Theme Park Madness
It has been a crazy week so far. Normally I like to update my blog at the end of each day, but I’ve been so tired, I’ve just had time to take some quick notes before heading off to bed. I’m finally getting some time to get a post written up.
Monday: California Adventure
I woke up early on Monday to get a quick morning run in…I also used it as a way to scout out the pick up location for our rental car. My run went along the trail that parallels the Santa Ana River. I was on the trail around 6:30a or so, even though it doesn’t officially open until 7. It is a nice paved trail – made me wish I’d brought my bike along. After the run and a shower, Kim and I walked to pick up the rental car.
California Adventure was our first theme park for the trip. We met Kim’s cousin for the day – He is currently attending USC and managed to fit a visit with us into his busy schedule.
The weather wasn’t super hot, and it was pretty windy out. That didn’t stop us from going on the river rafting ride.
Brian and Molly were the lucky ones that ended up totally soaked at the end of the ride.
Also went on the Toy Story arcade ride…had to get a picture of the kids sporting their cool 3D glasses.
The park was not very crowded…in fact the line for California Screamin’ (the big roller coaster) was shorter than 20 minutes all day long. Needless to say, there were multiple trips through that ride.
The latest ride in California Adventure is the Cars ride. We used our fast pass for this ride as soon as we arrived in the morning, and our timeslot arrived at 5:00p. As soon as we handed over our fast pass tickets, the ride broke down. We had to wait an extra 20 minutes or so while we waited for the ride to be fixed, but that was way better than the 90 minutes+ for the people in the normal line.
After we were done with the park, we walked down the street to Bubba Gump’s and had some shrimp for dinner. We packed all of the leftovers for the poor college student, but he forgot them at the table!
Tuesday: Disneyland
This was the only day we actually went to Disneyland on our trip. We planned to be there right as the park opened, but getting 6 people ready to go in the RV took a bitt long. We still managed to get to the park fairly early.
Our first stop – get a fast pass at Space Mountain, but it was temporarily closed for repairs! This seemed to be a theme for our day at Disney. While waiting for Space Mountain to be fixed, we went on the Buzz Lightyear ride (of course I got the highest score in our group), and the revamped Star Tours. Space Mountain finally opened up and the line was short – didn’t need to use our fast pass.
Continuing with the broken rides – Indiana Jones broke down while we waited in line. Pirates of the Caribbean was broken all morning. The Haunted Mansion stopped a couple of times while we were on the ride.
After getting through all the broken rides, ended up with some photo ops wit the kids…Got a picture of Maddy with her new kitty.
and the two girls that are graduating this year.
and the little girls on the tea cups.
We met some friends from our college days (we were in each others weddings as well) at Rainforest Café for dinner. It had been 15 years or so since we had last seen each other. We had a blast catching up!
Wednesday: Knott’s Berry Farm
Got another run in! That makes two, only one more to go to meet my goal for the week!
The first challenge going to Knott’s Berry Farm was getting into the parking. The signage is a bit lacking. We ended up making a couple of U turns and looping the eniter park before we finally made it into the parking lot.
The park itself was pretty empty. The big kids ditched us, leaving Kim and I to chase the little kids around the park. There basically were no lines, so they would go on each ride multiple times before moving on to the next.
Getting ready for the Silver Bullet – a roller coaster that you hang from.
Going up the sidewinder.
Don’t remember what they called this one, but you spent a significant amount of time upside down.
Had an easy dinner at the motorhome. I had some time to process pictures in Lightroom, but was still a bit tired to blog.
Scott's Big Adventures 