Dizzyland...
I fully intended to post a detailed account of my trip to California. But I never seem to have time to sit down and do it, or when I do, it's much too late and I'm exhausted. This is partly because even though I had a wonderful time on vacation, I didn't get much sleep. So I came back more tired than I was when I left. Cest la vie...
So, I don't really have time to do it now. I should eat dinner before I get visited by the EQ presidency from my singles ward, or somebody like that, I'm not really sure... But I feel like I ought to post something, so here we have it. Let's see how far I can get.
I flew to CA Thursday night with my best friend Rachel. We got to the airport in time, had no trouble at all checking our bags and getting through security and all that, so of course our flight was delayed an hour... it was all right though, we just had to wait a lot longer than we anticipated. We stayed up late that night talking to Mary, our old roommate, getting caught up on life and all that. Friday morning we intended to get up bright and early and make it to Disneyland by 9 when it opened. Yeah, that didn't happen... we slept in, enjoyed a wonderful breakfast prepared by Mary's mom, got directions, stopped at a store for snacks... you get the idea. I think we entered the park around noon, right on schedule.
Of course, we then stayed until midnight to get our money's worth, as admission costs $63 these days... ridiculous! First we went on Space Mountain. Fabulous ride! I think it's my favorite one. It's been closed the last few times I've gone, so I was very happy it was running. We got a fast pass to come back later when the lines were going to be even more horrendously long.
Then we went on the Buzz Lightyear ride, which is really more like a live video game... you try to shoot moving targets and rack up mega points as you travel through the ride. See my beautiful picture? I'm Space Ranger 2. :)
Following that we went on a plethora of other rides, because that's what you do at Disneyland. We hit pretty much every ride worth going on, except Thunder Mountain Railroad, which was closed.
When we went back to Space Mountain, we of course were super excited. We only had to wait 15 minutes before we were on the ride. Alas, before we had gotten far at all, our car slowed to a halt... 30 more seconds, and we would have been in the heart of the ride, which would have been really cool to get stuck in, but we were still on the preliminary bit. It was kind of exciting to see the protocol for evacuating a ride, but disappointing as well because we didn't get to finish the ride... oh well. We got passes to go to the front of any line in the park (except the one for Pirates, which would have been a waste anyway because that line's never very long) and used it for the Matterhorn. (We had tried to go on the Matterhorn earlier but it broke down after we had waited for 30 min. and we decided it wasn't worth waiting in line for another half hour for them to fix it.) So I suppose some good came of it.
The fireworks were spectacular, and we tempted fate by going on Splash Mountain at 10:30... luckily we didn't get too wet or we would have been freezing! Then we went on all the kiddie rides in Fantasyland after 11:30 so there were no lines. :) It was awesome. No line for the Spinning Teacups! We finally left at midnight, wandered around for a while trying to find our way to Simba parking lot, and eventually managed to find our car. Then we drove back to Rancho Cucamonga, where we met some of Mary's friends at Denny's for some dinner. It was quite fun, especially since we were all so tired that we were hyper and a little loopy...
This is what the inside of Space Mountain looks like.
That was Friday.
Saturday we intended to get up at 9:30 and leave by 10:30 so as to be at the LA temple in time to see Julie come out a newly married woman. That didn't work out so well. We woke up at 10:20, got ready super fast, and managed to be out the door by 11, but the traffic was horrible (not surprising, given that it was LA) and our exit was closed, so we had to take a long detour, giving us ample opportunity to get stuck in even more traffic. We got to the temple at 1:30. Oh well. At least we got to see Julie, and take lots of pictures, and strategically place ourselves close to the groom's mother so as to provide plenty of chances for her to invite us to the wedding luncheon (which she did... yay!). We even managed to find the restaurant, even though we did get lost a few times and didn't get there until everyone else was more than half done eating.
Then Mary had to go to urgent care to get some antibiotics for an infected wisdom tooth wound (which was very painful until it burst at the temple, releasing foul pus into her mouth. How pleasant...). This took a bit longer than anticipated, so we didn't actually get to the wedding reception until 15 minutes before it ended... long enough to get some food, congratulate the bride and groom, and watch them unwrap their car and drive off! Tragically, our plates of food were cleared by dutiful caterers before we returned from the farewells. Oh well.
We spent the rest of the evening taking a personality test and discussing it with Mary's cousin and brother. I'll have to post the link, because I think it's pretty good.
We flew home Sunday, making it back in time for half of Sunday School, all of Relief Society, and (most importantly) Break the Fast. The end.
My big epiphany for this trip: LA freeways are incredibly non-user-friendly in the way they are laid out. If you miss your exit, you would think the next one would work almost as well... you should be able to take surface streets to backtrack... apparently not in California. And the traffic... don't even get me started. I have never appreciated straight freeways and the grid system for streets so much.
So, I don't really have time to do it now. I should eat dinner before I get visited by the EQ presidency from my singles ward, or somebody like that, I'm not really sure... But I feel like I ought to post something, so here we have it. Let's see how far I can get.
I flew to CA Thursday night with my best friend Rachel. We got to the airport in time, had no trouble at all checking our bags and getting through security and all that, so of course our flight was delayed an hour... it was all right though, we just had to wait a lot longer than we anticipated. We stayed up late that night talking to Mary, our old roommate, getting caught up on life and all that. Friday morning we intended to get up bright and early and make it to Disneyland by 9 when it opened. Yeah, that didn't happen... we slept in, enjoyed a wonderful breakfast prepared by Mary's mom, got directions, stopped at a store for snacks... you get the idea. I think we entered the park around noon, right on schedule.
Of course, we then stayed until midnight to get our money's worth, as admission costs $63 these days... ridiculous! First we went on Space Mountain. Fabulous ride! I think it's my favorite one. It's been closed the last few times I've gone, so I was very happy it was running. We got a fast pass to come back later when the lines were going to be even more horrendously long.
Then we went on the Buzz Lightyear ride, which is really more like a live video game... you try to shoot moving targets and rack up mega points as you travel through the ride. See my beautiful picture? I'm Space Ranger 2. :)
Following that we went on a plethora of other rides, because that's what you do at Disneyland. We hit pretty much every ride worth going on, except Thunder Mountain Railroad, which was closed.
When we went back to Space Mountain, we of course were super excited. We only had to wait 15 minutes before we were on the ride. Alas, before we had gotten far at all, our car slowed to a halt... 30 more seconds, and we would have been in the heart of the ride, which would have been really cool to get stuck in, but we were still on the preliminary bit. It was kind of exciting to see the protocol for evacuating a ride, but disappointing as well because we didn't get to finish the ride... oh well. We got passes to go to the front of any line in the park (except the one for Pirates, which would have been a waste anyway because that line's never very long) and used it for the Matterhorn. (We had tried to go on the Matterhorn earlier but it broke down after we had waited for 30 min. and we decided it wasn't worth waiting in line for another half hour for them to fix it.) So I suppose some good came of it.
The fireworks were spectacular, and we tempted fate by going on Splash Mountain at 10:30... luckily we didn't get too wet or we would have been freezing! Then we went on all the kiddie rides in Fantasyland after 11:30 so there were no lines. :) It was awesome. No line for the Spinning Teacups! We finally left at midnight, wandered around for a while trying to find our way to Simba parking lot, and eventually managed to find our car. Then we drove back to Rancho Cucamonga, where we met some of Mary's friends at Denny's for some dinner. It was quite fun, especially since we were all so tired that we were hyper and a little loopy...
This is what the inside of Space Mountain looks like.
That was Friday.
Saturday we intended to get up at 9:30 and leave by 10:30 so as to be at the LA temple in time to see Julie come out a newly married woman. That didn't work out so well. We woke up at 10:20, got ready super fast, and managed to be out the door by 11, but the traffic was horrible (not surprising, given that it was LA) and our exit was closed, so we had to take a long detour, giving us ample opportunity to get stuck in even more traffic. We got to the temple at 1:30. Oh well. At least we got to see Julie, and take lots of pictures, and strategically place ourselves close to the groom's mother so as to provide plenty of chances for her to invite us to the wedding luncheon (which she did... yay!). We even managed to find the restaurant, even though we did get lost a few times and didn't get there until everyone else was more than half done eating.
Then Mary had to go to urgent care to get some antibiotics for an infected wisdom tooth wound (which was very painful until it burst at the temple, releasing foul pus into her mouth. How pleasant...). This took a bit longer than anticipated, so we didn't actually get to the wedding reception until 15 minutes before it ended... long enough to get some food, congratulate the bride and groom, and watch them unwrap their car and drive off! Tragically, our plates of food were cleared by dutiful caterers before we returned from the farewells. Oh well.
We spent the rest of the evening taking a personality test and discussing it with Mary's cousin and brother. I'll have to post the link, because I think it's pretty good.
We flew home Sunday, making it back in time for half of Sunday School, all of Relief Society, and (most importantly) Break the Fast. The end.
My big epiphany for this trip: LA freeways are incredibly non-user-friendly in the way they are laid out. If you miss your exit, you would think the next one would work almost as well... you should be able to take surface streets to backtrack... apparently not in California. And the traffic... don't even get me started. I have never appreciated straight freeways and the grid system for streets so much.