2013-52 Week 16

I bet you didn’t know that I was studying magic. Poof, watch me disappear from the blog for over a week! It’s been an eventful one too, particularly last weekend when I got to participate in my yearly favorite running event, the Southern California Ragnar Relay. But that’s going to have to wait a bit, because I still have to relate the adventures of two weekends ago, when Jess and I decided to have an adventure.

It’s late and I want to get this up for the week, so I’m actually just going to focus on the first part of the adventure. I promise I’ll be more timely updating the rest of it, I’ll even try to get another post up tomorrow night (I know, I know, you’ve heard this before). Let’s get to the actual content though, rather than my excuses, and this should be fun since there are pictures too! Our adventure started when Jess and I decided at the last minute that since it was Spring Break (FAQ: No, we don’t get Spring Break off at work, the University is still open even though the students don’t have to show up.) and that meant I didn’t have to teach on Friday. Since I was (am) rehabbing my knee, I also decided that I needed to shelf Karate for the time being, since I can’t really jump on my right leg, so I didn’t have to worry about class on Saturday either. This meant we had a clear weekend! We took work off Friday and started to plan our getaway.

The first thing we needed was a location and a length of time. We went back and forth between going away for the full weekend or just splurging on one really fun Friday and Saturday. Poking around Priceline, we found one of their mystery deals, where the hotel was guaranteed to be in a certain area and the price was given, but you didn’t know the hotel until you booked. A four-star hotel in downtown San Diego caught our eye, and after deciding that 60% off was pretty good deal regardless of what hotel it was down there, we decided to put it all on one night and go for it. That, however, is a story for next time . . .

We had another destination Friday before we got to the hotel, a very familiar one with some unfamiliar friends. Disney has been doing this thing called “Limited-time Magic” where they run certain events for a week with unique experiences. The event for the week in question concerned “Long Lost Friends” where they dedicated a section of the park to characters that you don’t see out all the time. Jess really wanted to see them, being a unique experience and all, and my knee was okay with walking as long as it wasn’t for an extended amount of time. So we set aside a few hours at the park to go check out the characters and to also try out a dessert Jess had heard about that not a lot of people knew you could get by itself.

We arrived at the park right around noon and I had to go about the business of renewing my pass, since it had expired in January. At the booth, the cast member informed us that there was a special pass-holder only preview of the new Iron Man exhibit at Innoventions later in the afternoon. We made our way over to check out the line, but it was far to long for us to spend in with a limited time at the park. So we were off to the back of Frontierland, where they had set up several meet and greet areas for the characters you don’t see everyday. Here come the aforementioned pictures, and were going to break them up into groups for easy digestion.

The first group is characters that we didn’t see that I got bad pictures of just to say we caught a glimpse.

Okay, to be fair this is a good picture, but just as we got into line to see Jane and the one gorilla from Tarzan I’m supposed to remember, they went on break. Which was too bad, since Tarzan was one of the first movies Jess and I saw together. At the same time, so too went the three little pigs (the picture of them I got was bad enough I actually deleted it rather than inflict you with it), and sadly Scrooge McDuck. So sad, in fact, that I took a picture of their empty station before they changed it over just for the memories:

Woo-oo indeed.

Other characters we didn’t visit and I got bad pictures of included some from the Hunchback of Notre Dame:

The technicolor fairies from Sleeping Beauty:

Is that not what they’re called? I’m so bad with names. They looked like they were having a lot of fun, though. Also, another pretty good picture.

Finally, the coup de grace of bad pictures, Mushu’s back!

Yes, I mean literally his back. Jess actually got a better picture I was able to yoink:

Not much better though, turns out the line for Mulan was long! We waited in our own long line to see a group of characters which we both enjoyed during our childhoods. I’m getting all “Oh De La Le” just thinking about it. Yup, Robin Hood, that fox (no, literally), was on the scene:

If you can’t tell, Prince John was always itching to fight Robin Hood:

The line snaked back and forth, so we moving along the front of the set for a little while which was how we got these pictures. I started to snap another one when a young lady stepped into frame just as I was pushing the button. I immediately saw a box (from the facial recognition) light up as she turned back to whoever was behind her and I swear I couldn’t have gotten a better picture of her if I tried (Hey, I’m no Danny Baker, or Neil Johnson, or Meghan Christine . . . you know what, we know a lot of professional photographers).

Ignore the cast member getting jiggy with it on the right side of the picture, they were doing it a lot. Actually, everyone in the area seemed to be having a great time, ourselves included. Finally it was our turn to meet and greet and I promptly responded by doing my best Robin Hood impression and attempting to steal the Sherrif of Nottingham’s gold.

Now I’ll allow myself a moment of pride here (stop laughing), as Jess asked what we should do when we got up there and I had an epiphany mid-way through the line. After verifying that no one else ahead of us was doing it and I was truly a unique little flower (okay, you can laugh at that one), it was time for an archery contest!

Note Friar Tuck praying for the poor people behind the camera. Prince John had for some reason wandered away, and when he came back as we were leaving I drew my bow on him and he backed away sucking his thumb. It was priceless, sadly the cameras had already been stowed.

Another changing of the guard occurred when we went back to visit the RGB Fairies (still wrong? Dang.), and we wound up visiting some of our other favorite characters (well, Stitch is one of mine, at least):

I was on fire, as I suggested the surfing pose too. Finally it was time to grab some dessert before heading out of the park and down to our hotel adventure. Jess discovered a smore-molten brownie desert at the family style barbecue joint behind Big Thunder Mountain which you can apparently order apart from the giant meal. We did so, and were served this:

Yeah, it was as good as it looked, and, oddly enough, even better the next day (we were tipped off by the hostess who seated us that you could get a to-go box), at least for me. And then it was time for us to head out, as we had many more adventures to embark upon in next twenty-four hours, adventures you will get to hear about . . . later.

Weight: 226 Loss: 4 lbs – Running Yearly Mileage: 204.5 miles (+20.3 miles) Last year-to-date: 127 miles – Words-to-date: 28343 (+1382)