California knows how to party

We were awake by 4:30 Monday morning to catch our 5:30 taxi to the airport and begin our annual pilgrimage to southern California. Landed in Long Beach at 9:30 and after a minor name-related fiasco with Avis, were on our way to Knott's Berry Farm. We drove past the entrance and began kicking ourselves for failing to buy our tickets online. Parked the car and walked to the booths, where we kicked ourselves even more, as gate tickets were twice the online price. With our parking paid and my parents waiting inside the park with two six-year-olds, there wasn't much we could do but pay it. We finally made it to the booth and the guy asked me if we were southern California residents. "I'm from southern California," I said. He asked me to show my I.D., so I fumbled in my wallet for a minute before claiming I couldn't find it. "I can give you my zip code," I said. "Will that work?" The kid asked for my zip code, and I immediately rattled off 92262. "Ah, Palm Springs. That'll be $44 instead of $59," the kid said. Sweet! Caitlin: one. Knott's Berry Farm: 0.

We went inside and found my parents, who were with the twins in Camp Snoopy. The girls wanted us to take them on some car ride, and we obliged. However, they refused to be split up, and the ride operators wouldn't let me or Bobby on the ride without a kid. That's fine. We didn't want to look like creepers anyway. Once that was over, we took the girls to get churros and ride the Mexican Hat Dance, which is now just called the Hat Dance. We wandered across the park to eat at Johnny Rockets, which is a terrible restaurant but I knew it would have food for everybody. On our way there, we spotted a ride called the Screamin Swing. It cost $5 to ride, so I assumed Bobby wouldn't go for it. I was wrong. Then my dad offered to pay for us to go on it, so I had no choice but to go on it. Ever the videographer, my dad filmed me screaming bloody murder on the ride. Video coming soon.

When lunch was over, we made our way to the Xcelerator, which fires you out of the station at 100 mph via rocket launch technology, up a 90-degree lift hill, and straight down the other side.



Despite the look on my face, I was pretty excited:



The ride had a mechanical issue while we were waiting, so my parents took the girls back to Camp Snoopy while Bobby and I hung around until it was fixed. A short time later, the ride was operational again. It was totally awesome, of course.

Met back up with the rest of our party, and Hanna asked me to take her on the ferris wheel. After standing in line for TWO HOURS with an untalkative six-year-old and being joined at the last minute by her equally untalkative twin sister, we were finally on the ride. Bobby and I didn't even wait that long to ride any of the roller coasters! Ridiculous. Still, I am a woman of my word.



After riding the ferris wheel for 100,000 years, it was time for my parents and the girls to head back to Palm Springs, and time for Bobby and I to go have fun. We booked it on out of Camp Snoopy as fast as we could, and went straight for Montezooma's Revenge, which is the world's grossest name for a roller coaster. It was super fun, though. Went on Jaguar next, which is pretty tame but still fun. Up next was the Silver Bullet, which is a very well-engineered inverted roller coaster featuring a smooth ride and a trip over the lake in the middle of the park. Left there and got in line for the Ghost Rider, which may be the longest wooden coaster ever. All day we'd been leaving our bags in the cubby holes on the loading docks, as Knott's is not populated by the shifty crowd that frequents Magic Mountain. However, as Ghostrider is a wooden coaster, I figured we could take our bags on. I was wrong. The ride is quite bumpy and jostled us around to the point that Bobby almost lost his phone and his glasses. It's also so long that he asked me what the other wooden coaster off in the distance was as we climbed the second lift hill. "I think that's where we're headed," I said. Ghostrider took the last scrap of energy we had, so we left the park two hours before it closed. After a brief detour to a nearby Chick-Fil-A, we were on our way out to the desert.

I drove for the duration, and started to really lose steam as we hit the 111 bypass. Fortunately autopilot had taken over and guided us to my parents' driveway, where I promptly collapsed on the floor. We paused for some red velvet cheesecake before being imprisoned in the guest room until "Christmas" the following morning.



We woke up the next morning and followed the trail of $5 bills to the living room.





Once fakey Christmas was over, the four of us went to Great Wall for dinner. Maureen was there, as her parents own the place, so she and I chatted about the upcoming reunion. She was our class president and has been fielding messages from obnoxious classmates who want to have the reunion moved to accommodate the homecoming game (what??? who cares???). We had a good laugh.

The parents dropped us off at the Palm Springs Ace Hotel, where we were scheduled to meet Bindhu, Shalini, and Scott. Walking into the Ace was like stepping through a wormhole that planted us back in Portland. Ironic beards as far as the eye can see! Where did all these hipsters come from? They certainly don't live here. After about an hour, we'd had enough of the Ace and went across town to the Riviera, where a fellow patron was kind enough to photograph us:



Scott turned up, and we had a fine time chatting about various things before the bar kicked us out due to low attendance. Shalini and Bindhu left, and Scott took us to a bar that used to be a McDonald's. We were the only people in there, and it was a sad state of affairs. Paused for a photo before heading over to an incredibly seedy bar on Sunny Dunes where Matt Clark was rumored to be hiding.



We found him!



Scott and I sang a few karaoke songs. He went with his standard Weezer, and I chose Danzig.



Lonnie turned up as the night was ending, and somebody had the bright idea to go to Denny's. I should say, somebody had the BEST idea to go to Denny's. We spent the last hour of our evening eating pancakes and telling off-color jokes. An excellent couple of days indeed.