Monday, April 3, 2006
We started out our day with breakfast at Rainforest Cafe. I had oatmeal, fresh fruit, a biscuit. Patrick had bacon, eggs, potatoes, a biscuit. We sat next to a giant fish tank with lots of beautiful tropical fish. One of the fish was dead, floating horizontally at the bottom of the tank, and several of the other fish were picking at it—gross. Shortly after we were seated, two women and a boy were seated next to us. The two women eventually started chatting with us and it wasn't until near the end of our meal that I had realized that it was a lesbian couple taking one of their grandsons to Disneyland. When each child reaches the age of 7, they get a trip to Disneyland—sounded like a great rule to me. One of the women told us about—and recommended to us—Annie O'Hara who works at US Bank on Castro Street in case we ever needed financial investment services. Patrick took photos with a gorilla. After breakfast, we headed to California Adventure. Neither of us had been to this park before. We ambled into the park, passing underneath the Golden Gate Bridge (the monorail passes along it!). We entered the center hub called Sunshine Plaza, saw the sun circle (purely decorative), the waves machine. Then, into the Hollywood Pictures Backlot, we passed bathrooms that look like they could have been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, a walk-up hot dog diner, and lots of Los Angeles-looking architecture. Back through Sunshine Plaza and over into the Golden State area. The line for Grizzly River Rafting Company was pretty short, so we hopped on, had a fun ride. We did the Mission Tortilla factory tour and the Boudin Bakery tour. We were misled by Ariel's Grotto—a sign outside said something about "underwater dining" but we went inside and found out it really wasn't underwater. Even worse (for us), it was character dining, so we ended up eating lunch at Wine Country Trattoria at the Golden Vine Winery (which I sometimes mistakenly called "Golden Wine Vinery"): soup (we can't remember what kind now), I had a salad with garlic bread, Patrick had a salad with some kind of meat. We rode the Sun Wheel Ferris Wheel, which I found scary—sometimes I'm afraid of heights. I called my friend Chris to tell him that I was sending him a fax. (Not really.) We had dinner at House of Blues: skillet-baked rosemary cornbread with maple butter; I had a mixed field greens salad with bleu cheese crumbles, toasted pecans, and roasted tomato shallot vinaigrette, and a full rack of slow-smoked Tennessee-style baby back ribs with Jim Bean BBQ sauce, mashed sweet potatoes, green beans; Patrick had cajun-smoked turkey and shrimp file gumbo with white rice, diced tomatoes, and lemon, and creole seafood jambalaya with shrimp, chicken, andouille sausage and roasted green onions. For dessert, we shared a chocolate bread pudding. Yum! We returned to the park and watched the fireworks from Tomorrowland while waiting for Honey I Shrunk the Audience.