The Great Southern California Adventure

It started simple enough. We wanted to take the kids to DisneyLand. We wanted to go at the least crowded time of the year. We wanted to take advantage of a holiday/free vacation day. Three tiny little things. Three tiny things that drove us to the most ambitious-we-have-tried-to-date roadtrip with our children.

Research showed that the least crowded time of the year for Disney was mid week, the second and third week in January. The Christmas vacation crowd was gone, people were not looking to travel and spend so soon after Christmas. It would mean taking the kids out of school, but since both were well ahead in their class and I could apply for an independent study, I was comfortable with this choice. So we settled on the weekdays after Martin Luther King Weekend.

But…who wants to spend the weekend traveling, when you can go exploring. And it’s a long weekend, we should take advantage of it…and I had never been to San Diego.

Then, we were so close to Legoland, which we loved last time. A quick search online found insanely good deals for midweek stay and tickets. Tacking on Legoland would mean the whole week off, and we wouldn’t “waste” a vacation day just driving back north. And look, now we are down south during the weekend of women’s marches – how could we not participate?

You see where this went. I went into over ambitious planner mode and ended up designing a vacation that was ambitious, exhausting, full of adventure, and the most fun we have had as a family. Follow along as I tell you my tales of the trip we experienced.