SuNsHiNe DaIsY

My family calls me The Roller Coaster Girl.
Boy, are they right!

I've been to many amusement parks in California: Disneyland, California Adventure, Magic Mountain, Knott's Berry Farm, Sea World, Universal Studios... This last one I can barely remember, because I was too young when I went there.

The best coaster park NO DOUBT is MAGIC MOUNTAIN. It has just about every huge, gigantic, fast-speed, spine-chilling, breath-taking, upside-down, round and round roller coaster you can think of. Sea World just has one, which opened last year I think, so I haven't been on it. After Magic Mountain comes Knott's Berry Farm, with a couple of great tracks, too. It also has wooden coasters (like Magic Mountain). After that, I'd rate Disneyland, then California Adventure, and last Sea World. As I said, I can't remeber Universal Studios, and by the way, I'm rating them according to ROLLER COASTERS ONLY!!

But yesterday, friday july 22nd, 2005, was a special day. As a fortune cookie told me the night before: "the next full moon will bring you an enchanting evening", and although the full moon was that same day, I think yesterday was as enchanting as the moon itself.

Yesterday I went to Disneyland with my dad. This year the park's celebrating it's 50th anniversary. Yep! From 1955 to 2005! That's 50 years! And it was exactly 50 on the 17th!

But, okay, let me tell you how my day started...

I woke up -unusually early- at 6:30am, and with and hour drive, we got to the park at about 9:30am.

Our first -and clever- stop was Space Mountain, which was closed for two years, and recently reopened the past july 16th.

From there on, everything was just rides. Rides, rides, rides, and more rides. By the way, did I mention rides? And let me add some rides to that!

We stopped once to eat a slice of pizza. The rest of our "meals" (so-called, quoted "meals") were: a cup of frozen lemonade (gee! really frozen! you couldn't even get the spoon in it because it would break!), and some popcorn at the end. Oh, well, and of course, water (drink it before it evaporates!).

I've kinda learned that if you want to ride, you have to walk nonstop. That's what we've done the last two times that we've gone to Disneyland. Nonstop walking for about 15 hours... last time I recall riding 17 rides, THIS TIME WE MADE IT 22!!! Yep, that's right, 22 rides. Don't believe it?

T-W-E-N-T-Y -- T-W-O
V-E-I-N-T-I-D-O-S
V-E-I-N-G-T -- E-T -- U-N
22
!!

Let me list them for you (I know you probably don't care about the list, but I want to look back and remember, so do me a favor; make me happy and read this):

Indiana Jones (x3)
Space Mountain (x2)
Spash Mountain (x2)
Big Thunder Mountain (x2)
Space Tours
Matterhorn
Haunted Mansion
Pirates of the Caribbean
Mr. Toad's Wild Ride
Car-toon spin
Autopia
Alice in Wonderland
Pinocchio
Peter Pan
Snow White's
Winnie the Pooh
Jungle Cruise

So, I'm so glad our first stop was Space Mountain, because it was only a half-hour wait. As for the second time we got on... the line lasted for 80 whole and complete minutes! But it was worth the wait, because I actually enjoyed the second ride more than the first.

Sort of like what happened with Inidana Jones (which we rode three times, thanks to 2 fastpasses), Splash Mountain (we got a fastpass as soon as we got out of it the first time), and Thunder Mountain.

I was really happy to see Thunder Mountain had opened again. It had been closed since a person -chilean, by the way- died there in 2003, while he celebrated his 30th birthday... And I got really sad, but accidents can happen, and... TODO PASA POR ALGO, right? =)

Splash Mountain broke down while we were on it the first time... that same time, I started to rock my log from side to side (it was sooo fun!!), and a voice comes out from the middle of nowhere saying: "DO NOT ROCK YOUR LOG... AGAIN, DO NOT ROCK YOUR LOG!" Then we discovered they even had a camera hidden inside a birdhouse! And a speaker between a barrel! (Good thinking, anyway).

I got a couple of souvenirs, and took PLENTY of pictures (soon to be in my fotolog, I hope), but it was just great to be one of the lucky 2005 guests who got to celebrate Disneyland's 50th anniversary!

After all...

...IT'S THE HAPPIEST HOMECOMING ON EARTH!

(8) WELCOME TO OUR FAMILY TIME, WELCOME TO OUR FAMILY TIME! (8) WELCOME!!!
(main song on the anniversary parade, which I watched... it only lasted 15 minutes, though!)

-Raquel S.
THE ROLLER COASTER GIRL

SuNsHiNe DaIsY