Home Again Home Again
Hello! We're back in OH after what seemed both a brief and lengthy trip to Tampa. I was nice to be away and especially nice to be not-at-work! Kind of weird to be back to cold and almost snowy after a week of upper 70s though!
Wednesday:
Amanda picked us up at 3pm and drove us to the airport for our flight out. Yay! Thanks Amanda!
We had a relatively uneventful flight down to Tampa, aside from the plane acting like it was going to touch down @ McDill Airforce Base instead of TPA. Luckily, we took an upswing and continued on to the proper landing pad!
Dad picked us up at the airport, we got our bags and headed for home where mom was busy handing out Halloween candy. We mostly chilled for the evening, ate some leftovers, chatted and collapsed.
Thursday:
We got up around the same time as my parents and got ready for the first adventure of the week. We hijacked mom's car and left for Orlando around 8:30am. The drive over was calm with the typical Florida come-and-go rain-showers. This would be fine except I didn't understand mom's windshield wipers...oops! I got them to work well enough that we didn't collide with any Toll Plazas and arrived at Kelly's door without incident. We hooked up with Kel and Dan, met the kittens, had a brief period of downtime and then headed off for our day of excitement.
First stop was Bagels, Bites, and Beyond for brunch. This is a cool place, it's kind of make-your-own everything, from cereals with mix-ins, to custom cream cheese you can have just about anything. I had eggs, bacon, and a whole wheat bagel with.... Scallion Walnut CC. The girl behind the counter thought I was nuts, but it was delicious! We had nice chatting while scarfing down our brunch.
Next stop....DisneyWorld!!!!! Now, most people think of Disneyworld and actually picture the "Magic Kingdom" which is the heart and soul of the complex. That is where you find Mickey Mouse, Cinderella's Castle, and the Teacups. We did NOT go there. Instead, we made a bee-line for Epcot Center, which is "Disney for Grown-Ups" as Kel says. As it was Thursday with scattered showers, we had no trouble finding a parking spot right within site of Spaceship Earth. We parked in the second parking lot (arriving at about noon) and could have easily walked to the park proper. However, the tramley (trolley/tram) arrived just as we were leaving, so we took it. Think of it as a free additional ride. We got into the park quickly, thanks to Kelly's super discount tix from school, and headed off to find fun.
The first thing you come to is the future/science/innovation part of the park. We browsed through a few of the displays before heading off to find a ride. The "science and technology" is interesting, and well organized for the younger generation. However they suffer a bit from the speed of today's innovation. The most cutting edge displays were simulations of remote surgery and a video game which illustrates safety technology which they hope to develope for cars (such as infrared automatic ice melters and auto speed control in bad conditions).
Ride stop 1: "Soarin'" This is the new "big attraction" at Epcot. It is a hangliding simulator (ala Questor of the 1990s Busch gardens Generation) in which you sit down and strap into something akin to a high-tech SkyChair. There are three rows of chairs in a blackbox theater. In the front of the room is a projection screen. Once everyone is strapped in, the rows of seats lift so that the front row is on top, then the middle, then the last, all right in front of the screen. The cinematography was amazing, and they do a pretty good job with the simulators of getting the movements to feel convincing. Dan and Brian insist that they must actually go hang-gliding now. :-P
Ride stop 2: "Living With the Land" This is a gondola right through the park's agricultural research center. It started with a ride through animatronic recreations of different ecosytems. The really interesting part, however, comes at the end. We got to see interesting agriculture experiments such as Tomato Trees and the 1lb Lemon, which makes a full gallon on lemonade from one fruit. They also explained Aeroponics, where they are trying to grow plants hanging with roots exposed, nutrients and water are then misted onto the roots directly. All in all, lots of interesting. Oh yeah, and the foods grown in the labs are used in the cafes throughout the park, YAY for self-supporting!
Ride stop 3: "Imagination with Figment" Pure goofy, and definitely for the young and young-at-heart! This is a classic disney type educational ride. Sit in the little booth-thing and ride through lots of video screens and fun visual stuff. The whole idea of this is using your imagination to invent and create. After the ride you are dumped off into an area with lots of fun activities. We directed a chorus of singing Figments, danced on in-floor sensors which played sounds and lit up when stepped on, and took a picture of ourselves which we then morphed and had emailed to Kelly's computer.
Ride stop 4: "Test Track" This is more your standard amusement park ride, but with a twist. The Modus Operandi for this is illustrating the safety testing procedures for cars. I was a little scared to go on it, but it ended up being fun. I'm ok as long as it doesn't go upside-down or have a steep drop. ;-)
Ok, I was gonna go all the way through Epcot in one sitting, but I'm tired of typing. SO...more later, in the next installment we go to the Cultures part of the park...WHEEEE!
Wednesday:
Amanda picked us up at 3pm and drove us to the airport for our flight out. Yay! Thanks Amanda!
We had a relatively uneventful flight down to Tampa, aside from the plane acting like it was going to touch down @ McDill Airforce Base instead of TPA. Luckily, we took an upswing and continued on to the proper landing pad!
Dad picked us up at the airport, we got our bags and headed for home where mom was busy handing out Halloween candy. We mostly chilled for the evening, ate some leftovers, chatted and collapsed.
Thursday:
We got up around the same time as my parents and got ready for the first adventure of the week. We hijacked mom's car and left for Orlando around 8:30am. The drive over was calm with the typical Florida come-and-go rain-showers. This would be fine except I didn't understand mom's windshield wipers...oops! I got them to work well enough that we didn't collide with any Toll Plazas and arrived at Kelly's door without incident. We hooked up with Kel and Dan, met the kittens, had a brief period of downtime and then headed off for our day of excitement.
First stop was Bagels, Bites, and Beyond for brunch. This is a cool place, it's kind of make-your-own everything, from cereals with mix-ins, to custom cream cheese you can have just about anything. I had eggs, bacon, and a whole wheat bagel with.... Scallion Walnut CC. The girl behind the counter thought I was nuts, but it was delicious! We had nice chatting while scarfing down our brunch.
Next stop....DisneyWorld!!!!! Now, most people think of Disneyworld and actually picture the "Magic Kingdom" which is the heart and soul of the complex. That is where you find Mickey Mouse, Cinderella's Castle, and the Teacups. We did NOT go there. Instead, we made a bee-line for Epcot Center, which is "Disney for Grown-Ups" as Kel says. As it was Thursday with scattered showers, we had no trouble finding a parking spot right within site of Spaceship Earth. We parked in the second parking lot (arriving at about noon) and could have easily walked to the park proper. However, the tramley (trolley/tram) arrived just as we were leaving, so we took it. Think of it as a free additional ride. We got into the park quickly, thanks to Kelly's super discount tix from school, and headed off to find fun.
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The first thing you come to is the future/science/innovation part of the park. We browsed through a few of the displays before heading off to find a ride. The "science and technology" is interesting, and well organized for the younger generation. However they suffer a bit from the speed of today's innovation. The most cutting edge displays were simulations of remote surgery and a video game which illustrates safety technology which they hope to develope for cars (such as infrared automatic ice melters and auto speed control in bad conditions).
Ride stop 1: "Soarin'" This is the new "big attraction" at Epcot. It is a hangliding simulator (ala Questor of the 1990s Busch gardens Generation) in which you sit down and strap into something akin to a high-tech SkyChair. There are three rows of chairs in a blackbox theater. In the front of the room is a projection screen. Once everyone is strapped in, the rows of seats lift so that the front row is on top, then the middle, then the last, all right in front of the screen. The cinematography was amazing, and they do a pretty good job with the simulators of getting the movements to feel convincing. Dan and Brian insist that they must actually go hang-gliding now. :-P
Ride stop 2: "Living With the Land" This is a gondola right through the park's agricultural research center. It started with a ride through animatronic recreations of different ecosytems. The really interesting part, however, comes at the end. We got to see interesting agriculture experiments such as Tomato Trees and the 1lb Lemon, which makes a full gallon on lemonade from one fruit. They also explained Aeroponics, where they are trying to grow plants hanging with roots exposed, nutrients and water are then misted onto the roots directly. All in all, lots of interesting. Oh yeah, and the foods grown in the labs are used in the cafes throughout the park, YAY for self-supporting!
Ride stop 3: "Imagination with Figment" Pure goofy, and definitely for the young and young-at-heart! This is a classic disney type educational ride. Sit in the little booth-thing and ride through lots of video screens and fun visual stuff. The whole idea of this is using your imagination to invent and create. After the ride you are dumped off into an area with lots of fun activities. We directed a chorus of singing Figments, danced on in-floor sensors which played sounds and lit up when stepped on, and took a picture of ourselves which we then morphed and had emailed to Kelly's computer.
Ride stop 4: "Test Track" This is more your standard amusement park ride, but with a twist. The Modus Operandi for this is illustrating the safety testing procedures for cars. I was a little scared to go on it, but it ended up being fun. I'm ok as long as it doesn't go upside-down or have a steep drop. ;-)
Ok, I was gonna go all the way through Epcot in one sitting, but I'm tired of typing. SO...more later, in the next installment we go to the Cultures part of the park...WHEEEE!