Brickmasters

Me & California:

San Francisco: once, on a brief trip

Napa Valley: once (to give a talk)

Rancho Palos Verdes (south of LA): once (to give a talk)

San Diego: never

But here we are. It’s nice. Not what I expected, but then, it’s only been 36 hours or so.

A preliminary thought, formed driving on I-5 to Carlsbad (home of Legoland): it seems (I say…seems) different from Florida, another sea-oriented place because nature has not been more or less completely obliterated, as it has in coastal Florida except for the actual coasts. Of course, the Nature in California is harder to obliterate, even if one wanted to. You can drain swamps and wetlands and asphalt them, but even if you build your multi-million dollar abodes atop the mountains, the mountains remain.

Flew Southwest from Birmingham. Good flight, on time and early. Haven’t flown Southwest since we went to Arizona in ‘05. The personnel are still nice, although the jokey routines seem to have been retired.  Or was it just us?

We had time for the Birch Aquarium on Sunday before our accomodations were ready to transition over. It’s not humongous like the Atlanta or Chattanooga Aquariums (-a?), but enjoyable. I am trending more toward aquariums (-a?) than zoos these days. The captivity of the animals therein doesn’t bother me as much and since they each tend to be focused on the local ecosystem, there’s more variety. So here, sea anenomes were the hit of the day, creatures I’d never seen in such number and variety before.  Massive boring climate change display though. We went straight for the sea horses, ourselves.

Ah, so Legoland. I am a pretty intense theme-park hater, I won’t deny. I find them such unrelently assaultive marketing experiences, and I walk through them, when I am forced to, juggling glum resentment and resentful rage. Oh, and guilt. Can’t forget the guilt. Meaningless guilt, since I am obviously there and the money has been spent.

Fun Mom!

But..others disagree:

It got a general thumbs-up.  Not very crowded today, and I really hate to think what kind of wait some of these rides – nay, most of the rides – would require on a busy day. There are more slow-loaders than quick ones, and the pay-off for most of them is not thrilling. I mean…decent rides for the 10-and under set, but I really wouldn’t want to wait longer than 20 minutes for any of them..

(By the way – we had one free admission, via a coupon from a Lego Club magazine. So there’s that, which was helpful in diminishing the glum resentment factor by a third.)

Snaps:

Several of the waiting areas for lines had Duplo-building tables set up.

Did I tell you about the time a couple of weeks ago that this child went up to a woman in the store, a woman wearing Auburn gear, and said loudly, “Go Auburn!” and walked away?  Too bad about the introversion.

I think this is my favorite photo of the day. For some reason, it gives my frequently-worried heart hope.

Where they build the stuff. Dream job for some of us.

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Training. There are several places in Legoland to build.  It’s conflicting. You want to say, hey, I didn’t spend all this money for you to come build with Legos, but then you think , well, they’re building, they’re doing, they’re making…is this really worse than paying for them to be passive?

In this one, you’re given two sets of wheels, you make vehicles and race them down the track. It teaches you a little bit about physics, subtly, without being annoying.

Sometimes you’ve built something you like, but it just doesn’t work right and everyone always beats you down the track, and you get sort of visibly frustrated.

So then a nice lady – a really nice lady – takes notice and comes over and helps you figure out what was wrong and how to make it better.

Miniland is pretty amazing – they were fascinated, Michael more so than Joseph.  I’d love to know the thought process that led to including Vegas in the cities of Miniland. It really puzzled the boys because Las Vegas is not a place they really know much about, if anything, and I had a really hard time explaining its purpose, especially when you thrown in the whole “why does it have a pyramid, the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty in it” factor.

Let’s just say that I know have a thoroughly confused five-year old who thinks that if he goes to Las Vegas, he will see “ancient Egyptians” building pyramids – with Legos. Next to the Eiffel Tower.

Oh, and I’m pretty sure Manhattan (pictured above) didn’t have St. Patrick’s Cathedral, but I can’t hate on that too much since St. Louis Cathedral hugely featured in the New Orleans area.

I’d say the highlights for them were…being able to build with Legos at every turn, MiniLand, the play area in the Knight’s Land, the Dragon’s Lair roller coaster (their first roller coaster, by the way) and the water squirting boat ride in the Pirate area. The Lego creations are ingenious, and there are several little unassuming nook-and-cranny type of activites that have a surprising appeal.

Tomorrow: some of that nature they have around here, plus a visit with friends.