It’s All Fun And Games Until Someone Gets Cultured
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| Amy + Doug 4EVR |
This is the fourth time I’ve been to Disneyland since
turning 25. I blame this on my
parents who – despite taking me to Denmark’s Legoland, Italy’s LunaPark, and Williamsburg’s Busch Gardens – never had the decency to take me across the
country to Disneyland. Since I
never went as a kid, I naturally had to make up for it four-fold by going as an
adult. Deluding myself into
thinking this was a normal adult activity has always been made easier by the
fact that I go with two childless friends who are even older AND even
more enthusiastic about Disneyland than am I.
I was so excited about our trip, which we started planning
last October, and I had no problems telling other adults what I was planning to
do. I practically bragged about not bringing my kid; after all, I’m not paying $98 to spend the day waiting in
line at the Dumbo ride (although I’ll do that, too) when there are roller coasters
screaming my name! And, really, I
am happy to wait until Mr. C’s older to take him to a memorable place: this gives
him the chance to actually, you know, remember it.
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| You're Never Too Old For Dumbo |
Yes, despite the fact that I was going to be away from my
little guy for a week, I was really looking forward to my upcoming trip . . .
until about a month ago. That was
when Bee suddenly turned to me and said, “I just can't believe I have a wife
who wants to go to Disneyland.”
I blinked at him.
“Why are you surprised? I
like rides, I like costumed-characters, and you know my adoration for anything with a THEME.” I started
mentally-salivating at the thought of the jungles in Adventureland and the
castles in Fantasyland. “I can’t
wait to see the buildings in New Orleans Square again,” I added.
“Then why not go to New Orleans?” Bee asked.
I stared at him, momentarily dumbstruck. “But . . . but . . . New Orleans
doesn’t have little boats you ride while pirates "Yo-Ho" you, or mansions where
the ceiling grows and you feel like you’re sinking, or fancy restaurants on the
bayou where you get a chocolate medallion with Mickey Mouse stamped into it.”
“But don’t you want to go somewhere you haven’t been to 3
times before?” Bee pointed out.
"Maybe," I admitted, "but Vegas freaked you out and this is where my
friends are willing to go.
Besides, we can drive there and stay pretty cheaply, and – thanks to the
wonders of THEMES – I’ll get to pretend like I’ve been to all sorts of places
in just three days!"
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| even the BATHROOMS are THEMED (here: Cars Land) |
Bee still looked troubled. “You know my friend Travis’ wife?”
“Sure,” I replied.
“The one who’s obsessed with Kris Allen from American Idol?”
Bee nodded.
“Yeah, I remember,” I said. “Didn’t she make those tie-dye shirts for every member of
Kris Allen’s band?”
Bee nodded.
“And didn’t she and bunch of other 50-year-old ladies host a
baby shower for Kris’ expectant wife?”
“Who they’d never even met,” Bee pointed out.
“Yeah,” I said,
“I know who you’re talking about.
She’s . . . interesting.”
Bee just nodded.
“So . . . what’s your point?” I asked.
Bee shrugged.
It took me a moment for realization to hit. “You’re putting me in the same category
as HER?” I gasped, horrified.
And then I became self-conscious, and I no longer wanted to
tell anyone where I was going to go.
I could suddenly picture the other Kindergarten parents asking Bee about
my disappearance, and how he’d have to sheepishly admit that his 35-year-old
wife was in Disneyland . . . alone.
So I started telling people I was just taking a girl’s trip to
California . . . then quickly changing the subject. I think that’s how Bee handled last week, as well.
I started off on my trip with some trepidation, but
determined to have fun. I drove to
California with my friend Amy and her new fiancée, Ben, a 60-something-year-old
man who was only slightly-less ambivalent about Disneyland than is Bee. Unfortunately for Ben, he and Amy are
still in the honeymoon-phase of their relationship (you know, when you’re still
particularly enthusiastic about making your mate happy), so he was forced to
pretend excitement over the trip (a task he did admirably).
I am happy to report that we spent the night in the
outskirts of Vegas . . . so at least I can say I got there.
We made it to L.A. the next morning, and decided – since we
weren’t going to Disneyland until the next day – to stop at the LaBrea Tar
Pits. This worked well for all of
us, as Amy and Ben are sophisticated folks who like natural sciences, ancient
animals, and freakish things, and I just wanted to be able to say I did
something on my trip that sounded cultured.
Despite the fact that the Tar Pits are neither, in fact,
“tar” nor “pits”, I enjoyed myself.
Liquid asphalt still leaks out of the ground in this area in the middle
of L.A., so it was amusing to see all the hastily-erected barriers around the
grounds to try to keep tourists from ruining their shoes. As I learned on the interpretive tour,
the asphalt usually oozed up in a patch that was 3-5 inches deep, which was –
amazingly – enough to capture an herbivore as it stood in the puddle and
grazed. Once trapped, the
herbivore freaked and made enough noise to attract predators . . . who then
also got trapped. Then scavengers
came along to feast on THEM . . . and also got trapped. So the Tar Pits provide a rich amount
of well-preserved bones, despite the fact that these entrapments probably only
occurred once every ten years.
Over the course of a few million years, though, you get a lot of species.
But enough intelligence: on to Disneyland.
That night, we met our friend Liza down in Anaheim, and
celebrated our arrival by donning our plastic tiaras – as any sane adult woman
would do – to eat pizza in our hotel room. Liza is Disneyland’s Most Enthusiastic Proponent, and
she had already spent the day there while waiting for us, so she could give us
the d.l. on DL. She learned on her
Horticultural Tour that day (because she is also an educated, cultivated
person) that Walt Disney wanted mature trees when the park first opened, so his
engineers devised a revolutionary way of boring special spikes into trees
slated elsewhere for removal and then lifting the entire tree out of the ground
with a crane and moving it to it’s new home. And then the tree healed around the spike, or something like
that (at that point I had stopped listening because I was fantasizing about
getting a picture with Eeyore).
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| eating Noodle Grunt (the next night) in our tiaras (Ben never DID join us) |
So we spent two days in Disneyland and one in California
Adventure. I won’t bore you with
all the details, but I’ll tell you my favorite parts:
- They
re-did the “Star Tours” ride, where a group of you loads into a “space shuttle”
to watch an action-filled 3D movie while getting appropriately shaken
violently around in a very spaceship-ride way. We loved it so much, we went on it three times. There are now several missions you
might get to go on as part of “Star Tours”, but each one starts with the
premise that your ship is hiding a ‘rebel spy’ . . . and they show a
picture of the ‘rebel spy’, who is usually the passenger caught with the
most-ridiculous look on their face.
One time, it as Ben.
The next time, it was Amy.
- I was awesome at the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters shootout game, racking up 120,000 points to my companions' measly 12,000. Just call me Toxic TriggerFinger.
- Potato-Bacon Soup in a bread bowl at the Boudin Bakery. Carb-on-carb deliciousness!
- I love
the camaraderie of a roomful of people hysterically screaming and laughing
as they are plunged towards their death in the Hollywood Tower of
Terror. I went back 3 times.
- Liza and I got to ride the new Cars Land Radiator Springs Racers, which is an appropriately-THEMED mix of the Winnie-The-Pooh ride and the California Screamin’ roller coaster. And we got to see the mock Radiator Springs area when it as all lit up for night. Beautiful!
- We saw
several parades. When Disney
does it, they Do It. Note the
live gymnasts swinging on the bars the entire time the Toy Story float was
in action. And they acted
happy the whole time.
- Oh,
and this was my lunch one day:
It was a fun trip, even though it was more crowded than I’m
used to (shocking for February, though nothing compared to July). I’m used to being able to breeze through
lines and go on rides multiple times with ease; this trip, we had to wait 15-45
minutes for most of the rides (The nerve!
What are all these people doing here?). I spent most of my time waiting in these lines worrying how
Mr. C would handle waiting in these lines . . . and he wasn’t even there.
I think I’m done with Disneyland until Mr. C is old-enough
to go. A little of the "magic" has
gone out for me, but I think it’ll be rekindled when taking a kid for the first
time. Although, honestly, having Ben
there was almost like having a first-time-kid: he hardly remembered his only
other trip to Disneyland (when he was 10), so Amy was very focused on making it
a positive experience for him.
(“We need to go to the Blue Bayou restaurant, because Ben’s never
been!”) (“We should go to the
Aladdin show, because Ben’s never been!”)
(“We need to see the new Cars Land none of us has been to, because Ben’s
never been!”) It was absolutely
adorable, if pandering to an amiable-though-ambivalent grey-bearded man at a
park geared more towards children can be considered adorable.
An extra perk was that, on the drive home, Amy and I decided we
needed to take Ben to the Getty Center (because Ben’s never been!), so I got
Bonus Culture. Looking at all the
Renoirs, Monets, and Van Goughs made me feel both refined and obtuse: some art
is so beautiful, and some I just don’t get. My favorite piece, however, was a “Cabinet of Curiousities”,
which had tiny drawers and hidden panels in which to hold collected items, as
well as intricate inlay-work and beautiful, tiny paintings. It was amazing (and, more-importantly,
THEMED: religions through the ages).
It was a very enjoyable trip, despite the fact that it took
four days of travel when I had originally hoped to push through in two, and
despite us always managing to get stuck in terrible traffic around L.A. Not only did we have fun in Disneyland
and have deep, philosophical discussions in the car, but I got me some learnin’ at a
few museums: convenient, since I’ve spent the last few days just telling
curious parents I went to the Getty Center and the Tar Pits and forgetting to
mention Disneyland.
I came home to discover that Bee and Mr. C had had a nice
week without me, and had even cleaned the house before I got home! Also, I learned that they ate a lot of
crap, which makes me feel better about the crap I happily feed our child when Bee's out of town. So a fine time was
had by all.
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