I learned an important lesson about physics yesterday, while at Disneyland of all places! My wonderful former roommate, Jen, was in town with me this weekend and yesterday we spent the day with Mickey, Donald, and of course all the beautiful Princesses and Princes. Thanks to it being a weekend in July we joined several thousand other folks taking in roller coasters, parades, the Fantasmic show, and of course good Mexican food and margaritas :) It has been insanely hot down here lately, but we were pleasantly surprised to realize that all the rides inside are air conditioned, so we only had to roast while in line and then froze while inside. About half way through the day we decided we were ready for Splash Mountain—it was time to get a little wet. So we headed over there and found out everyone else had the same idea we did, so we used the fabulous new Disney invention the “Fast Pass” which allows you to get a “coupon” with a time to return on it and you get to by pass the rest of the line—but it told us to come back between 9 and 10 that night—so we decided that would be a fabulous way to end the day and kept going with other rides and dinner. When it was time for us to redeem our fast pass, we excitedly by-passed all the hundreds of people still in line and they put us in our boat (I guess it’s really a log…it is a log ride after all…). Because there were so many in line they had to fill each log, so they added 4 other women to the 2 of us. 3 of the 4 women they added to our boat were definitely larger than the two of us, but I didn’t really think too much about it. I’ve been on Splash Mountain several times in the past few months, and I have hardly even gotten more than just a little damp, and that is only during the final 500 foot drop at the end of the ride, the rest of the ride is usually a very dry, very relaxing experience. Well, when we went around the first corner last night, and our little log started floating, our feet got a little wet. I just assumed that there were bigger “waves” or more current last night because there were so many logs running because of the heat. So we keep going after commenting that the water is kind of chilly. The first “baby-drop” that is in the ride brought on another several ‘waves’ and we ended up rather wet—so now we are beginning to think that this upcoming 500 foot plummet is going to be a bit of a soggy endeavor. As we begin being pulled up the big hill at the end of the ride all the water that our little log had taken on ran through the log to the back, and then we reached the top of the hill. After the precarious pause at the summit, we headed down (and the cold water already in the log runs back over all of our feet to the front of the log) and hit the bottom in a giant splash. As we come up spluttering and exclaiming about how wet we were, we look up just in time to see this huge wave coming straight towards us (it had somehow ricocheted off the corner of the ride and was headed back towards us). As it swept over us thoroughly soaking everything in the log that wasn’t already wet we quickly realized there was nothing left to do but laugh—which we did, and ended up with mouths full of water as the wave crashed over our poor soaked bodies—so we ended the ride trying to not swallow what we were sure was wonderfully clean Disneyland ride water ;) As we climbed off the ride, shoes and clothes sloshing all the way through the exit and gaining several funny looks from those waiting outside Splash Mountain (apparently people don’t normally exit the ride literally wringing their skirts out and trying to get their soaked t-shirts from sticking to their skin…) We realize that the restrooms in Disneyland unfortunately do not have dryers, so we did the only other thing we could think of—went back to Big Thunder Mountain railroad and hoped that the speed of the rollercoaster and the night air would work together to dry us out a bit…and it worked surprisingly well! (Although we still had to peel our clothes off when we got home a couple hours later, so it didn’t work completely!)
So, last night I managed to learn firsthand about physics and water displacement better than I could have in any physics class I ever took! But in spite of how chilly it was the rest of the evening, Disneyland (and Splash Mountain) was a fabulous adventure—Captain Jack Sparrow makes several cameo appearances in the new Pirates of the Caribbean and since I have a little crush on Johnny Depp right now, this was a very welcomed surprise :) And we explored Downtown Disney and took advantage of the fact that you can enter and exit the park once there, so we left to have dinner at a Mexican restaurant in the new shopping district and listened to some very fun live music. It was a great break from homework and a fabulously beautiful day with a wonderful friend. Anyone else up for Disneyland? I’ve decided I’m a little obsessed with Thunder Mountain Railroad and will make you ride it several times with me!
So now I have exactly 1 week to write 3 final papers including my first Greek exegetical paper (which I'm actually a little excited to attempt--so I must be an official seminary geek!) and then it's off to 2 months of summer vacation which will find me in Sacramento, Houston twice, Seattle and LA....1 more week to go!
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