Legoland! Day Two!

We did the math: it actually works out economically to purchase park memberships, so long as we plan on coming back again at least one more time within the next twelve months.

We do not anticipate any argument from Tessie about return visits.

Having thoroughly covered the park on the previous day, we went back to some of our favorite rides early. First up: the Miniland boat cruise. Dinosaurs, construction workers, African wildlife, Mount Rushmore, the New York skyline... you can see a lot from the boat.

Not only is there a Lego reconstruction of the Statue of Liberty in front of the reconstructed Manhattan skyline, there is also a Lego reconstruction of the reconstruction of the Statue of Liberty in front of the reconstructed Manhattan skyline in front of the New York New York Hotel in the reconstruction of Las Vegas.

Confused yet? There's also this model of Los Angeles' Griffith Observatory within view of San Francisco's TransAmerica Pyramid. They take a bit of license with the geography, but the models are excellent and, fortunately, there is adequate signage identifying the various landmarks.

Of course, some of the constructions are pure fantasy,

while others represent full-scale objects in remarkable detail.

This "Volvo" was parked outside the Volvo Driving School, which Tessie had visited on the previous day. We went back because she wanted another try at it. She ran into the same difficulties -- and walls -- as she had before, but still thought it was great fun.

Busy with the rides on the first day, we didn't take in any of the shows available in the park until our second day. First up was a singing, dancing, slapstick review about firefighters that Tessie enjoyed.

Tessie met Bob the Builder, the star of the next show, outside the theatre. He must be a very busy guy, with both his construction job and his position as Minister of Propaganda in the Obama cabinet*, but he still found the time to put together a 3D movie about building a roller coaster. Tessie sat through it, but found some of the 3D effects to be a little too much to take.

[*In case you don't get the joke, they use the same catch phrase: "Yes we can!"]

Right after the show, we discovered the "Build and Test" pavilion, and there went the rest of the afternoon. In "Build and Test," visitors get to assemble race cars from great buckets of Lego bricks and assorted components, then set them atop a ramp with a starting gate and race them against other cars.

 

After racing, Tessie decide to make some modifications. Some of those bricks were hard to reach:

Some were really hard to reach:

But Tessie was able to hang with the bigger kids, and put together a successful, if top-heavy, racer.

Before the park closed, we managed to extract Tessie from "Build and Test" in time to get her back on the Miniland cruise, the same ride on which we had begun our day. Not too long after closing time, they dimmed the lights and we got the signal to head for the exit after another full day.

But not before Tessie ran off to explore just a little more of Miniland...

x