Dispatch From Disneyland
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Other treats await you as well. The smell of hot popcorn popping somehow smells even better when it is just a little nippy outside. Big Thunder BBQ often has amazing specials this time of year. The Main Street Candy Palace usually whips up something special every day. And don't forget the freshly made fudge in Frontierland.

Over time, if you're a frequent fall visitor, you will learn the location of the best apple cider and the best hot chocolate machine. Each hot chocolate machine in the park develops a personality. Syrupy chocolate might be available at one machine in Fantasyland, while another on Main Street might be hotter, but less chocolately. On a rainy day you'll walk across the park for really good hot chocolate.

Attractions take on a different flair in the fall. Heated attractions, such as that special section of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, are sought out and visited again and again. The air conditioning tour becomes the rain tour as you hurry from indoor attraction to indoor attraction. In a downpour, even Country Bear Jamboree looks like a repeat visit.

Once you're wet, however (say you went on Splash), riding in the rain seems less frightening. The Matterhorn in a downpour is great. Rain batters your face in an alternating fashion as you dip in and out of monster haunted caverns till you race into the big splash down not even caring if the guy in the car in front of you has his hands out soaking you even further.

Nothing makes a rainy day even better than a little bit of sunshine in the afternoon. Steam rises from the pavement, sparkling plants reflect the sun in thousands of drops of dew, and the crowds have been driven away by the rain. This seems like a good moment to pause, sit down on a bench, and enjoy the afternoon sun.

Soon the gentle evening breeze arrives and you notice a leaf falling from its home in the branches above. As you watch, the leaf is lifted into the air, over the roof tops of Main Street and beyond the Matterhorn. It soars out of view, and eventually out of the park, sticking to the windshield of a tour bus escaping for an early start to the trip home. Now the park is yours.

-- Indigo

-- Posted September 6, 2000