Disneyland 2017 Mickey Sink Pants Sundae and GWBR

Disneyland 2017 Mickey Sink Pants Sundae and GWBR

Mickey Sink Pants Sundae?!?  Yes, Mickey Sink Pants Sundae!

What are you taking a picture of?

A wall of Mickey sink pants of course.  Uh what?  Well, you obviously want your sundae in a mash-up of Mickey's pants and a kitchen sink.

In between the chocolate ears? That is a kitchen sink faucet.

To be fair it is a very tasty sundae!  For my friends it has become a ritual-must eat Sink Pants Sundae!!  

I'm so glad I learned about the sink pants, but the waffle cone with the Mickey detail is good too.

Anyway!  Eating the Sink Pants Sundae was not the ONLY reason we went to Disneyland, but it was an important one.

The other best sweet treat of the trip were the gold sparkle dusted churros-wow, too fun!  It is some sort of limited time offer and we had to hunt it down.

We gave ourselves a fancy treat and had dinner at the Napa Rose chef table.  We were paired up with the pastry chef so I got to talk to her about the amazing gingerbread rendition of the Grand Californian I had just seen in December!

The best ride in California Adventure is Heimlich's Chew-Chew train!!

But is it really?  Well, I admit that it is the slowest ride ever.  But there is a certain style you get no where else-it is hilarious and pun filled.  And it is even better if you can make all your friends ride it ;)

This is more like it!

My favorite line of all time is the Radiator Springs Racers

A whole wall of bottles that let in the light.

The best cacti

I took a succulents class where I learned that cacti can be 'monstous'.  That is they grow in mutated shapes.  It can't be bred so they are especially rare-love that Disney puts them here even though hardly anyone will care.  I would love to work for Disney gardening!

Treats for Trivia:  When you stay at the hotel you can play their trivia in the park game-it should be listed on the daily activities info sheet. You get to do silly things like count the number of chickens in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

We got the cutest luggage tags!

Previously I got some fun pins

during the trip where we race-walked the 5K.  Fantastic fun-after dark we ran around California Adventure.

Shortly after this trip a group of bicycle lovers spent Memorial Day Weekend at GWBR (gwub-er)  The Great Western Bicycle Rally.  A weekend of all things bicycle, in a chill and relaxed fashion.

Somehow I took no photos except

a completely random pic of the inside of our rental RV-LOL!  The best thing was we rented from an individual rather than a company so the RV itself was fancier, newer, well stocked and completely functional.  

And yet it was an amazing weekend and one I want to do again.  The set up is at the Paso Robles fairgrounds and you can RV it or camp (including inside the fort-best spot obviously).  We were there to be casual cyclists and did not want to do the 100 mile ride-still on my to do list someday.

Instead we went for the passport ride.  This ~30 mile route took us past local businesses like coffee shops, bakeries, ice creamery, winery/brewery and the bike store.  We stop inside to get a stamp....and possibly purchase/consume whatever they sell.  Fantastic!  Had a lovely day full of biking and goodies and hanging out.

Minneapolis trip and the night blooming flower, August 2017

Minneapolis and the night blooming flower, August 2017

Spectacular Queen of the Night bloom.

A quick trip to visit family and friends in the Minneapolis area.  I had lunch with a a dear aunt and uncle at the Hubble House.

 It's a local steak place that has been around forever and features this tiny shoe collection.  This trip I also visited some Delicate Flower and family a got to go to the kids Fairy Tale party at pre-school-big fun! Did some Alexander Technique yoga-ahhh-great for anyone who thinks they can't do yoga as it is mostly laying on the floor, no kidding!

Then our family group spent the day at Valleyfair-woo hoo!!  At first we old timers freaked out because the scrambler was missing!  They moved it-phew!  It was rainy/windy at lunch, but managed to clear up, but not warm up and so Steve was sad-maybe we should visit Waterloo with him.  Ashley and I rode Steel Venom twice before lunch :)  

Spent my aunt's birthday hitting up fun spots around Minneapolis.

I love that they put up engineering as history and art.  This is at the top of a dam along the Minnesota river.

For lunch, first we went to Nelson's Ice Cream in Stillwater where a regular can serve about 3 people.  Obviously the line is out the door.  They have a spectacular new bridge with a great bike path...maybe someday! We followed that up with pizza (and a little more ice cream) at the Grand Ole Creamery and Grand Pizza-wow, this is gooey deliciousness!

Minnehaha Falls, a sort of starting point of the Mississippi River. The park is fantastic and we rented the pedal car and zipped all over the place

Sunset at the Lyndale Rose Garden.  This statue is of a piece of paper being oragamied into a crane.  Neat! 

A beetle infestation meant that not a lot of roses were looking good, but there were a few here and there.

And the other flowers seemed to have escaped-man these are huge!

Meanwhile back at home, my Queen of the Night is blooming.  And not just 1 or 2 but 9 blooms over the course of 2 weeks-sweet!

The plant is a cactus, very large flat leaves, blooms rarely, smells lovely, maybe a hint of cinnamon?.

But the trick is they only open at night.  This time I got 4 blooms at once!  So for a couple nights I set an alarm to catch the blooms.

Impressive!

Fun Bunch at the cabin, 2018

Fun Bunch at the cabin, 2018

Giant Sequoias are Giant!

During the Fun Bunch visit to Yosemite, Mariposa Grove was closed.  When it reopens it will be an amazing way to see Giant Sequoias but in the meantime, what to do?  Visit the cabin!  That means a trip to the Soda Springs to fetch the natural mineral water that bubbles up from the ground.  It is kind of terrible but also kind of good.

We all trooped down to the river.

This is snow melt.

Not warm in any way.

So why do they

all think

 this is such a great idea!?!  I stayed back and took photos!

Giant Sequoias are giant!

We had a fantastic time doing almost nothing!  The kids made a trailer for a movie and chopped wood and fought with sticks.  The adults cooked, read, napped and made sticker pictures.  We all trooped around the area enjoying the great outdoors!

Miner's lettuce!  Totally fine to eat, though the larger leaves are bitter.

Wildflowers

Morel mushroom?  I love the funky fungus, but never eat them!

One of the largest Manzanitas I've ever seen-the red-black twisty bark is so beautiful.