Wait Time: Approximately 55 Years

Today Disneyland turns fifty-five. I know what you're thinking, it doesn't look a day over forty, right? It was fifty-five years ago that my family, in the person of my mother, began what would become ritualized treks to the Happiest Place On Earth. That was back when it was still an amusement park nestled in a sea of parking lots, and many of the attractions broke down or just plain didn't work. Things have changed since then.
These days, many of the attractions break down or just plain don't work, but there are so very many of them that it doesn't seem to matter as much. Try as I might, there are still corners of the park that I have carefully or callously overlooked. The Storybook Land Canal Boats are a great example. Even though I have spent hours taking multiple rides on Casey Junior, the Circus Train whose rails take him above and around the path of the Canal Boats, I have never made the simple step to the right to get into line. If I want a leisurely boat ride in Fantasyland, I'll queue up for It's A Small World. Then I will spend the next six to eight days trying to get that song out of my head.
Disneyland is also the place I bought my first monster mask. I purchased a full over-the-head Frankenstein monster mask at Merlin's Magic Shop, just inside the gates of Sleeping Beauty's castle, the same establishment that a young Steve Martin began his career in entertainment. I rushed outside to Main Street U.S.A. where I sat on a bench, with my very patient mother, wearing the mask. Eventually, a kid much smaller than myself wandered by, jaw agape and pointing to me as he grabbed his mother's hand: "Look mommy! Mickey Mouse!" In many ways, this was my own entry into the world of show business.
Growing up in Colorado made Disneyland a more exotic destination, and those trips my family made when I was just a kid have taken on a more epic scope as the years roll by. One particular spring break that culminated with the Easter Bunny leaving our Disney gifts in our Disney hotel room comes to mind. It should be no surprise then that when I came to California as an incipient adult to visit the woman who would become my wife, I told her that I hoped for a return to the Magic Kingdom. This was with little or no understanding of the geography of California. My wife, then my girlfriend, tried to explain the distance between Oakland and Anaheim, but it never sank in. We got up early and roared down I-5 in time to meet up with two more of my friends and my younger brother. We had a memorable time. That one was epic, too.
I've celebrated birthdays at the House of Mouse, and when my son was old enough to waddle from attraction to attraction, we put him in line with us. When my mother turned seventy, we brought her back with both brothers and their progeny. The submarines have returned, but the magic shop is gone. The parking lots have been replaced by another amusement park and posh shopping district, and Star Tours is about to get a redux. The more the place changes, the more it stays the same, and fifty-five years into the run, that's a pretty amazing accomplishment. Happy Birthday, Disneyland.