First on the agenda: King's Practice! By design, our hotel was right around the corner from the Toyota Center where the Kings practice and have pre-game skates. According to Stan, it's also the home of the Lakers! A thrill of excitement ran though me at the news! Unfortunately, we were to discover that the Lakers are a whole 'nother breed of animal and their practices are super-secret and closed to the public. Darn.
The Kings facility is really, really nice. BUT! It's not really conducive to taking good pictures with a crappy camera. The weird angle from the bleachers combined with the rails and glass made it really difficult to get good photos.
So not many to post for the first day. Don't worry, there'll be plenty of hockey photos forthcoming. haha
After pracky was over, we hightailed it straight to Disneyland. The day was a little bit gray. However, this being Southern California, it wasn't really cold so we weren't too worried about it.
Yay!!! We're finally here!! Last time we were here, this parking garage and tram wasn't!
Neither was California Adventure, so we decided to head there first to check it out and get some much needed food. The Pacific Wharf Cafe struck us both as appealing. Could it be because we are very familiar with Boudin? haha I'd like to think we're more adventurous than that, but whatever. I got the Santa Rosa Corn Chowder (below right) and Adie got the Shrimp Louie salad (below left). Both were delicious.
We sat beside the water of Paradise Bay, eating and feeding the little birdies that gathered. We walked around for a bit, checking out the land. We saw a cool, crazy mobile band thingy...
We didn't actually do too much in the way of rides in California Adventure. We did ride our one "must-do" which was Soaring Above California. It was pretty amazing. I wanted to to the Grizzly River Run, but Adie didn't want to get wet. Little did she know what was coming later. haha
We were anxious to get over to Disneyland "proper". haha And so excited to see the familiar entrance!
We made our way inside and down main street. It was a mass of humanity! We didn't take into account that it was Spring Break.
We decided to console ourselves with another favorite - Space Mountain! Of course the wait was long...about 75 minutes. But we decided it was worth it of course. While waiting we saw these cute youths (Schmidt shout-out) doing PARKOUR! (Office shout-out) while their parental units waited in line for them. lol
We had another lucky moment when we came to the end of our ride... The car in front of us was having trouble loading a couple. They couldn't figure out how to get in the car or something. So, because they try to keep these things moving, the operator yelled to our car "Do you guys wanna go again?" We all cheered and off we went for a second trip in space without having to wait another hour + in line!
After that, we decided to head over to the Submarine ride. Haven't been to Disneyland since it was remodeled for Finding Nemo and expected to not be thrilled. But it was cute.
It started to sprinkle while we were waiting in line. Hmmmm....how is this going to work? Not sure how Adie is going to react if it started raining significantly. Her hair is not "moisture friendly". We saw quite a few people wearing plastic Disney rain ponchos so we decided to stop at the store and buy a couple. Needless to say supply was not quite meeting demand and we stopped at several stores before finding a couple adult-size ponchos. Just in time too. It started to rain a bit harder while we were in line for Mr. Toad's wild ride.
We spent sooo much time in Fantasy Land. Luv it sooo much. Of course we had to ride Snow White, Pinocchio, and two of my favorites - Matterhorn and Peter Pan. I tried to take a pic on Peter Pan, but it didn't turn out because I didn't want to use a flash. Unlike some other folks there...grrrrrr....
Matterhorn is not one of Adrienne's favorites so I give her full credit for sucking it up and actually enjoying the ride...especially with soaking wet seats! Another bummer though as Alice in Wonderland was malfunctioning so we didn't get to ride it this time around.
It was getting to be near dinner time so we headed back to Main Street in search of some corn dogs that Adrienne's friend had told her were not to be missed. I must say, they were the best corn dogs I've ever eaten. Disney magic?
We realized we had forgotten to ride It's a Small World so we decided to cross back through they park and rectify our error. Of course this meant another crossing of Main Street and another gorgeous horse to take a picture of.
So back on Big Thunder Mountain...
Wandering around we saw more avian park inhabitants. Sorry, but I love animals and birds so I gotta take pictures, right? I don't even know what this bird is, but it was happily living in a pond by the Tiki Room.
And we saw another adorable duck family. These guys were floating along near the Jungle Cruise.
Soon thereafter, the skies opened and the rain came down in earnest! Thank Heaven for those ponchos! The park cleared out quite a bit as all the families with small children ran for the parking lots. Perfect for us! I tucked my camera away to keep it as dry as possible and we spend the next several hours repeatedly riding the rides that normally have the longest lines. Pirates of the Caribbean twice...Indiana Jones three times, Big Thunder again. And in between we went in the Haunted Mansion to dry off. lol
The last ride of the night was the Jungle Cruise. Funny story. We got on the boat and it was just us and one little family of three. I moved up to the front of the boat to take a seat and Adrienne and the other family stayed pretty much in the middle. It was dark by this time and starting to get a little bit chilly. The operator waited for about 5 or so minutes to see if anyone else would be coming and then she started the boat.
SPLASH! What felt like a bucket of water came pouring down right on my head from the awning over the boat! I gasped and looked at Adie who was laughing her ass off. Thank goodness for the poncho!!!
No matter, right? I told myself it was just built up because the boat had been sitting at the dock collecting rain. It was startling but it was over, right? I couldn't have been more wrong! Every damn time that boat made the slightest turn, it swayed to one side and another "bucket" of water was dumped on my head!
It was funny at first... Well to Adrienne it was always funny! I did laugh quite a bit myself...
But by the time we got back to the dock, the water that had ran off my poncho-covered head was pooling in the seat around my denim-covered butt. The poncho wasn't long enough for me to sit on so my butt was completely unprotected and soaked through! I was the ONLY person on the boat to get wet too.
We had a fast pass for the World of Color show in California Adventure which started at 10ish but I told Adie there was no way I could make it through with my soaking wet ass and the night becoming more chilly.
We headed back to the car where I (thankfully) had a large beach towel stowed. Along with the towel I had a couple throw blankets (just in case...for the snow on the grapevine...what if we got stuck??) so I hauled those into the hotel room to add to our beds so we would be nice and toasty. =D
Another day of fun...and more to come! TO BE CONTINUED...
xoxo
