Day 115 - New Orleans to Austin

Well, I'm officially back in Austin. I'm not going to write too much tonight because I'm seriously tired. I'll have a lot more wrap up posts in the coming days. But I wanted to at least document the last official day of the trip. It was a pretty easy drive today, about 8 hours. I arrived at my girl friend's apartment in Austin right around 5 PM. I'm staying here for the next few nights until I can move into my new apartment on Tuesday. I'm glad to be home, but re-entry into normal life will be quite an adjustment. 

Day 114 - New Orleans

Well, I guess this is pretty much the end. Today is the last full day of my trip and I'll be heading home to Austin tomorrow. I'm filled with a sense of melancholy, and also anticipation, looking forward to diving back into my life at home. I look forward to the details of getting settled into my new apartment, getting my cats and my wine back. I've missed my couch, my dvr, my bed, the consistency of using the brands of products that I want at home. This trip has been great, and I'll have more to say about my overall impressions later, but for now, I'm pretty exhausted and I'm looking forward to a few days of decompressing and then the fun of moving into my apartment.

Anyway, today. Again today, I didn't want to get out of bed for a while, so I didn't leave the apartment until about 11 AM. I went straight to an early lunch at a bar called Tracey's. They had a special on fried soft shell crab, one of my favorites, so I had to go for that. The bartender, Sarah, was really nice and it's obviously a place where there are regulars and she knows each of their drinks as soon as they walk in the door.

I then went down to Mardi Gras World, where you can take a tour and see lots of Mardi Gras floats and see them being made. Most of the props on the floats are carved out of styrofoam, covered with paper mache and then painted. I took lots of pictures there. I'm not really into the whole Mardi Gras thing, but I do love a well constructed set piece. I have this theory about New Orleans. It's a city you can like, but you can't really love it unless it's a part of your soul. It seems pretty obvious to me that there are people here (and some that have moved away) who have New Orleans in their soul - the music, the culture, the climate. And it will never be a part of my soul. So I like the city, but I'll never love it like they do.

I then went to Longue Vue House and Gardens, another historic house. Not too old though - it was constructed in the early 1940's. But it is absolutely gorgeous. A lot of the rooms were designed around the older furniture, so the interior of the house feels much older than it is. It's very well integrated into the surrounding gardens. I'm kind of weird about gardens. I don't really understand how gardens can be historic. I mean, I understand that the design can be original, but don't the plants die? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. Maintain the plants, replant them as necessary, but then it's like the garden is a reproduction of the original. Just my opinion anyway. But the gardens at Longue Vue were really pretty - lots of ponds and fountains integrated really well.

Last stop of the day was at an oyster bar. I had a half dozen raw oysters and crawfish ettoufee. It was there that it really hit me that this was likely my last stop of the trip. There are a number of plantations that I could stop at tomorrow on the way back to Austin, but I likely won't stop because once I'm done, I'm done. And I'm done. I'm ready to be home.

So tomorrow, I have a drive in front of me. Should take about 7 1/2 hours. I'm staying a few nights with a friend of mine and our big plan is to veg out and relax. I know I'll be doing a lot of reflecting on and processing of this trip.

For the rest of tonight, just relaxing, finishing up the bottle of wine I bought the other night and, if I'm feeling ambitious, a bubble bath.

Day 113 - New Orleans

I kept it pretty low key today, didn't even get out of the apartment until about 11. Like I said, I'm burnt out on being a tourist. But it's my first time to New Orleans, so I didn't want to spend the whole day inside. So once I did finally get myself out, I headed down to the French quarter for a volksmarch. This was my last of the trip. Had I started earlier, it probably would have been cool, but c'est la vie. I started the walk by stopping for food at a local joint on royal street. I had the new Orleans sampler, which is a small bowl each of jambalaya, étouffée, and gumbo. The étouffée was my favorite by far. 

The walk wound me down through the French quarter, along the waterfront up to the aquarium, up Lafayette street to the super dome, and down through the Tulane campus. Oh, and along bourbon street. The French quarter is super touristy. There are residences scattered throughout there, but it really is geared towards what the tourists' perception of New Orleans is. Especially that last bit of bourbon street was just seedy and slimy. But, in general, it was so much friendlier than I expected it to be. Lots of people randomly said hi to me, and not just the people that were trying to get me to go into their restaurants/bars - local people just walking down the street. 

Besides that, the walk was pretty uneventful. It was cool getting to see that portion of the city, but it's obviously not everything that the city is. I have one more day to explore tomorrow, so I think I'm going to check out the garden district. There's a historic house that I'll be checking out as well. 

After the walk, I came back to the apartment to relax. The shower for some reason has no hot water, so I talked with the owner and I now have access to two different apartments, one for me to sleep/ hang out in, and another one to go shower in. Good times. It's like I'm back in college. 

Found another wine bar for dinner tonight and they have a grilled cheese bar, so I got one of those for dinner. Tomorrow I'm going to try to find an oyster bar for dinner. That'll be a good last dinner for the trip. So weird!!

Day 111 & 112 - Pensacola to New Orleans

We got home last night and I was determined to write a blog post. It got as far as writing the title. So tired. Fell asleep around 9pm. What?!?!

So we started out with a visit to Ed's work. He's a helicopter flight instructor in the Navy, so that meant going to Whiting Field. I had never been on a military base before. He showed me around his offices, briefing rooms, and then down to the hangar with all of the helicopter. I got to sit in one of the helicopters and he attempted to explain to me how everything worked. He did a good job at explaining, but there is so much information that I got lost pretty quickly. 

We then went over to the airport where Ed flies his gliders. So his job is flying helicopters and his hobby is flying gliders. True story. I helped him get the glider set up and when the tow plane showed up, we went up for a ride. It was fantastic! So much cooler than riding a roller coaster. I was slightly terrified at first, but it became evident after a bit that we weren't going to plummet quickly to our deaths. Ed said that it was a fantastic day for soaring and we made it all the way up to 4500 feet. Once I got comfortable just hanging out up there, Ed gave me control and I got to fly for a while. Again, I was slightly terrified that I would send us plummeting to our deaths, but Ed said I did really well and, for the most part, I felt like I was in control or the plane. So after tooling around for a while up there, Ed took us down into our landing. Once you land a glider, you have no control of where you're going to stop. That was slightly anxiety inducing for me as well. 

So after we moved the glider back into position for the next pilot, we headed down to the Pensacola Naval Air Station, which is not the same as Whiting Field where Ed flies. There are a lot of flight operations down at Pensacola NAS, including the Blue Angels, but what we were down there to see was the Naval Aviation Museum. We spent a while there looking at the various planes and then we went up to the second floor where there is a big exhibit on modern day flight operations on an aircraft carrier, basically exactly what Ed did before his current assignment. We talked about a bunch of the details and then watched a multimedia movie of flight operations - take offs and landings on a ship - complete with wind, shaking effects, and even jet fuel smells. Ed said it was pretty close to reality. It was definitely cool. 

We were both exhausted at that point, so back to the apartment for some rest. The plan was to go to a minor league baseball game after dinner, but the game started an hour earlier than I had in my calendar and after dinner, we were still exhausted, so instead of the baseball game, we walked around downtown and had another beers at a local brewery before heading back to the apartment and both of us crashing hard and early. 

Now, early in this trip, I had upgraded my phone plan to include more minutes, more data, and hotspot capability. As this trip is winding down, I decided last night was a good opportunity to revert back to my old plan. Well, when I did this, all of a sudden, my phone wasn't getting any signal. Since I still have a couple of drives left and I'm spending a couple of days by myself in New Orleans, I need a phone that works. So on my drive to New Orleans this morning, I stopped at a Verizon store in order to see if they could fix what was going on. But they basically had no idea and ended up putting me on the phone with tech support for over an hour. The manager at the store did eventually get my phone limping - I have a signal, but I don't have any of my usual settings and it doesn't say that I'm connected to the Verizon network, which makes me nervous. But at least it's working. They're also sending me a replacement phone, which I'll get when I get back to Austin on Saturday. So I guess if this had to happen, now's not the worst time for it to occur. Still incredibly frustrating though. 

Since I spent almost 2 hours at the Verizon store, I skipped my first planned stop for the day, the History Museum of Mobile. I proceeded on to my one stop in Mississippi. I had to stop in Mississippi at least once because I needed to get real credit for this state. Before I left on this trip, I had been sitting at 46 states that I had visited for a long time - years and years. The 4 I didn't have we're Mississippi, Louisiana, Alaska, and Hawaii. And yes, I am aware that it's bizarre that I've lived in Austin for 11 years and I've never been to Mississippi, let alone Louisiana, but such is the case. As of this moment, I have now checked them both off my list. So anyway, my one stop in Mississippi was Beauvior, the last home of Jefferson Davis. Another old house, more old furniture. This house was interesting in terms of the layout - to get to the master bedrooms (male and female), and dining rooms (adults and children) one had to go out onto the back porch. They are connected to the front portion of the house only by one corner. It does make sense in that it allows the rooms to have windows on multiple sides and promotes airflow throughout all of the rooms. 

After I concluded my visit in Biloxi, it was on to New Orleans. The original plan was for Ed to join me in New Orleans, but he ended up having to work, so I changed my reservation a few weeks ago from a normal hotel to an airbnb reservation where I have a whole apartment to myself. On the drive down, I got a call from the owner that the air conditioning wasn't working in the unit I had rented, so she let me pick between either of the other 2 units she had available, which were both upgrades to what I had selected. So the apartment I'm staying in is great. High, vaulted ceilings, a super comfy bed, and plenty of room for me to stretch out. 

I skipped lunch today, so I found a local wine bar for dinner tonight which is where I am now. A glass of wine and a cheese plate make Lisa a happy girl. 

I'm kind of itching to get home, but since I've never been to New Orleans, I'm doing my best to embrace being a tourist for 2 more days and savor the bit of time I have left. Lots of logistical details I have to deal with soon and I'm trying to push them out of my mind for now, but they keep creeping in. 

Days 108 - 110 - Epcot & Disney World to Pensacola

So I thought I'd try to write a post last night, but goodness gracious, I totally passed out so early, so that didn't quite happen.

I spent the past 2 days with basically the same plan for Epcot - take the water taxi from the hotel over, spend a couple hours in Tomorrowland, and then the afternoon in the World Showcase. That plan held together mostly, except for the total exhaustion that kicked in both days. So, Saturday - I got to Epcot right on time for opening. The water taxi dropped me off at the international gateway - between England and France in the World Showcase. They open the gates there about 7 minutes before the front gate in order to account for the time it takes to walk to Tomorrowland. My original plan said to go to The Seas with Nemo first, but there was a stream of people going towards Soarin', so I thought it'd probably be a good idea to get to Soarin' before it got packed. So I made my way over there, grabbed a FastPass and then hopped on the ride with barely any wait. I then rode Living with the Land, which, as a serious nerd, is honestly one of my favorite attractions - the greenhouses are ridiculously cool.

I then did the Seas with Nemo, which is kind of like the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage at Disneyland, except that it's in a moving clamshell rather than in a submarine. Very very well done. Then it was back to the Land pavilion to see the Circle of Life and ride Soarin' again using my FastPass. We then hit up Journey into Imagination with Figment. Now, my memory of the Figment ride was that it went through the big Spaceship ball, which is where Spaceship Earth now is, but I might be making that memory up. One of my last stops in Tomorrowland for the day was at Captain EO, which is just bizarre. I mean, it's Michael Jackson in some weird 3D musical adventure directed by George Lucas. From 1986. I just didn't get it. I was never really an MJ fan in that time period - I liked his early 90's stuff - Remember the Time, Black/White, etc - but wasn't really into him earlier in the jerry-curl era. Last stop in Tomorrowland was Innoventions West, which has some cool exhibits in it.

From there, the plan was to go all the way up to America in the World Showcase and make my way back down through the Western countries. So to America I went. I checked out the Fife & Drum corps and then an a capella group. I had a lunch reservation in Japan, so I made my way over there, had some sushi and explored Japan for a bit. There wasn't a ton to explore in Morocco, mainly shops. In France, I got a glass of wine while walking around and then went to see Impressions of France, the 18-minute video about France. It was there that the exhaustion kicked in as I struggled to keep my eyes open. I decided at that point that I wasn't going to survive to make it to dinner without a nap. So I hopped on the water taxi to head back to my hotel. 2/3 of the way there, lightning was spotted in the area, so I had to walk the rest of the way back in the rain. I pretty much crashed as soon as I got back to my room. I had a dinner reservation at 6:30, and had I not had it, I wouldn't have gone back to the park. But I did, so around 5:45, I made my way back to the park, walked through England and then went to Le Cellier in Canada for dinner. I wish I had been hungrier - it was SO good. I had a filet over mushroom risotto, which I realize is a pretty classic combination, but oh my goodness was it yummy. Oh, and I also had a beet salad, because, as previously stated, I'm apparently obsessed with beet salads now. After dinner, I watched O, Canada!, the 360 degree movie about Canada. It's been updated since I saw it as a kid. There were parts of it that I distinctly remember, but they've added things, like narration from Martin Short, and my least favorite part - a clip of Joe Carter hitting the home run off of Mitch Williams in the 1993 World Series. I may or may not have strongly objected out loud to the chagrin of those around me. I believe I could be quoted as "No. No. NO. NO NO NO NO!! NO!!! NO!!!!!!"

Last stop of the night was the nighttime fireworks spectacular over the lake - Reflections of Earth. It was very enjoyable. I made it back to my hotel, wrote the previous blog post, and crashed (are you sensing a theme?)

So, yesterday - similar plan - Tomorrowland first then World Showcase. I had cancelled my lunch reservation cause I figured I'd just pick something up - fish and chips sounded really good. First up - Test Track. Single Rider Line came up really big and I got on the ride with basically no wait. I then picked up my FastPass for Mission Space and went over to Innoventions for the Sum of All Thrills. The Sum of All Thrills is one of the most underrated rides at Epcot - it's very slow to load, but really fun - you design your own roller coaster and then get on robot arm and virtually ride your own coaster. How cool is that? There wasn't much wait at Mission Space at this point, so I figured I'd hit up TestTrack once more in order to get a better "value" out of the Fast Pass. Took a few minutes longer to get onto TestTrack this time, but the Single Rider Line still helped. A lot. Then I hit up Mission Space. Now, much has been made of this ride. When first opened, it was so intense that basically everyone threw up. So they made it a little less intense, and people still threw up. Apparently, though, people didn't want it less intense. They were fine with throwing up. It's on a centrifuge so there are G-forces created along with various jostling and whatnot that simulates a space mission. They have created a more tame version that doesn't use the centrifuge. And they warn you - a lot - about using the less intense version if you think you can't handle the more intense. Well, I don't know what all the hullabaloo was about. Yes, there were G-forces, but nothing like that ride we all used to do at the traveling fairs - you know the one where you stand around the side of a circle, it spins, and then tilts, and then the floor drops out. And you can barely raise your arms. I'm not the only one who remembers this ride, right? After I successfully did not throw up at Mission Space, I then hit up Ellen's Universe of Energy, but it went down about halfway through, so we disembarked early.

Anyway, I finished up with Tomorrowland and headed back to the World Showcase. I was super excited about the possibility of fish and chips for lunch, so I picked some up in England and then went up to America. I saw the a cappella group again and then watched American Adventure. It was interesting seeing this after having gone back stage on Friday. Then I made my way around the East side of the World Showcase, drinking a glass of wine in Italy, drinking another glass of wine and buying a caramel apple in Germany, watching Reflections of China in China, riding Maelstrom in Norway, and riding the Gran Fiesta Tour in Mexico.

It was still early by the time I finished up with all of the countries, so I decided to go back to Ellen's Universe of Energy to get through that completely. Worked out well. I halfway considered going to ride Living with the Land again, but I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep my eyes open. So once again, I headed back to the hotel and crashed. Hard. At like 6:00. When I woke up at 9:30, I wasn't sure I'd be able to get back to sleep, but I finally did around midnight.

This morning I checked out of my hotel and started making my way toward Pensacola. Now, I had 2 wineries and a mission planned to go to on the way here, but when I got to the first winery, I had no desire to get out of the car, so I kept on driving. Consequently, I got to Pensacola a couple hours before originally planned. I hung out here with my brother for a while and went out for pizza for dinner. Tomorrow he'll show me around where he works and flies.

Days 106 & 107 - Disney World

It's been a busy few days here at Disney World - excuse me, Walt Disney World - so I've had absolutely no time for posts. I may not get to finish everything that's happened up til now in this post, but I'll just write what I can now and continue later.

So, lets start with Thursday, my birthday. Eddie and Andrew came over to my hotel and we had breakfast together in one of the restaurants there. We then drove over to the Magic Kingdom (actually, you have to park at the ticket and transportation center and take the monorail up). We arrive at the entrance right when they we starting to open. Somehow we ended up in the slowest security line ever, so I made the executive decision to skip stopping by guest relations for my "It's my Birthday" button until later. We headed straight to Space Mountain, which scared the bejesus out of me as a kid (and in Disneyland, but it was much better this time - the drops aren't too far, and that's what I don't like about roller coasters. 

I won't go into details about every ride that we did, but we definitely most everything. A sampling: speedway, tea cups, haunted mansion, Peter pan's flight, it's a small world, big thunder mountain, Swiss family treehouse, buzz lightyear, move it shake it celebrate it street party, celebrate a dream come true parade, Philharmagic, Winnie the pooh, pirates of the Caribbean, monsters inc laugh floor, dream along with Mickey, enchanted tiki room, carousel of progress, under the sea, main street electrical parade, and wishes nighttime spectacular. So, yeah, a lot. Some of the rides are so tame that it's almost not worth riding them - you have to look at it from a story perspective. I could have skipped Peter pan's flight and it's a small world. I also don't like shows with audience interaction or where they spray you with stuff, so I didn't like monsters inc laugh floor. I adore carousel of progress - I bet it was my favorite ride even when I was a kid. I've always been a nerd. We did miss the hall of presidents because of timing, so that was a bummer. 

For lunch, we went over to the contemporary resort and went to The Wave...of American Flavors. It was really good. I've been obsessed with 2 things recently - beets and fish. They had a great fish special which was really yummy. I had always wanted to stay at the contemporary resort - I love the monorail going straight through the building. But it was a bit too expensive when it came down to actually staying there on this trip. And, you know, it wasn't as amazing as I remember it being. I mean, the resort is nice, but it's definitely dated. It feels like what contemporary was 30 or 40 years ago, which, let's be honest, is exactly what it is. 

The lunch reservation was at 1:00ish, and the dinner reservation we had was at like 6:00 in downtown Disney, at Wolfgang puck's. After that late-ish lunch, we could tell we weren't going to be hungry for dinner in time and getting to downtown Disney and back was going to be a pain, so we changed the reservation until the next night. It was a good plan. 

After spending so many hours on our feet, we were exhausted by the time it came to the evening activities. We scouted out a good location for the electrical parade, but it came in the opposite direction from what I expected, so in order for me to not to have a lamp post right in front of me for the whole parade, I ended up kneeling down. For the entire 20 minutes. Two days later and I'm still feeling it. I'm getting to old for crazy stuff like kneeling. The Wishes Nighttime Spectacular was beautiful and I'm glad we hung in there until the end. It was a long, long day and I crashed right when I got back to my hotel. 

Yesterday was a day that I was absolutely looking forward to - it was my 7-hour behind-the-scenes tour. So so excited. I met my tour group over in front of Epcot at 8:45. There were 36 of us on the tour. We had a bus and then in most of the locations, we split into 2 groups, each with our own guide. I wish that I had been with the other guide - I think his name was Rick, but Jeanna, my guide, was great too. Before we left on the tour, we had to choose a "bus buddy" to make sure that no one got left behind anywhere. There was only one other single on the tour, so she and I ended up pairing up. And ugh. She had no social skills and insisted on sitting next to me on the bus when there were other full rows open (I think she took the "bus buddy" term literally). At one point, I pulled out my iPad to check something and she was like "what's that device?" Seriously, I don't think she had ever seen an iPad before. I was so confused.

Anyway, despite that, the tour was amazing. We weren't allowed to take pictures in most of the places, so I'm glad I'll have this record to remember it all. We started with going backstage at Epcot. The World Showcase isn't open until 11, so we got to walk around it a bit before it opened. We went backstage at the American Adventure and got to see them doing practice runs of the show, which they do every night and morning before opening the park. We saw a sample animatronic head and I, of course, asked a ton of questions about the running of the show. 

After leaving Epcot, we went over to the costume shop, which is on the backlot of Hollywood Studios. I think this was my favorite stop of the tour. We got to see where the costumes are designed, cut, constructed, and fitted. I found it really interesting to learn about the different types of costumes, based on the category of cast member. There are operational cast members - merchants, ride operators, security, all of that - who get assigned one or more roles. The costumes for these roles are checked out on an as needed basis. You can check out up to 5 complete costumes. You can do the laundry yourself or just drop off the costumes to be laundered and pick up new ones. These costumes are built to fill an inventory and cast members just pick up their size as needed. The second type of cast member is the characters. These cast members are hired to fit the costume. There is one costume size created, based on what the character is, and one of the big criteria for hiring is whether you fit the costume. The third type of cast member is an entertainer. These cast members are hired based on national and international auditions. They are hired one a one-year, equity contract and their costumes are built to fit them. They generally have 2 costumes per performance role and their names are sewn into those costumes. So yeah, super interesting for me, especially since I'm planning on taking some fashion design classes when I get home. 

We made one more stop in Hollywood Studios at Tower of Terror. Rick explained to us how the ride operates and told us some really interesting stories about the evolution of the ride. They claim that each experience is randomized in terms of your up and down drops in the tower. In actuality, there are 6 unique sequences. And the main reason that a car needs to be pulled off the track to be serviced? Sanitization after a "protein evacuation." Too funny. Also, after riding the Tower of Terror in Disneyland, I have no desire to ever ride it again. 

Next stop was Animal Kingdom, where we got to see the vehicles lined up in their holding warehouse for the Parade. The Animal Kingdom parade is different then the magic kingdom parades in that it's much less formal and more interactive. The floats were pretty cool and we saw them doing some work on a couple of them. 

One more stop before lunch - the horticulture shop. We saw them creating topiaries, which was cool. They construct the frame out of steel, stuff it with dirt or moss or something, and then pin the pants on the outside. They are watered from the inside out using a drip irrigation technique. We saw lots of characters in topiary form, including Belle, the Beast, Chip, Cinderella, Prince Charming, and lots more. 

Lunch was all-you-can-eat BBQ at the Wilderness Lodge. I think they were trying to be Texan, but they had pork ribs and no beef ribs. Texas fail. The food was still good, even if it wasn't authentic Texas. 

The after lunch stops were great too. First up, we went to the Central Garages, which is where all of the rides and cars and such are built, maintained, and repaired. We saw a number of new cars being built for the new Miners ride in Fantasyland as well as a ton of random items from all over the various parks - Space Mountain cars, it's a small world boats, carousel horses, jungle cruise animals, and more. They mainly try to do preventative maintenance, so on a schedule, each unit from a ride is sent to the garage, disassembled, assessed, fixed as needed, reprinted, and put back together. In that way, they manage to prevent the majority of issues before they become problems. It was great to see a huge focus on safety here as well. It's a shop, like any other shop, it just happens to be at Disney. And it seems like the primary focus is worker safety in conjunction with quality work. 

Our final stop was the Magic Kingdom. We parked behind Main Street and went down into the Utilidors. Oooooo, ahhhhhh. Yes, the fabled Utilidors. Guess what? They looked like tunnels. Oh, you don't know about the Utilidors? Well, let me fill you in. The story goes that Walt was out in Disneyland and saw a cast member from Frontierland walking through Tomorrowland (or something like that), and thought that was ruining the illusion. So when he started on the plans for Disney World, he added plans for this tunnel system below the Magic Kingdom. The Utilidors are technically on ground level and what appears to be ground level of the Magic Kingdom is actually the 2nd floor. Cool, yes? So we hung out downstairs for a little while - saw a couple characters in full hair and makeup, but only partial costume. That was really cool.

We went upstairs, watched the Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It! Parade and then walked up Main Street with Jeanna pointing out some inside information, like the names and business names on the buildings.

So that pretty much wrapped up the tour. On the bus ride back to Epcot, Rick told us this great story of how he, along with a stage manager on a show he was working years ago made the wishes of 2 dying kids come true. That was pretty special. Definitely something to remember. Maybe I'll get to that story at some point on here. For now, I'm too tired.

After the tour was over, I met up with Andrew and Eddie at a wine bar out at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and then we went to Puck's for dinner. I'm glad we pushed that out a night. We were able to relax, take our time, and really enjoy the experience. I got a beet salad (of course), red snapper, and carrot cake. They just changed over their menu on Wednesday for the first time in about 4 years, so it was cool getting to try the new things on the menu. I was so stuffed by the time we finished that I couldn't finish up my carrot cake and I brought some of it home.

So that's as far as I can get tonight. Maybe tomorrow I'll get caught up on both today and tomorrow. 

Day 105 - Savannah to Disney World

I'm running out of steam. I mean, after 105 days on the road, it's not surprising, but today was definitely indicative of it. I had about 6 stops planned between Savannah and here in Disney World, but could only work up the energy to go to 3 of them.

I left Savannah about half an hour later than planned (are you seeing a trend? I am). I did have a couple of stops to make on the way out of town (mainly at CVS in order to pick up a couple random items). So by the time I hit my first scheduled stop, I was already an hour behind schedule. First stop was a chocolate factory/store in Jacksonville - Peterbrooke Chocolatier. I picked up a couple items and then drove over to Beach Road Chicken Dinners, also in Jacksonville. Seriously good fried chicken there. I got also got a half an order of fried gizzards, since I liked them so much at Joe's Gizzard City up in Michigan. These were ok - much chewier than the ones in Michigan. I think they need to be boiled more before frying.

Next stop was another chocolate factory. I could have waited around another half an hour in order to go on a tour, but, seriously, how many times do I need to learn how chocolate is made from cacao plants? I think I'm pretty familiar now. I did buy some butter creams though. I had a winery, the Oldest House Museum, and another winery planned (and at this point, I was back on schedule, so I could have fit them in), but I just couldn't work up the energy or desire to go to any of them. I just wanted to get to my destination. So I kept driving.

However, I did decide to drive down A1A rather than I-95 for what I expected to be a more scenic route. I guess it was. But it wasn't anything like the Pacific Coast Highway. For much of it, I couldn't even see the ocean - it was blocked by houses or a bluff or trees. And then there were the resort towns that I drove through. Eh.

I turned off of A1A onto I-4 towards Orlando. About halfway along that route, torrential downpour. I was pretty impressed with the other drivers though. Everyone slowed down to an appropriate speed, most everyone had their lights on, and a number of people even had on their blinkers - made it much easier to follow the lights of the car in front of me when I couldn't see the lane lines.

So I made it to Walt Disney World without much incident. I checked into my hotel and got settled. And, good god, I had so many questions. I never have questions when checking into my hotel. But there are so many options here and so much logistics, and as simple as Disney likes to think that their processes are, they're a little dated. I mean, I still haven't been able to get a bus route map. I don't think one actually exists. For a planner like me, I don't like to leave transportation details like that up to "figure it out when I need it." So I ended up walking around everywhere and asking all sorts of questions. I also drove over to the Magic Kingdom entrance in order to pick up my actual ticket that I had bought online and was at will call. Didn't want to leave that until the morning. But I think I have it all figured out at this point.

I came to Disney World twice as a kid - once when I was 8 and once when I was 10 (I think), but I haven't been here since. And, obviously, at that age, I wasn't involved in the logistics of our trip. So this is the first time I've had to deal with that. Also, when I was a kid, we stayed at the Polynesian Resort, which is serviced directly by the Monorail. I remember using the Monorail to get basically everywhere. I always wanted to stay at the Contemporary Resort if I ever came back, but, in researching for this trip, it was just too expensive, especially for me staying there by myself. So I ended up staying at the Dolphin, which is on the Disney property, and you get all the benefits of staying at a Disney resort, but it's run by Starwood Hotels. It has a conference center and isn't as "Disney" as the rest of the resorts - I like that - not quite as many children running around everywhere. However, the transportation is a little more complicated. There's a water taxi over to Epcot or Hollywood Studios (although I'm not going to Hollywood Studios while I'm here), and to get to Downtown Disney or the Magic Kingdom, there's a bus, which as I already stated, I can't get the details on. However, I did find out that the $15/day that I'm paying to park my car includes unlimited in and out and parking at any resort, park, or anywhere else within Disney World - I just have to show my room key and there's no additional fee.

One other major point of logistics that I haven't mentioned yet is that I have friends that flew in this evening from Austin and are joining me here at Disney World. They're actually the guys that are wine-sitting for me for the summer. So they flew in from Austin tonight and we originally had plans to meet up for dinner, but their flight was delayed and I was hungry, so we skipped dinner and will just meet up in the morning. They're not staying at the same hotel as I am, but we're planning on spending much of the day together tomorrow. Oh, and it's going to be a seriously long day. Breakfast at 6:30, gates to the Magic Kingdom open at 8, and we're planning on going all day until about 10PM. LONG day. I'm using the same program that I used at Disneyland in order to organize my day and all the attractions I'm planning on hitting. Which brings me to another point. Tomorrow is my birthday. I know this seems like a non-sequitor, but I'll connect it, just give me a second. In Disneyland, I was using my iPhone in order to track my progress against my plan for the day, but I found that was draining the battery, so I switched to my iPad partway through the day and used my iPhone just for email/facebook/etc. Well, I do plan on starting with the plan on my iPad tomorrow, but I've found that my iPhone battery has been dying even quicker recently, so I'm worried it won't last through the day, even if I'm not using it for ride tracking. Add to that that it is typical for facebook to explode on your birthday with notifications every 5 minutes of someone posting on your wall, there's no way it's going to make it. So, for one day only, I'm going to turn off facebook notifications (you thought I was going to say I was going to turn off my phone, didn't you? That's too far for me.). I will do my best not to check facebook every chance I get and so I won't be responding to any birthday messages until late in the day - maybe even not until Friday, depending on how hard I crash tomorrow night.

Oh, on a similar note, I probably won't post on here tomorrow night. After 16 hours in the park, I imagine that writing a blog post is going to be next to impossible. Happy birthday to me!!