Legoland - California.

Apprximately 50 miles south of Los Angeles on the way to San Diego is the small settlement of Carlsbad. It is here that Legoland, California is located and our destination for yet another theme park. However, this one is quite different in many respects. As you roam around the 120 acre park you encounter life size models of animals, people, spacecraft, cartoon characters, vehicles, machinery, boats to name just a few, ALL made from Lego and many of them animated.
The park is divided into theme areas; Fun Town, Explore Village, Dino Island, Knights' Kingdom, Pirate Shores, Imagination Zone and the amazing Miniland. Each of these areas has rides and other attractions, all incorporating Lego in one form or another. Miniland consists of a huge parkland setting
with models of well known American and International landmarks, contructed entirely from Lego. All scenes are made even more realistic by the inclusion of Lego people, vehicles, landscapes and rivers etc. Some of the landmarks featured are; San Francisco skyline and Golden Gate bridge, New York city, Washington DC, Florida, New Orleans (as it was), A New England Harbour, The Taj Mahal, Eiffel Tower AND the Sydney Opera house. The realism is incredible. One interesting digital photo that I was able to snap was a real bird about the size of a small pidgeon, as it landed on the roof of a miniature building.
We did a tour of the robotic manufacturing plant where Lego blocks are manufactured - amazing.
Lego Club House is a retail store where every imaginable piece of Lego can be purchased. The regular blocks come in 42 colours and about 140 different sizes and shapes. All are purchased by weight, simply fill a bag with your choices and pay by the pound. Wherever there is a queue for an attraction, there is an adjoining kids play area for littlies to play with thousands of peices while Mum and Dad wait in line for their admittance into or on to the attraction.
Without even trying we managed to fill in 6 hours, having the time of our life. Not sure how many photos we took at Legoland, but at a rough guess I would say around 80 to 100.
Moving on, we drove another 35 miles south to San Diego, then east to our overnight motel at El Cajon, CA.
Friday was a day of driving, 490 miles in all, from El Cajon to Flagstaff Arizona, via Yuma, Phoenix and a number of smaller towns. It is worthy of mention that although most of this journey was through remote, very desolate country at least 90% of this was on freeways - 3 or 4 lanes in each direction.
We have booked into a motel in Flagstaff Arizona for three nights, plan to have an easier day tomorrow (Sat) looking around town, then on Sunday a round trip of about 400 miles to Monument Valley and back. Monday morning we will visit Grand Canyon on the way to Las Vegas.
Kevin & Gail.
www.alaska-2006.blogspot.com

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