8th of July - Blythe CA to Anaheim CA

Itinerary
Start - Blythe Colorado River KOA Campground, Blythe, CA (right at the Arizona / California border)
End - Anaheim Resort RV Park, Anaheim, CA (right near Disneyland)
Distance - 216 miles
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Leaving Blythe and heading west
The campground had many RVs parked for storage. Also, it had a boat ramp for boating in the Colorado river which looked like fun.
We wanted to swim in the pool for the morning (the kids had been looking forward to the giant water park in Phoenix that we skipped out on to escape the Phoenix heat). But the pool was literally covered over in a layer of dead bugs as it hadn't been cleaned yet. When I asked about the condition of the pool, I was told it would be at least another hour before the maintenance man cleaned the pool. The kids were very sad and we didn't really want to wait that long.

So we packed up and hit the I-10 Westbound into the California desert.

I-10 West to LA - still too hot
We made it through blazing heat to a little ways out from Indio, CA.
When we pulled over for another tank of gas, I spotted a set of old tanks right at the exit which would turn out to be the General Patton Memorial Museum, another random cool find.

Just a few hundred feet past that was the busy gas station. Again I ran into the problem of the heated gas tank being slow to fill. This time there was a service station attendant who helped. He said he had seen this problem with RV gas tanks in the heat before. The line into the tank was too horizontal. He stayed with me and helped try to get more gas into the tank - at least 10 gallons to get us past Palm Springs or so. A very nice guy who was quite helpful to ease my mind at last as to what was going wrong with trying to fill up the RV.

Inside the gas station there was a full Foster Freeze. So we got lunch and ate inside the nice air conditioned convenience store/mini restaraunt. We met a mother with three kids who was stranded there while her car engine was repaired. They were on their way back to Arizona from Disneyland.

We took the opportunity to teach her two sons (about the same age as J and K) the Super Hero Squad card game and gave them some sample decks from PAX last year that I had on hand for just such an occasion. They loved the game and we left them with some postcards and the cards to help keep them occupied.

General Patton Memorial Museum
After finishing lunch, I drove the RV over to the parking lot of the museum.
K and I only spent a few minutes going inside as J stayed in the RV with the generator and AC on so we could take some snapshots to see what it was like.
Outside had the tank yard and the West Coast Vietnam Wall plus a Korean war memorial.

After that it was back on the road west.

Palm Springs - still too hot and giant Windmills again
There was another water park that I considered but the heat was unbearable still. As we continued further west to leave the CA desert, we spotted a huge set of windmills. Hundreds of them south and north of the Interstate.

Finally we made it out of the desert and into the cooler coastal region.

Pharaoh's Adventure Park, Redlands, CA

I saw a billboard for a Pharaoh's water park a few miles out of Redlands. So I made the decision to stop for the evening for the kids who had braved a full day of driving with only water park fun on their mind. There was no address listed for the water park so I had to find directions via phone browser. Even at the right exit there was no real sign so while the earlier billboard had worked to get my attention, they were missing some customers without a good sign at the exit.

The park was very close to the I-10. You have to pay for parking though. I was able to park the RV in the back corner of their parking lot away from any other cars so there wasn't any problem maneuvering in or out.

We spent from about 5pm to 8pm at the park for the discounted evening rate of about $12 each (adult and kid were same price). It wasn't crowded at all. They had indoor family entertainment center type amusements plus both indoor and outdoor inflatable slides. But the kids wanted to head right for the water park.

The park was not crowded, even on a warm Friday evening. I grabbed a rental locker and set up our towels near the entrace to the "Nile River", which was the first 'lazy river' style water ride the kids had tried. They LOVED it. We tried a few of the other rides but always came back to the Nile for more fun.

K met a girl that he swam for an hour with on the Nile. She showed us there were even bumper boats on the other side of the park but we had to have shoes and shirts to use them so we just went back to the Nile again and again.

Overall a great park for a very affordable price.

Anaheim by 9pm
We drove from Redlands down to Anaheim in dusk and finally darkness. After a little detour when we had to pull off the highway for a potty break and ended up in suburbia, we finally got to Anaheim proper right at 9pm.

The RV park had a couple of sites open for night check-in without reservation, even on a Friday night. We took spot 143 (see http://www.anaheimresortrvpark.com/facilities-map.asp ). It was easy to back into even with a 28' RV. We met our neighbors who were quite friendly (one couple with kids with a 23' Class C from Las Vegas, and the other older couple with a traditional trailer and big pickup truck).

Then the kids wanted to hit the pool (water monkeys swimming twice in the same evening even).

The pool was heated and felt great as the temperature was starting to drop a bit even in southern California.

What a relief from the heat of the past week. Southern Cal felt just right.

The pool was open until 10pm.Watching the Disneyland fireworks from the RV park pool was a great way to finish the evening.