When we last left our hero, even though he was suffering from the numerous ailments and inuries he had sustained while sacrificing himself the day before at the Studios in order to provide entertainment for all the guests, all out of the goodness of his heart,he had just cleverly dispatched Stroller Guy and was now setting up shop at the targetted table and chairs.
The fat knee and fat foot were now joined by a couple of fat toes and a shoulder and neck injury that is now making it difficult to turn his fat head.
But he is not alone, you just know he has company, and we aren't just talking about Smidgy here.
Once we are settled in, I dragged over a lounger right next to the table to also lie on, this was now partly in the sunshine, and where I settled.
After saying hello and goodby to some real good friends, I was now ready to appreciate this fine establishment and all it's acutrements.
Smidgy and I talked for a while, mostly on how nice it was at BCV compared to Sports, which I then referred to as "I can't believe it's not Disney."
But you know how quickly time can pass here, and this Tuesday will quickly become Friday when we have to check out and then in over at Music.
We decided we are going to squeeze every drop of happiness, contentment, relaxation and pleasure that we can out of this stay until it's time to move on.
Hakuna Matata if you will.
Half an hour later I was feeling much better.
I asked Smidgy if she knew where the closest bathroom was for future use and she gave me directions.
Then she said she was going for more tea, so I used this quiet time to do something that I do often, and that is to sit and think deep thoughts.
I think it was the directions that got me started so let's ponder together one of the mysteries of life.
For example, I am a big Lord of the Rings fan, and there is a scene in The Two Towers when Gandalf says to Aragorn,
"On the morning of the fifth day, look to the east for I shall return with the dawn. "
Then he rides off.
Now if he had told me that instead of Aragorn, I would have been running after him yelling:
"Hey wait, wait a minute. Are you counting today as the first day? Or does the first day begin with the morning dawn tomorrow"
Tell me this hasn't happened to you;
You stop for directions, the guy tells you to make a left at the 3rd stoplight, then go down half a mile, can't miss it.
Then when you start driving you think, hold it, is he counting this first intersection that I'm already at as the first one, or the next one down the street?
See what I mean?
And there is no easy answer for it, best I can come up with is we need to pass a worldwide doctrine that states that from now on, the beginning of any given directions will start at the exact point that they are given and received.
There, I feel better now.
Before Smidgy get's back I have time to ponder one more mystery of life.
What happens when you use a suppository that is past it's expiration date?
Does it make you sick?
Give you the runs?
Isn't that what you were hoping for anyway?
Admit it, you have never really thought about that before and I think it's high time you did.
When Smidgy came back I didn't share these concerns with her, why ruin her day you know?
She suggested after a while we go try out the lazy river and I agreed.
She had brought down a camera with her, but neither one of us thoguht about taking any actual pictures for some reason so I'm going to have to post up some pics we took from a previous trip when we were just visiting here.
While it is very pretty, the layout here is very confusing.
I think there are 3 pools, plus a lazy river. They look like they are connected but they aren't.
Sometimes to go from one side to the other you will have to navigate over gazebos, bridges, catwalks, etc. ....
it can take a while before you figure out the best way to go from point A to point B.
We grabbed our noodles and she led me to the "river".
This is pretty much a joke, the current moves you along slower than an elderly sea turtle with arthritus. If you just let the current move you, I think you will go all the way around Typhoon Lagoon before you will make one circuit here.
After getting in I noticed a lot of sand on the bottom, all the pools pretty much had that and it felt a bit strange at first.
After doubling over my noodle I was kinda able to straddle it without looking obscene, but just as we started drifting along, Diane said, "Ok, now you get the chance again to tell me how stupid I am."
Oh crap, I forgot all about that.
Here's what happened:
On the drive down she told me read on the Dis that there is a section of the lazy river here that is an unbelievable 8 feet deep.
I couldn't help myself and I laughed, then I painstakingly explained about law suits, and Disney safety.
How we're lucky if a pool is even 5 feet deep in any spot, how there are no diving broads,
how there are no diving boards either,
how lifeguards are everywhere and we aren't even allowed to swim in any of the Disney lakes. By the time I was done she was feeling a little sheepish.
In my exhuberance I'm sorry to say I had over done it, and I felt bad about that.
I was hoping that she had just forgotten all about it but as they say, an elephant never forgets.
Wait, that didn't come out right either, it's just a phrase.... McDisney, help me out here.
I told her don't worry about it, not important, but no,
she said, "Oh no, I wouldn't want to take away your moment of glory and "I told you."
This is what they mean by a "hollow victory."
And so,
Slowwwwwwly we moved,
Step by step,
Inch by inch
with Smidgy calling out the painted on the side of the pool depths as we passed them.
"Three and a half feet."
"Four feet."
"Four and a half feet."
"You don't have to do this", I mentioned.
"Five feet."
"Five and a half feet."
"Five and a half feet? Really?" I slid off my noodle raft to check it out.
"Wow, guess it is." "I'm surprised it gets that deep."
"Six feet."
"Six and a half feet."
her voice was getting louder
"Seven Feet!"
Uh oh.
"SEVEN AND A HALF FEET!"
Uh oh, this isn't going as planned.
"Oh Neeeeeebow, you want to come over to the side here?"
"What?"
"Sorry, can't hear you, I'm not wearing my hearing aids you know." "I'll meet you ove...."
"GET OVER HERE RIGHT THIS MINUTE!"
Yep, there it was. The big 8-0.
Feet.
I let go of the noodle, let all the breath out of me and sank to the bottom, then bounced back up. It was about 2 feet completely over my head.
"You know, I think it's more like 7 feet, 10 inches, I don't think it's really 8 fee........"
I can't tell you exactly what she said to me then, but remember Dorothy?, that will give you an idea.
To this day she won't let me forget it, I guess I can't blame her.
The time, it is passing quickly at the pool, once again I had to be the bearer of bad news and tell her we need to get back up and change. We have a ten to three ressie at Le Chefs de France.
ho ho
(nope, impossible to make that French accent sound through type)
Both of us changed quickly, it's an EMH night tonight, and we had the hardest time trying to figure out how we wanted to attack the park.
Do you make a carry in drink first? But then after you eat you feel like you have to start all over again and you're just wasting it.
Since we were both starved, I just stuck a bunch of airplane bottles in my pockets, then we can play it by ear after the late lunch.
Just incredible how close we were to the entrance.
I lit a smoke once we were outside for good, and ended up having to put it out prematurely when we arrived at the turnstyle. You can't get much closer than that!
Right before we went inside we got smart:
I doubted there were any fastpasses left for Soarin', (apostrophe trademarked), but if there were it would make the rest of the day easier to plan.
But no way am I gonna walk all the way over there just ot find out they don't have any, not when we are right by France to begin with.
So we stopped at the guest relations building right outside the turnstyle.
By the way, this is a misnomer.
Nobody inside there looked even the slightest bit familiar
to even be a second cousin to either of us so I don't get where they get the name from.
The woman got on the phone, made a call, then told us that all the fastpasses were gone so that problem solved.
I was hoping to catch a Brittish Invasion or an Off Kilter to pass some time but no luck so we headed slowly over to the smoking section by the Gateway in France.
That is no longer there.
This was one of our favorite DSA's, and it wasn't just moved, it was completely expunged, another DSA bites the dust!
It was just there in April, now it's gone like a freight train, gone like yesterday.
Turns out that we weren't the only disappointed smokers in that time and place. Another couple is standing right where the old ashtray used to be, but we could see them now trying to hide the smokes they were having when they saw us look over.
I laughed and walked over, nobody else was around so we told them not to worry and joined them in our joint debauchery. I don't know why they eliminated this one, it was out of the way up against the wall and the only reason to be there was to either look over the wall for some reason or to have a smoke. But it's all a moot point now.
Ten minutes ahead of our ressie, there was no one in line by the podium so we went over and checked in.
Couple of minutes later we were seated
This is the last ressie you can make for lunch. Then it closes for an hour and a half or so before it reopens for the dinner crowd.
And what a perfect time it was!
Within around 15 minutes later you could easily count the tables that were still occupied. We ate here once before and found it to be extremely noisy.
Not today it isn't.
Having read the All Ears Net menu we knew what we wanted a month ago. Funny how you choose your restaurants differently and which entrees you choose when you are paying out of pocket for a meal.
We both ordered the ham and cheese sandwich, it also came with a salad. This is a fixed price combo meal that also includes soup and a desert.
Soup for us turned out to be the same thing also, the French Onion soup. Diane had a type of puffy pastry filled with icecream I think for desert, I had some kind of chocolate cake topped with ice cream myself, although I don't see that on the fixed choices for that entree now, the other choice is vanilla creme brulee which I have read is just awful.
The baked French onion soup was very good but I have had better I thought, Smidgy had a little bit higher opinion of it then I did.
I believe some type of breadsticks or crackers or something was also brought to the table, just can't remember for sure what.
Then they brought out the main course and it was incredible.
It's like a gigantic baked ham and cheese on some type of bread I've never seen before, it was kind of like a huge French Toast roll.
The salad didn't do a thing for me though, I've never liked the really green, leafy type before and this thing looked like it was just cut fresh from the
Amazon Basin.
Yes, I know that's "The Good Stuff", but I'm an iceberg type of boring guy.
We are now down to about 3 tables left on this whole side of the restaurant which was right across from the windows facing the lagoon. One of the other tables was sitting right in front of the windows across from us.
Coming up for air, I noticed Diane looking behind me with a big smile on her face. I could hear someone coming and I had an idea what so I played it cool.
A woman was pushing a small table on wheels, with a big metal covered platter on top with some other things and she stopped the cart right between us and the window couple across from us.
Remy was lifting the top of the casserole container up and jabbering away and I looked at the woman and had to say it:
"Does that come with crepes or quiche?"
Either they are sick of that line or too appalled but they both turned away to address the the other couple and made us wait before turning back to us.
It was very cute, the little rat did talk and move around but he was very hard to understand. He reminded me of a very tiny version of Lucky the Dinosaur that made a limited showing at Animal Kingdom a couple of years ago.
In the past I have always had a hard time trying to talk to talking rats so I went back to eating and let Smidgy do the talking, then she took him away and brought out dessert.
My cake was very good, Diane thought the puffy pastry would be more on the airy side but still like it a lot, but let me tell you, there was no way we could even come close to finishing this lunch and didn't even try, as hungry as we were.
Then I got an idea that almost knocked Smidgy out.
" You know, there is so much left, almost another meal, and our room is so close, why don't we just bring it back to the room and put it in the fridge for later?"
Smidgy couldn't believe this "altering of the plan" was coming from me, and totally agreed.
We got doggy boxes, paid up and less than ten minutes later we were back in our room.
By the way, the 3 course meal was 20 bucks a person, well worth it I thought, especially since we are now going to get another meal out of it.
In the room, I knew how incredibly tired we both are now, especially since last night was very late, so I mentioned one last suggestion that was an even bigger shock to her, and made her throw her arms around me and hug me.
"You know, it's EMH tonight, we're coming for the whole day at Epcot Thursday if we want, how about we take a nap and just take in the countries and Illuminations later on and maybe a thing or two during the extra hours?"
In thirty seconds she was undressed and under the covers.
"I'll take that as a yes?"
Seems like it was just yesterday when Monica was sending you a box of newborn clothing! Time flies!
. All three of them now say of course we are doing Disney mostly--it's a tradition! so now I am looking at 7 day passes vs. 1-2 days.... Oh, I have to start making my ADR's... is LeCellier as good as everyone claims?
) 6'4", smoker, a tad bit more hair - okay not quite there - but he is a Southsider who is a Cubs fan. My Dad was a Northsider who is a Sox fan.
No fair bringing up French menu at 11:30 at night, I just had to go look at Allears. I think I would go with you choices for lunch too. Love me some French Onion soup, yum!
Where do folks get off? What's next, sitting a spot in line for SOARIN & expecting to walk infront of people cause you've staked out a spot - I don't think so!
!
That's my line. Dyslexics love it. Also: Dyslexics of the world UNTIE! UNTIE!
