Disneyland!

Being a grown-up involves a lot of crappy stuff, like paying bills and taxes, but there are also perks, like going to Disneyland whenever you like. 

Last Sunday started like a normal Sunday.  We went to our favorite bagel shop for breakfast, played a lot of Mario Kart Wii, and grilled some chicken for lunch.  We were planning to swim and bum around the house after lunch, but then we decided to go to Disneyland.  BECAUSE THAT'S THE SORT OF CRAZY SPONTANEOUS ADVENTURERS WE ARE!  WE EVEN SOMETIMES GO TO NEW RESTAURANTS WITHOUT CHECKING YELP!  WE ARE WILD AND CRAZY - WATCH OUT!

We took a minor detour and Nathan got his First Annual Summer Buzz Cut at SuperCuts.  For a thirty-two year old man, Nathan has had an impressive full head of hair; but he has been talking about buzzing his hair off for the summer for a couple of years now.  The stylist looked to me for approval, but I did not try to knock the clippers from her hands.  We are both pleasantly surprised with how Nathan looks.  I just hope his hair grows back the same, and the buzz cut did not turn him into the next Carrot Top.

But I digress.  We left Pasadena around 1:10 p.m., encountered almost no traffic, and entered Disneyland around 2:30 p.m.  Between parking the car, riding the tram to the park, and buying tickets, we made good time.  If you live in the Los Angeles area and the park is open until midnight, I highly recommend this strategy.  The park will be crowded when you first arrive, but then around 8 p.m., it starts to empty.  So you get a normal day at Disneyland without the freeway traffic.

My second favorite ride at Disneyland used to be Star Tours, but the ride has been updated and the changes made my soul hurt.  First, the ride is now 3-d, but the 3-d vision did not improve the ride.  It just meant I had to wear stupid glasses.  What about patrons who are wearing glasses?  Are they supposed to wear the stupid 3-d glasses over their normal glasses?  Second, there are now dozens of different Star Tours experiences, so the ride will always be different.  In theory, this is a cool idea.  In practice, we were sent on an adventure inspired by A Phantom Menace AND I HATE THAT MOVIE SO EFFING MUCH.  As I was riding Star Tours, I just kept thinking about how much I hate George Lucas for taking a dump all over the Star Wars franchise.  It's hard to enjoy an amusement park ride when you are having bad flashbacks to Jar Jar Binks. 

I may never ride Star Tours again... but Space Mountain is still my favorite ride at any park.  And we rode twice!  All in all, we had a great trip to Disneyland and got to ride all of our favorite big kid rides, from Splash Mountain to Haunted Mansion, with one exception: the Matterhorn.  The Matterhorn was closed on Sunday, and it was also closed during our last visit in February 2012.  Apparently, I'm cursed, so if you want to ride the Matterhorn, don't go to Disneyland with me. 

A special message for Disneyland's Director of Operations: The entrance to Disneyland smelled like raw sewage on June 3, 2012, both when we arrived at 2:15 p.m. and when we left around 10 p.m.  Also, an alarming number of park patrons smelled like urine.  The Happiest Place on Earth should smell like unicorns and fairy dust, not urine, poop and vomit.  Please fix these problem, thank you.

A special message for the grown men wearing Mickey Mouse ears at Disneyland: you look stupid.