Space Mountain

When Whitey told me that she was going to take me to Disneyland, at first I wasn't so up for it. I mean, I've been to Disneyworld in Florida plenty of times, and I've also even been to Disneyworld in Japan. I've ridden "It's a small world" enough to have frequent flyer miles. Come on--my life IS "it's a small world." But I remembered that it IS the Happiest Place on Earth. And a theme park with Whitey?! It would be a barrel of fun. So we went.

First order of business: Space Mountain. It's always been my favorite ride and always will be. To me, it's the perfect roller coaster. Just fast enough to be fun, not so crazy that I feel unsafe. (I may be adventerous to go all around the world, but not so much with the rides. What's worse--I just finished reading "The Five People You Meet in Heaven," which is all about a guy who dies from a roller coaster ride. Thanks, but no thanks. I can get my thrills elsewhere.)

So Space Mountain, right? We go all through the line, blah blah blah, and we hop into the last seat of a rocket and take off. If you've never ridden Space Mountain, it's all in darkness, like you're rocketing through outer space. So we're shooting up and around, zip to the left, zip to the right. Life is fun.

The theme music and sounds were playing pretty loudly, so it was hard to fully capture what we heard. But we heard it. An announcer kept saying things like, "Please remain inside your rocket. Please do not attempt to get out on your own. Someone will come to assist you momentarily." Strange things to hear when your rocketing through outer space at warp speed, right?

All of a sudden, our rocket came to a complete stop AND THE HOUSE LIGHTS CAME UP. We looked around us and realized we weren't back at the beginning of the ride. We were in the absolue middle of Space Mountain. Huh?

That's right. Space Mountain BROKE while I was riding it!

(AG, can't you just hear me now? Life with Soj is always an adventure!) We looked down at some of the levels down below us, and there were four other rockets just sitting. Whitey yelled down to them, "How long have you been sitting there?" They said that we'd all pretty much stopped at the same time. We were still completely locked into our seats, so we couldn't really get out, but we turned around as much as we could to fully take in what the inner workings of the ride looked like.

Some Disneyland "cast members" (they're not employees, but 'cast members') came up to the lowest car, pressed some buttons, and then push started the rocket to make it get going again. While they were push starting the second, I pulled out my camera. I just couldn't believe all this was happening. At Disneyland! The cast members got the lower three rockets push started and back on track to return to earth.

They made it up to our level and were about to push start our rocket when we heard a motor above us whiz for a second and then fade out. Complete shut down. An announcer got on the loud speaker and announced (I guess to the people still in line) that Space Mountain had shut down and would need to close for the next hour, so everyone needed to evacuate the building.

I read the cast member's name tag, and shouted, "Hey Jesse! What's up? What happened?" He explained that there are safety features built into the rides, and if a rocket goes faster than is safe, the ride automatically shuts down. Sometimes, because of peoples' weight in the rockets, when it's going downhill, it can pick up too much speed. Aparently, the rocket in front of us had some heavy people in it.

Suddenly, my cell phone started ringing! It was so random. You'd think that I wouldn't have reception there in outer space and all, but wow...Verizon has some good satelittes! So I answer my phone and start telling my friend that I'm STUCK IN SPACE MOUNTAIN! I hang up on her because Jesse starts explaining to us how he's going to get us out of the rocket. Row by row, we were to lift our arms in the air to get them away from the safety bar. Then he would press a button that would release it, and it went snapping back into place.

Next, Melissa (the other cast member), talked us through how to safely climb out of the rocket. Whitey and I were the very last two people to get out. Imagine, if there had been just one more person in line in front of us, we wouldn't have gotten to have this whole experience! Once we were all out of the rocket, Jesse and Melissa walked the eight of us through the inner ramps and stairwells and such of Space Mountain. We got to see all the lights and mirrors, and tracks and turns and everything! Then we went out an emergency only door, got a pass from another cast member to return to the front of the line later, and went on our merry way.

Space Mountain will forever be my favorite ride. And I told Whitey, I think this birthday experience surpassed the desert safari last year. I've tried posting the pictures about a gazillion times now, but silly Blogger isn't posting them. I'll try to show them later.