by George Estrada

My family and I were having a brief winter vacation in Southern California last December when the rains came and cut short our fun.

Our plan was to visit some of my wife's relatives in Torrance, then dash on over to Anaheim for three days in Disneyland, scoot up the road to Buena Park for a day at Knott's Berry Farm, and cap it all off with a jaunt down to San Diego for a two-day lark at Sea World and the San Diego Zoo.

This wild excursion into the land of the Plastic Fantastic was all for the benefit of our son, George III, who had just turned 3. This was the age at which my mother first took me to Disneyland, and for my whole life I've carried great memories of me and my mom frolicking around Walt Disney's dream world in those halcyon days of my youth.

Now, almost half a century later, it was my turn to give the gift of fantasy to a child, my own child. Hopefully, it would be a gift that would last a lifetime.

Our brief time with the relatives went well. They even went and bought a lechon (roasted pig) to celebrate our visit. What a special treat! The roasted animal was tasty, but our heads were swimming with thoughts of Disney's funny animals, so we couldn't wait to get to Anaheim. Noreen decided that we needed to buy Southern California City Passes, which would get all three of us into all of the places we wanted to see for only $480.

On our first day in Disneyland, there were some on-and-off drizzles and we got a bit wet standing in line for It's a Small World, the Haunted House and Pirates of the Caribbean. On the second day, we got soaked. Wet and tired, we dragged ourselves into our hotel rooms and flopped onto our beds. I turned to the Weather Channel to see how much more we'd have to endure.

It turned out that Southern California was getting hit with a series of massive storm systems. There would be several rainy days ahead, with predictions of severe thunderstorms, flash floods and possible mudslides. This came on the heels of the horrible news about the tsunami deaths in South Asia. All together, it rendered a picture of a scary, wet world with Biblical rains and crashing waves.

“It could be the end of the world,” said my wife, who is Filipino and very enamored of supernatural and apocalyptic themes.

“There you go again,” I said. “You and your superstitions.”

We decided to stay in Anaheim for the time being and try to do our third day at Disneyland. We'd also keep our eye on the weather forecasts and make a decision later about San Diego .

Our third day at Disneyland was great. Because it was rainy, the attendance was down, so the lines for the rides weren't so long. On some of the more popular attractions, we only had to wait 10 minutes or so, compared to the usual 45- to 60-minute waits.

In the middle of the evening, we stopped and watched the nightly fireworks display. This was a nice way to celebrate our first family trip to Disneyland. It also happened to be the evening of our fourth wedding anniversary, so the fireworks were extra special to us. It turned out, however, that Mother Nature had some fireworks of her own planned for the next few hours.

We woke up the next morning to learn that there had been 15 inches of rain and mudslides in Ventura County, which forced the closing of Highway 101. Pounding rains opened large sinkholes in the streets of LA. Low-lying roads and highway thoroughfares were flooded all about Southern California, and even in some parts of Las Vegas. To top it all off, there had been tornadoes in LA and Santa Rosa (north of San Francisco).

Now this was getting grim. Tornadoes in the Bay Area?

Mother Nature was on a roll, delivering devastating blows from her deadliest repertoire. Half a world away, the tsunami death toll incredibly had passed the 120,000 mark. Horrible scenes of death and destruction from Indonesia and India were delivered on the newscasts ‘round the clock.

Meanwhile, here we were, frolicking in the rain in Fantasyland, where epic natural disasters are just part of the Plastic Fantastic, just a passing thrill on a 10-minute amusement ride.

The poignancy of the moment was not lost on us. We decided it was time to give up our illusions, pack up our childhood dreams, count our blessings and head home.

There would be another day for childish amusements and fake cataclysms. Reality was getting in the way for the moment.

--the end

George is the faculty advisor of the Humboldt Travel Journal and a tenured professor at HSU. In fall of 2005 he will be taking sabbatical to work for the Associated Press in Seattle.