One man's voice Thoughts, rants and commentary of a simple man

Gilroy Gardens Gonzalez’s

It appears that in my zest to do things with my family I find something to do every weekend. This weekend was no exception.

A friend of our family called us a few weeks ago and asked us if we wanted to take a trip with her family to Gilroy Gardens. Looking at the calendar, and seeing it being the day after my birthday, I decided "What the heck?" and so we said we'd go.

Now for the fun part... we learned about a week ago that the Gilroy Garlic Festival was also this weekend. In just about the same spot as we were going. Which meant that we would have to leave earlier than normal. Gilroy is about 45 minutes away, and we were meeting at the gate at 10:00 AM. So I figured we'd leave at about 8:15 AM to get there on time.

We didn't leave when I said we would
I made a series of decisions that made things start out whacky. The first thing I decided to do was get cash. I should have done that yesterday. But I figured since it was only 7:50 AM. I had plenty of time to get money from the ATM and get gas and get a new pair of sandals at Target (seems logical right?).

As I made the trek my wife stayed home to finish feeding the kids and getting them ready to go. I was driving down the street as I remembered that Target sandals really don't fit me right, but Nike's always seem to fit me right. And what store would be better to get Nike sandals at than Kohl's department store at 8:00 in the morning? So I diverted my course. It made sense, as there is a Costco and branch of my bank at Pacific Commons, which also houses a very large Kohl's.

I got into Kohl's, went to the shoe section and was horrified to find three entire pair of sandals, two of which I liked, one of which was on sale at $10 but was a size nine (I am a size 12, and you know what they say about men with big feet right?... yup, little brains). The other pair was a $60 pair of some brand I have never heard of.

So after a frustrating period of time I decided to leave, get the cash and get gas, then get home to get going. We left at 8:50 AM. Carp (that is crap, but the child reader friendly version).

So I was stressed out about being late, and I drove as such. So much so that I missed the turn off from CA680 to US101. Carp. Now we were going to be later. I made the next turn off and got back onto the freeway and we were off. And the next thing you know, we were at Gilroy Gardens.

There was no traffic at all. We actually got to the park at 9:35 AM. Sweet. Front row parking, a cool day, no rushing around once we got there. After that, all went well. The park was great. People really didn't start showing up until about 1:00 or so, so we had a run of the place for almost three hours. We chilled, walked the entire park twice over, rode almost every ride, hit the water features up three times and generally had a great day. Except for the part where I lost my phone (but I got it back, so it turned out good).

We left at about 4:45, got home at about 6:15 after picking up dinner along the way home and spent the rest of the day eating and preparing for Sunday morning. It was a great family day with friends. And I would highly recommend Gilroy Gardens to any family.