Tinkerbell half marathon, Day 1: Friday

Friday morning my friend Traci picked me up to drive me to the airport. What an awesome friend right? Her son lives in Hayward, which isn’t too far from the Oakland airport so she planned to go spend the day with him and his girlfriend. I got to the airport with plenty of time to spare.

I’ve never flown to LA before since it’s only about 6 hours away to drive but with how high gas prices are now, the fact that the hotels charge you to park your car there I figured it would be cheaper to fly. And let’s face it, 6 hours in the car by yourself each way doesn’t really sound all that fun.  So I found a cheap flight and went with it!

When I got to the airport in Santa Ana I got my luggage and then went to find my shuttle. Apparently if you sign up for any shuttle they just throw you all into one until they have a full van. Our van was full of women all going to run at the half marathon so we had a nice ride talking about all the different runs everyone has done. This is where I started to learn that some of these Disney runners are crazy.

That's one fancy baggage claim area!

I got to our hotel, the Holiday Inn & Suites, and got checked in. I was so glad that they let me check in even though the room was not booked in my name. My friend Sarah had booked it and she called and told them that I would be there first. I got settled in and then I went out in search of food.  The little hotel diner wasn’t open yet so I walked down the street. Which turned into a really long walk to end up almost where I stared, had I just went to the left instead of the right.

It may have taken me 2 days to figure out how to turn the fan off

I ended up going to Downtown Disney and getting this super carbolicious dinner at Tortilla Jo’s (the express part). Margaritas! Sign me up! It is my vacation after all! 

Once dinner was done I walked around a bit and then decided to go ahead and get my race packet at the Expo, which was at the Disneyland Hotel.  I walked around the expo, spent $4 on a sticker, got my packet and this cute picture

and then walked back to the hotel. I may have bought some cheesecake at the little diner in the hotel (not all that great and I gave half to Sarah).

I snuggled up in bed with my heating pad (my hip was really bothering me) and watched some TV until Sarah got there, and then eventually Juli. They both come from 2 hours ahead in time so they were beat from a full day of traveling.