…and I don’t mean THE Monkees (which is impossible and quite sad now). I do mean animatronics monkeys.

John and I recently took a trip to Disneyland (and the Wonder Con comic book show. there was also a cheerleading competition and a volleyball tournament happening at the same convention center– strange fellows to be spending time together) in California.

On our first night in the second most magical place on earth our jet lag decided that eating at Rainforest Cafe would be fun. We’ve eaten at a Rainforest Cafe and its cousin T-Rex, so we knew we were about to have a sensory-overloading-dining-jungling-experience– but what the hey, it’s vacation AND we’re at Disney, right?

John ordered the cheese and basil pizza and I ordered the spinach salad AND a Sam Adams (VACATION). We sat at a “quiet” table for two next to the before mentioned monkeys and an “Aztec” temple that produced its own rainbow and was topped with Atlas holding a neon world on his shoulders.

Two things amazed us about this meal. 1) That the “atmosphere” of the restaurant was so well-timed that it didn’t drive you completely crazy. Compared to the Dallas airport, it was actually rather peaceful. 2) John’s cheese pizza tasted remarkably like a frozen pizza. Let me clarify, a frozen party pizza. You know what taste I’m talking about. It wasn’t bad if you like the party pizza flavor (and I do) but shocking because it wasn’t 10 pizza’s for $10’s (it wasn’t even close to $10’s).

We discussed our plans for vacation: Which rides? How many times would we ride Star Tours? (10) Our excitement for the comic book show and seeing our very good friends the Janssens.

First night of vacation called for a treat (you know me, every night calls for dessert). There was only one dessert of choice for us that night at the Rainforest– The Chocolate Volcano. Was it the chants to staff yelled over the “thunderstorms” as they brought your dessert to you or the mountain of chocolate? It didn’t really matter– it’s a chocolate volcano!!

Was there a real sparkler on top? No. Could we eat 3 pieces of cake, two scoops of ice cream and two scoops of whipped cream with hot fudge icing? Sadly, no.

But we did our best for our first night of vacation. I’m sure that if we would have tried to eat this on our last night of vacation we could have eaten the whole thing–alas, it was night one. John did give our fake sparkler to a table with two little boys and only one sparkler. That’s my sweetheart for you.