Thursday, January 22, 2026
No sense in burying the lede – Keith fell down. He read us the weather before we left this morning. 17% chance of drizzle at noon. What they meant was the rain would start about 10am and last until 6pm. It would sometimes be drizzly, but mostly be rainy. Benjamin spent several minutes yesterday talking about how weird California is – everything is outside. The line queues are outside, parts or all of rides are outside. In Florida, they know it is going to rain every day and be HOT every day, so most stuff is inside. I sang the “it never rains in California” song for him. Apparently both the song and I lie.
We were very leisurely this morning – we basically rope dropped a store. We moseyed in just to see what they had to offer before heading toward Toy Story Mania.
Benjamin broke 700,000 and Keith scored his highest ever at 350,000. We rode many, many times. Sometimes people (not me, not TB) sat out a round to give their arms a break. We had a nice planter to sit on. There is a chicken restaurant right across from it. The restaurant itself looks like a kid’s meal box. The meals actually come in a box like that. We learned that yesterday when we saw a guy with one – then he smashed it up and threw it away. I can’t remember if it was Daniel or Benjin who said, “We have just witnessed a crime.”
After lunch (and I think ten games of Toy Story Mania for Benjamin) we were heading to Disneyland. We were walking down the main street – Keith at the rear – when we all heard, “Hey! Help!” We spun around and there he was, splattered on the ground. His leg was kinda looking at wrong angles and I thought he really mangled his knee. He did not. He hurt is ankle. We hobbled over to the first aid place and got checked over a bit. After icing for about 30 minutes, we set off to get a wheelchair.
The kids had gone ahead (at our urging) and Keith and I had a fast pass on Space Mountain. We did not know how to do wheelchair. We had to follow all the signs and finally went down a looooong downhill hall (where the single riders were. Who knew there were single riders on Space. Huh.) we ended up right at the beginning of the line. Then I had to push him up the loooooog downhill hall. Seriously. I was at a 45 degree angle, huffing and puffing. I guess they made it possible, not easy.
On Indiana Jones we were all sure Keith would have to walk a lot because there are stairs and we were certain there was no elevator. We were wrong. It was right there. You go up, walk about 10 feet, then take another elevator down.
On Small World, they let us drive the wheelchair right up to the boat and park the chair right there. Unfortunately, we got off the boat on the other side. Every boat loads on one side and unloads on the opposite side. Huh. We had to ask the lady running the boats what to do. She called over some other cast members and they all said, “Oh. Just walk across the seat of this boat to the other side.” The wet seat on the wobbly boat. That seemed like a disaster waiting to happen. Benjamin guided him across the slippery surface, then pushed him up the entrance line (against all the people coming in) to get out of the ride. Again, possible, but not easy.
It was quite wet and much busier than yesterday, but we still rode a lot and laughed a lot and ate Dole Whip in the Hideaway. We got a multi pass (fast pass on anything) because Mickey and Minnie closed during our fast pass window. We used it for a ride on Big Thunder after the rain (Amanda couldn’t get her eyes open when we rode it in the rain) and the cast member didn’t scan it – she said to go use it again somewhere else. Woohoo.
We had so many things to do that we didn’t re-use it until 3 minutes to park close for a last ride on Tower of Guardians. Nice.
We are exhausted. There is talk of coming back for a nap tomorrow afternoon. It is so hard to leave, but we are soooo tired right now. We cannot possibly miss rope drop, because, because, BECAUSE!
Spending most of the day in a wheelchair and icing his ankle occasionally really helped. Keith’s ankle is doing much better. He just iced it again before bedtime and took some ibuprofen, so hopefully it will feel a bit better tomorrow.