September Trip Day 3.2

Have you ever been to a shooting gallery? Well, I have. That is only if you could the Shootin' Exposition in Frontierland. I don't have any photos to share from that, but it was one of the things on our mental to-do list as added by Andrea that we actually remembered to do. Will I ever do it again? Probably not! But it turned out to be the last thing we did together in Disneyland for the rest of the afternoon. After a couple of hours in the Park since opening we were going to take full advantage of our Park Hoppers and actually park hop so next up was Disney's (although it is now officially Disney) California Adventure. One big draw over there is the Aladdin Musical Spectacular that takes stage at the Hyperion Theatre. It truly is spectacular as anyone who has ever seen it could tell you.

So we made that long trek across the esplanade and we're back in DCA for the second time this trip with a couple of hours to kill until Aladdin was set to start. It probably wasn't even noon yet and I could see that Andrea didn't look so well to put it mildly and it seemed pretty obvious to me that she needed to head back to the hotel. I tried to talk her into it or into taking a resting break but she kept on insisting that she'd be fine and she kept pushing on. So we did a photo op in the Sunshine Plaza with everyone's favorite Mouse.
It didn't take long, but right after we finished getting our photos with a vacationing Mickey Mouse Andrea finally decided she needed to step into one of the air conditioned shops to cool off and rest and I just took my time taking photos around the Hollywood Pictures Backlot.


After my little photo spree I checked back in with Andrea to see how she was doing and she finally made the call to head back to the hotel for a little while. I knew it was bound to happen eventually. After having some alcohol out by the hot tub the night before, barely getting any sleep, the heat, and not having enough water what else was bound to happen? It was nice to finally have an answer however, and I was able to go off on my own for a while. I do just fine at Disneyland all by myself, birthday or no birthday. I don't know why anyone would ever think a solo trip couldn't be fun. You get to call all of the shots without having to conference over what to do next. And to top it all off, I get around a lot faster on my own and I guarantee you I was hauling you-know-what. I'm not usually a leisurely walker. I know what I want and I'll barrel towards it, full-steam ahead. So the first thing my speed-walking-demon self did was take a full but brief self-tour through DCA stopping to visit a few friends along the way.

I even stopped by for a walk through the Mission Tortilla Factory and got some free tortillas for my birthday. Nothing satisfies a grazer like me like food to munch on!

I didn't end up staying in DCA for too long. The one ride that I was interested in, Toy Story Midway mania, was shut down and I wasn't going to sit around waiting for it for to be back up and running for forever. I also had a date with the Lilly Belle at 3 so I needed to make sure I was back at Disneyland before then. I thought about riding Indiana Jones until it was time to head back to Main Street but by the time I got there that was closed down too! It was funny listening to people waiting around. They actually had turned the lights on inside the ride and the people who got stuck on it were able to walk through all the different scenes. I think that would have been a pretty neat experience!
Rides go down, it's to be expected. So I just made the decision to got to Main Street regardless of how early it was. I figured I could get some photos and shopping done, and of course watch some candy being made!