Nag, nag, nag...

And now, by popular demand.

One of my regular readers who shall remain nameless (but who I love very much) reminded me that I haven't posted the details of my day at Disneyland yesterday.

Twist my arm.

I was up at 5:00 AM and was ready to leave at 5:45 for the 6th Annual Visions Fantastic Scavenger Hunt.  I played the first two years, volunteered the third and have been out of it for two.  It was wonderful to see old friends, people I've developed a great respect for over the last six years. Chris Lang, VF founder, has developed the most elegant Disney fansite on the net.  He and his staff of volunteers are dedicated, hard-working and generous, determined to share a love for all things Disney in the most positive of ways.

The Scavenger Hunt is no exception.

I picked up my team mate around 6:00 AM and we made it to the park without a hitch, arriving at the picnic area under thunder and lightening.  Within just a few minutes we were being pelted with fat raindrops, and those present shared just a moment of concern that - while we wouldn't get rained out - we might have an uncomfortable day.  But, hey!  It's Disneyland, right?  The rain lasted only a few seconds, stopped, then resumed for a couple of minutes and that was it for the rest of the day.

We were given our team ID tags, a very handsome pin with our name on it and had our team picture taken by VF photographer, Brett "DaddyB" Garrett.  After some final instructions and distribution of our hunt materials, we headed for the Park.

This year the hunt was divided into three parts, but the basic principle of all three was the same.  We were given a selection of cropped photos.  For example, the organizers might have taken a picture of this:














and then crop it down so that just his bow tie and part of his vest showed.  Which is silly, because they didn't use live anything, but you get the idea.  We took a few minutes to sit at the Candy Palace and go over the pictures, making notes on where we might find the items, then hit the pavement.  There were things to find in every land from Toon Town to Tomorrowland, Critter Country to Main Street.  In the final stage competitors had to go to the Disney hotels.

We were too beat to even try that one, so are pretty sure we came in last place.  But we had fun, found more than we thought we would.

The best part of this event is learning about the park.  It's been under some renovation and the shops have been transformed into a style more appropriate for the turn-of-the-century Marceline, MO, of Disney's childhood.  Many of the new decorative elements were included in the hunt, and it was fun to track them down.  I don't know, for example, that I would ever have noticed the "off to college" theming in the men's department of the Clothiers unless I had been trying to find the picture of the Yale pennant that was in the hunt.

After the first phase (we had about three hours) we ate lunch at the Mexican Restaurant in Frontierland.  Restored, we picked up the materials for stage 2 and worked that for a while, then turned in that paper.  By then we two over 50s (well, as you know, I'm 60 this year) were dragging.  We found a bench to enjoy the parade, then picked up the stage 3 materials even though I knew I couldn't manage the hike up to the hotels and back.  We moseyed - somewhere - and decided to just head to the meet-up place for the final turn-in.  As we passed Town Square we realized they had just started the lowering of the flag in the flag retreat.  We stopped and stood respectfully, sang the National Anthem, and made it back in time to turn in our unmarked card.

After the awards we headed to Space Mountain for a nice tour of the universe, then picked up salads at the Pizza Port.  We took our salads to the Refreshment Corner hoping for some pleasant piano with our dinner but, unfortunately, a certain entertainer is still storing his head in a rather dark and uncomfortable place and we had to miss out on that part of the evening's program.  That has been a favorite way for me to end my day since years before that casting change and it irritates me to miss out on it.  I keep hoping reality will reign once more but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.  Such a shame.  Must be a hard way to live.

It didn't damper my fun for long, however.  After finishing our salads we made a restroom stop and wandered along the Pixie Hollow path in time to catch part of a new mini-water show that I didn't know about.  Delightful.  We still had about 20 minutes before our Star Tours fastpasses would be valid so we decided to ride the Monorail.  I hadn't been on that in years and it was a fun ride.   Then it was time to use our Star Tours passes to take a different tour than I'd taken before.

We decided to try to beat the fireworks to the tram, so we headed to the lockers to pick up our stuff before heading out.  After a quick stop at the Emporium for a small purchase, we headed out and did, indeed, beat the crowd to the tram.  Turned out we had a GREAT view of the fireworks from the parking lot.

The trip home was uneventful (although there was an accident on the southbound 5 that made us very glad we were northbound) and I was home before midnight.  I was overtired, overstimulated and my legs were screaming that even though I've lost over 60 pounds I'm still carrying too much weight to abuse them like that.  I took a nice hot shower (that helped), a couple of ibuprofen and read Justin Cronin's The Passage until I was sleepy enough to turn out the light.

All in all, a thoroughly delightful day.

And I get to go back in a little over a week.

No, I'll never get tired of it.