Guess what he’s doing?

This is the true story of four family members who chose to get on a plane, rent a car, drive down the California coast and have their vacation documented.  Find out what happens when people stop being polite, and start getting real.

The Real World: Pacific Coast Highway

Day Seven: 

9:00am: Wake up and make the drive to Los Angeles. Do the obligatory Hollywood
Walk of Fame and take pictures outside Grauman’s Chinese Theater.  Text my cousin whom we will be staying with that night.  Recieve offer to go see his place of work.  Decide, YES!  We WILL go see his place of work as he is in the Movie Business and works for Sony and worked on the latest Spiderman movie and who knows who might be walking around his office probably Ethan Hawke or maybe even Chris Hemsworth and there is a good chance once they see me I will be Discovered.

3:00pm: Get directions to my cousin’s place of work.  He is a man of few words and even fewer instructions.  Get an address but not much more.  Drive to the address and ask parking attendant, “Is this Sony?”

“No, this is Netflix.”

Wonder if he is kidding or if you are going to miss your chance of becoming the next Mrs. Hugh Jackman.  Check address again.  After much confusion and name dropping, attendants let you through. Find out later cousin has switched jobs and no longer works for Sony and now works for Netflix Animation.  Wonder if asking Netflix people if you are at Sony is comparable to ordering a Big Mac at Burger King.

3:30pm: Enter offices and feel extremely important as you sign a disclosure. Tour the building. Look around for famous people everywhere you go but mostly just see people drawing.  Annoy family by asking animators lots of questions. Say no to all the snacks offered even though secretly you are hungry.  See no one famous.

4:30pm: Head to cousin’s house in Santa Clarita.

6:00pm: Reach cousin’s house.  Get dropped off while Ted goes back out to find a vision center to have a professional fix his glasses.  An hour later learn that it seems all vision centers in the tri-county area are closed for the evening.  Enjoy great night eating, swimming, and playing with nephews.

10:00pm: Go to bed.

Final Day!!  DISNEY!!

8:00: Get up and make the long trek to Disneyland.

11:00: Enter the park.  Look over and see that Ted is literally carrying his glasses with two hands out in front of him open-palmed like a treasured bar of gold.   Wish he had this much determination and persistence when it came to hanging up his coat and turning his socks right-side in before he throws them in the laundry.  Lose patience.  “Are you going to carry those around the entire day?  It’s going to be hard to go on rides like that.  Please put those AWAY!!”

Above: In line for a ride but still plugging away.

12:00pm: Stop and watch parade.  Notice this is a scaled-down parade consisting of random Disney characters walking down Main Steet waving and saying hello.  Cringe as you see Ted waving and trying to dance along with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum in an attempt to be funny and embarrass us.  Take a few steps back so bystanders don’t think you are together.  Suddenly hear Ted calling to the Evil Queen, “Hey Queen, got any apples?” Mortified, look around for a hole to crawl into.  Watch teenage son move back toward you.  Listen as Evil Queen’s retorts, “I don’t give apples to peasants like you.” Hear crowd around you roar with laughter.

2:00pm: Notice that your kids are not interested in taking pictures with any characters anymore because they are too old, not even when you see Boba Fett.   When Fairy Godmother rounds the corner say, “Cool!  She must be a rare one!” Push your kids to go get a picture and start to walk toward the line that has formed to see her.  Feel elation quickly turn into confusion and panic as you see Ted barge his way through the line and shout, “Fairy Godmother!  These are the two wishes you granted for ME!!” pointing to kids.  Wonder how he has survived so far in the real normal world and almost die of embarrassment.  “Ted! GET IN LINE!” you say with clenched teeth and horror as you pull him away.  Realize Fairy Godmother must be a saint used to inappropriate impulsive dads accosting her as she finishes talking to someone and steps out of line to speak to your family.  Assume there is some sort of underground “Code Yellow” happening RIGHT NOW where characters have to follow secret protocol to usher the weirdos away.  Snap quick picture and RUN out of Fantasyland.

3:00pm: Stumble into Star Wars land. Walk into a droid making factory and realize that YOU CAN MAKE YOUR OWN DROID!!  Ummmm, YES kids, you CAN each make an R2 unit!!  Lead them over to the conveyer belt to pick their parts.  Look behind you for Ted and blink hard, not believing your eyes.  Apparently, because this is a droid factory (FAKE–FROM THE MOVIES BY THE WAY) someone thinks there should be lots of tools here and has approached Mustached Humanoid for help.  Notice with horror that HE IS TRYING TO USE A MOTORIZED DROID TOOL TO FIX HIS GLASSES.  Watch as he and the poor Galactic Republic Engineer walk together to the fictional memory flush station (I’m just guessing here) to assess the damage.  Alas, it seems even using the Tatoonie manufactured hydraulic protocol arm and spark projector could not do the trick.  Assist kids in their Highlight of Vacation 2019 while their dad attends to the Lowlight of Vacation 2019.

11:00pm: Leave Disneyland.

Above: Ted and the engineer work on his glasses with a motorized drill of some sort clearly too big for a prescription sunglasses screw.  

Below: After realizing the tool is not going to work they move to another station. 

Wake up the next day and fly home…

Where are they now??

Teddy and Franny got home and never played with their $100 droids again.

Ted left California with his glasses still broken. He finally managed to get them repaired when he got back to Illinois.  Even blurry, he enjoyed his vacation.

Samantha returned home and realized there really WAS enough material to write a blog.  Maybe even four blogs.