RV Journeys

California dreaming

The state of California has everything a kid could want

by Alexander Boraas

When we started on our journey from Calgary I couldn’t believe we were finally on the trip—after waiting a month to get started. I was excited, but it felt like we were just leaving for a week-long trip, not a six-month adventure.

a grand attraction: I felt really small at Hearst Castle in San Simeon, CA, because the rooms were so big.—photo courtesy Alexander Boraas

By the time we reached Cranbrook, B.C., I was already bored with the driving. I couldn’t believe how much snow they had. The first thing my brother and I did was slide down the snowbanks, even though we didn’t have our boots or winter coats. It was fun after driving all day.

We’ve been on the road for almost two months and now we're in Florida. The time has gone by fast. We have seen many amazing things—like amusement parks, natural wonders and historical sites. Here are some of my highlights:

Winchester Mystery House in Santa Cruz, CA. This house was built by the widow of the son of the man who invented the Winchester rifle. It was unusual because there were staircases that led to nowhere or the ceiling and doors on the second floor that opened to outside with no porch or landing. What I found the most interesting was that she just kept building the house and adding on and on with no plan, for 38 years!

Hearst Castle in San Simeon, CA. The castle wasn’t as I expected it to be. I thought it would be like an old castle with walls around it like in the movie Princess Bride. What I learned was that when William Randolph Hearst was 10, his mother took him on a 1.5-year trip to Europe and he saw lots of castles and beautiful art. Those castles inspired him to build Hearst Castle when he was 50. Through his life he bought many beautiful things from castles in Europe and built them into HIS castle. I felt really small because the rooms were so big. Of all the rooms, the one I liked best was the indoor pool. I also like his motto, which was “swim every day if you can (he could because he had an indoor pool and an outdoor pool) and if you can’t swim, run!”

Calgary Flames Game against Anaheim Ducks at the Honda Center in Anaheim, CA. I was really excited to see my third game, but my first away game. The Honda Center was really beautiful. It had marble all over it, but the name didn’t sound like “hockey” to me. I thought the Flames would win after the Flames scored their first goal, but the Ducks just kept scoring and scoring. It was so loud in there I had to plug my ears. At the end the Flames lost 4-2. We were sad but the good thing was on our way out we met the Ducks mascot and had our picture taken with him.

Disneyland was a lot bigger than I expected. It had eight sections. My favourite part was the Matterhorn Bobsled roller-coaster. It was a little cold and rainy the day we went so it wasn’t so busy. Another cool part was a granite ball that was taller than me and about 400 pounds (I think). It was held up by water and you could push it around really easy. I had never seen anything like that before.

My favourite thing in California was Legoland. Miniature U.S.A. was incredible. It had replicas of famous cities like San Francisco, Washington D.C., New York and Las Vegas. We also saw replicas of Mount Rushmore, the Eiffel Tower, Taj Mahal and Sydney Opera House.

California is my dream state because I had so much fun; I could do everything all over again and not get bored. The state has everything a person could want: mountains, beaches, valleys and plains.

The sightseeing hasn’t just been in California. We also drove through Arizona and saw huge sand dunes in Yuma with dune buggies driving over them—like ants on an ant hill. We also saw the Biosphere 2, Tombstone (shootout at the OK corral) and Kartchner Caverns, but my favourite was the Titan Missile Museum where the last remaining nuclear missile silo from the Cold War remains. The missile was gigantic, and the computers were high-tech for the time. I learned about the Cold War, and that it was about peacekeeping through deterrents. Each time the USSR built a missile, so did the U.S. While we were there, they had a demonstration on what it would be like to launch a missile and my brother and I “turned the key” to launch it.

Texas was next and boy did it take a long time to get across Texas. I really enjoyed visiting the Alamo and learning about Texas history. It was so good that we later visited the San Jacinto battleground where Sam Houston defeated Santa Ana and won independence for Texas. The monument at San Jacinto is 12 feet taller than the Washington monument and has a very big Star of Texas on top.

I also learned never to ride the wooden roller-coaster at the Kemah Boardwalk again! It’s the wildest wooden roller-coaster ride ever and was a bit too much for me.

After Texas came Louisiana where we parked our fifth wheel at the Poche Plantation right beside the Mississippi River. We walked on the the levees beside the river and went on plantation tours and learned a lot about the sugar cane history.

I was very saddened to see so many people living in tents underneath the freeway when we drove through New Orleans. It’s a nice city with lots of old buildings but there are many people who are still without homes. Everywhere, there are people living in white trailers parked outside of homes.

Finally, we drove across Mississippi and Alabama and are now in Lakeland, Florida. We are looking forward to spending time here with our Oma and Opa, aunts, uncles and cousins. It will be our vacation from the vacation.