Disneyland and California 2013

Disney's California Adventure

The view from the Golden Zepher

 Cars Land with Radiator Springs Racers in the background

 Fun times on Luigi's Flying Tires. Ask Yosh about it....

 Don't be tipping that tractor.

 A Warm Caramel Sunday from Ghirardelli

 Taking aim...I never did win

 The big winners!! It was tough stuffing all these

in the suitcase!

 Dawn's favorite ride

                     

Tasty food from Flo's V8 Cafe. I love this kind of food. 

 We were all anxious to try out Radiator Springs Racers in the new Cars 

Land. The plan was to run get a fast pass first thing Monday morning.

Turns out you need to get in line for the fast passes. After we got that

figured out we ended up with fast passes for around 11 I think. To pass

the time we decided to head to Soarin'. I was looking forward to this. It's

one of my favorites. A fast pass was available but it was basically a

walk on this early. After enjoying our flight the Twilight Zone 

Tower of Terror was next. This is Dawns favorite ride and one of

mine too. Disney had such good theming on their rides. It was almost

time to use out fast passes for Racers so we headed that way. Disney

really did a nice job on Cars Land. It's just like walking down the

street out of the cartoon. It's even better at night with all the neon. 

Radiator Springs Racers is basically like Test Track from EPCOT

with much better theming and a few twists. Very fun ride. Saturday

before we left we rode it at night....even better. After Racers it was 

time for lunch at Cafe Orleans so we headed to Disneyland.

The menu at Flo's Diner looked really good so that was on 

the schedule for dinner. The food at Flo's turned out to be as 

good as it looked. I had a great roast beef dinner. The milk shakes

were great as was everything else. I think most of the others had 

the turkey dinner. Its typical diner food but well done. After 

Monday, once again, things have blurred together so I shall summarise. 

One evening for dinner I had a sourdough bread bowl of clam chowder

at Pacific Wharf Cafe. It was really good. The bread is baked on site..

we even took a tour of the bakery. Dawn, the kids and I really enjoyed

California Adventure. Maybe even more than Disneyland. The games

are a blast and you actually win decent prizes. Michael and I rode

Grizzly River Rapids 4 times i think....such a fun raft ride. We also 

had a nice time hanging out with Dawn's friend Lisa....she was a

great tour guide. We ended our trip at California Adventure. 

Michael and I hit Grizzly River Rapids as our last ride. My last

Disney meal was a corn dog from Corn Dog Castle :)

Disneyland and California 2013

Disneyland

 Awesome fries at Cafe Orleans

 Monte Cristo at Cafe Orleans

Splash!

 Two of my favorite things at Disney...Corn dogs 

and Dole Whip.

 The Iron Man suit at innovations. The kids and I

hung out here quite a bit. It was fun and cool (literally).

 The Matterhorn..I'm surprised mom didn't have a poncho on here..

I think there's a tiny splash on it.

 The Jungle Cruise where you see the backside of.....Water

 Lunch at the Stage Door Cafe....yum!

 Awe...how cute. Michael and Yosh on Winnie the Poo.

 Redd Rockett's Pizza Port

I'm going to split the Disney post into one for Disneyland, and one 

for California Adventure. We spent 4 days of our vacation in the 

Disney parks. Specifically it was Monday, Tuesday, Friday and

Saturday. Monday was started off at California Adventure 

until about noon. We had reservations at Cafe Orleans for 1:15

so we headed in that direction. Lunch was good. The fries were

awesome and the gumbo was good. Mom and Dad, Carol and I

had the Monte Cristo. They had the ham and cheese version and

I had the 3 cheese version. They were good but seemed a 

little off from the Blue Bayou version that we love. Overall I 

would say lunch was good, but not great. After lunch Dawn, Carol

and Yosh headed to the hotel (Candy Cane Inn) for a break

while Michael and I hit up Tomorrow Land. Mom and Dad 

went their own direction in Disneyland. Michael and I did a

little shopping. I think he bought a couple things at Startraders.

After that we checked out the Starcade (cool, but much smaller

then it used to be) and watched Captain EO. Watching Captain

EO really brought back some memories, and I thoroughly enjoyed

it. I believe we had dinner at Flo's in California Adventure

on Monday. After Monday things are kind of blending 

together for me so I'll just cover some highlights and thoughts. I

guess i should have taken notes! So one of the things that

really stands out at Disney are the corn dogs. They are crazy

good. I had one at a little red cart on main street, the Stage Door

Cafe and Corn Dog Castle at CA. They were all good but the 

one on main street stood out. We all thought they were great. 

Michael, Yosh and I had lunch at Redd Rockett's Pizza Port

one afternoon. It was pretty good but pricey for pizza. The kids

had Mega Pepperoni and I had Lunar Cheese. We all had

different favorite rides. I think Michael liked Startours

best. My favorite is The Haunted Mansion. Carol and Yosh 

seemed to like all the rides as long as they didn't get wet.  As

many times as Mom and Dad went on Indiana Jones I would 

assume that was their favorite...although it might be close

with Pirates of the Caribbean, and Dawn loved Splash Mountain. I've

been to Disneyland quite a few times and had good and bad 

experiences. This time I just went with the flow and had such 

a good time.  I really can't wait to go back.

Candy Cane Inn

The Candy Cane Inn was our hotel again this time. The rooms aren't 

the fanciest but they are very clean. We had the premium room. That

entitles you to a free, delivered Continental breakfast every morning. It

was good and saved us money. The grounds are landscaped beautifully.

It almost reminds you of being at a Disney resort in Florida. The main 

attraction is the closeness to Disney. Its a short 10 minute walk or a

quick shuttle ride away. 

The welcome basket that was waiting
in our room.

 Free continental breakfast delivered
to our room daily.



Disneyland and California 2013

Universal Studios

Waiting for the park to open

 Michael wasn't as scared this time

 Someone is scared to get wet on Jurassic Park

 About halfway up the long escalator ride

 KrustyLand!

Michael getting serious with some crab

We Started the trip off at Universal Studios on Sunday

to avoid rush hour traffic. The drive from Disney to

Universal is quite stressful (as is driving anywhere in

LA). We arrived at Universal about 45 minutes before 

opening and thanks to Carol's parking permit we

had front row parking. After rope drop we hustled 

down to the new Transformers ride. It's basically 

a Transformers themed version of the Spiderman 

ride at Islands of Adventure. Very cool. After hitting 

all the other rides in the lower lot  (Jurassic Park and

The Mummy) we headed up top. The Simpson's ride

had a reasonable wait time so we hit that and Shrek

4D after that. The Simpson's ride is pretty neat. It's 

themed really well. Lunch today was at Mel's Diner.

Mel's is a burger joint themed to the 50's. Nothing

great but decent food. I had a chili dog. 

 After doing some shopping in

the park and at City Walk we were on our way.

Universal was fun and the Transformers ride was 

exceptional, but as a whole its just not up to

Disney's standards. Dinner tonight was at

Joe's Crab Shack.

Labor Day Get away

 A little pregame tailgating

What a beautiful afternoon for a football game!

Takoyaki at the PigOut festival. It's octopus cooked in a pancake like batter.

Dawn and Yosh trying out some Thai food. 

 Deep fried Snickers bar. Good but way too sweet.

 The Spin Doctors

 Fresh Peaches!

 Picking peaches in the orchard and a tasty peach crisp I made.

Our original plan was to drive to Missoula for the football game Saturday
morning, spend the night, and drive home Sunday. What ended up

happening was driving over Friday evening, two nights in Missoula,

then one night in Spokane. The Spokane part was a spur of the moment

thing. It ended up being a great long weekend. The Griz dominated

App State 30-6 in the first regular season night game. The game was a

blast with the lights and fireworks. Hopefully they do it every year.

On the way to Spokane we found out Pigout in the Park was

going on. Pigout is a food and music festival at Riverfront Park. There

are tons food vendors and stages set up in a few areas. We ate Indian,

Thai, Japanese, shaved ice and a few deep fried candy bars. After dinner

we sat and listened to Eclectic Approach and the Spin Doctors.

What a fun evening. The next morning we got up and drove out to

Greenbluff Growers. It's a collection of orchards and country stores.

Right now peaches are in season so we picked 25 pounds at

High Country Orchard. It was our first time picking peaches and a lot

of fun. We had such a good time that i think we're going to do it again

next year.


Keep your eye on the blog over the next couple weeks. I have lots of

blogging to catch up on.

GreenBluff Growers
PigOut in the Park