The best of times...

First the background story about this question:

Been reading a lot about DisneyLand recently, and (depending on what you read out there) it seems that TODAY'S DisneyLand is a pale shadow of what it once was. But when you read the accounts of Opening Day and all the over-crowding and soft streets and unfinished atractions... I don't think back THEN was a very optimal time to visit the park either! Therefore, the absolute BEST time to visit DisneyLand was some time during the past 51 years... but which year?

And that brings us to my question. What year do you think DisneyLand was THE ULTIMATE DISNEYLAND? When was it the absolute best that Disney had ever been?

My personal belief as of right now is 1970, shortly after The Haunted Mansion had opened. As far as I can tell it was the first "Big Thing" they did after Walt's death, and it seems like they almost had something to prove by doing it. They were trying EXTRA hard then.

But of course my opinion may be swayed at any given moment :)

My Wacky Shirt-Winning Story

Last weekend we went to Shipwreck Day in Anacortes. Don't bother Googling it... the only way you'd know about it is if you (a) are from Anacortes or (b) know someone from Anacortes. Anacortes is the small island town that you have to pass through if you're going to take the Ferry to Canada or the San Juan Islands. They have one main street ("Commercial Avenue") and every year the shut-down the bottom twelve blocks of it (roughly 1/4 of the town) and have a huge community Garage Sale/Street Fair.

Legend has it that the tradition started back when Anacortes was a "Boom Town", considered to be every bit as important a sea port as Seattle and Tacoma. A ship full of various nick-nacks and treasures crashed on the shores of Anacortes and they needed money to repair the ship, so they took over the town and set up shop right in the middle of the street selling their wares to the locals and other traders. It was so successfull they decided to come back the next year and do it again! And the tradition continued all the way in to the 60's when the ship no longer showed up, but by then the townsfolk had taken over completely and thus the Annual Shipwreck Day was born! Second Saturday of July every year!

This year we lucked-out and my schedule allowed for us to be there for all the bargains. I got some good comic books and some great records, but my BEST deal of the day was my promotional Firefly "Serenity" T-Shirt! The Anacortes Cinema was having a Rafel where you bought a ticket for $2 and you got entered to win some fabulous prize of some sort, but you ALSO got to spin The Wheel Of Prizes! Options on The Wheel Of Prizes were "No Prize", "Random Poster", "Random Promotional Item" and "Promotional Item of Your Choice".

I usually would not pay $2 for such terrible odds. I don't need any more posters, and I wasn't really interested in any of the promotional items they had there except for one or two items so I was about to just walk on by when an ANNOYING teenage girl walked up to the table and said "Can I spin the wheel for free?"

The person running the table said "Sure, but you won't get anything unless you pay first. And won't you be upset if you spin it and land on the 'Any Item' space?"

The teenage girl sneered and spun the wheel. Sure enough, it landed on "Promotional Item of Your Choice"! She was all excited and said "Oh cool I won what do I get!!!" and the guy running the table said "Well nothing you didn't pay for the spin sorry" and the teenage girl got all snotty about it.

So then I said "I... I'd like to buy her spin, please? Can I buy the spin she just made?"

Dude looked me over, said "Sure, what would you like?"

And THAT ios how I got my Firefly "Serenity" T-Shirt :)