After witnessing the Light Magic Premier (oops, first dress rehearsal), Cindy, Tim, Sara, and I joked that we would all get together to watch the final Light Magic. When I heard that the final Light Magic of the season was going to be on September 7, I made my plans. Sometime later, when I was busy being a Creekan for a day, Kim and I were discussing what she was going to do over Labor Day and I had invited her to join me on my trip. We weren't going to spend the entire trip together, since she had other things she wanted to do in LA, while I just wanted to go to Disneyland. Then the news came that Disneyland had moved the final Light Magic up to September 1; By that time it was too late for us to alter our plans. We still had the final Circle-Vision to watch.
I drove down to Boulder Creek on Friday afternoon and after fighting the usual traffic on 17, arrived just after 7. We then took off, but made a slight detour. Kim needed to release some frustration and so we stopped in Scotts Valley to play a game of air hockey; I could tell that Kim wasn't up to par as she didn't smoke me as usual. Our game was pretty competitive and she ended up winning 7-5. We then had dinner at Burger King where we both tried the new Big King burger. It was a decent fast food burger, but I think I'll stop at In and Out the next time.
The drive down was fine enough. We opted to take highway 17 from Scotts Valley to Santa Cruz, where we took highway 1 to Castroville, where we took highway 156 to its junction with highway 152 between Gilroy and Hollister (Highway 156 now skirts around Hollister, making it a faster option.), and finally on 152 over Pacheco Pass to I-5 just south of Santa Nella. We could tell that it had been a hot day because as we were driving through the San Joaquin Valley at 11 at night, we still needed to use the air conditioner. Kim was kind enough to drive the leg from the John "Chuck" Erracca rest area to Buttonwillow. When I took over again, Kim asked "How much longer?" I popped in a tape of the soundtracks for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Fantasmic, and the Main Street Electrical Parade and said "We'll be in Northridge before this tape ends." I was right. We were driving down Reseda Blvd when the Fantasmic exit music had finished. We were inside the Hoffmans' house and in our "beds" by 2 AM.
As I said, Kim had other things she wanted to do in LA, so after we made arrangements to meet the next day, I bid her adieu, and went off to the park. The drive to the park was uneventful, though I noticed that the Disneyland billboards no longer advertised Light Magic (they didn't replace the MSEP ones that quickly.) Once in the parking lot, I was directed to Pinocchio. I made sure to remove my Mickey Mouse antenna ball and store it inside the car. After that, I decided to take the tram, and my reward was the "new" white tram. I ended up taking a few snapshots of the tram (which I believe is another sign of being a.d.dicted). Once inside the park, my first reaction was "Wow! Main Street doesn't have confetti on it!" and my second was "It doesn't seem very crowded"
I walked over to the Fantasyland Autopia. I had been on every current ride in the park except for the Fantasyland Autopia. Fortunately, the line was short, and soon I was enjoying my drive (though the car had acceleration problems). One thing about the Autopia -- it's a lot more fun when you have friends in the cars around you.
One of the recurring threads on the Disney newsgroups is "Have you ever been stuck on an attraction before?" I've never had an attraction go down while I was riding it. This time I made my way to Star Tours, since the line was short. I enjoyed going through the queue and ended up being placed right in front of the door to board the next Starspeeder. While the "flight attendant" on the video monitor was going through the "pre-flight briefing", all of the video screens went blank. A cast member (or CM) scrambled to see what went wrong and I got to peak into the control room for the attraction. All four Starspeeders had stopped functioning. The CM then opened the doors to the speeder and told us not to board. As the doors to the speeder opened I could hear "This is Captain Rex from the cockpit. We're currently number two in line to take off. I apologize for the delay. We should be departing momentarily." Well, they didn't. Instead everyone was asked to leave the speeder. At the same time, another CM came on the PA and said that we had to evacuate the attraction. Oh well, I was this close. I then walked over to Space Mountain, and they were also down. My only guess is that power fluctuations were taking place; it was a hot day.
I decided that my next stop would be the Sleeping Beauty walkthrough. I figured that I would have just enough time to enjoy the walkthrough and then catch the Classic Princess Storytelling in Tinkerbell's Toyshop at 1PM. The last time I had gone through the walkthrough, I had noticed something about the "peeping prince" -- His face reminded me of Steve, my friend Laura's boyfriend. I had to make sure that I wasn't imagining this. When I reached the scene, I looked and said "Yep. Definitely looks like Steve." Oh yeah, when I exited the walkthrough, I made sure to follow tradition and spin the turnstile a few extra times. Unfortunately, I think a suit observed me.
Next was the Princess Storytelling with Justin and Snow White. If you've read my previous trip reports, then you know that I really enjoy the performance that Justin puts on during the storytelling. This time they told the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Justin played each of the seven dwarfs, the wicked queen, and Prince Charming. There was one pause in the story when a little girl arrived late and ran right to Snow White and gave her a hug. Everyone laughed and the girl had a huge smile on her face as she joined the other kids who were watching the story. Again, I'm going to say it -- you really should catch this.
By this time I had decided it was time to retreat from the heat. Rather than taking the "air conditioned attractions tour", I opted to go to the Disneyland Hotel. As I was catching the hotel tram, John Frost spotted me and said "hello"; It took me a while to recognize him without his Hawaiian shirt. Once I arrived at the hotel, I entered the Neon Cactus sports bar; Cal was playing Houston and the game was being televised. I found three other Cal fans watching the game. The Neon Cactus is a typical bar and has the usual standard fare. The beer selection didn't impress me (on tap was Bud, Bud Light, Red Hook, and Newcastle Brown Ale). I opted for some vegetables and a "Newkie Brown." The game itself was much more satisfying. The Golden Bears crushed Houston 35-3, and I was glad I packed a victory cigar.
Instead of smoking the victory cigar right away, I decided to check out Balloo's Bargains. There was nothing at Balloo's that interested me, and I was all set to leave, when The Bellhops (a brass quintet dressed up as, yes, bellhops) drove up and started to perform. They were fun to watch and listen to. Most of the songs they played were Disney tunes, but they played some other songs as well. One ongoing joke was that they would play "The Wedding March" whenever a bride would walk past (and several did).
Following the performance, I walked back past the Neon Cactus and noticed a bronze statue of a bear. I thought, "How cool! A Golden Bear in southern California." [No, it did not look like a Bruin.] If I had seen it before the game I might have thought it as an omen, but this was afterwards. I wanted to get a photo of it, but the lighting wasn't right, so I made a mental note to stop by the next day. I then continued on my way to the park and caught the Monorail back into the park just in time to watch the Hercules Victory Parade go by. With the construction going on the only way around the parade route from the Monorail station is to take the train. I just waited for the parade to go past.
My only plans for the evening were to meet up with Julie Sak (whom I had first met in July at the ba-add meet at Santa Cruz) and several other a.d.ders at Rod's Piano at Coke Corner at 6 PM. I still had an hour to go so I went to the Indiana Jones Adventure. You know it's a light day at the park when the line for Indy has no switchbacks and stretches only to just outside the film room. I was placed in the rear right corner seat of the jeep and enjoyed being jostled around after going through the riches room. It was quite fun, and I even got to hear Indy say something different when we got to the snake. Normally he says "Careful. Watch out for anything that slithers." but this time he said "Snakes. You're on your own." When we reached the rat room, I cheered as the effect worked. This effect used to almost never work. My last cheer was when we returned and Sallah told us what we could do with our precious jewels (before I'd always hear the "and if you drank too much from the Fountain of Youth, we have assistants who can help you with strollers" comment, no matter which room I had gone through. After exiting, I saw two CMs standing along the edge of the Jungle Cruise river. One was pitching coins across the river. At first I thought he was aiming for Gonesha (the elephant god), but it turns out he was trying to land the coins on a small flat rock also on the other side of the river. The guy who was pitching didn't even come close; he said he ended up losing 45 cents.
I still had a little time, so I went up to the Disney Gallery. Inside the gallery they had a beautiful limited edition (of 200) framed lithograph by Mark Davis of Pirates of the Caribbean. I grabbed a brochure and looked around to see if anything had changed. I then left the Gallery and bumped into Julie Sak and her friend. They were going into the Gallery, so I went back up. They too admired the lithograph, but none of us asked how much it would cost. We also talked a little bit about Club 33. I had an AOL Instant Messenger conversation with another a.d.der who said that there was no waiting list for Club 33. Julie said that there definitely was a waiting list, and she was on it. She figures that she'll be a lawyer by the time she is off the waiting list.
Several other folks, including Robert Jordan and John Frost made it to the 6 PM meet at Rods, and we all decided to watch the 6:30 PM showing of the Festival of Fools. One of the folks who wasn't there was Cindy, but she had left a message saying that she would arrive later and meet us at the 7:45 Festival of Fools. The festival was fun, as always, though the Frollo didn't have a good deep voice (I later found out he was given the nickname "Mickey Frollo") I had one surprise -- Sue was not at the Festival; Genghis had given me five bucks to pay her back for a guest of honor badge, and I still have it (he figures that I'll be in the park on a weekend and see her before he will).
The rest of the evening had a few highlights:
Cindy found us at the 7:45 Festival of Fools. She couldn't wait to show off her new Tinkerbell watch (it even has little jewels that rattle around the outside the face) and kept showing it off the entire weekend.
We had dinner at the Plaza Pavilion (and the pasta was good) and sat in a spot where we could hear Rod.
We caught the 10:30 PM Fantasmic from the steps behind the raft landing. Just before the dragon spurted out flames, I pulled out the unsmoked victory cigar and said "Could I have a light please?". After the dragon spouted flames, I said "Thank you!"
We managed to get back to Rod's just in time for the finale.
We then went to Space Mountain for the final ride, where we had filled an entire rocket, or so we had thought. After leaving the loading area, a CM said "Your rocket is too heavy" and pulled two people off.
After that was the traditional Snow White coin toss.
After the coin toss, everyone just kind of left. Since I had just missed the parking lot shuttle, and still had my victory cigar, I smoked it while walking to my car and during back to Northridge.
The next morning Kim and I had to be at the Disneyland Pacific Hotel at 8:30 AM to meet Judi Lane and several other folks for the character breakfast. Kim and I got to the park just after 8 and we got to park in Bambi (row 4, about 5 cars back from the front). The last time Kim and I had been to the park we had also parked in Bambi, so I guess she's a good luck charm for parking. We arrived early so we could purchase her a one-day passport. I used my Annual Pass so that she could get the $26 AP guest passport. We then caught the shuttle to the Disneyland Hotel and walked over to the Pacific. We were the first to arrive.
Julie Sak was next to arrive and then Judi. Judi told us that nobody else was going to make it (Al was supposed to show up, but he had some other urgent things to take care of). Oh well, it's funny that it turned into a ba-add breakfast (Had Robert shown up, all of the ba-adders who were in the park that weekend would have been there..oh well, instead I was the only guy in the group.)
We were soon seated and our server Mickey (no, not the Mouse) took very good care of us. We all opted for the buffet. The buffet is about $16 and includes quite a spread. You have the standard choices of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, fruit, cereal, mini-Mickey waffles, etc. In addition, there's an omelette bar and a Japanese breakfast buffet which included miso soup, rice, grilled salmon, and other items. My advice? Bring an appetite. I regretted eating dinner at the plaza the night before -- nobody else was that hungry either.
he buffet is hosted by Minnie and Merlin. While we were eating, Merlin and Minnie did a little entertaining by getting some kids to help perform some magic (and they got in a song). Merlin even told a Light Magic joke -- he gave a kid a photograph and said that it was a light magic picture "Well, it's not of Light Magic, but you can see the picture is light, and it came to you by magic." About a half hour later, Belle came out and she, Merlin, and the wait staff performed "Be Our Guest". In between performances, the characters go from table to table greeting the guests, signing autographs, and letting photos be taken. I had Judi take two photos of me with Belle (one with her camera, and one with mine -- I wasn't smiling enough in mine, so I hope her photo is better) One last note, Gaston is also supposed to show up but we missed him. Anyway, I highly recommend the buffet and plan to do this again sometime.
Julie and her friend had to leave us to go check out of their hotel while the rest of us went to the park. Our walk back to the Disneyland hotel took us past the Neon Cactus, and this time the light was right for taking a photo of the bear statue. I snapped two shots; the first was of the statue itself, and the second was of the statue with my Cal hat (you can tell it's mine because it also has my a.d.d pin on it) on the bear's head.
We then went on and when saw that the line for the monorail was short, and monorail purple was already waiting for the other monorail to arrive, we decided to take the monorail. When monorail red pulled into the station, I asked the driver "May we ride up front?" He said "Let me make sure that the temperature is not yet 90 degrees." (ah, so that's what determines whether or not you can ride in the cone) He then told us it was o.k. and we got up front. During the ride I asked when round trips would resume (they've replaced the missing section of monorail track) but he didn't know the answer.
After the monorail, we took the train over to New Orleans Square, where Kim wanted to go on the Haunted Mansion. We took our time walking through the changing portrait gallery and we spotted the tear in the ship's painting. I didn't notice anything else. After exiting the Haunted Mansion, Judi said she wanted to go to Tom Sawyer Island. That was fun too; we explored a good portion of the island. Next it was my turn to suggest something -- I wanted to stop at the Gallery and find out how much the Mark Davis lithograph was. We first stopped at Pirates of the Caribbean as the line was quite short. After the ride on Pirates, we went to see what advice Fortune Red had for us; But to our surprise, Fortune Red was not there! The Pieces of Eight CM said that Fortune Red was having a lot of problems. I hope that they are able to fix him since I have found his advice to be useful. The virtual Fortune Red website just isn't the same.
Oh well, the next stop was Gallery. I found that the lithograph was about $1400 (oh, if I had the money). The Gallery CM said that it was the last one. Judi eyed it and started thinking about it. We then took a look at the New Tomorrowland video. The video now includes a section showing Rocket Rods testing and a few other preview items. We all bowed to Tony Baxter when he appeared on the video. At the same time, Judi started thinking about getting her AP.
Next it was time to meet. It wasn't quite noon, and already a good crowd was gathered at goofy. Aside from welcoming the newest a.d.der and wishing a happy birthday to Robert, everyone was there for the ' final Circle-Vision. There were two questions being asked: "When's the final show of Circle-Vision?" and "Where's Al?". Because we weren't getting a consistent the first question, we all decided to meet at Rod's at 8. As for the latter, we joked and said "Maybe the alarms finally went off when they scanned his AP." By 12:30 folks had decided to go to Big Thunder BBQ for lunch (since it was going into rehab too). Kim, Judi, and I were still full from breakfast and decided to find out if Judi could apply her packaged two-day passport towards an AP purchase. On our way to City Hall we stopped at the Penny Arcade to see what Esmeralda had to say. Here's what she told me:
You are indeed a most fortunate person. While you think your life has been hard and you have struggled with poverty, you have been fitting yourslef for the great change that will come when five rainbows have spanned the heavens, Not only yourself, but four of your relatives will be benefitted by your good fortune. It will not only be in money but also social position and influence. you will also meet one who will love you, but will be prevented for a time from marriage. Be patient. In time the obstacle will be removed, the union will take place and happiness will be yours for a time. This happiness will continue as long as you are true to your marriage vows, and are kind to those around you. Your lucky stone is onyx.
One of your lucky numbers is 14.
Drop another coin in slot and I will tell you more.
I didn't drop another coin. (Like I said, I prefer Fortune Red.) Instead we went to City Hall to get an answer to Judi's question. It turned out that the package passport was worth a little more than $30, and Judi decided to get a premium AP. Kim and I left Judi in the AP line and went to meet up with everyone else at Big Thunder BBQ. Judi met up with us after about a half-hour. I said "Ok Judi, let's see it!" and she proudly displayed her new AP.
After everyone else had finished their lunch, we went to the Gallery to ogle at the lithograph. Judi had decided that she couldn't spend the money on it, but would purchase some other items. I ended up purchasing a copy of a poster advertising the new attractions of 1959 and a set of cards depicting murals which will appear in the new Tomorrowland.
After that a bunch of us, including Judi, Cindy, Kim, the other Adrienne, Kevin, Steven Beuhler, and Robert went on a whirlwind tour, making stops at Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion, Country Bear Jamboree, the Mark Twain, and the Indiana Jones Adventure. While in the Indiana Jones queue, Judi paid homage to Tony Baxter by uttering her mantra when we reached his initials. Eleven of us boarded a jeep (Adrienne had to sit this out) and Steven took the wheel. When Sallah said "Please check the steering, making sure that it is not stiff. That would be bad.", Steven shouted something like "Uh oh, it's stiff. Sallah!" We were routed to the fountain of youth, though it was in the center. I guess that the rotating door hadn't been fixed yet. Nothing new to mention, though we noticed something else. The video for the rat effect has been starting early; During my last trip (which I didn't write about), I had noticed a projection on the wall before you made the turn to see the rats. I couldn't tell what it was supposed to be. This time Judi saw what I was talking about and said "It's from the rat projection -- The projected light is hitting the wall at an angle after passing through the smoke screen." I didn't notice it before because the projection used to not start until after the jeep made the turn to face the smoke screen. After exiting the ride, we stopped to watch a jungle cruise boat go past and say "hello."
Our next stop was for a slushie from the stand next to the Fantasyland. The slushie stand sells Coke, Cherry and Blue Raspberry slushies. I didn't have one as I had fulfilled my "suicide slushie" (all three layered in one cup) fix earlier. Nobody else was "brave" enough to go for the suicide; oh well, they don't know what they missed. While folks were enjoying their slushies while sitting in "Fantasia Gardens" (where the old Motorboat ride used to be), the Hercules Victory Parade came by. Judi had said that he parade had stalled at the Hub for a while as she had gotten her Corn Dog. A couple of us went over to watch the parade -- the Rock Titan was being pulled by a tractor.
Following the parade, we caught the train from Toontown station. Kim and I decided to exit at Main Street and grab a bite to eat. We just weren't sure where. After checking out choices at the Carnation Cafe, and at several New Orleans Square restaurants, we went the Village Haus. We sat outside in a prime people watching spot and enjoyed our pizza. Following the scrumptious meal, Kim said "You know, I feel like smoking a cigar." I said, "Well you know I had a feeling you might be interested in doing that." "What, you have some in your car?" "No, I brought a couple with me. They're in my backpack" We then walked over towards the Rivers of America to find a spot to smoke. On the way, we bumped into Cindy, Glen, and one other a.d.der who were in line for the final Hunchback. I told them that we'd look for them in the usual spot. Robert spotted us as he was walking to join Cindy and the others. I told him "We're going to make people think we are on fire." (if you listen to the warm-up presentation before entering the Festival of Fools arena, one of the gypsies says "If we see you smoking, we will think that you are on fire, and promptly put/stomp you out.") He said "Oh."
Kim wanted a spot where she could watch the Mark Twain, while I wanted a spot where we would be unobtrusive. We walked onto the "pump house dock" (which is across from Big Thunder Mountain Railroad) and lit our stogies. First we stood at the dock's edge and watched the sunset and then the Mark Twain back up in preparation for Fantasmic. As this was going on, a cast member stepped out of the building on the dock. He told us that he wished he could join us, and that he could smell our stogies from inside the building. I asked him what the dock housed, and he said "Oh this has all of the pumps for the water effects used in Fantasmic." (and to think I thought "pump house dock" was just a name, I didn't think it was accurate). He then left us on the dock.
By this time, Kim had felt like sitting down, and at one end of the dock, there was a set of "boxes" on which she sat with her knees bent and back resting against another "box". I sat next to her as we worked on our smoke rings. A little while later, we watched the Columbia back up from Fowlers Harbor to its loading area on Tom Sawyer Island. When it went past us I chatted with a couple of CMs who were on the ship. They had envious looks.
After the had passed by, I sat back down next to Kim. By this time, I knew that we weren't going to catch the Festival of Fools. Oh well, it was a good cigar, and I've seen the Festival several times before. The reward for missing the Festival was a conversation with a maintenance CM. She spotted us, said "You know, I wish I could be doing what you guys are up to.", and came up to the dock to see if there was anything to sweep up. We didn't have anything for her to sweep as we had sacrificed a drink cup and used it as an ash tray (see, we care about the park). She still found some stuff to pick up, even some, ewww, gum. While she was doing this, we chatted about Light Magic and the nightmare it caused maintenance. She mentioned that DL stalled in showing maintenance the confetti that would be used and that there were also plans to have confetti shoot off every few hours in New Orleans Square. She said everyone was happy when those plans were axed. In return, I sang the chorus of John "Weiser Bud" Collin's Light Magic street sweepers song.("And we will sweep our streets forever; sweep our streets together. Oh what a day, make a wish that it all goes away!") and she laughed. She then talked about the mylar confetti and mentioned two other reasons it got axed were that it disrupted radio communications, and it clogged the Anaheim sewers -- Disney had to pay fines and had to pay to have the mylar removed from the sewers. I hadn't heard either of those two reasons before. After that she had to move on, but she thanked us for chatting with her.
Soon we were finished with our cigars and since there was some time before the 8 PM meet at Rod's, we went to Space Mountain. When we went through the queue, Kim eyed the air hockey tables. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to ride Space Mountain and play air hockey, so we rode Space Mountain. This time I followed a suggestion and sat in the left hand seat, and rode the entire ride with my head turned to the left. That was a cool experience. Then it was over to the cone shop for my Fantasia ice cream fix and then Rod's.
Earlier in the day, Judi had showed me that she had a belated birthday present for Al. Since he wasn't at the noon meet, I had held onto it. Fortunately Al was at the 8 PM meet. We were all curious about what Judi had given Al, and watched as he opened the wrapping to reveal a toy stethoscope and heart. He put on the stethoscope a listened to the heart and made a few jokes "Hmm, I don't hear anything. This must be (Disneyland President) Paul Presslar's. Hmm, I hear cash registers. This must be (VP of Disneyland Merchandising) Ann Dale's. Eeek! You don't want to know what I heard. This must be Michael Eisner's"
After that, Al decided to head over to Circle-Vision and wait in the lobby, even though the final show was over an hour away. Kim, Judi, and I decided to head over to Space Mountain instead. Kim and I played two games of air hockey while Judi went on Space Mountain. I could tell that Kim was in much better spirits as she had smoked me in both games. The next time I play her, we're going to Santa Cruz and stop at a bar for margaritas first.
Even though there was an hour left until the final Circle-Vision, my paranoia kicked in, and we went to join the other a.d.ders in the lobby. I had been told that a few others had gone to watch Fantasmic, but I thought I'd hang out in the lobby anyway. I was glad I did. The other Adrienne introduced us to Erin, one of the Circle-Vision hostesses. And we all started chatting. She told us about the state flags (everyone went to look at the beaver on the back side of the Oregon state flag) and a few other bits of CV trivia. When it came time for her to introduce the show (not the final one), Steven handed out some napkins from Big Thunder BBQ which folks "sobbed" into when Erin mentioned that this was one of the last showings of Circle-Vision. Then, just before the doors opened, we counted down with the clock and said "Happy Circle-Vision" when it reached 0:00. We repeated this when Lavanna, the other CV hostess did the pre-show for the second-to-the-last CV.
The lobby started to fill up for the final show, and after a brief pause while I watched the Trash Can Trio perform outside the theatre, I was ready for the final show. This time both Erin and Lavanna did the pre-show. They asked for a show of hands of people who had never seen CV (none) and then a show of hands of former CV cast members (there were a couple). Again we sobbed (it looked like Erin and Lavanna had tears in their eyes too) and counted down. Erin spotted where we were standing and told us that she would join us and point things out in the film.
What kind of things did Erin point out?
As the narrator for the film says, "This too is America." For pointing this and other stuff out, Erin gets my Cast Member gold star for this trip.
Even though it was after closing, Rod was still performing. We arrived in time for the finale. After the finale, he did an encore! We all pulled out our quarters for a repeat of "Five foot two, eyes of blue". I saved my quarter for the traditional end of the night "Snow White coin toss". It almost looked like we weren't going to be able to do it, as a security CM stopped us when we were walking to the wishing well. Fortunately, he let us pass, and we got to hear Snow White sing and make our wishes. Kim, Judi, and I then went back to my car, where I gave Judi a ride back to the Disneyland Pacific Hotel (the shuttle would only have gotten her to the Disneyland Hotel) and I said goodbye.
During the drive back to Northridge, I got one extra surprise. As I was getting onto I-5, I recognized the car right in front of me. I said "Hey! It's Cindy!". As we were driving up the freeway, I pulled along side, rolled down Kim's window and waved. She didn't see us, so I tapped the horn and waved again. That time she noticed and waved back. I was glad I got to do that since I didn't get to say goodbye to her in the park.
The next morning, I had my chance to say goodbye to Dori, Larry, and Daniel. This one was a shorter goodbye, as they were the ones leaving. Before they left, we made arrangements to have breakfast at the Brookdale Lodge the following Saturday (they were coming up to Santa Cruz for a wedding and staying with Larry's cousin in Boulder Creek).
Kim and I then took off for home. This was the part of the trip where my car exacted its revenge on me. First I wanted to check the oil, only when I pulled the handle to open the hood, the cable snapped. Uh oh. Next, the air conditioner stopped working. Then the Engine Control System light came on and then went back off while we were on I-5. Finally, I noticed that the oil pressure light would come on whenever I made a sharp turn. Somehow we managed to get back to Boulder Creek. Actually, we made a few extra stops on the way up. We had breakfast in Santa Clarita, cigars at the Lebec rest area (there was a nice cool breeze), a leg stretch at the "exciting Kern County" rest area, and then fuel in Capitola. While in Capitola, Kim asked if I wanted to visit the "good cigar store" in Soquel. I hadn't been there before, so I said "why not?". It was a good thing we visited; Kim's favorite cigars (Romeo y Julieta) were on sale for $5 a piece. Unfortunately, the downside of this was that this was the final box that the store would have; they wouldn't be able to get them anymore. Oh well.
We arrived at Kim's place in time to watch the sunset, so we sat on the deck, lit some more cigars, and enjoyed it. There weren't that many colors, but I did get to see some bats flying after the sun went down. Finally, it was time for me to say goodbye to Kim. I nervously completed the drive home, and somehow I made it home safely. All in all, this was a good trip.
Thanks go to: