Expelliarmus Sweatus!

Tonight, the QuaDodge were speeding down highway 4 in a light blue crown vic from the 80s with nothing more than a "For Hire" sign magnetized to the top.  Not "Taxi" but "For Hire."  Inside, there wasn't any "Your Cab Driver is..." type stuff anywhere.  Also, no meter.  Our driver happily told us "Twenty Bucks" right before we got in.  But we were dazed and exhausted...and we simply hoped for the best...

But how did we end up in an unmarked illegal taxi driven by a guy who practically introduced himself to us as "Twenty Bucks?"

Let's go back to yesterday.

Yesterday kicked my ass.  I think yesterday kicked all of our asses.  Yesterday was HARRY POTTER LAND!  Expelliarmus Sweatus!

Harry Potter Land was absobrilliantlutely wonderful.  Located on Universal Studios' "Island of Adventure," we knew it was going to be crowded.  But as with every theme park- money talks.  Tiffany and I resolved to pay Universal's coldly calculated 50 bucks-a-person for their version of a fast pass.  The kicker, though, is that they are only good for each ride once.  But I'm telling you, it was worth it.  Because without that wisely spent money, we wouldn't have been able to tackle every ride.  Now, I'm not going to go into details for the rides...

The Forbidden Journey is the most amazing ride in existence!  It is so wild that this following notice is posted... 

But I will wax poetic about how finely detailed this place is.  I always assumed that the park would have been based solely on the movie.  But the details of this place were also true to the books as well.   It was sort of beautiful in many ways.  If you love Harry Potter (If you don't, you're either stubborn or can't read.) then you would adore this place.  

AND THE BUTTER BEER!  Butter beer butter beer....God Damn that butter beer.  It was exactly as I imagined.

And the tourists are maniacs here.  I think many of them think this place is the actual site of historical events.  People were spending just sick gobs of money on stuff- wands, candy, brooms, hats, etc, as if they thought they were really preparing their kids for Hogwarts.  Wands were 30 bucks a pop! Hogwarts robes were 108 bucks!  Yet kids were running around with both.  Crazy.  

But the Island of Adventure had other areas and other attractions...

Dr. Seuss had a land and it was quite grand!   

We went on those rides, just as was planned.  

We spunned a spin on Cat in the Hat,.

We went on flying fish where water was spat.  

We walked and walked and walked around.

We sweated so much, I thought I would drown.   

We walked so much, I begged to be put down.

For Orlando is hot, it's hotter than hell.

It's even hotter than a biggle borg bell. 

Seuss rides were nice, but kind of tame.

So the girls wanted to up their game.

We left Seuss land.  We decided to flee.

And went to Marvel world to get on Spidey 3D...

Alright, enough of that.  I never got my Doctorate in rhyme so I'm not qualified.

We wrung every penny's worth out of our Express Pass tickets.  We hit the Marvel Section...then we hit this odd cartoon land where there was a Dudley Do-right log ride.  Right?  Strange.  Then we did ole' Jurassic Park.  Kerploosh.  Raaar.  We got very wet.

And then we went back to Harry Potter land for more butter beer and rides.

By the end of the day, we were all broken in half from all the fun.  Two solid days of Theme Parkery in Orlando's unforgiving weather oppression had sapped all of us.  As we left Harry Potter Land the reprise music from the third film's end credit sequence was finishing...it was the perfect farewell.... 

And that's why this morning we were all creaky when we rose out of bed.

But Disney's Wild Animal Park was calling...

And damn it was hot again.  Simply put, I looked like a leaky boat walking around.  The animals looked upon me with disgust.  There were only a handful of rides.  One of them was an amazing roller coaster involving the Yeti.  Backwards, and in the dark.  No, I'm not describing the Christian Right.  I'm talkin' about this Yeti ride.  A-Mazing.

But I have to say I kept thinking over and over today about how, more than all of the rides, I am appreciating these moments with Tiffany and the girls.  It's just a damn shame that most days out of the year we are simply pushing along together.  But during vacation time, we are actually learning ABOUT each other.  Simply because alllll of the daily bullshit is set aside for a awhile.  It's pure treasure.  It makes me happy and remorsefull all at once.

But all the family bonding in the world can't undo the damage all this fun is wreaking on our bodies.  Ultimately, exhaustion effects one's state of mind...and that's how we ended up...well...

It was almost ten p.m. tonight by the time the QuaDodge (sweaty, sticky, sore, chaffed, exhausted, blistered, somewhat limping- and that was only me!) had stumbled around the parking lot of Disney Hollywood...all the way to the "taxi" driver section.  We didn't even go to Disney Hollywood today-that's where we are going tomorrow.   When we were done with the Wild Animal Park we bussed to Downtown Disney for dinner, and then in a strange turn of events we ended up like wandering refugees desperately trying to get to the promised land.   From Downtown Disney we took an hour long bus ride, then a boat, and finally realized we had to take a taxi instead of trying to get to catch two more buses back to our hotel...  The joke of it all is that all of these parks aren't that far from one another....In aforementioned parking lot we came across all the drivers were clustered together, shooting the breeze and waiting for tourists who needed to go home.  Before we were even across the crosswalk one of the drivers broke off from the group and called to us, "Taxi?  Taxi"  Then another stepped forward and said, "No, I will take you!"  Then they started arguing in some language I couldn't recognize and finally one of them just led us to his car...

But we made it to the hotel, safe and sound.  Should we have insisted on a driver who wasn't simply trying to hustle up a living?  Maybe.  But I can't feel my body.  Or rather, I can feel ALL of my body.  

Now, I must shower and apply all sorts of ointments to my everything...

SWEATCOT

Ho man, am I tired.  So very tired.  I can barely think straight I'm so tired.  We flew into Orlando yesterday and the moment the sun came up this morning we shuttled over to EPCOT...wellllll over an hour before opening...THEN SPENT THE NEXT TWELVE HOURS THERE.  Did you read that?  Did you?  The next twelve hours.  And you know, the one thing that they never tell you..."they" being the Florida board of tourism...is that it's prehistorically hot here.  Sweaty hot.  Steamy hot.   Every pore in your body turns into a geyser of liquid, salt and anger.  You can feel the heat beating up off of the pavement.  And then later in the day...it rained!  It rained a couple of times...then hot even steamier.  Damn it's hot.

None of the Jammie Dodgers have ever been to Epcot before- or any theme park in Florida...I won't bother doing the blow by blow of each ride at Epcot.  All I can say is, I loved Spaceship Earth- Disney Ca doesn't have rides on that level of cheese anymore and it was like getting a slow, rocking hug from an old drunk friend when our Spaceship Earth personmobile rounded the track inside that big beautiful tin testicle and I saw the animatronic caveman moving around like he was having a frozen seizure.  So nice.

Epcot's World Showcase was pretty impressive.  The attention to detail seemed pretty good.  I mean in "China" they sold Mr. Brown Coffee!  You can't get more authentic than that.  By the way, did you know that "NI HAO" means hello in Chinese?  If you didn't, go to Epcot and you'll find out.   At Dinner, Charlie even sketched personalities for each of the countries in the World Showcase on our paper tablecloth.  By the way, not ever wanting to be without her sketchbook and pencil- Charlie dutifully carried them along with her all day.

But I think everyone's favorite part of the World Showcase was Britain.  Hard to explain why.  Maybe it was because they sold Guinness and had superb fish and chips.  Maybe it was because everyone there had a British Accent.  It's hard to tell for sure, but we really had a jolly good time in that particular part.

But to me, the complete day maker, the total theme park WIN- was the AMERICAN ADVENTURE show in the America area.  It's like great Moments with Lincoln (A true favorite of mine at Disney Ca) BUT STEROIDS!  Animatronic Mark Twain!  Talking to Animatronic Benjamin Franklin!  Are you shitting me?!  Telling the story of America?  And then there's ANIMATRONIC FDR...WHAAAAT?  We only stumbled into the place because of the rain...and once I realized what was about to unfurl before my sweaty eyes I started to get jittery with excitement.  No joke.  Ask the wife.  I was nearly a giggling fool.

The truly remarkable thing about Epcot is the open space.  Lakes, fountains, grassy hills...just open space.  It was so nice.  And although some spots were a tad crowded...nothing ever felt crowded.   Epcot itself can be best described as vast.  I never expected that at all.  And it was wonderful.  The other worth mentioning...everything is educational.  I don't get it.  I'm not used to it.  But I found it a pleasant surprise.  So here you have a theme park that isn't crowded, is educational, and every square inch of it isn't crowded with self promoting rides based on movies that were based on rides based on movies...I'm glad we finally made it to Epcot because I just don't ever see a place like this being allowed to exist much longer.

We finished up the day eating in Morocco and then dragged out sweaty asses to the shuttle to get back to the hotel.  Not a bad opening day for "Invasion Orlando '13."

But tomorrow. .. Tomorrow fills my heart with a dread of iced sweat.  Tomorrow we hit Harry Potter Land.  I know it's called something else- but really that's what it is.  Harry Potter Land- where half the population of Orlando will probably be.  The heart of darkness and lines....