It’s time for another Flashback Friday hosted by Magical Days with the Mouse!

Last week I introduced the idea of Flashback Friday and what that would look like here at Rays of Disneyland.  I also shared a sneak peek at one of my Disney firsts… my first character, B’rer Fox.  I hope to continue to explore a lot of my Disneyland firsts and share both pictures and videos.  So, this week I want to share a few memories from my very first attraction… Autopia.

Getting to Disneyland for the first time proved to be a bit challenging for my family, as we waited for hours in the old Denver airport for a giant snowstorm to pass, then we waited for what seemed like hours more while they de-iced our plane.  If you have never traveled into or out of a cold climate in the winter, you might not know about the joys of a good de-icing, but basically you just sit in the plane, on the runway, while they spray a substance similar to anti-freeze all over the plane to keep the mechanisms from icing over in-flight.  Yep, if you’re thinking it sounds like there is still a possibility that your plane could freeze over, you would be thinking exactly what I am thinking every time it happens.  It was also exactly what I was thinking when we were sitting there waiting to take off.  The only other time I had been in an airplane before this was when I was a baby, so I was quite nervous for the flight, and the longer we waited, the worse I felt.  It’s no wonder, then, that I experienced a not-so-fun combination of stomach butterflies and motion sickness once our plane got going.  Unfortunately, the feeling didn’t subside once we got off our plane, and I ended up having a rough evening before our big day in the Park.

So, after our “Early-bird” breakfast, offered to Walt Disney Travel Company customers, my stomach was feeling more than a little upset.  Thankfully, my mom knew just how to take care of me when I was sick, so after breakfast we headed off in the direction of Autopia, with the hope that a cool morning breeze in my face would help quell the storm brewing in my belly.  Not only was she right, but Autopia endeared itself in my heart forever as something special for just my mom and me.

It’s funny because I don’t remember a lot of other things that happened when I was eight, but I vividly remember waiting in line for Autopia, climbing in that car for the first time, and taking off around the track.  I know that my mom would have been trying to make me laugh to keep my mind of the possibility of throwing up, and I know that I would have been giggling uncontrollably at her antics.

Before we left for this trip the Disneyland 35th Anniversary Special with “Special Host” Tony Danza was on, and it played a large part in shaping my opinion of what I would experience at Disneyland.  So, I remember being shocked that there was a little bar in the middle of the Autopia track that kept our car from driving around wildly like Ernest (played by Jim Varney) did in the TV special.  I also remember being relieved that there weren’t live snakes on the Jungle Cruise, as was also shown in the special… but that’s another story for another day.

The picture at the top, is of my mom and me as we were pulling back into the “station” after our Autopia ride… the weirdness of my hand position is due to my uncontrollable waving at my grandma who was standing by, taking pictures and video.  Below is a video I found on YouTube of Ernest’s wild ride on Disneyland’s Autopia.

Be sure and check out the other Flashback Friday participants by following the link above or by clicking on the logo in the sidebar, and tell them that Rays of Disneyland sent you!

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