The California Dreamin'

I went to California and came back with this crazy looking, cross-dressing Minion (which my daughter went wild for in the Universal store and hugged to her like it was her new best friend) and a scorching head cold. No measles, so that's a plus, but the head cold was a real doozy when I was screaming my lungs off on multiple upside-down roller coasters. It sometimes cleared my sinuses, it sometimes made my head pound. I spent the better part of the week sounding like an old lady with a forty-year-smoker cough.

Here are some things I learned from California:

1) The traffic is terrible in the L.A. area. I've heard this joked about before, but WOW, it was really bad. I admire those who face it everyday and hope you are zen and blessed with no road rage. 

2) The weather is stellar for my hair. No humidity, no rain. Our forecast literally called for 0% rain the whole week we were there. It was also about 75 as a high. I have no complaints.

3)  Disneyland is still awesome even though it's not even a fraction as big as Disney World, where I grew up (Note: I didn't actually grow up IN Disney World, but went there enough that it felt like it). In fact, when I walked onto Main Street and looked down the way for the castle, my first reaction was, "No, that can't be it. That's barely taller than the trees!" The rest of the park is great, but I feel like they could just air drop a grander castle right on top of what's there, or build up some extra spires or something. The Matterhorn sits close to the castle and overshadows it. That ain't right.

4) I'm secretly an old person. The highlight of my backlot tour at Universal Studios was finding out that I was on the actual location that Angela Lansbury rode her bike on in the opening sequence of Murder She Wrote. I was IN Cabot Cove! What a thrill!

5) I will never be as tan as the natives. Or as tan as anyone else, really. I accept that fate.

6) The San Diego Zoo and separate Safari Park are really worth the trip alone. I wouldn't have expected to feel that way about a zoo, but they are truly special. My kids saw some animals in, ahem, action. There were baby animals all over the place. The zoo included a double decker bus, where we were feet away from a polar bear doing the back stroke. We couldn't have asked for more. And yet there was so much more.

Now I'm back and recovering. But that crazy looking Minion won't stop staring at me.