Trip to visit Grandpa morphs into travel marathon

So we’re back from a whirlwind tour of California, Washington and Idaho. What started out as a trip to see my grandfather, who now lives in Diamond Bar (essential Los Angeles), turned into a trip to see him, take the children to Disneyland for two days, visit San Diego for two days, fly to Seattle to see family, and make a rocket run to McCall, Idaho, to retrieve some of my grandfather’s things that he left there when he went to California. Wow.

My older boys were already in Washington, having flown down right after school to spend time with family there. So it was just Portia, Benjy (our two youngest), Glenny (my wife) and I when we flew out of Alaska that Friday evening.

The layover in Seattle lasted until the next morning, so we reserved a room at the Radisson directly across from SeaTac. For reasons never explained to me, Alaska Airlines screwed up and unloaded half our luggage in Seattle instead of sending it on down to California like they were supposed to. And since they wouldn’t let us check it right back in until before our flight, we had the joy of lugging our two biggest bags to the hotel.

The highlight of that segment of the trip was the Jack-In-the-Box only one block from the hotel. Why doesn’t Alaska have any Jack-In-the-Box franchises? I’ll never know, but my family goes nuts for it whenever we travel out of state.

Up and out of Seattle the next morning and a few hours later we arrived on the surface of the sun. Or at least that’s what the temperature felt like to me.

Bit of advice if you ever have the misfortune to travel to L.A.: land in Ontario or John Wayne instead of LAX. They are much smaller, slower and far more pleasant airports.

Anyway, we scooped up our rental car and off we went. I always groan getting a rental car because I can count on my wife falling in love with it and wanting a brand new car when we get home, and this was no exception. Perhaps I should find rental car agencies that loan out 20-year-old cars?

Had a great time visiting my grandfather, who is 96 and doing great. He needs the high temperatures, so he moved in with my 90-year-old Great Aunt Marie. She’s in amazing health for her age, and the two of them do well together.

I had never visited her home in L.A. and was worried that my children would be bored there for the three days we were there until Disneyland. I worried for nothing; Aunt Marie lives in a huge home with a large game room and her entire backyard is a very large swimming pool.

Benjy and Portia were in the pool almost all day from 8:30 a.m. until dark. She has lemon trees throughout the yard and we enjoyed fresh lemonade every day. With the 100-degree steady sun, however, Portia and Glenny quickly turned a dark shade of brown, while Benjy and I became lobsters. Ouch!

We flew the older boys down the evening of the third day, and the following morning we were off to Disneyland. The two younger ones had no idea we were going. I told them we would be eating breakfast just outside the park as a way to get them to the gate without them knowing we would be going in.

The reaction when we sprung it on them was priceless; glad we caught it on video! The kids had a blast, while Glenny and I dealt with blisters on our feet and feeling as though we had run a marathon after two days of opening-to-closing long lines, high temperatures and mobs of people.

Two more days in San Diego just enjoying the beach, and we all flew back to Washington. We said goodbye to the older boys as they went back to see family, and it was just the four of us again.

I think the highlight of our trip, at least for Glenny and me, was the drive to and from Idaho. Simply beautiful country (at least north Idaho is). Much like Alaska; very rural, trees, rivers, mountains, lakes but with warmer weather.

Interesting observation about Idaho: everywhere we went — into the hills, around lakes etc. — we never saw piles of garbage and trash like we do here. We didn’t see walls and boulders covered with graffiti.

Shortly after returning to Washington, I flew home to Alaska. Glenny and the children stayed behind to do some more visiting, and I’ll be picking them up shortly. We’re already planning our next run down to L.A., this time to do nothing but spend more time with Grandpa.

And we might be taking another, closer look at Idaho again. The wheels are turning in our heads.

Ben Compton is a Palmer resident and publishes his column as “Compton’s Corner,” the same title used by his grandmother, Phyllis Compton, a longtime Frontiersman columnist. Contact him at bcompton1971@yahoo.com.