Daryl and Rachel Time

   Daryl and I like to escape from our children at least once a year.  The only stipulation is that it must be overnight.  Since my parents are back from their mission now we could go on a lengthier trip, and I had a companion pass from Alaska Airlines that we needed to use by the end of the year.  We chose to go to southern California.  The first day we flew down we went and saw the Queen Mary in Long Beach.  It's an old cruise ship basically that used to take people across the Atlantic, and was pressed into service transporting troops during World War II.  We mostly took ourselves around for a self guided tour.  We did a kind of cheesy ghost tour where they "manufacture" some ghostly scares for you.  The tour did take you to the pool and the boiler rooms, so that was cool to see.
   The other two days we went to one of our favorite stand by:  Disneyland.  We had checked online to see how busy it was supposed to be because we only really wanted to go if there weren't big crowds.  The Internet told us to go this last week and it was right.  There was like a ten minute wait for every ride except for the new Cars ride in California Adventure.  Every other ride we just practically walked onto.  Since Cars land was still new that made Disneyland pretty quiet.  In two days we did everything we wanted to do and then some.  Most importantly we were by ourselves, and everyone seemed happier when we got back home.

This was a Russian submarine parked next to the Queen Mary.

The top of the Queen Mary.  The ship is taller than Niagara Falls.

Daryl looking over the side of the ship.

The view from the Queen Mary.  Couldn't help but think of Arrested Development while we were there and wonder if this place was where Cinco de Cuatro took place.

A picture of us!

I was on the Materhorn by myself because we went in the single rider line and when it was almost time for us to get off the ride broke down.  The guys in the blue shirts were there to fix it.  It's bad business if you see those guys.  I was only stuck on it for a few minutes thankfully.

Sleeping Beauty's castle all dressed up for Christmas.