Disneyland

The Disneyland Hotel has two water slides in their pool area. The beginning of each is shaped to look like the monorail, which has a station right next to the hotel in Downtown Disney. The same friendliness and service you'd expect at the park is given at the hotel. After a three night stay there, I'm not sure how I'll ever be able to stay in another hotel near there again.

Mock Jack-o-lanterns, pumpkins and other harvest vegetables decorated lamposts and windowsills at the park, tied with Orange ribbon and autumn-colored bows. It gave a distinctly October feel even though it was one-hundred degrees both days we went. Hopefully, next time we go won't be so hot. It was brutal, but it was worth it.

California Adventure looks very nice. The front is more cohesive with the 1920's Hollywood theme they modge-podged together before this last remodel. Cars Land's forced perspective is incredible, but both of the big name rides were more hype than they were worth. While the Radiator Springs Racer was fun, it was a little slow and Luigi's Tires just needs to be taken out for something else. The land just has too much of a "kiddy" feel to it, like most of "A Bug's Land," which makes me wonder if Disney isn't trying to take the park in that direction on purpose. It would be a disappointment to those who appreciate the addition of thriller rides like California Screamin' and Tower of Terror.

Friday night my mom and I went on a run around the block, which I'm glad I did because I skipped my Monday run after the terribly long and arduous ride from Anaheim.

We did it all, our wish list rides, the new attractions and the nostalgic ones. Our last ride the last night was me and Chris on King Arthur's Carousel, which is one of my very favorite things to do with him. There's something so romantically simple about riding on a painted horse with calliope music playing underneath the golden light bulbs while the night swirls past.

Disneyland magic. It's still there, even though we've been there twice since our honeymoon now. In line for Small World, we saw a couple in bride/groom ears put in their own boat for their own private ride. I used to scoff at romance for being so sickeningly sweet, but all it took was to be romanced by the one person who would break through my toughened heart and now I look at those people and know they are the luckiest people in the world in that moment.

Still, I have enough of my old self left to tell myself, "Enough with the gooey stuff, the readers of this blog now have diabetes because it's so sweet," which brings me to another subject which I'll write about in detail on the next blog post.