Sunday, April 10, 2011

spring break

Melanie talked me into a quick little trip to the coast. I'm glad my 16 year old daughter doesn't mind hanging around with her mom. My "other" daughter, Rachel (sorry Cindi, but we kind of claim her, too) also went with us. Those two girls are CRAZY. Tuesday morning, we drove straight to the beach. We got there an hour later than we planned. A truck full of hay bales tipped over on the freeway and we were going about 4 mph for about an hour. (I know, bales of hay on the Los Angeles Freeway??) My aunt Vicki met us at the beach. If you ever are looking for a nice little beach in California, head to Seal Beach. There are some streets full of cute little shops just off the pier. The girls splashed in the water a bit (although it was too cold and windy for me to get wet), made the mandatory sand castle, collected some stinky sea shells, then we strolled around the shops then went out to dinner with Con and Vicki. It was a nice evening. Melanie said, "I didn't know Aunt Vicki was so funny and so cool!" The girls stayed up until who knows when braiding each other's hair. Quite interesting hairdos. Wednesday morning we got in the gates of Disneyland at 9:05 and bolted for the Indiana Jones ride, then on to the Jungle Cruise. That is still an awesome ride. Most of the pictures the girls took on that ride were taken of a man sitting across from us wearing a tank top who was obviously very proud of his back hair. I will spare you those photos. (You're welcome).Then we wandered around and went on several rides. Melanie insisted we explore Tom Sawyer's Island. She needed a picture of herself in the monkey cage of Casey Jr's Circus Train. Rachel discovered the "Fast Pass" system of taking pictures with the Disney Characters. Surprisingly we didn't deal with long lines for the most part - about 20 minutes for a couple of the big rides, and we used the fast pass system a couple of times. The longest lines of the day were for the Submarine ride and Peter Pan's Adventure. You'd think all three of us were too old for either one of those rides. But if you thought that, you would be wrong. I loved, loved, loved the submarine ride when I was in first grade. And what could be more magical than flying in a ship over Neverland. I've got to admit, neither ride had quite the same magic anymore, but we were determined to have a full and complete Disney experience. We split up for a chunk of the afternoon. I strolled along Main Street and did some window shopping and went to see "Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln" (funny thing, no lines to get into that program). There was air conditioning and comfortable seats for a while. That's when I realized I might be getting too old for Disneyland. But later in the evening, the girls were starting to wear out and I was still going strong, I was glad I had taken a little break from the roller coasters and had spent a little time resting in Lincolnland.During the evening's light and water show, we ran into our Stake President and his family. What a coincidence. At 11:30 p.m. we thought we could fit 2 more rides in. We went on the Matterhorn and Space Mountain. I forgot the Matterhorn was such a rough ride and it weirded out my stomach a little. Then Space Mountain about did me in. I had forgotten that I don't like that ride. The minute it started, I remembered how dark the whole ride was and the movement and the dark really did something to my innards. I couldn't shake the wooziness or nausea or whatever until about 2 a.m. Yuck. Goodbye Mickey -- it's been fun.

We started back to Arizona Thursday morning. We made a few necessary stops on the way home -- Brighton Jewelry at the Outlet Mall, Hadley's Orchards Market, and the infamous dinosaurs. Good Times.

It couldn't have been a better trip.

2 comments:

Suzanne Barker said...

Sounds like fun. Still have to get back to Disneyland sometime.....

jaust.me said...

What a fun time to spend with our daughter!