I’m just back from my annual whirlwind visit to Disneyland with my buddy; it’s become an annual trek to get my Disney fix since the year we decided to celebrate our mutual milestone birthday at the Happiest Place on Earth. This year I managed to stretch the overall trip from one day to three — mostly due to a scheduling snafu on my part that landed me in Southern California longer than normal. The weather was beautiful and, frankly, I needed the break from reality far more than I realized; leaving the world behind began nearly immediately during breakfast on the first day, when this little character decided to interrupt my first cup of coffee.
It kind of went downhill from there, but in a good way.
In two days at the Disneyland Resort, we managed to crisscross both parks and experience almost every attraction I’d hoped to get onto, including the recently reopened Haunted Mansion. Ranking only second in my book to Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion is a classic that I never get tired of riding, especially when it gets the special Nightmare Before Christmas overlay.
As I wandered around the park, I kept thinking about how Vasily and Alejandro might experience it; more than once, I wondered if Vas had a particular approach to going through the park, or specific rides he’d hit first each time he entered the turnstiles. I’ve never gotten into that level of detail with him — yet — so this particular trip turned into far more of a scouting trip than I’d initially planned. (For the record, I think he’d probably dash straight to Soarin‘ at Disney California Adventure, but only if the original version is playing.)
As with everything else travel-related, food is always a huge source of fun for me; this trip was no exception, especially when I decided to get one of these little beauties right after getting off of Soarin‘. (Yes, that is a joke – IYKYK.)
Since I had an extra day with my friends, I begged one of them to accompany on a dream tour through the Paramount Pictures movie studio in Hollywood, California. I didn’t realize until fairly recently that such things were available to everyday people, and have been kicking myself for not trying to get out there when Star Trek was still in active production on the lot. Still, the wait was well worth it; we spent half a day with an incredibly knowledgable tour guide who gave us an incredible rundown of the historic studio — the last one remaining in Hollywood. Multiple shows were actually filming while I was there, too, though I wasn’t lucky enough to see any actors.
It’s hard to say what the best part of the tour was — all of it was fantastic and beyond my wildest imagination — but seeing the Blue Sky tank where they filmed the climax of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home has to have been close to the top. By day, it looks like an ordinary parking lot with a strange white wall behind it:
But let a producer get ahold of it and it can become something quite extraordinary…
I love the magic of Hollywood!
What made me even happier was the fact that they had a multiple-story archive facility filled to the rafters with an amazing cornucopia of film, scripts and other related items spanning the history of the studio. We had time to walk the aisles and marvel at what was available to anyone at the studio; the focus on preservation was somewhat unexpected for me, especially given how many other studios had liquidated such assets when their finances became strained.
After the tour concluded (and once my wallet had been fully depleted by a visit to the Company Store on the lot), my friend and I had a few hours to kill before I had to catch my flight back to Tucson. Santa Monica was just a short drive from the studio and technically was on the way to LAX; walking along the beach was a fabulous way to end the trip, while also giving me a chance to update my mental map for one of Vasily’s favorite surfing spots.
While it’s true that the beach in Santa Ana/Newport is the one that Vas tends to frequent in my novels, the wide, sandy spot by the pier is such a wonderful place to set a scene that I can’t help but have him appear there from time to time. No matter when I’ve visited, I’ve found it to be a vibrant hive of activity, from surfers out on the waves to bikes riding up and down the paved path to couples casually sitting beside each other, hands entangled while they gaze out toward the horizon. Beach volleyball always seems to be in session on any of the many courts there, and invariably someone is providing street music as a background track to the day.
And then, just like that, I was off to the airport, destined for home. I had an amazing time, took a ton of photos and maybe — no, probably — found some incredible inspiration for my upcoming Vasily Korsokovach Investigates novels.