Grumpy Summer Vacation, Day 2

Breakfast at Residence Inn. I love the smell of Diet Coke and artificially processed waffle-flavored batter in the morning.

Today we went to Legoland. It should be noted here that today’s post is not as funny as you might expect. At some point at Legoland your kids wander into an area where they can sit and play with Legos and Duplos (which they want to do for hours), and you suddenly realize you just took out a 2nd mortgage to pay for them to play with Legos and Duplos at Legoland, which they can do at your house FOR FREE. And that ain’t funny.

Driving there we discovered my son Craig is under the impression that any car with an “Obama” bumper sticker is actually the one that the President is riding in at that moment. Since a lot of cars still have them on, Craig is now wondering why the C-in-C is following us all over California. [Please note- this paragraph was written to show childhood silliness, and is not meant to express either a red or blue viewpoint. I do not want this blog to be a political war zone, and political comments from either side will not be published.]

I left Legoland’s address in our room, but our Garmin GPS gadget has an entry for “Legoland”. I punched that in (hoping that it wouldn’t take us to Legoland Denmark). For mysterious reasons it took us to the delivery entrance. So here we are, in a mini-van, in a line of delivery trucks and other Garmin using mini-vans, trying to find our way to the regular parking lot. While the kids went nuts because they could see Legoland over the fence, and couldn’t figure out why we weren’t getting out of the car and going in. By the time we got in to the park my parents had fallen asleep on a bench at the entrance while waiting for us.

I was in line for the Dragon rollercoaster when my cell phone rings. It’s Mary back at my office. Dr. Unka, a cardiologist in my town, is looking for me. So I called him back.

Dr. Grumpy: “Hi Unka, this is Ibee Grumpy.”

Dr. Unka: “Ibee, one of my patients had a stroke this morning. He’s over at the hospital, and I need you to consult on him.”

Dr. Grumpy: “Thanks, Unka, but I’m at Legoland”.

Dr. Unka: “Is that at the mall?”

Dr. Grumpy: “No, it’s in San Diego.”

Dr. Unka: “So when will you get here to see him?”

Dr. Grumpy: “I’m on vacation.”

Dr. Unka: “Well, he’s had a stroke. Couldn’t you just fly home for a few hours to take care of this?”

Dr. Grumpy: “Unka, I’m not going to take a day off my trip to see a consult. Why don’t you call the neurologist on call?”

Dr. Unka: “I don’t trust him.”

Dr. Grumpy: “I’m flattered, Unka, but I can’t come back for 1 patient.”

Dr. Unka: “Okay, I’ll keep him at the hospital until you get back.”


I love Legoland. It gives a parent hope. Some days you think your kid will never grow up to find a job he’s capable of, and here there’s a park built entirely out of Legos, some of it quite remarkable, and you realize that maybe this is something your child can do. I know mine can spend all day building stuff with Legos, then losing them in the sofa cushions. So why can't they do this for a living?

(click to enlarge)




Mrs. Grumpy brought the kids a snack consisting of crackers and 2 flavors of instant spray-on cheese. They ate the crackers and had a fight with the spray-on cheese (like it was silly string) while standing in line for “Captain Cranky’s Challenge”, showering other riders with artificial dairy products. I dragged them out of line to keep other happy families from killing them, and put them on a water ride to hose down.

While dragging them off for something more substantial, I was in line behind 2 obese women who were talking about the food at Legoland, and how much they liked that it was healthy. In particular the fact that they had apple fries at one place (deep fried apple slices, served with a side of heavy cream), and they thought that was a form of health food. If you consider that healthy, I can see why you are the size of a bus.

If your kids like Splash Mountain, DO NOT take them on the log ride at Legoland. It has to be the wimpiest log ride, ever. It is never a good sign when the log ride can only have 3 logs going at a time.

They have a ride called Bionicle Blasters. This is a tamer version of the Disney teacups. But my kids, always interested in any ride that might make me nauseas and vomit in public, got me on board. It was a windy afternoon, and the ride wasn't too bad until a large hairy animal suddenly flew into our car. My horror was replaced by shock when I looked up and realized that it was the hairpiece belonging to a sheepish appearing bald man in the car next to ours.

I took the kids on the Legoland mini-golf course. Never a good idea with Marie (for those of you who aren’t aware of her golfing skills, read the last 2 paragraphs of this post). On the 5th hole she teed off like she was trying to hit the ball to Catalina, narrowly missing a pregnant lady and knocking a chunk off the claw of a Lego statue of a grizzly bear. I put the chunk back in place and returned to the game. And carefully helped Marie swing on future holes.

After our exciting day at Legoland, my Dad wanted to take the family to a nearby Italian restaurant. It was in a strip mall, and had a sign in the window that said "We Make Our Own Sausage". This is not normally a big deal, but the next business over in the strip mall was an animal hospital. I suggested going to Costco for pizza, but got voted down. But I still didn’t try the sausage.

After dinner we went back to Legoland, only to find it had closed for the night. That’s early for an amusement park. I can only assume that it was past bedtime for the guys who build the big Lego stuff.

Our attempts to read and relax back at the hotel were shattered (along with a glass candy jar) when a swordfight broke out in our room.





And that’s the way it is.