The Happiest Place on Earth, part One

And so it begins. As I write this, I’m at about fifteen thousand feet in an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-700, watching the upper surface of the clouds undulate beneath me. We’re about two hours away from landing, and I only have about 75% battery life left on old Bradtop. I may yet have enough time to fulfill my life-long ambition to play Worms World Party at 30,000 feet. Dad just discovered an item in his Popular Science magazine that is, get this, a rifle scope/digital camera that takes a pictures as you pull the trigger. “Capture your prey’s last moment of life,” the tagline claims. Morbid, or what? It’s like “Bloodlust” all over again.

We’ve just arrived. Our room is obviously very new, with faux-marble counter, 1880s style headboards for the beds and a lot of Disney-related art. Our room is almost right over the monorail line leading into the parks, and we can see the new Twilight Zone Hollywood Tower from our window. Even with the door to our balcony closed, we can still hear the occasional screams. It sets the atmosphere, I tell you what. Lisa and Becky are chomping at the bit to go swimming. I’m not really a water person, so I’ll probably just sit poolside and read. I just got Thief of Lies, the sequel to the extremely good Dhampir, and I’m anxious to get going on that. Oh, and apparently I start to suck at Worms at high altitudes.

Last year, we arrived in Anaheim on Saturday and we went right into the park that same day. This year, unburdened by the desire to return to disappointing attractions such as Knott’s Berry Farm and Sea World, we got an extra day in the park and didn’t feel the need to go right on the first day. Things definitely worked out better this year. For one thing, we’re all tired, just as we were last year, but we got the chance to relax, sit by the pool, and read, instead of overwhelming ourselves with The Happiest Place on Earth right away. DSL costs a whopping $6.00 per half hour, in keeping with the price inflation here, so I’ll probably only post updates every other day. My 128mb SmartMedia card can hold 257 pictures in our 2.1 megapixel camera, and I upload them nightly, so my digital record should be quite complete. I’m going to bed now.