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....