Sometime last February, Matt, Nick, and I were sitting in a cafe' discussing possible places to vacation this summer. Suddenly Matt says, "Are we going to an Indy Car race this year?"
Ray was a big fan of open wheel racing. Formula One, Indy Car, and basically any form of race car that doesn't include fenders. For years he would record all the races and watch them throughout the week. I reached a point where I could tell the difference between Formula 1 and Indy Car racing by the sound of the engines. Other than that, I paid little to no attention to it. When Indy racing came to Richmond, he went to some races with a friend. After a couple of years, he wanted to take the kids to the track for some of the festivities taking place the day before the race. Reluctantly I went along and ended up having a great time. After that we went to at least one race every year until Ray got sick. Last summer, we went for the first time since Ray's death, and we vowed to try to continue the at-least-one-every-year tradition.
When we went to the Indianapolis 500 in 2013, Ray was beside himself. He was like a little kid. "I can't believe I'm actually here!" My favorite race memory.
Back to our February conversation.
Matt: Are we going to an Indy Car race?
Me: I don't know, maybe.
Nick: Can we go to the Long Beach race?
Me: ---
Matt: Long Beach would be awesome!
Me: (Long pause) When is it?
Nick (Checks phone): April 10.
Matt: I'm on Spring Break that next week, I can totally do that.
Me: Don't you have classes, Nick?
Nick: Well, I don't have any classes on Fridays, and I can miss a day or two.
Ray and I spent years saying "no" to many of the boys' requests. "Yes" was reserved for things we thought would be worthwhile, enriching, and at the very least, harmless. Now that the boys are grown, and they've gone through a tremendous loss, I'm finding easier to say yes--or harder to say no. (If Ray were part of the conversation, he might have insisted we skip it so Nick wouldn't miss classes. Or maybe he would have said yes. I have no way of knowing.) And I must admit, a trip to California for the Indy Car race on the streets of Long Beach did sound pretty awesome. Not too many days later we had tickets bought, an airbnb reserved, and airline seats booked. The race would be on Sunday, and we decided to stay until Tuesday so we could play tourist in greater Los Angeles on Monday. We discussed a few options, and one day the boys cornered me with, "You know Disneyland is only a half hour from Long Beach." Oh brother. Not my first choice. Wouldn't they want to check out the Hollywood Walk of Fame, or the Santa Monica Pier?
Well, maybe, but wouldn't Disneyland be great?
I suppose.
So, against my better judgment, I got us park-hopper tickets so we could visit both Disneyland Park and California Adventure, which fortunately were right next to each other. And Genie Plus for good measure, so we could hop on some rides without having to wait in line.
Long Beach is a lovely, walkable city. (Lucky for us, because our airbnb was a mile and a half from our seats by the track, and we didn't rent a car.) It's home to the Aquarium of the Pacific, which we were able to visit on Friday. The historic Queen Mary is docked there. There is a beach. And for this weekend, there was racing. (Of course there are geocaches, and I managed to find a few of them!)
THOSE GAS PRICES, THOUGH!!!
And Disneyland? So. Much. Fun. Ideally I would want to go for two days, one for Disneyland Park and one for California Adventure. We only had one day though, and since we wanted to visit both parks, we had to pick and choose which rides we would do. Their only rule was that we had to stick with one park until after 1pm, after which we could switch any time we wanted.
Our first reaction: It's so small! We were expecting it to look like the enormous Cinerella's Castle at Walt Disney World. This one is about half that size, but isn't it lovely? We learned later that Sleeping Beauty supposedly lives here.
The only thing they rode without me. Spinny things, no thanks. I wanted a merry unbirthday, not a queasy one. Oh great, now that song is stuck in my head again.
There's a whole Star Wars themed area called "Galaxy's Edge" complete with a full-sized Millenium Falcon. I wasn't sure if it's supposed to look like Mos Eisley or what. (WDW has one too, at Hollywood Studios. It didn't exist in 2006 or whenever we were there last). There was a great little food place that served a plant based sausage sandwich that was quite good. I went back for seconds.
California Adventure! We didn't ride the ferris wheel, but the Incredibles roller coaster is the best one in both parks.
Can you tell where the sky and actual buildings end and the painted backdrop begins? In real life it's a very cool optical illusion.
The boys wanted to check out the Guardians of the Galaxy ride. Had I known that it's just the Tower of Terror with a new theme, I would have skipped it. No bueno.
Our favorite section in California Adventure, and the reason we wanted to do both parks. Cars Land, aka Radiator Springs. The line was so long at the Radiator Springs Racers ride we thought we'd have to skip it. We decided to ride it at the end of the day when the line was shorter. Still we waited at least 90 minutes.
There are several virtual caches in the Disney parks, and an Adventure Lab at Downtown Disney. There's even an Earthcache. It's a piece of a petrified tree that Walt Disney purchased on a whim in Colorado for his wife. Perplexed about what to do with the thing, she donated it to the park.
GC3FQY7, Happiest Earthcache on Earth
Sunday after the race we visited Downtown Disney and ate at a New Orleans themed restaurant, modeled after the one in Princess and the Frog. I may or may not have eaten a beignet. Here's Nick checking out Rey's speeder thingy from The Force Awakens, which is one of the Adventure Lab stages.
While the boys waited in line for the Mad Hatter's Teacups, I went and checked out the virtual cache GC4B24, WD's Original.
GC892D only required finding a hidden Mickey and posting a photo with your log. I found several. This was my favorite, I think.
GC7B8Y7, Sign of Happiness. One last virtual after a long and magical day.
We got there when the parks opened and stayed until after 10pm, when California Adventure closed and we finally finished the Radiator Springs Racers ride. (Disneyland Park was open another two hours, but we called it a night.) We all agreed that the Long Beach race and all the festivities that went along with it were super fun, but Disneyland was, well, magical.
There is a marathon every October in Long Beach. I want to go. Not this year, but someday. I'll stay long enough to visit the lighthouse and the Queen Mary, explore the city and do more geocaching. Maybe I'll take that drive up to Santa Monica; or do that one bucket list item, hike to the Hollywood sign. Until then, there are more places to visit and adventures to be had.
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