … We couldn’t leave Legoland without the trip through the gift shop, which at Legoland is a showcase of all the Lego products … $300 later we leave with 3 large sets and really happy, and exhausted kids.