The Beast and Rex Vacation Entry #1

After flying in Denver, CO via Frontier Airlines (my first time flying with them), I met up with the legendary Rexwilder and we prepared ourselves for the flight into Los Angeles, CA. This was going to be my first time in California and I was excited to experience the new theme parks and see the house locations of my favorite film of all time, Halloween. I will post a separate entry concerning the viewing of these homes. Needless to say, it was breathtaking.

Anyway, there is one main reason we are here: Theme Parks.

As most of you know, Rex and I are experts on Universal Studios in Orlando, FL. We both are season pass holders and have been inside the USF (Universal Studios, Florida) parks between 35-45 times. We have the dialogue from the different rides memorized. USF is divided into two different parks, Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. They are both great and offer terrific attractions, such as The Hulk roller coaster, Spiderman, The Mummy, Dudley Do-Right Ripsaw Falls, Jurassic Park River Adventure, Men In Black, and Twister. . .Ride It Out! Rex and I (and sometimes our sister and brother-in-law, Missy and Andy), also make a yearly weekend trip to Orland for Halloween Horror Nights, the greatest of all Halloween attractions.

In addition to our love of USF, we also know a great deal about Walt Disney World, also located in Orlando, FL. I am somewhat of a "Haunted Mansion" enthusiast and Rex and I both love "Pirates of the Caribbean."

So, with that in mind, we were now going to experience USH (Universal Studios, Hollywood) and Disneyland. Here is a quick rundown of what we have experienced thus far in our trip.

USH
This park is quite a bit smaller than its Orlando counterpart, but it packs a big punch, especially in one area: The Studio Backlot Tour. That is a 45 minute tram tour of the "backlot" of Universal Studios where they have filmed tons of movies. It is crazy, I was 30 feet from the Hill Valley Courthouse from "Back To The Future" and one of the filming scenes from "War of the Worlds." But the thing that topped them all was the set for "Psycho." Yes, I got to see the Bates Motel and the famous house on the hill. It was amazing.

In addition to the studio tour, we also rode The Mummy, which is substantially better than the same ride in Orlando. I am happy to announce that Rex and I made a brilliant move down the stairs/escalator to get ourselves well in front of everyone else when that particular section of the park opened. We were the very first two people to ride The Mummy for the day, and we were the only two people on the ride! I have a great picture of that experience. We also rode Jurassic Park, which was not quite as good and Backdraft, which I thought was pretty lame.

That is all the time I have for now, I will let some pictures do the talking. I will post more pics and another vacation entry tomorrow.