The GeekHiker

(No pictures from the last few days, so just a quick rundown…)

Day 7 – Errands & Movies

The day after we got back was errand running & relaxation day. You know the exciting things like getting an oil change in the car. Well, at least I thought it was just an oil change, until it was pointed out to me that the mileage was at the point I needed the $250 service.

Ouch.

(On a side note, I can’t believe I just blogged about getting the car serviced. Seriously, am I going for the “Boring Blog of the Year” award here, or what?)

Service done, we ate a couple of great salads for lunch and spent the rest of the day running a couple of errands and being just generally lazy. On her recommendation, JaG and I went to see “Enchanted“, which I had been intrigued by but just couldn’t see myself, a single guy in his mid thirties, heading up to the ticket window and asking for a ticket for one.

Tres creepy, eh?

The film was good & funny and surprisingly satirical of the whole Disney Princess thing obsession. We returned home, watched “Sideways” (as she had not seen it before) and headed to our respective beds as the next day would be a long one.

Day 8 – New Friends & Being A Kid Again

Day 8 was… wait for it… DisneyLand Day! JaG hadn’t been since she was a kid, and who am I to refuse a trip to DL?

We started the morning by buying our tickets, getting a locker for our stuff, and then immediately leaving the park. Crazy, no?

We left to meet fellow blogger Homer-Dog and his wife (aka “The Wife”) for breakfast. We headed over to La Brea Bakery, picked up a tasty breakfast, and enjoyed two hours of chatting about, well, a surprisingly wide variety of subjects. They’re great people and it was wonderful to meet them. Hopefully HD and I will do a hike before they depart eastward in a couple of months time.

JaG and I then headed back into the park. We rode rides, ate bad-for-you food, and rode more rides. We watched the “Jedi Training Academy” show, where they take little kids, give them lightsabers, and they get to battle Darth Vader.

Seriously, if I was 10 years old, I would have simply died and gone to Heaven participating in the show. Actually, I wouldn’t mind doing it now, since my inner 10-year-old lives on inside me.

Dinner was a tasty meal at the Blue Bayou, where one really can’t go wrong, and the remainder of the evening was spent riding rides and wandering through stores. We did the park at a relaxed pace, which is really the only way to do it.

Exhausted, we made the long drive home and passed out quickly.

Day 9 – Departures & The End
The last day of the “vacation” was, of course, the least fun. It’s never good having a friend leave.

The morning was spent puttering about, packing, throwing things in the car, and just chatting. We headed out to the local sandwich shop for lunch and ate our sandwiches on the tailgate at the park (shades of Oregon).

With her departure time approaching, we headed over to LAX. On finding out that her flight was delayed, we sat on a bench outside and chatted until it was time for JaG to head into security. We exchanged our goodbyes and off behind the security wall she went.

It then took me 10 minutes to figure out how to get back over to the parking garage since I couldn’t find any way to get back to the overhead bridge. Darn LAX.

The remainder of the day was spent cleaning and reading and going through photos. Never fun when a vacation ends.

Guess it’s time to start planning another…