i met a possum

So we were supposed to go to Spain in the middle of March for Las Fallas. My friend Angie is living over there right now, so we'd have free room and board. Alas, we decided that it was just going to be too expensive. Thanks to our tax return, we could afford it, but we also want to be able to pay off a credit card or two and do a little home improvement stuff to the house. So we decided to nix Spain and look for a smaller, long-weekend-type vacation here in the States somewhere. And that's when I saw this on Boingboing.net:

ChefMayhem of the brilliant Haunted Mansion fansite writes, "Next month, DoomBuggies is hosting its 10-year anniversary bash at Disneyland Park in the Blue Bayou in New Orleans Square. We rented out the restaurant for the evening, and the custom menu features items such as "Bride's Beating Heart Red Pepper Bisque," Filet Mignon and Shrimp, and "Graveyard Chocolate Coffins." We have WED Imagineer X Atencio and a few other Haunted Mansion legends lined up to speak at the program. We hired the Hitchhiking Ghosts to join us. We tracked down the Randotti heir, who's going to talk about designing and creating early souvenir skulls and tombstones for Disneyland, and we're giving away an authorized Randotti product as a special gift to each attendee. We're hosting a free raffle to registrants that will offer 1 out of every 10 attendees the opportunity to take a behind-the-scenes tour of Club 33. And after the park closes, we're taking a private, after-hours ride through the Haunted Mansion to close out the evening."









Holy shit, I think we've found our long weekend destination! Those of you that know Paul and I know that we are Disney fans, but more than that, we are Haunted Mansion freaks. Actually we're kind of fans of macabre stuff in general. So, that very afternoon, we purchased tickets, found cheap airfare out of Omaha to LAX and bought Disneyland park hopper passes (just two day). That leaves us with one day to wander around L.A.



Remember the macabre comment? My first thought was, "Ooh, we can check out some Hollywood cemeteries!" What's wrong with me?! Who knows.



Anyway, I did a little research and it looks like the one most feasible for us is Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery,

which is now home to Miss Marilyn Monroe, among others. We could also stop by the graves of Mr. Howell from Gilligan's Island, Ray Bradbury's wife (and Ray's future burial site), Truman Capote, John Cassavetes, Rodney Dangerfield, Dominique Dunne, Eva Gabor, Merv Griffin, Hugh Hefner's future burial site, Don Knotts, Burt Lancaster, Peggy Lee, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau (Aww), Dean Martin, Heather O'Rourke, Roy Orbison, Iowa native Donna Reed, Natalie Wood and Frank Zappa.

But, you know, that's probably not going to consume our entire day in L.A. We'll also have to get a picture of the ubiquitous Hollywood sign (did you know Hugh Hefner owns the "Y"?) and see how our hands match up to Harry Potter's in front of Grauman's. Other than that, I have no plans just yet. I don't think Paul really cares. Someplace with delicious food will be in order at some point; I think that's all he's really concerned about. I wouldn't mind trying a Pinkberry.

I have to say, planning a trip to a place we've never been based on a blog post has got to be the most spontaneous we've ever been. I guess we can only do stuff like this until we have kids. Hmm. One more reason to put off having kids for a while yet.