The kids had two days of school a few weeks ago (a Thursday and Friday), and we didn’t want those days to go to waste, and with some Marriott points about to expire, (didn’t want those to go to waste either) it was time to do something about it!
So we decided to head south for some fun and adventure.
First stop: Six Flags of course! The good thing about Six Flags is the season passes are good at all Six Flags parks, and Magic Mountain is their biggest and best! Weather was good, and lines were short!
We ran into Lynnette and Bill who were there too! We went to a hypnotist show and Lynnette volunteered and got on stage, and while she was hypnotized, she rapped in a make believe language and it was awesome! Unfortunately, my phone died and I couldn’t record it..but Bill did! So ask him to see the video!
I did get a video of this employee who was just standing by the stage as we were coming in for the show. The show hadn’t started yet, and the music was playing and he started to dance…and dance..and dance…and the crowd loved it! Finally, Shelley said, you should record him, it’s so funny! So after him dancing for 5 minutes, I recorded him for a last minute or so..He was fearless and certainly was not shy!
Apocalypse was the smoothest wooden coaster ever! And it was very fast!
The Boat Ride didn’t get us too wet, which was good!
We love Ninja…It’s an old coaster, but uses the hilly terrain to really get moving! And it’s smooth!
Superman had an addition this year….On the tower portion of the ride, they added a drop ride - hoists you up 400 feet, and drops….and only magnets stop you. It was VERY high! And the drop seemed like a long time! Very fun!! The speed of the drop is 85 mph and the free fall is 5 seconds. Now that doesn’t seem like very long, but a typical free fall ride is about 2 seconds. Count out 5 seconds and imagine free falling….it’s a long time!
This ride was weird. It was Green Lantern, and similar to X2 in that each car moved independently from each other, but this one moved according to the weight and how it was distributed. It was an interesting ride, but very bumpy and jerky. It wasn’t one of our favorites..
Goliath is…well….HUGE! and FAST! and SMOOTH! oh yeah, did I mention fast?? It deserved (and got) multiple rides.
X2 is still a favorite..it’s just so different….. You ride outside the track…with nothing above or below you..and then the car rotates…..360 degrees…..and it’s completely disorienting…you don’t know which way is up or down….
X2 shoots fire at you and at night, it really lights up!
Here is a video (not taken by me) on the actual ride:
Colossus, a classic wooden coaster changes for October. For Halloween, they run it backwards. They put the train on backwards, so you experience it backwards. And at night, they turn off all the lights on the coasters, so you ride completely in the dark. Here is Colossus in the dark.
We loved our visit to Magic Mountain! Well worth the 6 hour drive to get there!
The next day, we went to the La Brea Tar Pits. It was very interesting! And it’s right in the middle of the city.
We had a guided tour and learned a lot about the area and history of the tar pits. There aren’t actually any “pits” but just small areas of sticky and gooey asphalt which is unrefined oil that seeps to the surface. There are still areas today that still seep. So the story is back in the day, way way back, animals such as saber tooth tigers, mammoths, sloths, foxes, etc all got stuck in the sticky tar. It only needs to be about 2” thick to trap a huge mammoth. Once an animal would get stuck, it would start to call out in a panic sound, which attracted other animals that came to kill or eat on the distressed animal. Problem was, once the 2nd animal would approached the stuck animal, the 2nd animal got stuck too. And then it went on and on and on, so the bones and fossils that they are still finding today, are a mixture of multiple animals and it’s like a huge puzzle they put together. Currently, it’s the largest and most active fossil site for animals in the world.
Jacob and Hannah rolled down a grassy hill, luckily there was no tar seeping from it, so they didn’t get stuck.
Later that day, we went to Venice Beach, which was a huge and flat beach, and not very crowded at all and very nice.
Marissa tried some surfing, but the waves were really rough and it wasn’t as fun as it was last time she tried. Good for her though for giving it another shot! Way go to Marissa!!
Jacob and Hannah loved swimming in the hotel pool..
The next day, we drove around Hollywood and were going to walk along the stars on the sidewalk, but it was so busy, there was something going on and we couldn’t find a parking place..But we drove by the stars! Does that count?
We also went geocaching because we found a hidden trail, hardly known to most that gets you as close as you can (legally) to the Hollywood sign. All the signs you see in the pic are all saying Do Not Enter….Don’t go any further! No Trespassing! Following the geocache coordinates, we were able to find the hidden trail, in the middle of a neighborhood, between two houses. No way we would have found it otherwise. We found the cache, and took some good pics.
We had a GREAT trip and the only thing that would have made it better, was if our family was complete and Meghan was with us!
