Hey, knock knock,
-----------------------
c'mon, play with me
Knock knock
Who's there?
Venue
Venue who?
Venue vish upon a star,,,,,
heh heh
Saturday morning, Sept. 10
Woke up feeling pretty good, head wise, since I only had a couple of weak drinks early yesterday, but maybe that was my problem.
My back hurt like hell.
Took me a while to even get my socks on but it's not as bad as it was the last December trip when the evil pool cleaner guy put the curse on me for messing him up when he was counting chairs.
At least not yet.
It figures too, today is an Epcot day, we do more walking on Epcot days than any other time. Back in earlier trip days when I used the wear a pedometer we've logged almost 9 miles sometimes on Epcot split stay days.
Had some coffee in the room that came out like mud, but that was ok, didn't want much today anyway, I was getting antsy to still finish learning the lay of the resort and I don't mean Ken.
Here's how to get to the monorail from where we are at:
Walk down the hall to the center of the building, get in the elevator and push the 5th floor button.
Exit 5th floor, walk down to the new walkway that connects Faulty Tower with the Contemporary Resort.
When you reach the CR, you are now on the 4th floor there. Why? Beats me.
5th floor BLT = 4th floor CR. I m ust have been sick the day they taught this math in school.
In the CR, you walk past the shops and Contempo until you get to either an elevator or an escalator that then brings you back up to the monorail platform, then, if you're lucky, you will choose the correct monorail to get you quickly to the TTC.
Jack Dawson obtained passage on the Titanic with less hassles, and he got the girl too, lucky guy.
Here's the new walkway:
At the TTC I remember the part I don't like:
You have to exit the monorail, then walk down the ramps to the ground, walk over to the Epcot monorail and now walk bacfk up all the ramps again.
It's not too bad early in the morning, but with a bad back... and especially at the end of a long day....
These are the ramps that give gramps the cramps.
I made it back up with a growl, but it is a nice ride then to Epcot. I like how the train goes around the inside of Future World before it docks.
We got there about 15 minutes early, and most of the lines were pretty long, at least the few that were open, but Smidgy sees way off to the right a line with about ten people standing there, so she drags me over there.
They open the scanners and we get through and hurry to the small area to the right that leads to Soarin to wait at the rope there, but we are already at least 5 deep, I can't believe this many people beat us there.
Then it was the march to Soarin'.
This was murder on my back, but the strangest part was our entire huge group had to come almost to a complete stop when this one, lone guy crossed in front of us pulling a small, silver box behind him. He didn't look like a cast member, he looked like a regular tourist except for the small box.
Everybody thought this was really strange looking, about fifty of us just stared at him as he walked past, shrugging, I loudly said," What a strange time to have to take your toaster for a walk," which got a few laughs.
Then we were off again.
Somehow, following Smidgy we moved from around 30th place to near the front, saving ground on the rail.
Inside the pavillion we moved up a little further n the ramp down, and a little bit more taking the stairs instead of the escalator.
By the time we were stopped outside the pre-show cages there was only 4 people in front of us, then two of them moved back just behind us to rejoint their group.
Wow, beaten by only two girls, I was darn proud of myself, I may be crippled the rest of the trip but it was worth it, where's my pills?
They put us in row one, the highest and Diane didn't object, this isn't her favorite choice at all.
I don't know how, but even though you are higher in row 1, it feels even more like your feet are going to get wet on the ocean scene.
And no, this time I didn't try to video or catch a shot of the golf ball'l hidden Mickey, I've seen videos on UTube and tried pausing them but it doesn't stop clean enough, it's always a big blur.
When we got off, she went to the bathroom while I was going to sign us up for the behind the seeds tour.
Actually, what I did first was hit the drinking fountain to take a few of my own seeds.
After talking to the guy behind the counter, we were signed up for the first tour, be back here by 10:20 for the 10:30 tour.
We've never done this, wasn't high on our list but it was something new for us and it's cheap, about 16 bucks a piece for the one hour walking tour.
We now have an hour to kill, after getting Soarin' fastpasses for later, the passes say we can get new ones at 9:50, so we head on over to Test Track.
That's when we noticed a strange sight: no people.
Really, we have never seen it so dead here, not a half hour after park opening.
Nomally its packed with folks out in front, not today though.
Standby time said 10 minutes, but it really should have said, "Depends, how fast can you walk?"
We went and rode it first, walked right on through without haveing to even watch the pre show. We still had to kill some time to get Fastpasses at 9:50, normally there's lines at the fast pass machines here.
Right, here's the Test Track fastpass machines:
We really took out time getting back to the Land, I grabbed a random shot on the way:
Back down there we were told to have a seat on the side and our guide will be with us shortly. There were a few people sitting there, but nowhere near the maximum tour size they said of 16. It's almost 10:30 now, I had to go see what the standby time for Soarin' was,,,,20 minutes it said.
A bit later, a black girl came over and introduced herself to us as our guide.
And I do mean, OUR guide, Smidgy and I are the only ones taking the first tour of the day.
I did not like this turn of events, it's very hard to hide behind or get lost in a crowd when it's not there.
If I can't I have a tendency to end up in trouble.
We also had a problem with the guide, oh, she was as nice as could be, but she had an accent that was very hard to understand, I believe her name is Roderigo, that's what her name tag said I'm pretty sure, if not I'm close.
We followed her inside and into a sealed lab where she told us how careful they have to be and can't let contaminates or the wrong insects get into areas where they aren't supposed to be, but they do rely on insects a great deal for polinizing and such.
She then gave us each a small vial with 4 ladybugs in it to release at a designated spot later in the tour, but not here. "No, definately not here, Oh my God, no!" was I believe how she put it.
(hey, don't look at me like I'm about to do,,,ok, who's looking at me in that tone of eyebrow?)
15 minutes later and my eyes were glazing over and my head starting to nod, as she was talking I moved over to a table and went to pick something up but she stopped me, "Oh, please don't touch anything, like I said, everything is steril in here."
I wanted to say, "Who told you about my vasectomy", but I kept my mouth shut. 
Boy, she was really nervous for a second there.
But how am i going to survive another 45 minutes of this?
Then she told us again, do NOT let the bugs out in this room!
She didn't count on just how bored I already was, though.
When she said that I picked up the vial to my face and looked in again, and said "I thought you said there was 4 ladybugs in each vial, but I only have 3."
She replied, "There was 4 in each vial,,,,".
Then she went a ghostly white.
Still holding it up to my face I said, "Oh, there you are, hiding under the other one."
(ok, now you may look at me in that tone of eyebrow.)
Roderigo didn't find that amusing at all, Oh, BOY, she didn't find it amusing, gonna be a long 42 minutes.
As we moved on the highlight was when a boat would go past from the Living with the Land ride and I would smile and take their picture. Sometimes I would pretend I"m about to carve up a pumpkin, or try to position myself behind a guord,,,gord?, a funny looking thing that can get you in trouble if you stand in just the right spot behind it.
There's not much exciting anything to tell here, we let the bugs go on a bush she told us to, and she gave us handfuls of feed to feed the tank full of tilapia, boy, they acted like piranha going after me the time I fell in on that
Amazon River trip, but that's another story. I wanted to throw a couple of talapia in with the alligator tank but she wouldn't let me do that either.
What was cute about Roderigo though was that every time she was finished with
a part of her oration and it was time to move to the
next section, she would signify the end by saying,
Allll Riiight!
It was her own personal punctuation mark.
And a little sing-songy, that's why it stuck with us and for the rest of the trip we both found ourselves saying it the same way.
One time it was so obvious it was coming that I said it with her, but she didn't seem to notice.
By that time she was ignoring me anyway, though.
Finally, she gave us one last Alll Riiiight, we kissed and hugged and we were on our own again, so we moseyed on over to World Showcase, in particular, the France pavillion.
Did I like the tour? No. Smidgy liked it better than I did.
I am much more into flowers, about the only veggies and fruit I have a relationship with are iceberg lettuce, corn, peas, relish, onion salt, garlic salt, celery salt,,,,,,
It's almost noon now, let's check out the crowd in France, it gets really crowded here for lunch:
Darn, I hate crowds.
We have never eaten at the counter service place back here, something like the Boulangerie Pattiserie, but last December when it was 5 degrees out and we were looking for any place with heat, we came in and looked around for the first time, and thought that if the glaciers ever recede again in our lifetime we'd like to try a lunch here.
I think we both got a ham and cheese type sandwich which was long and skinny. I don' think it was a croissant or whatever that type is. I know we also split a more dessert type thing but I can't remember what that was either. Smidgy, HELP!
But I do remember that it was all good, a nice change from a hotdog or burger. There's a small indoor eating area connected to a gift shop right next door.
When we finished we figured it was a good time for a midday break and went back to our room to change and spend some time at the pool.
This time we decided to go out the back and cut through the BLT pool and go over to the Contemporary pool. (s)
This proved to be a longer walk than we expected it to be even though we once did it before.
On the way in we stopped at the outside pool bar to get our mugs filled, this was easier said than done.
You can't do it yourself over here, you have to get the guy behind the counter and give it to him for him to fill, that's the way it's done here.
Only he won't.
No, not kidding, but it's not exactly like them not letting you actually eat at Trail's End.
Here, you have to hold up the mug, then say what species of soda you wish it to be filled with, and put it back down. He will then fill a paper cup with ice and said desired soda and hand it to you, then, and only then, are you allowed to transfer the contents from the paper cup into the refillable mug, thereby allowing it to retain it's name.
We then went looking for some seats, but it was pretty crowded here too, plus a Yellow Jacket was stretching her vocal chords by the main pool so we went over and got a table and loungers over by the lakeside pool.
I took a walk for a couple of pics.
The beach side over here is much better than over at Faulty Tower:
The trick here is to tell which are BLT pics and which are CR pics from the little snapshots in Photobook.
Here's the feature pool at CR with the slide and the fountains.
But it's over here that we are now sitting at:
This is direct on pool and lake shot, this is just a pool to get wet in, no slides or fountains, but it is at least deep in the middle.
Even way out here we could still hear the yellow jacket buzzing though.
We stayed down here for about 2 hours, then went back up to the room to change and make a couple of drinks and drinks to go for heading back to Epcot.
I had changed and was just heading out on my ice sojourn when on my way to the door, suddenly there was a knock from the other side.
I have found that knocks on doors where nobody should know where you are, is never a good thing.
She learned bookkeeping on a computer in her 80's. Of course, my brother had everything she did checked, but still, not bad for an old lady and it kept her occupied and feeling needed and useful
You're right! He does confess, doesn't he! I forgot that.
Ya got me sceered. 
