Disney 2008: Chapter 5 - The Blustery Day

Saturday. Wow, what a wild day! We had our usual morning waffles, got all packed, and started loading the car. Sounds simple, right? Yeah, not so simple in 40+ mph winds (that would be 65+ km/h for all my metric friends). I have never in my life been out in wind like that. It was a beautiful day! Some clouds, but lots of blue sky, and no rain. Just WIND! I'm sure I've seen wind like that (we had some humdinger storms where I grew up), but it was from safely behind glass and sheet rock. It was insane. It was the first time in my life I have ever *literally* been unable to move forward because the wind was blowing hard enough to push me back. It blew the vertical clearance sign right off the chain it was hanging from at the covered entrance to the hotel (I saw it fly away). There were palm tree branches everywhere. We even saw one of the traffic lights hanging off of the pole it had previously been bolted to; the wind blew it right off. So, remember the balloon picture from yesterday? The giant 2-foot balloon? Yeah, guess who got to carry it out to the car? ::rolls eyes:: Good thing it was me, though. I don't care what they showed on Mythbusters; if Luke had been carrying that thing, I think the wind would have picked him up and blown him away! LOL

Anyway, we got all packed up and headed out to Downtown Disney. I was so afraid we were going to be late, since we were leaving about 30 minutes after I had intended, and DH and I still had to hit the pin store before my "date." I was meeting up with some of my virtual friends from the TWBB/Wagon. I love meeting BB folks in person! It's always so cool! Glenda (The Weather Goddess) found me first, and she and I were hanging out (in the wind!) at Ghirardelli when Belinda and Kay (and Kay's daughter) found us. Belinda and I have often joked that we must be separated sisters. See for yourself! (I think she got the skinny genes, LOL!) I know the picture is small, but here we are. Glenda came all the way from Canada and skipped out on a morning at the parks just to see us! L-R: Belinda (clioratha), J (Kay's daughter), Kay (extrememom24), me, Glenda (Wx4caster).



I sent Mom, DH, and Luke off to the Lego store to keep them busy. The rest of us got to know each other while we were standing outside waiting for Ghirardelli to officially open (they shooed us out once), trying to stay warm in the "stiff breeze." The shade here was in a crook of the World of Disney store, right near one of the doors, so despite not being in the sun, it was still warmer than being out in the wind. We hadn't been talking for more than just a couple of minutes when a terrified squirrel ran right past us, the sound of thundering small feet following close behind. Sure enough, a young child came careening around the corner a moment later. To save itself, the squirrel hurtled itself into the open door to the World of Disney, followed closely by the little boy. Don't you have parents?

Hold it.

I think that was MY little boy! Where are your handlers? You know, the grown-ups I sent you with who are supposed to be watching out for you? All of this had happened in just a few seconds, of course, and sure enough, here came Mom and DH right behind him. We had discussed (several times!) not chasing the ducks while we were at the Magic Kingdom, that it's not nice and it scares them. Apparently, some of that sunk in, and when a squirrel walked up very close to Luke on the way to the Lego store, Luke was very slow and gentle and managed to get even closer. Then he took that one tiny step too close, and the squirrel bolted. Well, at that point, what else could he *possibly* do but give chase? ::sigh:: Anyway, Mom and DH managed to drag him away, despite him being rather excited about the squirrel being inside the store (I swear, he's going to be the hall monitor at school). Someone inside had managed to keep it from getting too far in, but it wasn't coming out until Luke was away from the door (can't really blame the poor thing). So, we got the child, the grown-ups, and the squirrel all squared away, they all headed to the Lego store, and we headed on into Ghirardelli to sit and chat some more.

We barely talked about stitching! Everyone got something to eat or drink except me. Well, and Glenda, since they lost her order; she finally had to ask about it, and then they brought her the wrong thing. We got it worked out. I only got to stay about an hour after we went inside, and we talked more about Disney than stitching. (BTW, long time Disney fans, Kay is raising her daughter right. She's only in high school, but she calls it the PeopleMover!) But we did get to see Belinda's pieces (the ones she designed), and her finished TFT, which is simply stunning! I know Kay had some of her pieces in the car, which the others got to see. I'm sorry I missed it. But I had another date, this time with a hot Latino!

I am, of course, referring to Javy Lopez, once again of the Atlanta Braves, and looking rather nice in his spring training uniform, I must say. Yet again, I didn't get many pictures, not a single one of Luke, DH, and me together at the game. This was, yet again, my own fault, primarily due to my lack of planning. But this particular slight came early in the planning process. With all the up-coming time off my mom will be taking from work, I just assumed she would be unable to go with us this year to Disney, so I only bought three tickets to the game. When I mentioned our trip, I found out she could go, and I felt really bad for not asking her first! So we did invite her, and we just got another ticket. Naturally, by the time we figured all of this out, there were no seats available near us, so we had three tickets in the lower level directly behind home plate about 12 rows back, and two other tickets in the upper deck (in case two of the four of us wanted to go sit in them for a while for a change of scenery). It was hot (how there can be gale force winds outside the stadium and not a puff of breeze inside still baffles me), it was crowded, we got there later than normal.... it just didn't work out for pictures, and I hate it. Here are a few that I did manage to get, though:



Most of those were as we were leaving. We only stayed about 3 innings, most of that spent somewhere other than our seats for me, which was fine. We were all tired, and we couldn't sit together, and it was hotter than we planned. Oh, and did I mention that none of us put on sunscreen until after we got there? Yeah, that was stupid, and Luke and I were a nice light to medium shade of lobster by the time we left. That's what happens when you don't follow your own sunscreen rules! It was mainly just Luke's ear, thank goodness, but my arms and cheeks were a particularly lovely shade of rose, and my part (in my hair, where my scalp shows) was fried. That was not the first day of sun for it, and I paid for it. It was gone in a couple of days, though, and no peeling for anyone, so we lucked out there.

Luke conked out almost before we left the park. Naptime is usually 1 PM, and it was after 2 by this point. Maybe next year we can request that they play a 4 PM game just for us? That would be nice. 1 PM (naptime) and 7 PM (bedtime) games just don't really work for us. That's not too much to ask, right? Anyway, we hoped to make it all the way to Brunswick before he woke up, but no such luck. He woke up somewhere on the Jacksonville bypass, so we stopped at the new shopping complex near the airport to eat at Cracker Barrel. We couldn't believe there weren't more people there. Even Mom said she had never seen it that empty (they go to Jax fairly frequently). They sure were hopping by the time we left, though! Seems like we got to my parents' house just before 8, put Luke to bed without much trouble, had show and tell of what we bought, and turned in pretty early.

We had lunch at Spanky's (a family favorite) before heading out on Sunday. Five piece basket with spuds, please! I drove a fair portion of the way home on Sunday so DH could sleep. Did I mention it was race weekend in Atlanta? Yeah, I don't think it's exactly fair to have Bike Week and a Nascar race in Atlanta all while we're trying to get to Florida and back! So we took some little road from Dublin until it hit I-20 well east of the city (and the track!). Took us an extra hour to get home, but I imagine it would have taken even longer if we'd tried going straight up I-75 past the track. That thing backs up for miles. Why yes, we've made the mistake of driving home from somewhere on race weekend before, why do you ask? All in all, a good trip. We're looking forward to actually spending more than 2 days at the parks on an up-coming trip, maybe a week or so, hopefully in either 2009 or 2010. We still have to get all that worked out. And I promise to plan better next time!

Hope you enjoyed the trip report! See you next year....

Currently feeling: mouse-lover, signing off