And the road goes on forever...

Thursday, June 14, 2012

RV Life in the Big City

Anaheim RV Village is an older park but well-maintained and the folks are friendly here. As city RV parks go, this one isn’t bad excepting for the traffic noise from I-5 and the nightly explosions from Disneyland. More about that in a moment. 


It has a pool and spa and what they call a lounge room, but that is only full of empty tables and two small couches and flat screen TV. There are no puzzles, no games, no book exchange, no weight room or exercise equipment, no convenience mart. I guess they figure the entertainment draw here (Disney) is right across the road. The WIFI is tediously slow if you don’t catch it before about 6 a.m. Even with the monthly discount, the cost is nearly $1100 so nothing to sneer at if one is on a tight budget. We ourselves would never in a million years pay as much for an RV park as what a mortgage monthly payment costs (when we’re bringing the house!) but Marc’s boss pays, so here we are. There is lots of grass and concrete so everything is neat and tidy and the cats enjoy going outdoors and watching the people and the pigeons. It is a little incongruous to see tent campers here but this may be one of the few Disneyland parks to allow them. 



Every night at 9:30, the loud Disney tunes pipe up and shortly thereafter the fireworks show starts. My first night here I was asleep by then and the loud booms and explosions nearly had me thinking we were under attack. The ground shook and car alarms started blaring from blocks around. I’ve learned I just can’t go to sleep before 10 p.m. and it has me thinking of the poor people who own homes in the vicinity—don’t they get sick and tired of this stuff every night? Wednesday night we did decide to step outside and try catching some of it on camera. Irvine, where Marc’s restaurant redo is located, is a master planned community with tight control by the very anal Irvine Company so there are no RV parks allowed there so his commute is longer than he wishes. It adds up to quite a bit extra in fuel running the Freightliner back and forth, but Anaheim was his only choice. Here they cater to America’s families on a budget, mostly in their rental Class C’s, but if they consider $75/day for an RV spot a low cost alternative I can only imagine what the hotels in the area must charge. Big city life isn’t for sissies or the poor. 


Wednesday I wandered through a nicely done outdoor mall called the Garden Walk, located just blocks from Disney and also very close to the large Anaheim Convention Center. I was struck by two things—the preponderance of well-known restaurant chains and the utter lack of shopping activity for the (mostly) shuttered mall stores. It seemed like it had been well done with lovely garden plants, fountains and water displays, and a location that should have guaranteed success. So, what happened that in the middle of a bright and sunny day with thousands upon thousands of Disney visitors there are no people here and the mall looks as though it has expired and just hasn’t realized it yet?