Dec 9 - a day with Mickey

Whew. As much as I enjoy standing in line (there were actually very few lines) and "it's a small world", the real joy of a day at the Magic Kingdom is watching kids faces. Our kids, our grandkids, others' kids, general people watching -- that is the joy of the Magic Kingdom when you've been as many times as we have. There are a few new things that we would see if we went by ourselves, but in general it's same old, same old ... but then so are we !

We didn't hurry out of the house and by the time we were in the park it was just before 11am. Time passes as you move slowly with a 2-year-old, but the day was all about her so that's ok. The park was as uncrowded as we've ever seen it. In fact, the only significant queues were the waits to take pictures with the various characters. We waited for Donald Duck, Pooh and Tigger together and Mickey, but even the Mickey wait was only about 15 minutes, compared to the better part of an hour with Lauren two years ago.

We stayed to see the light parade, which started at 7pm and then took the ferry back to the parking lot. Once off the ferry we realized that a) it was just before 8pm and b) we could clearly see Cinderella's castle in the distance, so we waited for the fireworks. The fireworks are more spectacular, if anything, in the distance, since you get a better perspective on the size of the display. We were home just before 10pm -- not too bad a day, all things considered.

It was a hot day, the car thermometer hitting 80F as we arrived, but it was windy enough that the heat never got to us. That was a highlight. The low point would have been dinner. We ate at the same restaurant at the foot of Main Street and had one of the most bland meals that I've ever had. Jeffrey had chicken parm; Sara had spaghetti and meatballs; Emma had the child's portion of same; Sandy had pork loin; I had vegetable lasagna. Whatever the cook didn't add to the meal made it quite memorable. No salt, no spices of any kind, acid cooked right out of the tomatoes -- it would have been hard to achieve that kind of blandness without a lot of work.

Now everyone knows that I love hot sauce. I don't need hot sauce, I love hot sauce. I don't need hot sauce to taste a meal ... but last night the only thing that could have hidden the blandness would have been hot sauce.

Take my lasagna for instance. It had roasted red peppers, zucchini, onions, eggplant, mozzarella, tomato sauce, obviously, but it had no flavor. How could you do that without a lot of work ? Do you need hand-picked tasteless tomatoes ?

Ok, I admit it, I'm getting carried away, but we'd have done better at one of the faster-foot spots. I had a large pretzel just before lunch and therefore skipped the pizza etc. that everyone else had at pinocchio's. They, apparently, were excellent because Sandy had offered me one of her pieces of pizza and then couldn't stop eating it. Ah well, life is made of memories and this wasn't just another, boring, great meal :).

After the tasteless dinner, Sandy and I camped out on the curb on Main Street with the stroller, marking our spot for the parade. Jeffrey, Sara and Emma shopped while we camped.

Today ... time will tell. The glass is supposed to be delivered for our shower at 9am. FedEx is supposed to come later ... we might or might not be here. I've half a mind just to tell them to send the leatherup.com stuff back ... but that's like a tree falling in the forest with no one around -- no one would notice or care. It's about 73F outside now, but the high is supposed to be lower than that and we're supposed to get showers. Time will tell on that front as well. The only real thing that we have planned for the rest of the week is boating again, and Jeffrey and Sara are going to go on the Segways. We have lots of time.

Onward !