After our tour of the Disney Gallery we did head to Indy. Earlier in the trip I had gotten the "rockfall" scene in the queue to trigger for me, but I had not gotten the " Do not pull on the rope " to work for me, this time the queue stopped right as we got to it, and I discovered (or did Kyle show me?) the trick to this, you have to pull on the rope really hard, it's fairly heavy, and then listen very closely, if the queue doesn't stop here,or if theres a particularly noisy group you might just not have time for it that trip through. Anyways it soon became apparent there was a reason the queue stopped, there were lots of CMs headed into the ride up the exit, then security, then EMTs, then \ (in the middle of July mind you) a cast member comes out of the ride with a jacket draped over his shoulder, covering his front, man, unless he's hiding something really bad (like blood stains) you know you're going to imagine something worse when you see that. We did eventually get admitted to the pre show, then the queue crept forward some folks opting out, I figured at this point we'd get line passes of some type if we stuck it out so we did. And passes were issued, though with the restriction, no Space, no Buzz, interesting that they didn't restrict Splash Mountain though, I guess they had to leave something really good.

I did tell her there were three in our party so if Carlene re-joined us we could all use it together she asked where the third person was and I said she'd gone on ahead, I was willing to more fully explain if she asked any more questions, but she seemed to understand well enough without wasting more of her time. I think once we had this voucher Kyle began to consider riding Tower of Terror. I really didn't want to leave Disneyland on the anniversary though. Kyle did still decide to join me for a few of the Fantasyland dark rides that we hadn't hit that morning.

By the time we had ridden Snow White and Pinocchio he knew he really wanted to go ride the Tower. I told him he could have the pass. I really did not mind ( I think I was just happy to have the picture of one that had been issued to us). So, we walked together as far as Coke corner, I borrowed his cell to call Carlene, as the plan had been for her to call his cell from hers when she got back into the park. I told her to meet me at Coke Corner and she asked me where that was on the map (so I knew she had one in her hand) so I pulled out mine and told her number 13, I don't know if it shows in this report but there were several times that number had popped up this trip almost as if 13 was our " lucky number". As Kyle went to ride the Tower I told him I would be at Coke corner recording for a while so he knew there was a good chance we could meet back up after riding the Tower. Right as I started to get set up Alan Thompson (Alan's Web site http://www.flightofhands.com/) (the ragtime pianist) was wrapping up a set, so I decided to grab a bite to eat while I waited for Carlene. Carlene showed up right as a set was starting, and she let me know I could stay and record by pantomiming that she was going to hit the (Frontierland) smoking area. Further into the next set Kyle came back, he stayed and listened to Alan with me.

After the set, it was almost time for the fireworks Carlene was not back when the fireworks how was about to start. I decided to go down Main to look for a spot to view the fireworks, while Kyle stuck closer to Refreshment Corner. I had to go down Main Street almost to the train station to find a spot to watch the fireworks from, there were three guys standing on the back curb of town square and about ten feet of empty space between them and the crowd behind them, I started to look between the shoulders of two of the guys, but was in the way of some of the folks ten feet back, then I shifted to looking over the other shoulder, still no good, then I realized I could see right between the gold ears of the middle guy, one lady still started to complain , but stopped when I pointed out she'd be able to see much better over one of his shoulders, apparently she was short enough that it did not block the people standing further back, or she realized that even if I moved his head would still be in the way, either way, she relented.

After the fireworks I headed back to refreshment (Coke) corner Kyle was there he said his grandma (who was picking him up) said he had two more rides, so he was going to hit the rides. I later found out, via email, that he had hit both the Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion. We both expressed how much we had enjoyed touring together, As he was leaving Carlene walked up so they got to say their goodbyes as well, just after he left she told me she had called his cell phone and it had confused her a bit since the voice mail message had a Haunted Mansion theme she thought for a moment that she had called something in the park. She also told me that sitting in the Frontierland smoking area she felt like she had a front row seat for Fantasmic, I'm sure it was a bit off center , but it is at least close to the water. Piano player Alan was back I decided to try out the movie feature on my camera. On my first attempt my batteries ran low half way through the song, I didn't realize what had went wrong at first though, so, I decided not to mess with it for a while just listen to the music.

We hung out a while longer and I finally figured it out and switched my batteries. I think at this point having been up since 4:30 AM my own personal battery may have been running low too. Now that I had fresh batteries in the camera, I decided to take another shot at filming Alan . I just intended to film one song at first , but right as I readied to do this Alan let a guest up to play, the guest however was very good so I continued to record, once the guest finished that song, Alan sat down and they played a piece four-hand. Alan has done a CD of four-Hand piano pieces with the most well known of the Main Street pianists Rod Miller I felt like this was pretty good stuff I was getting, so when they went into another four-hand piece I figured what the heck I'll run this chip out and still have room for photos on the other 1 gig chip. After I got home I found out that this gentleman is named Stan and that he runs a web site devoted to the ragtime pianists at Disneyland , his site sells that Four Hand piano CD as well as an earlier Rod miller only CD

The video above is hosted by you tube and it didn't cost me a thing to add it to the site youtube hosts the video and I just plug a piece of code into the site and it simply plays it right there on my page... how cool is that!

After I posted this video on my site, someone asked me a question about it ans as a result, I had the following email exchange with Stan about the first song he plays in the video (the solo one)

Brian:Hi Stan, What the name of that first song you played, someone commented it might be a Trebor Tichenor rag ?

Stan: Close guess, Its title is "Haunting Accident", I composed it 3 years ago after hearing Trebor Tichenor material played by his daughter, Virginia at the Sacramento Ragtime festival I was trying to "remember" the music at that time there was no CD.
After a CD was available I discovered that my tune was similar in style but not like any of the tunes I had actually heard.. so it was composed by "accident"
It sounds kind of haunting because of the major key left hand and minor key right hand.
I wanted to name it Haunting rag or Accidental rag but both names were used...
After hearing this, Johnny Hodges (25 year main street DL pianist -- now retired) gave it the name "Haunting Accident"

While I was filming this Carlene was enjoying a cream cheese filled pretzel, she was enjoying it so much, that she wanted to share it with me, she got up and came over to me and started to let me know that she wanted me to try it I tried nod my head no while holding the camera steady, she did not understand, she thought I was just holding the camera there to take a picture not a movie, and did not understand why I'd been in one position for so long. I finally gave up and lowered the camera, so I had mixed results having two, more or less complete, songs. I knew I had been here at the piano for a good while this evening, so when she finished her pretzel and mentioned she was about to go for a smoke, I suggested that we go over to the Tomorrowland smoking area so as to be nearer to the Autopia, which had mentioned wanting to ride. While she smoked I took a few photos of the Matterhorn.

When we went to ride the Autopia we were issued Autopia drivers licenses, neat! I had heard a while back that they were doing this but did not know that was still the case. Another interesting surprise was seeing Chip and Dale riding the Autopia cars, It's really neat that they do these types of things from time to time. Unfortunately being night time it was hard to get a photo of them, none of the ones I attempted were more than blurs.

After this we headed back to Refreshment/Coke corner and listened to the piano one more set until just after the park had closed, the date of the actual anniversary now over we headed back to the room tired but happy.