My trip to Cars Land at Disney California Adventure with my mother-in-law Sande last week resulted in a wonderful batch of pictures featuring many of the decorative changes to the area for what they are calling "Haul-O-Ween" this year. It is easy for me to get jaded by such things, but Disney has really done an incredible job of making the whole of Cars Land a truly immersive holiday experience for everyone.
[You can check out Pt. I of this piece here.]
However, I didn't cover the area as much as I had originally wished in the relatively short time we had to visit Cars Land that afternoon. Luckily, I knew that I would get to spend at least a couple more chunks of time there in the coming week. With my friend Janie (wife of one of my oldest friends in the world, Tony) in town as she stayed with us for the weekend on a business break, I knew that Saturday would be a great chance to collect shots of some of the missing details.
First stop was the billboard at the entrance to Cars Land. This feature was proving to be a difficult shot, mainly because Disney constantly keeps a cast member photographer in front of the sign to take pics of every family or group that stops there. On the previous Thursday, I had a couple of brief chances to get a photo of the billboard, but there were always six or seven people standing right there, with some of their heads etc, obscuring the text and other minor details in the artwork. Sure, I could have easily taken their photo and be done with it – they were paying full attention to the actual working camera person and not little ol' me – but I still feel uncomfortable in "accidentally" capturing those I don't know on film without their knowledge or permission. That's right: I do have some small sense of ethics.
Despite my hesitations, I am getting pretty good at snapping quick shots in the small gaps in time between the photographer switching from one group of people to the next. Saturday, I had a more leisurely pace to the day, and Janie was fine with me taking whatever time I needed to get my shots.
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| Me and Janie in the Spider-Car having a good time posing for the Disney Photo Pass person working this area. |
Flo's V-8 Café, while certainly not my favorite place to eat in the area (regular diner fare not necessarily being my thing), does have a really cool design to the place. I love the way it looks normally, but for "Haul-O-Ween" they added a pretty menacing Spider-Car to the environs. Since I am a spider-lover, I was overjoyed to see this, but somehow skipped it on my first visit. The story behind the Spider-Car is that she has taken over the café entrance by spinning webs (made out of chains) from canopy to canopy outside. It looks marvelous.
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| Why, yes, friends who have not seen me recently, I have put on even more weight... Why do you ask? |
Timing is a big part of visiting any area of the Disney parks in regards to seeing your favorite characters. Cars Land has several car characters that drive through the area, talk to the visitors, and pose for photos at the Cozy Cone Motel or in the town square area. Each of the main cars has a Halloween costume this year (I listed them in Part 1). I got a chance to see the newest character, Cruz Ramirez, dressed as a pirate last week, but failed to get a picture; I also briefly saw Lightning McQueen in his superhero cape, but again wasn't able to angle around for a photo. And I missed out entirely seeing Mater, DJ, and Red the Firetruck.
This time, I was a little more lucky, but thanks to the brightness of the sun and the surrounding lines, my pics for Mater (as a "van-pire" above, nyuk nyuk) and Lightning (below), didn't turn out as well as I wished. In both pictures, you see the back end of people leaving or the front of someone walking into frame, as I shot them in between groupings for the paid cameraperson. The Mater picture does have an odd effect from the sunbeams glancing just past the edge of the motel office roof, causing a weird spotlight effect with the sun that just wouldn't be healthy if he really were a vampire.
I had posted a picture last time of the double signs for Mater's little kid ride – turned into the Graveyard JamBOOree for "Haul-O-Ween," but I wanted to get another shot of the smaller sign for greater detail this time. It kind of got lost in the bigger picture of the sign area.
Of course, Cars Land does have the weird subtext of some vehicles being treated basically like livestock, in what I can only imagine is some weird slavery scenario. One of the funnier scenes in the Cars films is when Mater teaches Lightning about "tractor tipping". This trend is continued in Mater's attraction at the park where not only does he sing along while a couple dozen tractors serves as seats for the ride, but he also has a small "petting zoo" area at the front of the attraction. The cute, little tractor that has to pose with all manner of filthy, smelly children is all wrapped up like a mummy for Haul-O-Ween".
Another part that I skipped the first go was Fillmore's Taste-In, mainly because I already had a bottle of water in my hand, so I had no reason to visit it. This time I made sure to duck in and get a couple of snaps of the commune-like refreshment stand. The first was of this rainbow-colored windmill, slightly transformed with Jack-O-Lantern-style faces...
... and the second was of this lonely little ghost car, projected upward by a large spring set inside an old tire. I like the purposeful rust effect on the whole affair.
While I had a shot of one of the many Jack-O-Lanterns last time in my picture of the Horn o' Plenty over at the Luigi attraction, I somehow missed this entire garden full of Jack-Oil-Lanterns alongside Sarge's Surplus Hut. I get even more annoyed that I missed them because right to the left of them is the spot where I shot the photo of two large spiders (made out of assorted parts) crawling up the side of Sarge's quonset hut. Love this garden!
Finally, we come to the car below, which I think is a nod to the upcoming Pixar feature, Coco. Not that this car doesn't belong in this "Haul-O-Ween" update, since it ties into the Mexican Day of the Dead and all, the beginning of said celebration usually starting on Oct. 31. If you can get to the park soon, I highly recommend visiting the Paradise Pier Grill for another lovely area promoting the film directly. Well worth your time. (And if you can't, I will have more on Coco and the Paradise Pier Grill area in another post next week.)
This was yet another stop where a photographer made it difficult to get a simple picture of the car. Luckily for me, the person having their picture taken was a fairly comely lass partly dressed up (I think) like one of the monster cheerleaders from the Pixar Parade. As I was snapping a series of pics to capture the image below, she suddenly came running through the frame past my camera, so I did get her (fleetingly) on film. But, because I didn't ask permission from her, I have not posted those photos.
There are still some details for which I was unable to get decent photos. Mostly this was due to the sunlight being so bright, and those details being behind windows in the town, so that my photos were basically reflected shots of me taking pictures of something indiscernible behind the glass. I will be in the park again tomorrow, but whether I will have the time to get more taken is unknown. If I do get any more, I am not going to have Part III, but I may work a couple more into this post instead.
RTJ
