California Fun

My sister-in-law Lauralee has given me the prodding I need to get another post up. I have good excuse, though. I have been traveling with 120 high school choir students and have been recovering--read "sleeping"--since I returned on Tuesday night. It was a whirlwind trip, and I will do my best to give a quick summary.

We boarded a charter bus and left Caldwell at 9:00 p.m. last Thursday night. I sat next to a lovely young woman named Mercedes who I know from band, and she is a very adept "conversationalist." In other words, she talks constantly. Fortunately, she got tired and stretched out in the aisle of the bus around midnight, but the nine rowdy kids behind me at the back of the bus obviously had no intention of sleeping. In fact, I finally had to turn around and tell them that while I can put up with a lot of things, I can not stand the f-word, and they must not say it anymore. After that, I slept off and on until about seven a.m. We arrived at the hotel at 1:30 p.m. Friday and left for the beach at 4:00. We had a hawaiian b-b-q on the beach (provided by the local Nazarene youth group), played games with cow tongues and lots of water, watched the dolphins off the coast, and played in the ocean. It was gorgeous.

Saturday was choir festival day, and I was playing the piano for 3 of the 4 groups. The kids did great, I did fine, and I was glad to get it over with so I could enjoy the rest of the trip. Saturday night was the awards ceremony at Disneyland, so we went a couple of hours early to play. I was hanging with an old friend, her daughter, and my current RS president, and as we stood in line for Indiana Jones, a marshmallow landed on my chest and down my shirt. Either a seagull decided he didn't want dessert, or someone threw it from the Tarzan treehouse, but who/whatever it was who threw it should get a substantial baseball contract. The awards ceremony was 90 minutes long and we sat on the cement--too long for us old folks. We got back to the hotel at 1 a.m., and since Cassie, Merce, and the other teen I was sharing a room with decided they needed to shower in the morning, I showered and did my hair that night and fell into bed at 2:30 a.m. Of course the morning showers started at 5:30 a.m.

Sunday was Sea World day. I love Sea World because it's so kick-back and facinating. We saw the Shamu, sea lion, and dolphin shows, and I fed a manna ray--so cool! It glides over your hand and sucks the fish from your fingers. Awesome. We rode a really great ride called Journey to Atlantis at least five times. As we walked into the dolphin show, I commented to the RS president (Linda) that the rest of the ward was in church, and here we were enjoying the water life and California sun. We chuckled and took our seats. Not five minutes later I received a gift from a low-flying seagull--a large plop of poop on my shirt. As we all sat and laughed and tried to figure out what to do, a woman a couple rows back came down and handed me a baby wipe. I managed to scrape off most of it with a map then mop off the rest with the wipe. Linda and I decided that the Lord must use seagulls to do more that save saints from crickets.

Monday we spent hopping back and forth between Disneyland and California Adventure. While I love Disneyland because it is the happiest place on earth, I really love CA Adventure. The rides are more grown-up, it is slower-paced, and it is never as crowded. I think my favorite thing about both parks, though, is being able to observe the cross-section of humanity that flows through. These are the things that stuck out to me:

*Taking a child under six to Disneyland, no matter how much fun you think they will have, is way more work than it's worth, especially if it's an infant. Juggling a crying baby, diaper bag, stroller, purse, food bag, souvenirs, and jackets is a superhuman feat.

*No matter what nationality you are, pink hair is ugly, even at Disneyland.

*You can learn way more than you want to know about strangers while standing in the interminably long lines. For some reason, they think because you are their line buddy, you are their best friend.

Anyway, it was a wonderful day until about 7:30 p.m. when I fell going up the stairs to ride on Splash Mountain. It was a spectacular fall, I'm telling you--one of those where you are trying to regain your balance while your arms are flailing, purse is flying, and feet are everywhere but where you need them to be, and it takes forever to land. I realized once I came to a stop that I had wrenched my back and shoulders to the point that I thought I may have to get a plane ticket home because a 16-hour bus ride was out of the question. I made my way down the "last minute exit" for scaredy cats and waited for my friends on a very comfy wrought iron bench while I called to cry at Brent. It turned out that I was able to hobble around the park until 10:00 when I got to the bus, took some Darvocet, said lots of prayers, and loaded up for home. I was able to sleep on the bus (thanks to the narcotics--should have taken them on the trip there!), and we made it home by 4:00 p.m. Tuesday. Overall, it was a great trip. The choir teacher was very organized and lots of fun, the kids were wonderful, and I loved spending time with Cassie (when I saw her). I would do it again--if I could fly there. . .