If quizzes can be quizzical, what are tests?
_______________________________________________
Friday morn, waiting for the bus to go to Animal Kingdom.
A lot of times we will drive ourselves there.
No, I don't mean we'd carjack the bus and say "Move over, I'm driving", but we'd take our own car there, it's one of the easier parks to get in and out of. We'd especially do this when we are doing a split stay day, with your own car you can get in and out and back in again in a hurry.
But today, with the park closing early with no EMH there's no real reason to do this since we are staying for the entire day anyway.
If you read most reviews of AKL, you will see much complaining about the bus service there, and I am here to tell you,,,, BELIEVE IT.
Animal KIngdom Park is right next door to the Lodge.
We got down to the bus stop at quarter after 8, but after waiting forever for a bus, we didn't get to the park until right at 9 o'clock, even missed the welcome show.
I felt like an idiot smugglling in 4 little bottles this early, two for each of us,,, but, well, I've felt like an idiot before so that's nothing new.
Following the masses straight to the back of the park to the Safari ride, she was able to scan the times guide and we made some quick decisions. For one thing, that was when we found out that Premevil Whirl was NOT going to reopen today, like we have read.
Crap, I like that little ride.
First thing we did was get fastpasses for Kilimanjaro, they had a return time of 9:25 which was as perfect as we could ask for.
Right next door is the Pangani trail walk, which is no fun to me when it's crowded in there, but right now everybody is attacking the safari ride so we had the place all to ourselves! Brilliant!
Some of you may remember that this is where I once met my Armageddon, as we rushed to take the Trail walk right as they were closing it for the day once.
It was late afternoon sunshine, right in my eyes, and Smidgy had grabbed my hand as we rushed in just as the girl was about to connect the chain.
I never saw the center dividing railing until after impact!
this was much worse than when I tried to get in a boat boarding row on POTC that turned out to be row 3 and a half. That was just "walk into speed," the time at Pangani was "running into" speed.
As Jonesy so cleverly liked to phrase it, this was very similar to Smidgy then saying,, "oops, bench." ......
Only that time it was,,,, "Oops, crotch!"
As we walked in I never took my eye off that damn divider
until we passed it.
Disney has far too many dividers in my opinion.
And turnstyles!
What sadist came up with the whole turnstyle idea?
And usually you get them coming OUT of a ride! Now you
all have to file into a singe lane to go through these dumb things. What, it's not enough to know how many people go on the ride, but we really need to know how many people left the ride. What if the numbers don't match up at the end of the day? Do they send in search parties to find the two missing people?
And again, why do these things have to be crotch high?
You have to push with your groin to get the bar to swing around and down, tripping the counter and allowing you to pass through.
No guy likes this. Sometimes your testicles go with it!
It's like having to have your testicles rotated every 5000 miles!
Or you can just walk through a turnstyle, the cheaper way.
Have you ever run into a turnstyle that is meant for people coming from the other side?
Silly Putty thrown against a brick wall fairs better.
There's not enough vikes in the world to get you through that shock.
Yeah, well, our decision to do the trail first should have been brilliant, but apparently the gorillas and meerkats and Thompson's antelope were also in line for the safari ride, cuz they certainly weren't over here! I think it was in their union contract that they didn't have to start until ten.
After our leisurely walk checking out all the wild bushes and fauna and ferns, we went back and used our fastpasses already, at least this part worked out well for us, our goal is to get back to see Finding Nemo, the Musical at 10:30. Thought I was going to say, Fooling Nebo, the Moronical, dintcha?
Fortunately, we got a good driver in our truck, we sat right behind him. Oh boy was he good!
He could see animals up on rocks, standing in a thicket, behind trees, that no one else in the truck could see, he was that good.
He even pointed out a unicorn once he was that good.
Of course, I took some pictures. Let's play and see if we can find any animals in them,
cuz I can't see in the photobucket snapshots and I might have just been shooting where the driver was pointing.
first up,
and then,,
So far this was not a great day for viewing animals.
Finally, got up and close to a funny looking bird:
I heard a mom tell her son behind me that this is the biggest bird in the world, and the kid was, "wow, I wish I could see him flying."
You know what happened then;
For the rest of the tour, all I kept hearing in my head was,
"As God as my witness, I thought ostriches could fly."
Then I kept picturing Less Nessman as being our driver, which didn't help.
Smidgy kept wondering why I had this huge smile on my face. I guess she didn't hear him. I leaned over and said,
"As God as my witness I thought ostriches could fly," and saying it outloud just about forced me into an uncontrollable laughing jag.
She just gave me the old, "hitting the vikes already?" type of look and moved down a bit, but I could tell it was a little contagious cuz after a few moments she had a big grin on her face.
Then our driver pointed out a lion lying on a rock and this time he wasn't lyin'. And oh my God, now it's coming right for us, it's about to leap, OH NO...
sorry, when we got back I still had a couple of shots to shoot off of the film Canon, and, well, Patches was just sitting there looking at me. In her younger years, Patches was a stunning looking cat, that line down her face was so pronounced it looked fake. Sadly, now so much grey has set in and at the age of I think, 15 or 16, she's a retired starlet who loves me and Smidgy to death,,,,, and hates anybody else.
We did get up close with a nice rhino though,,
I have to admit, I love animals, all kinds and am especially fascinated by reptiles, but I would not invest a lot of time to do this ride, to me the best part is that after running to the back of the park to get here at opening, I then get to sit down for 20 minutes or so.
It was a little after ten, plenty of time to get back to see Nemo and get good seats, when something on the path caught my eye.
Well well, what have we here?
Can you see it?
Or her?
As many of you know, it took Smidgy and I about a dozen trips to Animal Kingdom before we finally, finally, caught up with Devine. I've hired private investigators, FBI, Navy Seals and they weren't ever able to lead us to her when we were there.
Now we can't get away from her the last few trips, she evne calls
us up and says "Let's do lunch." Just don't suggest going for soup and salad.
I think she is so well done, especially if you can get her to move, fortunately, I know the magic words for doing that.
"Hey, are those hornets making a nest in there?"
Ok class, it's a dumb video time, you have to click on the picture to make it come alive, not sure if sound is necessary though, we'll find out.
On to Nebo!
I mean Nemo
For me, the rule in this show is the closer, the better, I think Diane agrees with me on this too.
We've sat in the back to take the whole thing in without turning around at all, but most of the show is front and center stage and it jsut adds so much to see the actors/puppeteers expressiona along with the fishes.
And the colors are so vibrant, it's like an LSD trip!
Oh, not that I would know about those things.
But I've read about them.
Here luckilly I didn't need a flash to take any of these or they would have shot me. But notice the colors if you haven't seen the show.
what a cool job they did on adding Nigel into the play,,,
I look forward to seeing this show now more than I do Festivus of the Lion King, but anyone will tell you that even though he's only in one scene, Crush just steals the show!
Plus its a song that the tune will stay with you all day, doesn't matter if you don't kinow any of the words.
Again, I did try to capture it on video, I imagine the sound is goijng to suck but pretend you're listening through a Bose system.
That big dude that stands up there on the back of Crush and does his singing for him get's the biggest applause at the end of the show.
While in the neighborhood we went over and did Expedition, find the Yeti. Ok, I did it. No, not find the Yeti, ride the ride.
Normally, I like to do this at night, that's because it's the only time I can see the Yeti in here. Otherwise....
It's light, it's now dark in the tunnel, you're moving fast,,it's light again. Nope, didn't see squat.
I had heard there was a reason I hadn't seen him lately;
The Yeti has been vacationing in the Bahamas for over a year now!
Really, Disney's most advanced animated special effect kept breaking down so they removed him until they figure out how to get it right.
So, since the Yeti isn't here anyways, (broken) and since there's no point in waiting until dark comes, (since there isn't going to be any) might as well ride it now and get it over with.
Going through the singel riders line I was on and off in less than ten minutes.
Now bear with me here, I think this is a picture of a picture of me on EE that Smidgy took, but the stuff around the picture seem strange to me.
So? What do you think, is that it?
What really felt strange though, is that we always, always, always, hit the smoking area across from Expedition, Neverest after I ride it or when passing through.
Now, as we both walked past glancing sideways at it, there was a
feeling of loss. Hard to explain but Smidgy said she knew exactly what I meant. Then she pulled me over just past the smoking area and pointed out the smoking areas on the map. It was amazing, I'm pretty sure there are no more than 4 designated smoking areas in the entire park!
I'm almost certain there were nine DSA's the first time we came here.
Smokers, as you all well know, and there weren't many bigger smokers in this world than I was until recently, but you are being phased out.
At about 11:30 now, it was time to go and do MY favorite park attraction,,,,
Flame Tree Barbeque!
I'm glad you were able to pull over. Is this something that you have to worry about re-occouring, or was this a freak incident? Glad you are feeling fine now!
aw shucks). when we stayed a few nights at AKL and AK was a whole new park to us.. and that was even before the nemo show!
I don't know Todd and didn't raise him
.
Jump on the "aluminum tube of death" and head to Orlando on Sunday ("aluminum tube of death" is a trademarked Neboism).. Had to give your credits.. wouldn't want to be charged with Plaigrism!! 
