(Let's see if anyone gets the chapter title!)
So we left off with us waiting with bated breath as the final show of One Ocean began.
Now, Its almost inevitable during the Shamu shows that we sit somewhere near the front, and in a splash zone. This is the closest we could get this time around. Usually we strive for somewhere in the middle, me going for the top row, while T-Man continues on till he finds the closest row we can that will get us absolutely soaked. I as the dutiful dumb wife, follow his lead and let him pick the seats. Why
I think the title of said dutiful wife says it all.
So, as we do our best to stow any non water proof gear under our clothes and in pockets, T-Man keeps the trusty camera out, and takes some candid shots as the show begins.
Say Hello to Shamu!
Doing a little turn on the cat walk
Look at those teeth! Eeek!
Now would be a good time to stow the camera away,
The minute that tail goes up, we know no good can come of it.
Feed me Seymore
The whales started to multiply,
They looked all sweet and innocent here
but shortly thereafter, they started making their way around the pool, very close to the edge
You can see as the tail pulls back and then pushes an insane amount of water up and over the pools edge.
People
Mostly kids, are just itching to get wet. They will gather at the bottom waiting for it when they see it coming.
Me on the other hand, am usually cowering behind T-Man as the wave approaches.
All the while he is laughing like a crazy person.
Im not quite sure if hes laughing at me or just the thought of being soaked by gallons of salt water. Either way, its entertaining.
Then comes the big one. I thought the other whales were huge
but not even close.
Everyone is chanting SHAMU SHAMU
The trainers are getting everyone on their feet and asking them to do a rain dance. As the noise gets louder and louder, you can see a big black mass in the water, coming straight for the center. A huge tail barely skims the surface as it draws itself as far as possible and then picks up what can only be described as half the pool of water. In slow motion, the water cascades
no
pours down on everyone in the first 10 rows.
You see kids laughing and jumping up and down, wanting to show their parents how awesome they are that they just got dumped on by a ton of salt, and probably whale pee filled water.
The whales are drawn back into their hiding places, and the show comes to a close. Slowly everyone trickles out of the auditorium. Shoes squeak and slosh, clothes are wrung dry, neighbors are dripping all over their other neighbors.
And this is what we call
Having a good time!!!!
As we make our way out and head towards the lockers to grab our dry clothes and change, we encounter the strangest sight.
Now please, do not get me wrong. I am a woman of understanding and I know that just because people are different does not make them any less attracted to theme parks and the like. I know that every race, color, creed, religion and so on, makes an appearance at theme parks and they are just regular people like we are, however, I honestly could not, for some reason, picture this, if it wasnt right in front of my very eyes.
Bless their hearts, I can only imagine how hot they were in those clothes. And I understand that this is what they wear and its all part of their culture. But as you can see from the picture, everyone around them are in shorts, flip flops, t-shirts or tank tops
and the Amish family are covered from top to bottom.
I know I know
Im a horrible person. I just found the sight so strange, I couldnt help but laugh. Its sort of the old Sesame Street song, One of these things is not like the other
One of these things just doesnt belong
Can you tell which thing is not like the other
by the time I finish this song?
Anyway
back on track
We found our locker again. Pulled out all our worldy possessions and headed off in search of a bathroom so we could dry off and change.
After changing and making myself as presentable as possible without my paper bag mask, we make our way out of the park and back to the car. We are headed to Dave & Busters tonight for dinner. Since we dont have one back home, we figured we might as well take advantage of the one that is here.
Now I know that it is inevitable, that while on vacation, we are going to walk a lot. I start preparing myself in advance, taking walks for lunch, working out at the gym, etc. To make sure that I have the stamina for it, as well as to make sure that my body is up for the challenge. After years of dancing when I was younger, I sort of just stopped all of a sudden and my body has been having a really bad time trying to get back into shape. Everything hurts, I have back issues, that can hinder my walking, standing, sitting, at times. I also have issues with my feet and legs. The constant jumping and pounding that I gave them when I was dancing has come back to haunt me like a ghost with a mission. But because I have dealt with these issues regularly, I know what to expect, and can usually take care of the problems right away.
One of the major issues is that after so much walking during our trips, on our return trip back, my feet swell to the size of softballs on the airplane. Usually rendering me barefoot, because even flip-flops wont slide on my feet. I end up having to walk barefoot through the terminal to baggage claim. But I know to expect this on the trip back.
What I did not expect was this to happen today!!!
This posed an interesting problem
Walking around Dave and Busters while barely able to keep the flip flops on my feet because of how swollen they were.
T-Man had asked if I wanted to skip it. We had a long drive back to the resort and we could just find something on the way home for dinner. But I had been looking forward to this place, so I said I would power through.
After getting directions from T-Mans trusty navigation system on his phone, we were on our way.
Now although the maps will tell you that Dave & Busters is only about 10-15 minutes away from SeaWorld, what they wont tell you is that trying to navigate around the highway, through residential areas and then having to backtrack because you missed the exit, because there is no specification for the turn, will end up taking you a good 30 mins to an hour.
The main problem wasnt so much having to navigate through the highway, that was the easy part. What was interesting was to try to get to the parking lot of the restaurant. The place is literally sitting underneath the highway exchange. So its pretty well hidden from view from the main road. Once you get onto the road you need, there arent any arrows leading you to the parking area. So we missed it the first time around, and had to go up the road a bit so we could flip a U. Once we figure out the intricate works of the parking lot, we find that its pretty full.
To some this would be a worry. I mean, there is no telling how long the wait will be once we get in there if we are having to park in Timbuktu. But we know a secret.
Dave and Busters is the adult version of Chuck E Cheese in a sense. While they have a more adult catered menu, and they serve adult beverages as well as sodas and tea, they also have a ginormous play room, where you can kick back and play while you wait for your table.
Before I go any further
I should probably clarify on the play room stuff. I know how some of your minds can work
The play room is basically a big arcade for adults and kids alike. You have your basics like skee-ball and Mrs. Pac-man, to a life size virtual version of Connect 4 and a supersized trivia game. Instead of actual cash or tokens, you use a power play card, sort of like a pre-paid credit card, which you swipe at the game you want to play, and it takes whatever amount the game costs, leaving you with whatever balance you have on your card for your next game.
I had already resigned myself to trying to figure out how to power up our players cards so we can go play while we wait, but when we got inside, it wasnt as packed as I thought it would be.
We put our names down, and they said it would be just a few minutes. So while we waited, we took a look at the menus, trying to decide what we would like to eat for dinner.
In no time, they had us seated at a booth. We each ordered a beer, and I believe we ordered an appetizer as well. Looking at the online menu, I believe it was the pretzel dogs. Basically a vamped up version of pigs in a blanket, but this time, the blanket was made out of a pretzel bread that was very good.
It is very easy to be distracted by the game room while you are here. And I was very happy that they sat us in the bottom area where, while I could hear some of the gaming going on, I wasnt acting like a child and wanting to stuff food in my mouth as I ran off to play.
I cant remember off hand if we had another appetizer or not. T-Man may be able to shed some light on that. However I do know that I had the fire grilled salmon, which was pretty tasty. I want to say T-Man had the trifecta, which was steak, shrimp and chicken, but since I cant seem to find pictures of any of it
I am not 100% sure.
Once we ate, we decided it would be a good idea to add some money to our players cards, so we handed over our cards to the waiter, and he added the balance to our check. The cool thing here is that with your meal, the power play for the cards is just a tad bit cheaper than getting it without the meal. The meal deals we got, included a $25 play card, which we just added to existing cards, plus since we ate, we got an additional $5. So we each had $30 to play with.
Once the bill was sorted, we finished our drinks and headed out to the game room.
The trivia game was booked at the moment. There are only 4 or 5 seats for that one, so we played a few arcade games, and then ended up finding Deal or No Deal. Its pretty much like the original. You pick your favorite briefcase, then you have a series of cases you have to open to see what the dealer will offer you. If you dont like the offer, you continue until your down to only 2 cases. Each time we played, we would get a certain amount of tickets based on what we ended up with at the last briefcase. We never made it to the mega bucks on it, but we cleaned up pretty good there. The bad thing is you can easily waste all your credits on this one game, because it's pretty addicting, wanting to get the big bank.
We moved on to our trivia game eventually and I could easily stay there all night playing. I can usually clean up pretty good on the music trivia and movie trivia, however, sports and history aren't my strong suits, so I'm usually done pretty quickly if those topics come up.
At some point, we finally ran low on funds, and decided to finish off the rest at some random games. We took the two buckets of tickets we had and found a kiosk where you could feed the tickets in and then collect the points on your card for future purchases.
The ticket points can be used in the shop for prizes, just like at the old school arcades. Here they have everything from stuffed animals, to ipods. Of course you need a ton of points for most of the stuff in there. So we tend to just hold onto them for future use. One of these days we will have enough to purchase something entertaining.
By now, its getting pretty late. And I know we have to be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow for the parks. We also have a long drive ahead of us, so we decided to pack it up and head out.
Driving back, I wasnt able to get any other photos, its hard to get ocean pictures when there is no light and the water looks like the black lagoon.
So naturally, as any good wife would do, I feel asleep, leaving T-Man to man the vehicle and hopefully keep himself awake on the trip back.
I think as we got closer to the resort I finally woke myself up somehow. Probably fighting with the bears to see who was the loudest. As we unpacked the vehicle and made our way to the room, we decided we couldnt leave our tradition to pass, so we changed into our PJs and headed out to the balcony for our nightcap.
All in all it was a great day. My eye is still twitchy, my feet are swollen and Im hoping I can manage to stuff them into a pair of tennis shoes tomorrow
I guess we will see if that happens.
Finally, I can put this chapter to rest and let T-Man entertain you for a while
Sorry it took so long all, but thanks for sticking around. We do appreciate it!
J/K. They're great people. 
I'm hoping it won't be for too much longer. 
:
Im just kidding too! We dont bite! Ha Ha!
I wasn't close enough to the Amish to have any information regarding all that, but for some reason we just found it so strange and misplaced, and then I internally beat myself up for thinking that. 
