Patty Winter's
Disneyland Trip
September, 2006

Day 4 (Monday, Sept. 18) (Click on any image to see a larger version of the photo.) Having been up much earlier than usual yesterday, I decided to sleep in today. I missed breakfast at the Candy Cane, so decided to pick up some food at Disneyland later. I took the 11:00 a.m. shuttle over there, heading immediately for DCA so that I could check out the line at Soarin'. The board said 30 minutes, so I went into the single-rider line. That turned out to take 25 minutes, proving that single rider doesn't always translate to a big advantage. This has been my favorite Disney ride since it opened. I just love it. It proves that you don't need to have a thrill ride to get goosebumps. After leaving Soarin', I took a few photos of the DCA survey marks so that I could log them on Waymarking.com. I visited ones in the Condor Flats, Grizzly River Run, and Redwood Creek Challenge Trail areas. Time for lunch! I went through the nearby DCA exit that goes right into the Grand Californian and headed for Whitewater Snacks, an excellent cafeteria. (All three of the hotel's restaurants are above average.) It was a little after noon and I feared that the place would be crowded, but in fact there was hardly anyone there. I got a chicken salad sandwich and took it out to the patio, where I could listen to the Miner 49ers bluegrass band while I ate. (They perform just across from the entrance to Grizzly River Run, not more than 20-30 feet from the restaurant's patio.) They did bluegrass versions of "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocius" and "It's a Small World," (that again!) in addition to more traditional bluegrass and country songs. A bit before 12:30, I left Whitewater Snacks to complete the waypoints for Larry's Downtown Disney virtual geocache. This time, I needed to pick up the ones around the Grand Californian and Paradise Pier. I reentered California Adventure at 2:00, and immediately headed for Grizzly River Run. M/P> Unlike Kali River Rapids at Disney World, the rafts at GRR are too small to have a storage area in the middle. However, even better, there are lockers near the ride entrance where you can put your stuff, and they're free for the first two hours. So I put my knapsack in a locker and did the ride twice. It confirmed my recollection that it's more fun than KRR. This one is mostly whitewater, and I think it has bigger drops. Last time I visited here, I brought rain pants and a poncho to put over my clothes, but I decided to just take my chances this time. Well, I got pretty drenched, but it was a warm day, and I didn't have to be anywhere civilized any time soon, so I was fine with walking around and drying off. I went behind the ride and watched a few rafts come down the big drop, then went along the trail and took several photos of Frog Jump Falls. I spent the next couple of hours wandering through DCA doing Larry's virtual cache waypoints, photographing benchmarks, and exploring parts of the park I'd never really paid attention to before, such as Flik's Fun Fair. I even went on Heimlich's Chew Chew Train, which goes past giant apples, watermelon, and other foods--with accompanying smells. The gang had planned to meet up at the Golden Gate Bridge at 5:00, and I arrived there about 15 minutes early to find Nick already waiting. Lloyd and Meg arrived shortly thereafter. We went off to watch Block Party Bash, then walked over to Disneyland and took the train to New Orleans Square. We met up with Larry and Julie for our dinner reservation at Café Orleans. This former cafeteria-style restaurant was recently remodeled for sitdown meals. The evening was pleasant, so we decided to eat out on the terrace. I got the French onion soup, a house salad, and the seafood crêpe. The latter turned out to have only fish, no shellfish. That was a surprise, and although I liked the crêpe, I was a bit disappointed in it.

(c) 2006 Larry Klementowski.

The six of us split the two available desserts: the Mickey-shaped beignets and the chocolate crêpes. There were five of the former, and we never made it through all of them. They came with two condiments: a raspberry sauce, and crème anglaise. The crêpes were also accompanied by raspberry flavoring, in the form of a coulis. Both were delicious. (We dug into them so quickly that I didn't have time to think about getting out the camera and taking a photo. :-) But you can imagine how cute Micke-shaped beignets are.)

Disneyland was getting ready to close, but we managed to get to the Jungle Cruise just in time to catch the next-to-last boat. Gosh, I guess those poor explorers are going to have to stay up that pole all night to avoid the rhino! Larry then had the good idea of taking a group photo, so we corralled some passing guests and got one of them to photograph us standing in front of Aladdin's Oasis.

The four of us who were out of towners had plans for tomorrow, but Larry and Julie wouldn't be joining us, so we bade them goodbye and headed to our respective hotels for the night. I checked my pedometer (21,300 steps today) and did most of my packing for my departure tomorrow.

Planning and Day 1
Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 5


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Text and photos (c) 2006 Patricia F. Winter, unless otherwise noted.

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Last updated 12/17/06