Denied.

Last Thursday, cabin fever finally caught up with us, so Nicole and I decided it would be a nice day to take Sean Patrick to Disneyland. He's older than the first time we went. A little more aware of his surroundings. So we thought he'd enjoy looking at all the people and perhaps squeezing onto a few of the kiddie rides like Peter Pan and Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

So we packed up the car; stroller, check. Car seat, check. Diaper bag, check. Baby, check. Off we went. It's a long drive down to Disneyland from where we live, about 48 miles or so. But we were leaving mid afternoon, so traffic was light. Of course, a 45 minute drive is still a 45 minute drive and off to dreamland went Sean Patrick.
As we neared the parking entrance, we discussed when would be the best time to wake the boy. Or should we just leave him in the car seat and take that with us. Disneyland is always busy, and there were a few cars ahead of us for the pay gate. That's something we didn't need to worry about, we have SoCal season passes, and mine has parking on it. We just show my pass and in we go. But as we sat in line, the conversation turned to, "I wonder if today is a blackout date?" As we pulled up to the gate, our nightmare was confirmed, it is a blackout date, due to spring break for schools. Dammit. Well, we'll just turn around and go home. "How do we do that?" We inquired with the ticket agent.

Now, I've never had a "walk of shame", but I will say this, we had a "drive of shame". I understand why they do this, I'm sure people often try to not pay the ridiculous fee to park the car by pretending to just, "drop someone off", or "Ooops, we missed our turn." But for people like us, it's like a pink badge of shame.

The dollar is there so you know how big this sign was.

He grabbed the above pink paper sign, shoved it under the windshield wiper, and told us to follow the directions from the parking attendants. Everyone turned right, we were told to turn left, a few turns later and we were heading out onto the public street again.

Before we even got there, Nicole had had enough, this pink sign was a nuisance flapping in the breeze. She tried to reach out the window and couldn't get it, so she pulled over into a little nook under the parking structure to get out of the car and pull off the sign. Immediately, security swooped in on his Segway to ask if we were okay. "Just removing the badge of shame!" I yelled at him (in my head). And off we went, 45 minutes back home, with nothing to show but 100 miles ticked off on the car and a baby rested from a nice long nap.

I guess a rested baby is a good thing.

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