The Happiest Place on Earth

Today is our last day in the LA area and we are going to "The Happiest Place on Earth".  If you don't know what I mean then I'll let you in on a little secret, it's called the "Disneyland Resort" in Anaheim, CA.  Most of you know how much we like The Wonderful World of Disney and how many times we have been to Disney World in Florida, so no trip to SoCal would be complete without a trip to the original park that was designed by Walt Disney.  The day began with a drive on the freeway, Norm's favorite place to be in LA.  But much to our surprise, the traffic wasn't too bad which made it an easy trip, making the start of the day a "Happy" one.  We parked in the Toy Story, Woody Lot and took the shuttle bus to the main gate area.  After standing in line for some time to purchase our tickets, I'm not too sure what the problem was (you don't have that many choices for tickets), we stood in line to go into the park.  Standing in line seemed to be the theme of the day.  For those of you that haven't been to Disneyland Resort, it's actually two different parks and a shopping/eating district called Downtown Disney.  We began our visit by going to the park called "California Adventure". There are sections that are themed after the movie "Cars", the movie "The Little Mermaid",  a Boardwalk/Pier with rides and games, and areas in California, such as the Redwood Forests.  We rode several rides, but our favorites in this park seemed to be the Whitewater Rafting Ride (even though it didn't compare with our rafting experience in Colorado) and a simulator ride called "Soaring", which simulates a hang glider ride through the most famous places in California.  We then took a break  from the parks and walked to the Downtown Disney area and did some shopping.  We finally made it to Disneyland, and much to our surprise it was very much like the Magic Kingdom at WDW in Florida.  The exceptions were somewhat disappointing, yet still having that Disney Magic that just makes the parks so very special.  The main things that were different were the size of Cinderella's Castle and the fact that things were so crammed together that the walkways were much narrower making it seem very, very crowded.  We rode the Matterhorn, The Nemo Ride, and spent lots of time walking throughout the park taking pictures and seeing the ins and outs of the Disneyland resort.  We retuned to the California Adventure park for our final ride there based on the movie "Cars".  It has some similarity to "Test Track" in EPCOT at WDW, but it has more story line to it.  It was one of the more memorable things we did while there.  Our final ride was back in Disneyland. Many of the rides are the same as the ones in Florida, but one, the Matterhorn is a totally different ride than any thing in Florida.  It was really neat, and we were glad that rode it.  We then had dinner, did some shopping , and then headed back to our LA home.  Norm was a little worried about the traffic after the experience of the return trip from San Diego. But it was pretty smooth sailing home.  We then packed our bags for the trip to Las Vegas the next day.  So ends our first trip to the California Disneyland Resort, truly, at least for the most part, "The Happiest Place on Earth".  Each time Norm heard a   crying, streaming, and just being ornery child he would say " no crying, this is Disneyland, the happiest place on earth".  We just don't know if people understood, but it was a great time in spite of those screaming kids,  a great way to end our first trip to the Los Angeles area.