The Happiest Place on Earth

Being the natural optimist that I am, I have never understood why people consider Disneyland the "Happiest Place on Earth". Let's just say spending the day waiting in ridiculously long lines, eating over-priced food, with hoards of fanny-pack wearing Asians is not exactly on the top of my Bucket List. Eh, I'm more of a sand and sunshine kind of girl. Unfortunately my dad is the same age as Disneyland, and he decided there was no better way to ring in his 55th year than to spend it with his BFF/birthday partner Mick Mouse. So Matt, the Bug and myself packed up and headed to the HP on E to meet up with my dad, mom, and Sisi-Pants for four days of fun-filled adventure.

Although my attitude was more on the "glass half empty" side of the idea, after getting there we ended up having a ball. The Bug ate it all up. All the attention, all the people, all the rides. I seriously have the best baby in all of the land... he didn't whine or complain at all. (I wish I could say the same for the rest of us. We we're beat! Me and Pants were ready to go home by the end of the night.... If only they made strollers for adults!)

One thing I have never really understood about Disneyland is the magnetic pull it has on adults to dress as children. It is not uncommon to see grown men or women in Mickey Mouse ears, Goofy hats, t-shirts covered in cartoons or carrying plastic light-up swords. It's like the Magic Kingdom is some kind of strange time machine. I personally liked this fellow with his Ewok backpack.

Thursday we spent all day at the park, so Friday we decided to head to Santa Anita for the horse races. Can I tell you how much fun this is? Mom and Dad taught us all the ins and outs of horse racing and betting. So we spent the afternoon running from the barns to the Paddock to the Bookie to the track. I started with $3 and won $20! Yeah for me! I guess I just know how to pick them.

Basically this whole trip my dad raved about a restaurant called the Mar Mac that he had eaten at 37 years ago (red flag) with his brother that had all-you-can-eat Prime Rib (red flag). I don't know of anywhere that has all-you-can-eat prime rib that is going to stay in business for 37 years. When I searched for the Mar Mac on the internet the only thing that came up was collecter's item matchbooks from the Mar Mac on ebay (yet another red flag). Despite these warnings we found 3 possible addresses for the restaurant and went on a wild goose-chase in search of unlimited amounts of beef. As you can guess, several hours later we ended up in the parking lot of the Downy Pizza Company... the restaurant formerly known as the Mar Mac. So we ended up going to the Elephant Bar down the street instead. On the way home, Matt's GPS died and we accidentally ended up with our gas light on in Linwood instead of Anaheim. For those of you who don't speak "ghetto", Linwood + gas light = no bueno. So we hopped on the closest freeway in search of a gas station just in time for our tire to blow out. Instead of risking our lives by getting out of the car to change the tire, we decided to call AAA and let a stranger risk his life for us. Thank you stranger... Your work was not in vain.

The next morning Matt and Dad went to get the tire fixed and we headed to the park again. This time to California Adventure to ride grown-up rides. To be honest, they were a little too grown up for my taste. There were several rides that I couldn't breathe on, and they gave me dry mouth. This is a reinactment of how me and Dad felt on the Tower of Terror. Matt of course loved it.

What a great vacation. We had so much fun spending time with the fam... eating deserts with every meal, trying to avoid getting in fist-fights with a Chinese lady, and sleeping under the stars. I guess that's why it's called the Happiest Place on Earth. :)