My California Adventure

John and I have been volunteering as ushers at the Warner Theatre for about a year now. On Wednesday of last week, he tells me he’s getting Abbi (his daughter- see the cruise posts since she came with me) tickets to game 2 of the Edmonton Oilers/Mighty Ducks game in Anaheim. The first thing out of my mouth was, “Ooh, I want to go.” So Thursday morning Abbi calls me up and invites me to come with her. John bought us tickets to the game, and I found a round-trip flight on Northwest Airlines for $326. I booked us the hotel I stayed at in January when I went for the Caps/Ducks game. It’s right across the street from the Arena.
I drove down to John’s house on Saturday, he graciously agreed to watch Ari. He looked a little worried, and I spent a couple of extra minutes saying goodbye. Abbi and I had different flights since her dad bought her ticket. She dropped me off at the airport. The flight was fine. I got to LAX at around 5:30, and took a shuttle out to Anaheim. I checked into the hotel, and walked down to find some dinner. I took it back to the hotel as I was pretty jet lagged. I fell asleep and woke up at about 1AM to the realization that Abbi wasn’t there. I called her cell phone and she told me the shuttle driver took her to the wrong hotel, and she was too tired to move (it was four in the morning our time). So she spent the night in the Ayers Hotel Orange County, and I was in the Ayers Hotel Anaheim.
Sunday Abbi called at 8 (grumble) and I went down at ate some breakfast. She walked over to our hotel, which took her about a half an hour. We went and soaked in the hot tub for a bit and walked over to the bar next to the hotel for some lunch. We killed some time at the local mall, and then walked over to the Arena.
Abbi is a huge Oiler fan, so she was pleased to see there were a lot of Edmonton fans. Most of them got a kick out the fact we were from DC. I cheered quite loudly for Edmonton with Abbi, and they won the game 3-1. It was awesome. We went back to the bar we had been at for lunch, and hung out with a bunch of celebrating Edmonton fans. Abbi has some great pictures of the more diehard fans- there were two guys with orange and blue wigs (their colors) and one guy wearing this Oilers hardhat. The bar closed at 11, and so people wanted to walk down to Hooters. I was thinking at this point of going back to the hotel (thinking of my five AM shuttle back to the airport), but I let Abbi talk me into going for one drink. Of course it was closed. We gathered in the parking lot, and I told Abbi I was going back to the hotel. She left to go with everyone else, they all piled into a cab like a clown car.
I noticed this guy in the parking lot- tall, wavy dark hair, hazel eyes. We started talking, and he told me he and his buddy (who I had met earlier) had driven a rental car from LAX and they had planned on just sleeping in the car, but he couldn’t find his buddy. I had lost track of him too. So I told the guy he could come back and hang out in my room.
(This section has been edited) Anyway, his name is Steve (last name withheld to protect the not so innocent) he’s 21 (I’m such a cradle-robber) and he works for Air Canada. Oh and he’s nice a lean and muscular, with a flat stomach I would kill for. He was very eager to please. At the very beginning, his eyes flew open and he said, “Wow.” It was amusing. Anyway, it made the lack of sleep much more bearable.
I flew back all day Monday, getting back at 6:30. Abbi called to tell me John got pulled over for speeding on his way to pick me up. I picked up Ari who was SO happy to see me, and we went home. I noticed John speeding by me on my way home, so I guess he didn’t learn from the ticket. When we got back, if kitties could talk, my kitty would have said “Ahhh.” He was so happy to be home, he ran around playing with his toys and crawling in my lap for snuggles all evening.