Saturday Day-Trip part 2

Bregon and I made it to the Music Hall on time, in spite of all the hoards of football fans that clogged our path, as we usually like to get there at least 30 minutes before curtain.

We felt waterlogged and that we must resemble drowned rats, so we ran downstairs to the privies to try and salvage what we could and make ourselves more presentable.

Somehow, my makeup had stayed put and even though I felt icky, I did not resemble Tammy Faye, as I had originally feared!

My hair was another story entirely. I had tried to keep it scrunched while it was wet in some effort to keep it from drying into a crunchy hard mass.

I was partially successful in that it was at least still curly, however the top part was rather flat where it shouldn't have been.

I was able to partway pick out most of the long part, and since I didn't have anything to dry the top with, I opted for a bit of water to try and re-shape or coax it back into place (in hopes that it would gum the hairspray a bit and be pliable!)

Bregon had better luck in his endeavors and looked fairly decent for a 12 year old little boy who had spent the better part of his morning traipsing through the boiling rain!

We hit the souvenir stands next, hoping to try and avoid most of the crowds that tend to throng the area once it gets closer to curtain.

They had some really super nifty things for sale. I had already done my research online and had some notion of what we were going to end up with.

I made a deal with Bregon that he could have both the Scar and Simba dolls if he agreed not to play any more midway games. His eyes lit up, because he had been having a tough time choosing between the two.

With our purchases in hand, we headed upstairs to see if they had opened the house up yet. Because the fair was going on, I knew to expect them to hold the curtain due to parking problems for their patrons.

We had hopes of getting some decent, un-fried food from the Bistro upstairs, however as we ascended the final flight to the balcony, we were able to see that the patrons who did make it in on time were ALL upstairs thinking the same thing that we were!

That line appeared about three people thick and wound through the usual queue line all the way back past the middle of the house. Bregon took one look at it and said that he could live without his usual drink and candy!

By the time we were able to find a way through and across that line, the house had been opened, so we headed up to our seats.

It was definitely shaping up to be quite a full house! Bregon had an interesting notion that perhaps the lower floor kiosks weren't as backed up as the upstairs Bistro line, so he headed back downstairs in search of refreshments for us.

He made it back just in time for curtain. As Rafiki came out and took her diva stance, she began the call to the other animals, just as the movie had.

We hadn't any idea what to expect, so when her call was answered from the boxes from either side of the stage, we just thought that was going to be it.

Then I noticed movement in the house aisles below. I nudged Bregon so he could see what I was noticing.

They had super huge animal puppets and were bringing them down the center aisles to represent the calling of the animals to pride rock!

It looked like they had elephants and zebras and cheetahs and gazelles. The scene was truly spectacular and beautiful to behold!

The entire show was fabulous. It was the first time all season that nobody stared at us funny when we stood up for the ovation. In fact, the crowd was actually cheering for once, even in the balconies!

As we headed downstairs, Bregon and I noticed that there were a few curtained off places in the lobby that usually aren't.

It dawned on me that it might be where they were keeping the puppets for the opening scenes, so I had Bregon go and peek behind them and see what he could see!

There weren't any signs saying, "Don't peek behind that curtain" so I thought we should be okay just taking a quick peek!

I am glad that we did, too. He got to see the bird puppets and what appeared to be the cheetah's as well. It was super neat!

Before heading back out into the fair, we decided to hit the privies once more. We met back at the downstairs fountain and sat a bit to let the crowds thin out before heading back outside.

There was a little girl standing with us while her mum tried to make a phone call (there isn't any reception downstairs because of all of the concrete.)

The little girl was wistfully looking at all of the wishes in the fountain, so I dug out some change for she and Bregon to have a few wishes of their own.

Everyone should have wishes! I showed her that she had 10 whole wishes with the dime I handed her, and told Bregon he had 5 with his nickel.

I tried to pick out my hair one last time while they stood there making their wishes (which is a very solemn and important task!) I ended up accidentally dropping my pick into the fountain as well...I wonder how many wishes that was worth?

As luck would have it, apparently the sun had come out while we were inside for the musical. However, the rain appeared to be heading back into the picture according to the clouds!

We decided to hit as many rides as we could before leaving for the day. Bregon decided that he wanted to ride the Ferris wheel. He hasn't ever ridden one like that before, so I knew that I had better make sure that I rode with him!

He did okay in the line. We made some friends with a family who had a little girl and they ended up in the same gondola as we were. We were locked into our cart and advised not to make it sway!

Bregon thought that it was funny at first, until we were stopped about half way up and the cart began to sway all by itself. He turned several shades of green and decided that we were all going to die and plummet to our death!

He does that, sometimes! I convinced him that he was going to be okay and distracted him with the different rides that we could see from high up. He did okay after that, planning his next riding experience with the little girl that we shared the gondola with!

It had started getting rather dark while we were taking our spin on the Ferris wheel. We optimistically headed over towards the spinning, rotating, upside down hydraulic rides.

Bregon very bravely had chosen the most scariest of them all and headed up to the ticket taker only to be told that they were having to shut down because of the lightening storm headed our way.

He was very sad over all of this. I noticed that there was a group of people going from ride to ride giving the shut-down orders.

We managed to make our way down the row ahead of them and Bregon ran ahead and managed to board a similar yet smaller ride further down.

As soon as he was done with that ride, the huge rain drops came and the lightening. Fortunately, we were right by the gate where we had parked, so we opted to head out to the car.

We grabbed our change of shoes and socks and made it inside just as the bottom dropped out of the sky. We were both feeling pretty good, so we decided that we would go catch a few haunted houses for the evening.