Brett & Jo's Pilgrimage to Where it All Began: Day 2 - A Berry Enjoyable Day!

[Happyhaunt1000]

No hanging about today… let’s just get stuck in!

So after 4 and a half hours of much needed sleep, I wake up! It’s 2:30am, and considering the 8hr difference, 10:30 on a Sunday morning would usually have seemed like a nice lay in… but we’re not in the UK and I’m exhausted, so I force myself back to sleep. At 5:30am I wake up again, and no matter how hard I try to nod off it’s not happening and I’m wide awake. I lay there in the dark with my eyes closed and hear Jo stirring… and then reaching for her phone…
“Its 5:30” I say, knowing full well that was what she was going to check. She tells me she’d woken up briefly in the night but managed to get straight back to sleep. We’ve had 7hrs sleep (give or take) and that’s not bad for an arrival night.

We then spend the next hour laying in bed, reading twitter and chatting on WhatsApp (to other people, not each other!) I’m getting hungry, but the hotel restaurant doesn’t open for ages… so I eat a Ding Dong!



Because it’s so sweet, I need something savoury to take away the taste… and all we’ve got in the room are some Fiery Cheetos! It’s 6:30am… I’m in California… I’m 39years old… and I’m eating Ding Dongs and Cheetos for breakfast! (Some might say that’s living the dream!)

I’m not good with spicy food… and having my mouth feel like it’s on fire just isn’t something I get pleasure from… so I’m not entirely sure why I picked the fiery flavour! I manage 3 or 4 of these giant Cheetos… and then my mouth starts to feel uncomfortable… so I stop! I’ll be honest, I did contemplate eating the other Ding Dong from the packet to counteract the hotness of the Cheetos, but then I feared I might get myself into a vicious circle… so I drank some juice instead!

We get dressed and head down for our complimentary buffet breakfast at about 8:15 and the dining room is already packed! There are no tables available, so after grabbing some scramble eggs, sausage, watermelon and toast we head outside and sit near the pool. It’s a lovely morning, and even though we’re in the shade, we don’t feel cold.







The food isn’t great, but it’s good enough that I go back and get another plateful. There’s a woman inside near the condiment section and she’s mistaken me for someone else who had asked one of the hotel staff for hot sauce… and now she keeps saying to me “they’ve got the hot sauce... that hot sauce is just there, honey.”
I point out that I didn’t ask for hot sauce… to which she replies “they just brought some in… it’s just over there.”
As slowly and as clearly as I can, I tell her again it wasn’t me that asked for hot sauce…“ohhh, I thought you wanted hot sauce!”
Fearing another Ding Dong/Cheetos vicious circle I smile and wander over to make some toast.

“You like your bread, huh boy?”
Great… now her husband is starting on me! I smile and tell him it’s all about loading up on your carbs… and he just stares at me! I give up and shuffle off back outside.

Then it’s Jo’s turn to go back for more food, and she comes back with a bowl of fruit, a mini blueberry muffin and a piece of cinnamon/granola/crumble topped cake, which actually tasted amazing. I was fully expecting her to have a couple of waffles on her plate, as we’d spotted a mickey waffle maker in there but apparently the queue was too long so she went for the cakes instead.



With breakfast finished, Jo takes a walk over to the pool and I quickly FaceTime my brother back home... and I kinda wished I hadn’t bothered! Apparently he was trying to ‘help’ cook a Sunday roast...so I gave up after a couple of minutes as he clearly wasn’t interested in what I was saying!





We head back upstairs to the room, and start getting our bags sorted out for today’s adventure… Knotts Berry Farm! It’s only 15mins away and we know it opens at 10am… but we’ve got to swap our printed vouchers for actual tickets, so by 9:30 we’re outside the hotel waiting for our cab. It’s only when we step outside into the sun and sit down on a bench that Jo realises the suntan lotion we’ve sprayed on has some kind of ‘shimmer’ in it! We look like a couple of the bloody Twilight vampires! Thankfully, all my tattoos mean that you can’t really see it on my arms… but my legs look like I’m about to enter a Miss Teen Pageant! Oh well… nothing I can do now except own it and pretend I meant to look like I’ve walked out of the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique!

Sitting outside the hotel is a tatty black stretch limo. The guy isn’t there to pick up anyone specific… he’s just trying to get a fare. He shouts over and asks if we need a ride… but we tell him we’ve already got a cab booked. We sit there waiting for our cab and watch as he tries to entice a woman and her two teenage kids to use his limo! (I wonder if he tried the old “do you like sweets? I’ve got some puppies in here… do you want one?” approach!)





Needless to say… the woman is interested and she heads over to speak to the guy. All I overheard was her asking if he took cards… and him replying that he didn’t. They chat, and as she walks away and heads back into the reception he calls out “don’t tell them it’s for me… I’ll get in trouble!” I can only assume she’s gonna try and get cash from reception somehow.

Anyhoo… a minute or two later and our booked cab turns up. “I could’ve given you a much better fare” the limo driver shouts over at us as we get in the cab… but turning up at Knotts Berry Farm in a limo really isn’t on my bucket list, so there was no way that was ever gonna happen!

Our driver is cheerful enough. Well… I say cheerful… when he’s not moaning about the traffic diversions due to the Tinkerbell Half Marathon, he’s a thoroughly nice guy! He had a Bluetooth earpiece in and there were times when I couldn’t tell if he was talking to us, or to someone on the phone… which made things slightly awkward! 15minutes later and we’re at our destination. Seeing the front of the park and the sort of people hanging around outside the entrance, I really am glad we didn’t arrive in that limo!



Unlike arriving at Universal, Seaworld, or one of the Disney parks there is no line at any of the ticket windows! We walk up to one and say that we have a voucher to exchange. After a couple of hassle-less minutes we’re given our entry tickets. And when I say tickets… I actually mean two till receipts! We walk to the turnstiles, hand them our receipts and we’re into the park a little after 10am.





Jo had already told me about the Ghostrider coaster and I was sold when I heard it was an wooden old-style ride (which I love as they feel more dangerous than the modern steel coasters.) We excitedly hurried round to where it was located… which was easy considering the park was pretty much empty. We got there only to have our excitement dashed as the attraction wasn’t running yet and they actually had no idea of when it would be operational!



Not to be deterred, we decided that the Silver Bullet would be our first attraction of the day. There was literally no queue and we walked straight on. It’s a great coaster and feels very similar to Montu at Busch Gardens.















After looking at the map, we pick our next ride – Jaguar… walking through a still eerily empty park to get there. This ride has a cool Mayan theme and the entrance looks like an old temple. Riding it was a painful experience! It was throwing us left and right, and it had no padding on the inside of the cart so it felt like our ribs were being crushed. The ride itself was a bit like Goofy’s coaster at MK but longer and taller.

















Bashed and bruised, we sought our next thrill ride and didn’t have to look for long. Just around the corner from Jaguar was Supreme Scream… which takes you up to 252ft and basically just drops you! You apparently reach speeds of 45mph and you get a G-Force of 4 (and apparently a negative G-Force of -1a… whatever that means!?)









I’ve not mentioned this before, but I’d bought a Go Pro before we came away. My intention was to wear it on certain attractions and also when just walking around the parks so I could film the different areas. I’d bought a bunch of accessories to go with it, including a chest harness so I could go hands free and also head mount… and I thought this attraction would be a great one to film as the view from the very top would be amazing. As we’re walking through the queue line I quickly put on the chest strap and lock in the Go Pro.



I get to the front of the line and I’m stopped by a KBF employee who tells me I can’t use it and will have to take off the camera. Foiled at my first attempt to use it! In hindsight I wish I’d put the head mount and Go Pro in my pocket and quickly put them on at the top of the attraction… but I didn’t think of that so I leave it all with my camera bag and get into my seat.

I was right… the view from the very top was amazing! We got to look around for a few seconds until, without any warning, we were dropping straight down and our stomachs were in our mouths. As with all these types of attractions, it’s over in next to no time. I’ll never get why people will wait in line for hours for a ride like this which is only 20 seconds long… it hardly seems worth it! To the young boy sitting to my left though, those 20seconds must’ve felt like a lifetime because he didn’t stop screaming from the moment it started till we were safely back at ground level!

Not knowing this park at all, we pulled out the map again to decide where to go next… and the Calico Mine Train caught our eye. We weren’t really sure what this was, but we were thinking it’d be like a Big Thunder Mountain type ride. We made our way over and noticed the park still seemed really quiet. Up to this point we’d done three big rides in less than an hour… but we joined the short queue for this one and so begun the trend of deceptively small lines but ridiculously long wait times!











The entrance is similar to that of BTM, but on this one you’re walking into up into the mountain to board a train, and there are waterfalls and a stream that runs alongside the queue line. In front of us were some families… and not one of the kids was splashing about in the stream or walking up the hill straddling it! I pointed this out to Jo, as normally if we’re in a queue behind a family (especially a slow moving queue) the kids are like little spider monkeys… climbing over rocks, swinging on chains, sitting on walls that clearly say ‘do not climb’… all the while the parents turn a blind eye and ignore it. Now, I know it’s easy to sit in my childless ivory tower casting accusations at families and kids, and I’m sure one day I’ll be having to tell our own little angels not to climb or swing, and basically to wind their necks in… but at this moment in time I don’t have kids… so I’ll judge away till my heart’s content











So as I was saying, this queue line was winding its way up the mountain and into a little train station (if you can call it that). We’d been in line for a while, and contemplated getting out of the queue and doing something else instead… but we stuck with it as we’d already invested 20minutes of our time to waiting. As we got towards the front of the line we could see that this attraction was going to be nothing like BTM and was looking more like it would be a (very) gentle ride through the mountain… something more similar to the WDW Railroad!



Two more trains load up and then it’s finally our turn to board… and we were directed to our little 8 person carriage along with a family of five. I use the term ‘carriage’ very loosely… they are basically wooden boxes with planks for seats! The train rings its bell and we slowly pull away from the station. The train then maintained a stupidly slow speed the whole way through the attraction.





So, how do I describe it... well… you know when you’re on the WDW Railroad or the Liberty Square Riverboat, and you go past those scenes of an Indian village or the old guy on the rocking chair… well its kind of like that… but inside a huge cavernous mountain. Think of the TTA at Magic Kingdom, but set in the Old West… and not quite as good as the TTA! Apparently this is one of the park’s classic old-school attractions… and I think the time we had to wait to ride it left me feeling slightly disappointed when we got off. I think I was expecting more. Not quite sure what exactly… but just ‘more’!



To try and get things back on track we decide to head for another thrill ride, and just across from the exit of the Mine Train was the Timber Mountain Log Ride. We got in line and within 15minutes we were getting into our log. I’d strapped on my Go Pro chest harness (making myself look like a less cool version of Iron Man!) and pressed record as we set off.





Again, this was another disappointing attraction. The log floated along, smashing into the side every time the track did something other than just go dead straight! There are scenes depicting different elements of ‘logging’ but, as with the Mine Train, some of the animatronics weren’t moving. I’m not sure if they were broke… or meant to be that way. There were a few scenes inside… one of which had an old timey fella getting squirted by a skunk, while a wolf stood nearby and growled! Then you were in a scene that had an animatronic guy log-rolling (don’t know what that is? Google it!) alongside some burlesque can-can dancers!

After that it was the final climb before the last huge drop. I say last huge drop like this ride had been thrilling, full of small drops along the way... it really wasn’t! We reach the top… our arms go up (as they always do on rides like this) and down we go! Well… what a disappointment! I don’t know if the ride wasn’t running at the maximum water level or what, but we were bone dry when we reached the bottom. Splash Mountain it is not!

[Happyhaunt1000]

It’s nearly noon and we’re both getting a little hungry, but decide to do one last ride before we grab something to eat. That ride was Boomerang… and boy, what a ride!







Basically you get on the coaster and it begins to move slowly backwards out of the station. It pulls you back and upwards until you feel like you’re pretty much vertical… it then holds you there. While this is happening, me and Jo are chatting away… pointing out areas of the park we hadn’t yet visited… clearly forgetting we’re on a rollercoaster.

Suddenly it lets go, and you hurtle forwards, back through the loading station and then up and around… performing loops and twists and turns that leave you giddy. But that’s not the ride in its entirety. The ride then goes into an incline and you realise that the track ends! It’s a bit like Expedition Everest from here on out… you’re held looking up to the sky for a few seconds… then you fly backwards, doing all of the loops and twists and turns you’ve just done… but in reverse!



It’s intense and insane. We were both thrown about like a couple of rag dolls. Now I know I’m not exactly a spring chicken anymore, but I’ll ride any coaster you put in front of me… and I got off this ride feeling sick and disorientated like I’ve not felt in a long while! The last time I felt like this I rode the Hulk three times in a row then got off and puked up the Gatorade I had drunk just before riding. (Sorry… TMI?)



It took us about 5 minutes to fully recover after riding Boomerang, and I decided now was a good time to record a quick voice memo. After quickly getting the morning’s events logged, we decided to have our old favourite Johnny Rocket’s for lunch.



We arrived at the desk and asked for a table for two just as a big group of about 10 people to our right were being told they were going to have to leave their strollers outside… which wasn’t going down well… words were being exchanged and tempers were beginning to fray. No sooner had we sat down to begin our wait than we were up again and being led to our booth.

We sat down and started looking through the menu. We decided that we both wanted a Coke Float and that we’d share a portion of Half Fries/Half Onion rings. As for the burgers, I went for the Rocket Single and Jo chose the Route 66 (as always).

The drinks and fries/rings combo came out pretty quickly. Jo wanted to try something she’d seen in an episode of Arrow where a character eating in a diner was dipping her fries into her float (ya know… the whole savoury/sweet thing). She liked it but I tried it once and that was enough for me to realise that I wouldn’t be doing it a second time.





We assumed that our burgers would be out in a few minutes, and we started gingerly picking at the fries and rings. Our assumption had been wrong… and our burgers were not on their way. In fact our floats were all but gone and the bowl which held the rings and fries was now empty! A woman came by and asked if we’d like a refill on our drinks… which we were grateful for.

While waiting, me and Jo were people watching like a couple of pros. I was taking a keen interest in the family to my right… the man and woman were both using their iPads and ignoring their son whilst he screamed the place down! So that was pleasant.

I was, however, intrigued as to what the woman was looking at on her tablet. It appeared to be something like a ‘Nanny Cam’… but I think she was watching either their cat or their dog. By the time I’d got my phone out of my pocket to try and take a picture, she’d closed that down and was checking her emails!





Eventually… after what seemed like a lifetime, our burgers arrived. I don’t think they were up to JR’s normal great standard, but if I remember rightly we both demolished them in record time. But then it hit us… both of us at the same time… exhaustion! We’d made a rookie mistake in drinking a coke float, and eating onion rings, fries and a burger. It was far too big of a lunch and we were now feeling tired and lethargic.

Jo did however perk up when much like in a TGI Fridays… all the JR servers went to the front of the restaurant and performed some sort of half-assed dance routine to the classic disco track ‘Carwash’. It was performed with all the lustre of a kid being forced to get up in assembly in front of the whole school and show the dance they’d been ‘working on in drama club’. Jo recorded it… not sure why… but on second viewing, it’s just as painful as the first time I saw it live!



A few minutes later we paid our bill and decided we’d go into a few of the shops that were close by to walk off some of our lunch. The first shop we went in was quite big and as you’d imagine it was full of KBF merchandise.



All your usual attraction/park t-shirts, mugs, glasses etc… but it also sold things that had nothing to do with KBF… like DC Comic character bobble heads, statues, and other random toys. After a few minutes mooching around we left and carried on exploring the park.

We made our way back to the Ghost Town we’d walked through earlier to have a little look around. Back in the early 1940’s Walter Knott decided he wanted celebrate the story of the pioneers that crossed the desert in covered wagons and started buying and salvaging as many buildings as he could from all across the western United States. If you didn’t know the history of the park, you’d just think they’d done a great job of recreating an authentic Wild West town without realising these are actually real buildings with historical value.



Once we get there we look at the times guide and see there is a show called Mystery Lodge that’s due to begin in 10minutes which sounds pretty interesting (and we could do with another sit-down in the air-con!) So we head back out of the Ghost Town and over to the building housing the show. It’s described as ‘a special effects laden experience with an old storyteller who leads guests through an unforgettable journey deep into Native North American West’.



We make our way to the auditorium which is already pretty full. It resembles the bit at the start of Ellen’s Universe of Energy where you’re all standing/sitting waiting for the main doors to open and get in a vehicle. But instead of giant screens on the wall, there is an Old West backdrop and Native American music playing. Me and Jo back ourselves against the wall and to one side of the entrance door so we’re not in anyone’s way or blocking their view.



An employee gets on the microphone and says that we should all sit down on the floor as the pre-show is about to begin. One of the last things she said was that there was to be no photography and no video recording out of respect for the Native American culture and the story they would be telling. I’m gutted to hear this as I’d planned on using the Go Pro to record the show… but being a good park guest, I turn the GP off.

The lights begin to dim… the music gets louder… but they are still letting people into the pre-show auditorium. Two women and four kids shuffle in and then stand right in front of Jo! The women may have been quite short… but they were also quite rotund… and Jo couldn’t see a thing! Thankfully though, there isn’t anything to see… there’s someone else on the microphone now basically explaining the story we are about to see… then we were all told to get up off the floor and move into the theatre! Why tell us to sit down if we’d only be standing up again two minutes later and moving into a different room?!

We get up and join the slowly ambling crowd as it moves into the next room. We can see quite clearly that KBF doesn’t follow Disney and Universal’s policy of ‘enter a row and keep moving to the last available seat’. We hang back a second or two as people stream towards the front and the back of the theatre stopping slap bang in the middle of their rows! Other guests are then clambering over them as they try to get past. Towards the back of the theatre we spot a couple of rows with nobody in them. We make our way over there and shimmy down the aisle. When we realise there’s nobody behind us and nobody else coming into the theatre, we stop where we are and sit down. A minute or so later the show begins.



*SPOILER ALERT*

A ‘special effects laden experience’ it is not! Onto the stage (which is set behind a sheet of glass) shuffles an old man… except it’s not an old man, it’s an actor… wearing the mask of an old man. But it’s not even a full face mask. His mouth and lower jaw are exposed so he can lip sync (!) the narrative. So we don’t even get an actor performing the piece live… he or she is just miming!

There is a sudden clap of thunder and some light effects are made to look like lightning. This scares one child half to death and they start balling their eyes out. The parents snatch up the child and quickly whisk them out of the theatre (lucky kid!) The basic special effect being used is Pepper’s Ghost (like they use in the Haunted Mansion Ballroom Scene). Wisps of smoke from an imaginary fire become animals… things glitter… and then the old man finally reveals (even more spoilers here folks) that it wasn’t an owl calling his name… calling him to say his time is up… oh no… it was the tricky little Raven! Then he ‘vanishes’ and there’s his walking stick/magic staff left standing in the centre of the room… and then it falls over!

And that’s it! I’ll be honest, I was hoping for something a little more meaningful or insightful. All we got was a Pepper’s Ghost effect and a story about a raven pretending to be an owl. I had more fun trying on the stupid hats in the gift shop afterwards!



We came out of there and decided to go straight onto the Bigfoot Rapids which is next-door. As we approach the entrance to the queue, an employee (who must’ve noticed us heading his way from the theatre exit) said to me “how was your time in the Mystery Lodge?” I responded with “it’s a mystery why we bothered going in there mate… it was terrible!” It made him laugh and me and Jo carried on into the queue.



Out of earshot, Jo told me off for being facetious (that’s obviously not the actual word she used to describe me)… but I don’t think I was… I was just being honest! They’d made a big deal about not videoing or photographing the show as a sign of respect… but then they’ve got someone dressed up in a cruddy half mask that looked like something out of Texas Chainsaw Massacre!

Anyway, before we’d gone into the theatre, we’d watched a couple of the rafts go by on the rapids and some people were getting drenched… but seeing as we’d already done one water ride today and stayed bone dry, we were ok with the prospect of getting wet on this attraction.



The wait was only 15-20 minutes and then we were loading onto a raft with a father and his young daughter. You could tell that the daughter wanted to get absolutely soaked… and that the dad was hoping he’d get off relatively dry! By about halfway round, we’d all been hit by a little bit of water… but nothing too bad. Then, right near the end of the ride a huge wave hit the side of the raft and just covered me and Jo! We were drenched.

The little girl laughed her head off but was gutted that it wasn’t her that was soaked through.
As we reached the dock, she turned to her dad and said “again dad… I want to get wet this time”. He obligingly got back into the queue, but you could tell by the look on his face that he really didn’t want to!



Our next attraction was to be the Pony Express. This is kind of a unique little coaster as your vehicle is a pony (yes… a pony) and you sit on it as if you’re really riding a horse! The queue was showing a 20minute wait so we got in line… and for the first 5 minutes the line was moving quickly… but then it just slowed right down. We hardly moved at all from then on. We could see the vehicles going round, but we weren’t moving from our position. I wasn’t too upset at this though, as I was enjoying being in the sun and having my shorts and t-shirt dry a little… but Jo was restless. Maybe it was something to do with the family in front and the girl who kept treading on Jo’s feet, or flicking her hair and catching Jo with it... I can’t be 100% sure, but that could’ve been what was making her angry :d

It wasn’t till we got home that I noticed that when I’d taken a few photos of the attraction going round, I’d inadvertently captured people throwing up gang signs! That, or they had crippling arthritis!





After 40minutes we were finally at the front of the line. As we loaded up you could see that it wasn’t a harness as such, but more like the restraints that keep you in place on Manta at SeaWorld. The start of the attraction is similar to that of Rock and Rollercoaster/Hulk, and it shoots you forward at a really high speed and then up over this hill. It didn’t go upside down, and wasn’t particularly tall… but some of the twists and turns were pretty exhilarating and it was quite a fast coaster… it was over far too soon though. It certainly didn’t warrant the 40minutes we’d waited… but was still a fun coaster.

It was now finally time to explore the Ghost Town in a little more detail. Now… I won’t bore you with information about every single store/building… I’ll just write about a few of the ones that interested us… and then post up a butt load of pictures showing the rest!
Sound good?
Good.

Right as we arrived in the main, I guess you’d call it ‘town square’, there was a show going on. There were two cowboys facing off against one another about to have a duel. One was obviously the ‘bad guy’ and just wanted to get things started, while the other one was playing up to the crowd… making them laugh and wasting time. Then the bad guy just shot him! We were quite far back from the action… so I couldn’t really see or hear what was said after that… but then it was over and the crowd were clapping and actors were posing for photos.









After a brief look in the Ghost Town Toy Junction & Novelties store (lots of random ‘joke’ items and plenty of tat) we went into the Haunt Museum. It was full of movie props and items from the Knott’s Scary Farm Halloween nights. This included full costumes, lots of photos on the walls… and a scary as hell looking marionette which was a model from a haunted house called Pinocchio Unstrung! Just imagine that walking across your hardwood bedroom floor in the middle of the night!















The Bird Cage Theatre was from 1881, and although we didn’t get to see the show, the walls showed famous people who had performed here in the past (note Steve Martin’s picture top left!)





The knife shop was exactly that… a shop full of knives! They were everywhere… on the walls, in cases, on the ceiling… and most of them were for sale. I guess it beats mooching around yet another shop full of stuffed toys, T-shirts with witty slogans and magnets bearing the name of rollercoasters!









We didn’t really stop and watch the Blacksmith working, but as you walk down the street you can hear the ‘clang, clang, clang’ of his hammer smashing against the anvil. (Get ready for our Ghost Town photo overload!)

[Happyhaunt1000]

As we’re walking down the street I spot a strange sight and just had to take a quick picture. This woman looks like she’s sunning herself and the kid is either scratching his butt with the corner of the cowboy’s hat, or farting on his head! I just don’t get it!



The Bottle House is an interesting building… it was built in 1944 and has 3082 whiskey or wine bottles in its structure. I'm not sure what I was expecting to be inside… but it certainly wasn’t dreamcatchers and t-shirts bearing images of Native Americans, wolves and eagles! They did sell these cool little hand carved figures… but they were bloody pricey and I couldn’t really justify paying what they were asking for them.



















Next stop was a shop selling literally everything boysenberry… which is a cross between a raspberry, a blackberry, a dewberry and a loganberry and named after its creator Mr Charles Rudolph Boysen, and is the berry which was grown by Walter Knott and his family… hence the park’s name Knott’s Berry Farm! We couldn’t come away without something so Jo got some Boysenberry shortbread cookies and I decided I had to have the Boysenberry BBQ Sauce.



It was at this point that we had decided we’d both had enough for the day and started to make our way out of the park. Sure… we hadn’t done at least two of the larger coasters, and had missed out on Ghost Rider as it’d been closed all day, but we’d had a really fun day at KBF and it had certainly exceeded our expectations (even if some of the individual rides hadn’t!)



As you leave there is a wall showing a huge park map, attraction posters and information about the park’s history... I really like the retro/vintage style of these.







Outside the park there were some shops… kinda like a budget version of CityWalk or DTD. The main store we went in was just mental. I feel like it needs a little more of an explanation, other than just saying ‘mental’… so here goes.

So remember earlier in the report after we’d finished lunch and we went into a shop and I said there were some random things on sale in the store… well the same applied here… except multiply that by a thousand. As well as selling lots of KBF merchandise there were sections that sold nothing but items relating to Elvis! Mugs, hats, books, lunchboxes, plates… they seemed to have everything. Then next to that… Marilyn Monroe merchandise! Then opposite that was a shelf selling house figurines, canvas paintings of horses and then the obligatory t-shirt and mugs… also with horses on! Behind that stand… stuff with John Wayne as the subject… and to the right of that, Grumpy cat merch! And all this is just one end of the store! At the other end they sold clothes! I just couldn’t actually be in this store any longer and made a quick exit… spewing rants as I left that I’d normally reserve for Twitter on my train journey home from work!









After asking a parking attendant where the taxi stand was and being told to just wait up the road by the entrance to KBF as “taxis pass here every couple of minutes”, we walked the 100metres back up the road and waited.
And waited…
And waited…
And after 10 or so minutes had passed and not a single taxi had gone by, Jo went to the customer service booth and the nice lady there ordered us a cab but said it would be 20 minutes!

Well we waited around 10 minutes and a cab pulled up. I'm still not sure that was the cab we ordered but I’d already been waiting 20 minutes and now just wanted to get back to our hotel as we were seriously flagging. During the journey back we got chatting with the cab driver and after hearing we’d planned on doing some touristy sightseeing the following day he gave us his business card which had the prices of what it’d would cost to see these sights.

Now what I learnt very quickly is that in/around LA, everything is REALLY spread out. From where we were staying it was an hour’s drive to get to Universal… a little bit less to get to the Hollywood sign and Walk of Fame/Chinese Theatre. So what Madan (the cab driver) offered was that for $320 he would pick us up at 9am the following morning and then be our chauffer for 8hrs, taking us to all the sights (which I won’t list off and you’ll just have to read about on the next day of our TR).

Both me and Jo thought this sounded like a good deal so we took his card and said we’d discuss this with Jon and Lisa (as they’d be joining us) and give him a call later that evening. Within 15 minutes we were back at the hotel and I was sprawled out on the bed… thoroughly exhausted. Earlier that afternoon, Jon and Lisa had arrived in LA (they were staying at the Disneyland Hotel for the whole trip… the lucky cats) and I knew that they had planned to go see an hockey game that evening… so wanting to run Madan’s proposal past them, I quickly Facetimed Jon.

So you all know the story of how we know each other… and how we met. I say met… we’ve not actually met in the true sense of the word… but that will all change tomorrow. I explain what Madan has offered us and Jon agrees that is a good price… and then says that to avoid wasting time on Tuesday morning, , we should collect our Disney passes from the collection point tomorrow morning before we go on our adventure around LA.

So the plan is set… I’ll call Madan back, agree to his $320 fee and have him collect us from outside the Disneyland hotel at 9am. Me and Jo will meet Jon and Lisa on the concourse between the two parks tomorrow morning at 8:15 where we’ll get our tickets (all ready for a full day in the parks on Tuesday) and then take a slow walk round to the DL hotel and wait to be picked up! Sorted.

After the Facetime ended, I then had difficulty contacting Madan because I wasn’t using the correct dialling code… but I eventually figured it out and our chariot was booked for the following day.

It’s at this point (around 6:30pm) that I do something stupid… I lay on the bed and get comfortable! That may not sound like the worst thing in the world you could do… but it was in this instance. As I lay there flicking through the TV channels, I'm suddenly hit with a wave of tiredness that just washes over me and I can barely keep my eyes open. Jo is making herself a double strength coffee to try and stay awake, but there’s no helping me… I'm too far gone. I tell her I just need a 30minute power nap and I’ll be right as rain.

Well this turns out to be a lie! The 30 minutes come and go… and about an hour later I wake up. I feel really groggy, and I keep my eyes open just long enough for them to focus on where Jo is in the room…(she’s sitting on the sofa doing a sudoku) before I'm back asleep again! At about 8:30 I wake up again, and although I'm still feeling lethargic and still quite tired I manage to move from the bed and walk around for a bit. We’d discussed earlier in the day about going out for something to eat, but I just don’t have the energy… and I'm not that hungry. I think that the past 48hrs had caught up with me the moment I laid down on the bed and there was no way to fight it.
Jo could see I was still exhausted and said that instead of going out we could relax, recharge our batteries and watch Game of Thrones. Ordinarily, I would’ve been dead against this plan (I don’t go away on holiday to sit in a hotel room and watch TV, no matter how good it is!) but I thought that seeing as we’d be out and about pretty solidly for the next five days it was a decent idea. So that’s what we did… we watched some TV and got our stuff ready for the following day.



So that, my lovely little Dibbers is the end of our first full day in California. I really liked KBF. It has something for everyone….and with an annual pass only costing around $70, I can see why locals come here for a day out. I really underestimated how big the park was, and how much time you could spend exploring. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who was going to Anaheim and had a spare day.

Thank you for reading and I hope you’ll come back and read the next instalment of our California Adventure where we meet new friends face-to-face for the first time, explore LA and the day takes an unexpected turn with enjoyable results!

I love you byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

#dibbafteryourefirstfulldayincaliforniamakesyoupas soutonthebed

[smedley]

Sounds like a fab day, the struggle to re-adjust to the time difference is definitely worrying me for our trip next year though :/ not enough time in our schedule for KBF but it looks like a fun day out

[abiknox]

Great write up, i alway lose hubby to tiredness on the evening of day one. Ive given up planning anything major now as we have had a few write of meals because of it

Knotts Berry sounds good, really looking froward to reading about tomorrow though. A personal chauffer for 8 hours! Grand.

[Twentyyears]

Great trippy as usual. we haven't been back to KBF for years but that feeling you get after the Boomerang will stay with me forever! I was exactly the same and there are not many coasters I have not been on!
Brett- you know you are getting on when you feel an early night and TV on holiday are OK, lol. It get worse as the years go by, believe me

By the way- no pics of the BBB effect on the legs?

[wizzo]

I'd give KBF a go. I know some of the attractions were a bit naff but it's lovely to look at. Boomerang looked right up my street.

I bet Jo was annoyed at you for having a full on 'Nana Nap' you old tart!

Looking forward to Richard Gere buying you a nice dress on 'Rodeo Drive Baby' tomorrow.

#dibbafternotassprightlyasheusedtobe

[rens]

KBF seems like a good day out although Mystery Lodge sounds pretty bizarre and I love the "gang signs" photo on the Pony Express!


Another entertaining day- I love all the little side notes connected to people watching that you include in your reports! Looking forward to the next chapter x

[simno1]

Not the sort of farm I was excepting - thought there would be lots of pigs and cows in this report 😂!

Fab day!

[ely3857]

Sounds like a fabulous day. Really hope tomorrow goes well!