Another Day of Fun--and Pain

Another busy day today and I woke up with a horrible earache.  :-(   Can't miss out on the last time we'll be here, though, so it's 2 Tylenol and when Ray gets back from running, we're off.  

He did very well in the half marathon with a time of 1:57 something, so he received two more medals and, because he came in 4th in his age group, it looks like he'll even get a trophy/plaque this time.  Usually he comes in 4th and they're only giving trophies to the top 3, so he hit it lucky this time.

We had a good breakfast at Rainforest Cafe then returned to Fantasyland to do Peter Pan (almost the same as DisneyWorld), Alice in Wonderland (really cool), Mr. Toad's Wild Ride (fun & saw a man dressed as one of the Dr. Whos), and It's a Small World ( much bigger and not so mind-numbing a song as it was interspersed with Christmas songs and it was decorated still for the holidays), then took the train over to do the Haunted Mansion (almost the same on the inside as DisneyWorld).  Then the train to the monorail to Downtown Disney to shop then to a tiny restaurant called Coco's near our hotel and back to the room for a rest.  This turned out to be all for the day as my ear pain became too much to deal with.

Visitor to Disneyland wearing cool Yoda backpack:

 

Here is Disneyland, they move the fence for the rocks!

Person dressed as Dr. Who on the Mr. Toad ride:

 

At the end of It's a Small World:

Haunted Mansion:

Pretty Sconce in Grand Californian Hotel:

And these are the rewards for all the madness:

Simba in the parade:

 

 

Surprise as the evil queen peeks out a window:

 

 

It's a Small World:

 

Scary ferris wheel in California Adventures--watch what happens to the inner cars!

Deja Vu for Ray--DisneyLand

Well, I thought I had maybe found the solution to my traveling problem--my ear doesn't seem to like flying-- but I soon found out I was wrong.

We flew into LAX (and saw the Hollywood sign in the distance!) on a flight taking almost 5 hours and this time instead of Earplanes, I wore Ray's noise canceling headphones and chewed gum furiously on take off and landing.  I was so happy that this method seemed to work until Sunday night when I woke up in the middle of the night with severe ear pain.  Oh well, back to the drawing board.

We woke on Saturday morning at 4:30 am and Ray spent an hour trying to learn his iPhone and set up a free ap.  That accomplished, we ate at Denny's, another less than appetizing meal, then took a walk through the Grand Californian Hotel where we had tried to get a room but none were available.

Wearing our Honorary Citizens of Disneyland buttons, our first ride was Storybook Canal Boats, which I loved!  It had lots of miniature castles and cottages.  I would love to do something like this in our backyard.  After the boats, we took the Casey Jr. Train through the same lands.  I love these rides, so much more simple than those at DisneyWorld.  The whole park is on a much smaller scale, and Ray is having moments where he remembers yet some other way that the park used to be when he came here as a child.

Here you are allowed to climb the stairs in the castle (a castle much smaller than its Florida version) to discover the stories behind it.  We rode the Snow White ride and Pinocchio then tried to ride the steamboat, but it broke and we went on to Pirates of the Caribbean, which is longer and has more drops than the one in DisneyWorld.  And I got totally soaked!  The lines for Peter Pan and the Haunted House were too long, so we will try to get them done tomorrow.  We took the train around the park and saw a REAL cat sitting near where they have the real goats and donkeys and horses.

Then we took the monorail into Downtown Disney and had A lunch of filet mignon burgers at Jazz Kitchen.  I had a ginger peach Bellini--closest I could get to ginger beer--and Ray had Abita Amber, which was very good.  We also ordered 6 beignets!  Oh yes, beignets.  They were delicious.  Fun thing-- when I was typing notes about what we did today into my iPhone, and I typed in the word beignets, my iPhone somehow changed it to "being yaya"!!!  Well, yes, it is being Yaya to order beignets, I suppose.  There was even a Gumbo Ya-Ya on the menu.

During the hottest part of the day, we saw a movie, "Saving Mr. Banks," which I was surprised to find was an excellent movie.  After the movie we went back into the park, but we didn't find the lines changed.  The park had actually gotten much more crowded, so we rode the now-working steamboat then checked out the shops.  After that, I stopped at the Cupcake Store Kiosk and purchased a strawberry shortcake cupcake, which was delicious and served as my dinner.

We went to bed early in preparation for Ray's Half Marathon tomorrow morning where he again has to get up at 3!

 

Birds of Paradise on our walk into Disneyland:

 

Interesting warning sign:

 

Candy Apples in Downtown Disney:

 

Storybook Land Canal Boats head into Monstro's mouth:

Adorable little miniature cottages along the waterway:

Aaaahhh--the ducks are invading!

Casey Jr. Train:

 

The miniature village even had a miniature of the Peter Pan statue that we found for real in London:

Exploring the castle, we found a cool skeleton scale:

 

Real goats!

And this sign always brought zombies to my mind for some reason: