It's Super at the Super 8!

Friday, December 9, 2005

It's finally here. Our trip to Disneyland officially begins today, when we drove out to the airport to spend the night at a nearby Super 8 before leaving flying out the next morning. Trip participants include me, my son Jason, and my parents, Tom and Lois.

Promptly at 3:00 PM, my parents arrived at our door to pick us up. We quickly loaded everything into the back of the van and then crawled along in traffic for over an hour before arriving at the Super 8, located just off of Airport Way. We quickly checked in and went in search of our rooms. Jason and I had connecting rooms on the first floor and my parents were right next door. The rooms themselves are more than a little depressing. I'm not sure what it is about them, but they seem very dark and narrow. The textured walls make it seem like a sleazy motel in a third world country south of the border. My mom briefly explored the possibility of moving to a room upstairs, thinking it would be a little less cell-like, but determined that all the rooms were exactly the same. Since it was just for one night, we decided to just stay where we are.

Once we moved our luggage to our rooms, we headed down the street to the local Shari's restaurant, where coincidentally, our waitress was also named Sherry, although spelled differently. After much perusing of the menu, we finally ordered and chatted away while we waited for our food.

I ordered the Country Fried Steak with mashed potatos and gravy, corn and a biscuit. Jason ordered the Mega Melt Sandwich served with fries and a pickle. To drink, he ordered a Cranberry Cooler, a mix of cranberry juice and lemonade. A great combination. I had a sip. My mom ordered the Cuban Sandwich and my dad ordered the Senior Steak Dinner.It didn't take long before hilarity ensued and there was much laughing going on at the table.

After dinner, we went back to the not so Super 8 and stopped at the beverage counter in the lobby. I had a cup of decaf coffee. As they didn't have any real creamer, I settled for something called Coffee White. My mom and dad had cups of hot chocolate.

We lingered in the hallway outside our rooms for a while trying to decide what time to meet up the next morning, until I suggested that we go inside my parents room to keep the noise level down. We decided to meet in the lobby at 6:00 AM the next morning as our shuttle was scheduled to leave at 6:30 AM and we needed to check out and put some last minute things in the car.

My mom came to my room to check it out, which turned out was almost exactly like her room. After a few minutes we said goodnight to her and she returned to her room.

Jason planned to take a shower and read his book. He recently purchased the box set of the Chronicles of Narnia and is trying to finish book 1 before we leave tomorrow so that he doesn't have to haul the book along with him. He brought books 2 and 3 with him to read on the trip. The movie is based on book 2 so he wants to read it before he sees the movie.

The redeeming factor about the Super 8 is that they have free high-speed wireless internet access. Jason set his laptop for me to use before he took his shower. I'm hoping to be able to blog regularly to keep all my faithful readers fully informed.

Well, that's about it for tonight. I'm going to check out the TV and find something to watch.

See you later.