Friday, January 4, 2019

January 4: Bulldozer, Typhoon Lagoon, Frozen Ride

The word bulldozer wandered through his mind for a moment in search of something to connect with.

The bulldozer outside the kitchen window was quite a big one.

He stared at it.

"Yellow," he thought and stomped off back to his bedroom to get dressed.

Passing the bathroom he stopped to drink a large glass of water, and another.  He began to suspect that he was hung over.  Why was he hung over?  Had he been drinking the night before?  He supposed that he must have been.  H caught a glint in the shaving mirror.  "Yellow," he thought and stomped on to the bedroom.

He stood and thought.  The pub, he thought.  Oh dear, the pub.  He vaguely remembered being angry, angry about something that seemed important.  He'd been telling people about it, telling people about it at great length, he rather suspected:  his clearest visual recollection was of glazed looks on other people's faces.  Something about a new bypass he had just found out about.  It had been in the pipeline for months only no one seemed to have known about it.  Ridiculous.  He took a swig of water.  It would sort itself out, he'd decided, no one wanted a bypass, the council didn't have a leg to stand on.  It would sort itself out.

Obviously, Arthur Dent's morning is not going to go well.  Bulldozers are sitting outside his house.  He's hungover, barely remembers the night before.  That's not the recipe for a good day.

Welcome to day two of Orlando.  It is still 75 degrees outside.  It's 9 a.m., and a little cloudy.  But the breeze is warm and the palm trees are waving at me.  That is the recipe for a good day.

Spent most of yesterday at Typhoon Lagoon, which is a huge water park here at Disney.  Water parks are not my favorite, but my son was, again, over-the-Perseids excited.  As the surfers say, "The waves were bitchin'."  We got a little bit of a later start than I wanted.  Got to the park at around 12:30 p.m., which, in my mind, is a waste of about a half day.

But there was my wife, floating in a tube on the lazy river beside me, saying, "We are NOT on any schedule."

That's difficult for me to take.  I'm a schedule kind of person, from sunup to sundown and into the night.  I don't take many vacations like this, so I have a tendency to try to turn them into work.  You know, Typhoon Lagoon--10 a.m.; EPCOT--2 p.m. for Spaceship Earth; Lunch--hot dogs or something; World Showcase--4 p.m. to 6 p.m.; Frozen ride Fast Pass--6:10 p.m. to 7:10 p.m.; Fireball Cocoa in Canada--7:30 p.m. . . . Well, you get the idea.

We did get to EPCOT around 5:30 p.m. and made our ambling way back to Norway in the World Showcase for the Frozen ride.  Then it was Spaceship Earth, which stunned my son, especially when we got to the top, with Earth floating above us surrounded by stars.  Then we did a ride called Soarin', which was not on my itinerary, but was also amazing.  By then, the park was closing, so we headed off to the bus stop to get back to our hotel.

On the bus, we met a guy who is a Disney animator.  He works for Disney in California and was on vacation at Walt Disney World with his wife and daughter.  A Christmas/birthday present to his little girl.  He said he works as a storyboard artist for the TV show Big Hero 6.  It's his dream job.  For some reason, meeting someone who has the job that he's wanted since he was a kid filled me with a kind of hope.

Well, today's itinerary includes an Uber ride to Harry Potter World.  After that, I have no idea what the day holds for us.  Butterbeer at Hogsmeade?  Wand shopping at Ollivander's?  Who knows?

Maybe Saint Marty is growing as a person.


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