You know how I like to put an "Up Next" at the end of each chapter? Well, I really struggled with what to call this upcoming chapter when I was finishing up the last one. I looked over the pictures that were coming up and some ideas came to mind. Like, I wanted to call it "
Vices of Liberty" since it's such a drastic change in meaning with the removal of just one letter from the name of the beloved "Voices of Liberty". But there weren't any vices to be seen during their show. Much to my chagrin. They couldn't be more wholesome. Another idea came from Marlene. She played a piece in band called "Within these hallowed halls" that supposedly comes from the American Experience show (although it is not mentioned on the Wikipedia page for it). She said, "You could call it 'Within these hallowed
stalls!' If only we had a bathroom story." Yes Marlene, if only. ....By the way, you're going to make a great trip report writer someday.
So I fell back on what we say around my house when we're feeling really patriotic. I mean, normally we just say "America". For example, Eddie Murphy starred in "Coming to America". Or, David Bowie sang "I'm afraid of Americans". Things like that are what we
usually say.
But if you're wearing red, white, and blue underwear, and you're driving your pickup truck past amber fields of grain with majestic purple-y mountains in the distance, with your faithful hound dog in the back, and your best girl at your side, and Lee Greenwood is belting out "God Bless the USA" over the radio, you don't just say "America". Oh, no sir. You say "
Amurrica".
This is "
Amurrica".
That's right. We were going to march right back to the A
murrican Pavilion to get a taste of
that kind of patriotism.
Okay, at ease. You can put your hats back on. (You did take them off for that little soliloquy, didn't you?)
Anyway, we entered the American Pavilion and sat down in the rotunda to enjoy the air conditioning while we waited for the Voices of Liberty. Just the walk from the German pavilion was enough to have us needing a break from the heat. Whew, it was getting hot! It wasn't long before we heard some drums outside, so James and I went out to see the Spirit of America Fife & Drum Corps.
Check out the hidden Mickey on the side of that snare drum!
After a little bit of marching around, they asked the kids in the audience to come and join them in leading the Pledge of Allegiance. What a great way to include the kids and let them participate in the "show".
The little patriots were pretty cute.
One good thing about the schedule of the Spirit of America Fife & Drum Corps is that right after they finish, you can go in and catch the Voices of Liberty, which is what we did, of course. But the bad thing is, coming in just in time to catch their performance, I wasn't able to get as close as I would've liked. I went over to the right-hand side because I knew that they perform facing that direction, but I was several rows back.
You can see Marlene on the bench on the right side of the picture below. She told me later that she was photobombing somebody who was taking pictures across from her. So I guess that was the vice that was occurring during this performance.
Like our last trip when I wanted to make sure that Judy
got to hear them, I was glad that my parents were able to hear them this time.
I've seen most of the singers before, but there were a few who were new to me. They still sounded great though. The acoustics in this room are perfect for them.
Normally I wouldn't include a blurry photo like this, but I thought it was kind of neat, and showed how he was waving his hands.
Here's some video I took of the
Voices of Liberty performing "Oh Shenandoah"
After performing, the singers mingle a little bit and greet people. Obviously Gram was enthusiastic to tell one of the singers how much she enjoyed their performance.
Lauren tells me that they were probably talking about Poppy and Gram's 60th anniversary.
I think that Judy is telling the singer, "Perry here, is our favorite son. The middle kid is pretty good, when she's not photobombing people. And the oldest has an invisible Celebration button!"
From there, we went up the escalator to the theater to see The American Experience. I took a few pictures, but didn't go
too crazy. The American Experience is brought to the audience through a discussion between Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain (animatronic of course), which pulls in video and other scenes to tell the story of the United States from the time of the Mayflower to the present day. It was neat to see what Disney can do with their animatronics though, because real smoke wafted from Samuel Clemens' cigar! And later in the show, animatronic Will Rogers twirled a lasso. Not too shabby!
I didn't take pictures of the portion that includes the song, "Two Brothers", telling of a family split by the Civil War, but that was a poignant segment.
The next picture shows another set that appeared on the stage. It depictied the U.S. Exhibition at the time of the Centennial. Animatronic Samuel Clemens is on the left, then Alexander Graham Bell, I'm not sure but I think Thomas Edison is next, and then Susan B. Anthony.
The next scene (that I have a picture of anyway) described the Great Depression.
There was another set that referred to World War II and women working in factories, supporting the war effort.
Then there was quite a bit of video bringing the audience through the major events of the latter-half of the twentieth century and to the present day. I noticed that Walter Cronkite appeared during the lunar landing clip, and I wondered if he's the only person who appears in two places in Epcot (Spaceship Earth being the other).
The video ends with a fly-by of the Statue of Liberty, and as it does so, Lady Liberty's torch rises from the stage, with our hosts Franklin and Clemens.
As they talk...
...dawn slowly breaks...
...on a new day
And they end by saying "this American Adventure will continue for a long, long time".
I heartily agree! (Except it's an
Amurrican Adventure.)
Up next: Lovey-dovey mushy Photopass pictures
Link to next chapter
Nakkira!! Thanks for commenting. Yes, we have a membership too. I was thinking of letting it expire in order to save the money, but we've had a fun couple of visits lately so I renewed it. It's a shame that they don't have that Lights show this year, but I imagine that they can't do the same thing all the time. It seemed really successful last year though. One time I visited I said that it was like Disney, there were so many people walking around. Lately, we've had a lot of fun going and taking some bread to feed the catfish. It's quite a hoot. And we found the most amazing bathrooms there, near the Green Wall in the Conservatory. Sounds strange, I know, but you have to see them to believe it.
Keep up the good work! 
I thought that people would be all over this one. Thanks for restoring my faith Dan.
and it will be included the next time that scores are updated. Congrats!
What an awesome trip that'll be! I'm jealous!
Then again, I didn't have a whole lot of incentive to put a lot of searching into it, although I did look some more after you refused to name a winner (deservedly). 
