Route 66 Day 49 Nov 26, 2019

Tuesday morning, up early and ready to rock and roll.  I talk to the agency and get the address and instructions.  I figure I’ll go do the fingerprints then come back in the afternoon to start working.  Went to the office and picked up the finger print card and headed to the police station.  I noticed a voicemail from the agency while I was waiting for the finger print lady and it turned out I wouldn’t be starting today.  The person that was going to train me was out and with Thanksgiving and all, it would be easier to start on Monday.  Ok, that makes sense.  I drop off the finger print card, tell them I’ll see them Monday and then headed out to do some laundry.  Laundry lasted about 90 minutes but it was still early…what was I going to do?  Plus, this was Tuesday and next Monday was 5 ½ days away.  Should I hang out here and do some local hiking?  It was cold in Flagstaff and I wasn’t loving the snow.  I could head to somewhere with less altitude and more warmth…such as Sedona or Williams.  I wanted to go to Las Vegas, would Vegas be crazy over the holidays?  I hadn’t bought my show tickets yet, would they even be available?  I could go to Disneyland…Disneyland would definitely be crazy over the holidays.  But I really wanted to go to the Festival of the Holidays and this would probably be my only opportunity to do that this year.  It would be over by the time my assignment was over.  It was 3pm, I could be there by 10pm.  I’d cross a time zone, so it would be 9pm Disneyland time.  Disneyland won.  I grabbed food at the food court at the mall and off I went.  The weather in Flagstaff and for the first 20+ miles outside of Flagstaff was pretty nasty, I was glad I wasn’t going to stick around for this.  But the farther west I went, the better the weather, the better the snow and the more relaxed I was.  Listened to some NCIS as I went scoped out the Route 66 signs along the way.  I was driving the interstate exclusively on the way there, needed to make good time.  But on the way back, I could do Route 66 backwards and finish off the parts I hadn’t done yet.  I could do 2 days at Disney (1 day each park) and 3 days driving Route 66.  I could make this a very productive holiday week.


Finding places to boondock in California is an issue.  There aren’t many rest areas around the Disney area, most Walmarts don’t allow overnight parking and hotels in Anaheim are pretty strict about their parking policies.  I figured I could drive to about 60 miles away from Disney and I could find somewhere to crash.  San Manuel Casino was the answer to my needs.  I figured it was a small casino, I’d never heard of it, and this wasn’t Vegas.  Nope, it was huge.  It was Hard Rock Hotel in Tampa huge.  I parked up on the 5th level of the parking garage and did a pass on the inside of the casino.  It was really nice.  They had lots of places to eat and lots of art and had these water exhibits that were fascinating.  It’s a nice casino.  I didn’t spend too much time inside, just enough to get the lay of the land and headed back to the car.  Alarm was going to go off at 6am and I wanted to be on the road early.

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