Chapter 118
All the Pretty Horses

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(Originally posted December 5th, 2013)

We didn’t really have any concrete plans for the evening (when to we ever?), so we decided to ride the Carrousel.

Tracy got her buddy Jingles.

I had this fellow.

After riding, we tried to cut through Big Thunder Trail, but we hit a road block halfway around because they must have been doing some work on it related to the Big Thunder Mountain refurb.

We ended up heading back through Fantasy Faire, and we saw these ducks on our way to the Haunted Mansion.

After riding the Mansion, we also rode Indiana Jones and then went back to New Orleans Square to check on the line for Pirates. As was so often the case during the busy summer, both the regular queue and the GAC queue for Pirates were longer than I could wait in, so we gave up for now and checked out the Pioneer Mercantile shop in Frontierland instead.

Tracy found this cool ribbon bracelet that she liked. It was actually a little too oddly sized to work as a bracelet on her, but it’s a good anklet.

We’d spent a while finding, buying, and then trying to tie the bracelet, so Fantasmic! had started on the Rivers of America while we were busy. We stopped on the porch of the Frontierland stores where we actually had a semi-decent view of the show. Tracy got to see her favorite part (Mickey’s fire-fingers) before we moved along.

The Fantasmic! crowds had actually served us well because they had shortened the line for Pirates. We waited for the ride, and we had a CRAZY family arguing in front of us. When we got to the front of the queue, we asked to wait for the front row, mostly just so we could get away from that family. We didn’t want to be on the boat if one of them decided to push the other into the water on the ride.

I tried to take a picture of the first waterfall you pass after the two drops because it’s always my favorite, but it was too dark for my camera to be able to handle.

After Pirates, Magical had already started exploding in the skies above. It seemed like we always tried to exit through Adventureland as Magical was starting during the summer, and we would always hit an awful bottleneck of people trying to get out onto Main Street. This time, however, since the show had started several minutes prior, the bottleneck was nowhere near as bad. We made it onto Main Street in time to see Dumbo fly, and then we hightailed it out of the park, beating the rest of the firework crowds.

Thursday after work, we headed back to Balboa Island. We were serious when we said we’d love to make this a weekly outing (though I think this second week was also the last time we’ve been back…)

This time, Tracy opted for her banana to be dipped in coconut shavings (a decision she hailed as being awesome!).

As we walked toward the edge of the island, we passed under this dog who was probably one of the cutest animals I’ve ever seen. He was just chillin’ with his head out the window, intently watching the action that was going on below him.

We settled in a similar spot to the one we had picked the previous week, and we timed it perfectly once again so that we were there to experience sunset.

While we sat and ate, this RIDICULOUS cat came up out of nowhere. He was so sweet, and Tracy and I pet him for a little while.

After we finished our desserts, we moved along and continued enjoying the view as we walked around the perimeter of the island once again.

July 27-28, 2013

On Saturday, we headed to the parks right after lunch and started at Disneyland. We’d had another text conversation with Kathy and Jake, who had once again found themselves with an extra pair of Racers Fastpasses—they are REALLY good at the rope drop rush. We were planning to meet up with them soon, so while we waited, we rode some Main Street Vehicles.

The climbers were once again ascending the Matterhorn as we rode by them, pulled by a noble steed.

We knew we would be meeting somewhere in the vicinity of Main Street, so we just rode the Horse-Drawn Streetcar back to Town Square after reaching the hub.