OK. Time to finish up with Day 2!
After Soarin' Over California we trekked back over to
Disneyland to end our day. First stop: Lockers. Chief would wear shorts during the day, then in the evening he'd pull on athletic pants over his shorts. So we were at our locker, taking care of Chief's nightly ritual, when my sister decided to do a little jig. Not an interesting picture to the general population, but it is a big memory from this trip and Chief will appreciate seeing this picture when he reads the completed TR. As he was sitting there putting his shoes back on, he commented on how his shoes were still soaking. (He had dry socks, so I assume it was more of an external soaking.) My sister took this as her cue to bust out in dance and song. It went like this: "Soakin' soakin' soakin' --- My shoes are soakin'." Then repeat. (I know -- it was a "you had to be there moment.") We got a big kick out of it for some reason and I had her keep going so I could record it. Now, a month later, my kids continue to bust out in that song during the most random of times. And when my sister had a birthday this month, my kids' card to her was a video of all 3 of them singing the song and doing the exact jig that she had done by the lockers at Disneyland. With a "Happy Birthday" tacked on the end.
Another "random trip moment" that will forever be remembered.
So, we decided to go to Fantasyland to hit whatever we missed earlier in the morning. We only had 45 minutes before "The Magic, The Memories, and You!" show was scheduled to begin. I was really looking forward to it. I want to say it was the very first showing ever at Disneyland. I think. Anyway, we headed to Snow White first. 5 minute wait.
We moved on to Pinocchio next. I'm noticing I don't have any pictures from this one. It must have been because we were distracted by the child right in front of us who needed a diaper change. In a bad way. We noticed the smell right when we got in line. We noticed the mother ask the child (age 3-ish) if he needed his diaper changed. He said yes. Then we noticed how they just stayed in line, as we were left victims of the wake of that yucky air. People all around were looking at others in their party, discreetly asking them if they needed to use the restroom, trying to figure out if they were the cause of the nastiness. It was kind of interesting noticing all of the reactions/behaviors as the lady continued to press forward in line, knowing all the while that her child really needed to be changed. I remember my sister saying, in reference to the mom, "Boy, she must
really want to ride Pinocchio!" It wasn't long before it was our turn to ride. We were more than ready to place some distance between us and them. As we were leaving the area after the ride, we noticed that these people got in line for yet another ride! Good grief. Well, we went a different direction this time. The Carousel, to be exact. My favorite time to ride is at night. We just had to wait for the Carousel to stop it's current spin, and then we were able to hop right on.
My horse:
Now...this next picture is for my kids. Remember I have 3 boys. When we went to Disneyland in Nov. '09, the kids thought it was so funny that the horses on Main Street had Christmas-y decor on their bums. When I went in October, they asked me to take pictures of the horses' bums, because they were sure they would be in costume.
I did, and I think they were wearing something black and white. Something small. Well, they were wondering what the horses wear on their bums when it isn't a holiday -- like at the end of January. Unfortunately Main Street was being repaved while we were there, so the horses weren't out and about. No horse bum pictures this trip! So I had to settle on bringing this picture back to my boys...the closest thing I could get to the real deal!
Time to make our way over to Small World area. 10 minutes until showtime and not much of a crowd.
I had high hopes for this show. I love tear-jerker "We're Going To Disneyland!" commercials. I thought I might get the same emotional tug from seeing the pictures of today's Disneyland guests projected onto IASW facade, set to music. Well...I didn't. It was a big disappointment to me, for the most part. I felt like most of the pictures were too small, you barely had a second to look at them, they were pretty distorted given the surface they were projected upon, and I didn't care for the music. I was, however, impressed with some of the lighting effects. Here's a bunch of pictures from the show:
My favorite effects were the 3-D type effects when it looked like different sections of IASW were popping right out at you. Wish I could describe it better than that. It was coordinated with the music and very cool. I also loved the "scribbled crayon" lighting effect. Also very cool. I loved that sound as the scribbled crayon effect gradually appeared.
It was 7:43 when I took that last picture. Park closing time was 8pm. We already planned to go to BTMRR immediately after the show, so no time was wasted. We ended up walking on and riding 2 times before closing. We did have to get off in between rides, however. They made a special point of telling everyone that if they wished to ride again, they were welcome to get back in line. So, despite the cutters, we made it on a second time.
We were actually on the last train of the night. The CM kept saying, "This is the last train of the night!! Everybody say 'Yee Haw!'" We seemed to be the only ones Yee-Hawing back and forth with her.
It was a great ride, and a perfect way to end the night.
We decided to head over to the
Lego Store in DTD next. Chief is a HUGE Lego fan, as are his brothers. I can't tell you how many Legos I've stepped on just today. I have all but given up on finding a way to keep them better contained. They are scattered everywhere around here, but they are getting played with so I am OK with that.
I LOVED this! Swallowed a Lego brick...how clever is that?!?
We were exhausted by the time we left the Lego store and abandoned our plans to find a sit-down place in DTD for a late dinner. We really wanted to make sure we caught the last shuttle back to Candy Cane Inn. It would be leaving at 9:45. (DL closed at 8pm.) So we grabbed something from Wetzels Pretzels and made the long walk back to the tram pick-up location. It didn't take as long to get there as we thought, so we had about a 20 minute wait. We really should have just walked back.
And that concludes Day 2! Just one more day to go.
(so says the woman who got home 1/1/11)
Your score was very respectable for a beaver and you totally dusted the bunny in your car!
Man, I haven't thought about him in years!
Did you get your Photo Pass pictures yet? I'm anxious to hear about your trip.
I guess there's no point in postponing it any longer. 
My sister informed her that it just shuttled people to and from 
"It ran away" makes no sense for the Haunted Mansion theme. It seems like she could have said something like, "The spirits have taken it for a ride," or "It vanished into thin air," or "It's gone to pick up a new....guest...of the Mansion..." [all spoken with sinister smirk and tone, of course]. She could have said, "Things have a way of disappearing around here in the middle of the night, never to be seen again...muahahahahahaha..." Any of those replies - while corny - would have been better than "It ran away." Odd.
