Bit of Ivory

You know why? ‘Cause I just spent the last 12 hours (give or take a few breaks here and there) walking around Disneyland. Yup! Lisa and Sarah and I have escaped to Anaheim, and boy are we happy about it. We’re also completely exhausted. My feet hurt, my back hurts, the back of my heels are bleeding from wearing shoes I only bought last week (I know, I know, but they’re trainers! That look vaguely Doctor-ish! And they match!), and I’m having a fabulous time.

Today we used a RideMax schedule to go on all our favorite rides. And it worked really really well. It helped, I suppose, that the wait times were usually less than predicted (and occasionally were even significantly so), so we got to go on everything we’d planned for the day, plus a few extras. We went on Pirates 3 times (planned for two, but had enough time and we were literally able to walk on), Space Mountain twice (only planned for once, but the last time there was only a 15 min. standby line), Indiana Jones twice (planned, but the line was so short when we came back to use our second FastPass that they weren’t even accepting them. Total wait time: 10 min.), and the following once each: Buzz Lightyear, Star Tours, Winnie the Pooh, Splash Mountain, the Matterhorn, Jungle Cruise, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and the Haunted Mansion, plus the Disneyland Railroad and the Monorail. The only item that was on our itinerary but that we didn’t actually go on was the Finding Nemo submarines, but we’d always had that penciled in, because even RideMax warned us that there would be an hour wait time, and the line we saw bore that out. I’m not positive we’ll get around to it, honestly, mainly because we’re all slightly claustrophobic, and we watched the ride while we waited for the monorail. It took forEVER to load those things. I think we’d go nuts. So, we’ll see.

In between all of that, we had lunch at the Hungry Bear, dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, and an unplanned trip during our planned break to the Long Beach Airport to retrieve some items I’d accidentally left on the plane (including my contact case and solution. Oops).

We all wore shirts that say “Lots of planets have a North” and were pleasantly surprised when a gentleman from Australia actually recognized their source while we were standing in line for Indiana Jones. We spent the rest of the queue discussing the TARDIS and the sonic screwdriver and which Doctor was our favorite and which Bad Guy was our favorite and wouldn’t it be great if we could all just take the TARDIS to Disneyland whenever we felt like it. It was fabulous.

We saw a sight we don’t often see while walking to Disneyland (our hotel is very close to the Park– it only takes about 5 minutes to walk from the hotel to the main gate). Six nuns in a white Toyota Previa. Hee.

Tomorrow we’re getting up early-ish for a sit-down breakfast at the Carnation Cafe, then we’re spending the day at California Adventure. I’ve never been, so I’m excited. I may even brave a ride on the Tower of Terror. The meclizine my doctor prescribed seems to be helping my motion sickness– I didn’t even throw up on the plane, which is amazing considering my track record of late. So maybe I’ll be able to handle the up-and-down motion better than I’m expecting I will. Then Saturday we’re planning on doing the less popular rides and Disneyland (with a few exceptions– we’re doing Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain and, of course, Pirates, again). Sunday we’ll take the day off from the parks and maybe do a bit of sightseeing before meeting up with Kirk at the Cheesecake Factory. Then it’s one more day in the parks, going on our favorite rides again, before flying home on the 8:00 pm flight.

I’ll be lucky if I get out of bed next Tuesday. But I’ll love it just the same.