When I woke up on Friday morning at 6:00, I mentally catalogued my sleep bank. Maybe five and a half hours from that night, and then about the same for the two previous nights--I might not start dragging quite yet (
blatant foreshawdowing alert, but I probably won't get to the pay-off in this post.
I showered first, per our habits; Melneth and Nevi got up shortly after I emerged from the bathroom. After the issues with the hotel bus system the day before, we had agreed to take Pearl, our rented PT Cruiser. We were in the car by 8:00.
On the way to Epcot, Nevi read her book while Melneth and I sang along to pop radio (Colbie Calliat featured prominently, as I recall). If we disturbed her, she didn't say anything.
We arrived at the parking lot around 8:15, parked, and headed for the gates.
Step 1 on Day One of the
Unofficial Guide's two-day Early Riser Epcot Touring Plan: Arrive 40 mintues before opening.
Check. We proceeded to the turnstiles and commenced amusing ourselves with the stupidity of humanity en masse: Even though a large section of turnstiles had no one waiting in front of them, everyone just continued to pile up, sheep-like, behind the center section of turnstiles. A CM had waved us over to our turnstile, so we knew we were in the green.
After about twenty minutes, we were allowed through the turnstiles, and we veered right so we could head for Soarin' after rope drop. On the way to Soarin', we had a smidge of time to admire Epcot's lovely topiary.
Admire the above photo well, dear readers. It is the sole photo I took during our first day at Epcot, and thus will have to sustain your need for color for quite some time. Unless I get
creative with my font. Which would then make everything hard to read. Which would then lose me my readership, because who wants to read
text that looks like this?
So yes. Let the above picture serve your need for color.
Soarin' was a near walk-on. Have I mentioned recently how much I love
The Unofficial Guide? It is a blessed, blessed book. We got to the waiting area with the video informing us of the safety measures we needed to take for our "flight." "It's Patrick Warburton!" cried Nevi and Melneth in near-unison.
Lest I be left out of the joy of actor-knowledge, I asked, "Who's that?"
Nevi is the master of the Nasty Glare of Incredulence. We roomed together in college, and while I never
saw her work on perfecting it in a mirror, I have my suspicions. She used the NGI on me and said primly, "Kronk!"
"Oh," I said. I still have no idea what else he's done, besides voicing Kronk and appearing as our flight-attendant-type-person for Soarin'. But I have IMDB if I truly care. Which, much as I liked
The Emporer's New Groove and Soarin', I don't.
Anyway, for Soarin' we were on the bottom row. I never knew the California skyscape had so many feet in it. The pine forests, however, did smell accurately piney, as my experience with Colorado's forests gave me experience to draw upon. Melneth later said that the ocean didn't smell like the ocean. Since Colorado is landlocked, I haven't been at an oceanic beach since I was about ten, I think. I'll take her word for it.
It was on the UG's plan to get FPs for Soarin' if we wished to ride again, which we did; hopefully the second time out the skyscape wouldn't be so podiatrically oriented.
From Soarin' we headed toward Living With the Land. I found it more interesting this time around than I had during my second trip to the World at ten years old.* I grew up and currently live somewhat near Boulder. All that environmental conscientiousness had to rub off on me sometime.
And they had a Mickey-pumpkin. Who can not love a Mickey-pumpkin? Should I ever get to the point where I have my own garden complete with a pumpkin patch, I may attempt to grow them myself. It would make for a neat jack o' latern if I could get it to sit up right.
But obviously I was not impressed enough with the Mickey-pumpkin to take a picture, and come to think of it I do believe (remember, I grew-up/currently-live yada yada) I had a moment of disgruntlement--pumpkins are not
meant to grow in the shape of a Mickey head. What if we tried to grow all our vegetables in the shapes of Disney characters?
We're messing with nature here, people! And nature does not want to be in the shape of Mickey characters!
Still. A Mickey head jack o' lantern would be cool. I'm sure if I planted a tree, Mother Nature would forgive me.
The next step on our Touring Plan was to see The Circle of Life, or, as I think it should be called,
Simba Explains to Timon And Pumbaa Why Humans Are Evil and Destroying the Planet. There are few occasions when I have been so ashamed to be a member of hmo [even though it's a legitimate use of the word, the DIS won't let me put the first o in there; given the nature of HMOs, though, it's still kinda accurate] sapiens as after watching that film. Even though the last bit, which might be subtitled
Simba Backpedals and Tells Timon and Pumbaa That Humans Are Trying [Belatedly] to Care for the Planet, I still felt very depressed, as did Nevi and Melneth.
Good thing there were the seagulls outside of The Seas With Nemo and Friends to cheer us up. Though I didn't take any more pictures during Epcot: Day 1, I do have a minute or so video clip of the birds (don't be surprised; they were fake, not presented as dead, and remember, this was pre DBAG anyway) and my voice in the background saying, "Okay, we're watching the seagulls outside of Nemo... they're not doing anything right now, but when they do it's pretty funny**... But this video is pretty boring, so I guess I'll just turn it off (flapflapmineminemine) Oh look! There they go! (flapflapminemine). And there we have it."
We continued inside to Nemo and rode the Clammobiles. I was the loner this time and had a private Clam. Which was okay because I didn't come up with any clever comments about the ride. It was that underwhelming.
From there, we explored the Seas portion a bit, read up on sharks, and then headed over to Turtle Talk With Crush.
I probably don't have to write it, but 123. Yes, I would one day like to have a little moppet I can send up to talk to Crush. Assuming that Disney even has TTWC by the time I manage to procreate and said progeny is old enough to ask coherent questions. Because one of the kids wasn't, and the poor child had to repeat the question about three times before the CM out on the floor was able to interpret the question for Crush. Lots of, "I'm sorry, little dude, what was that?" and "Little dude, could you speak up, please?"
After talking with Crush--or rather, listening to children talk with Crush, it was time to use our Soarin' FastPasses, so we headed over there again. This time we got the top row, so we were assured of a foot-free view. I wore Hush Puppies mules, and since we would be ascending above others' heads, I thought to be courteous and take off my shoes before my flight, just to ensure that my shoes wouldn't fall off and clonk someone on the noggin. But the people below me may have preferred me to have kept my shoes on.
Unfortunately, I am a foot-sweater. Why my body's preferred method of cooling seems to be through my feet, even though they are usually encased in footwear when I most need the cooling, and thereby instead of feeling cooled off, I instead feel as if I am walking around wearing mini-ovens, I could not venture to say, other than that it's a trait inherited from my dad.
Thanks a lot, Pop.
My dad has it easier than I do, though, because he doesn't wear shoes without socks in the summer, so
his excess moisture is properly wicked away, whereas mine is not and therefore leads to a state of constant summer peeling of the feet by mid-June.
I think I have just obliterated any hopes I may have had of a single man reading my trip report and being won over by my written wit and verve.
Anyway, I did give some thought to my feet's excessive sweating, readers, I truly did. But it was not quite 11:00 at this point, and I distinctly remember thinking "It's probably not that bad."
Soarin' lied to me, scent-wise, earlier. I never suspected that the ocean smelled like feet. Or that orange groves smelled like feet. Or that pine forests smelled like feet. And my guess is that the people below me never suspected such, either. So not only did I smell my feet, and the people in the row below me smelled my feet, but I had
left my shoes on the floor, so the people on the bottom row likely smelled
those.
Oy. Maybe Simba had it right about me. Granted, it was a natural odor, but still--
So I think everyone would have preferred me to leave my shoes on. Next time, I will know. And knowing is half the battle.
Up Next: Maybe journeying into my imagination will make me believe my feet smell like roses.
*Since the first trip was at three or four years of age, I don't remember any of it, with the possible exception of shaking Donald Duck's hand--er, wing--while sitting in my stroller. But I am not sure if that was at the World or at Disneyland.
**Actually, it's not all that hilarious. I think I was just trying to distract myself from Simba's veiled accusations against humanity.
What was it?????
To be honest, I hadn't realized I put in a Benny and Joon reference. But yes, I think it was the Proclaimers that TarzansKat cottoned on to. It's been a long time since I've seen Benny and Joon; all I really remember is the infamous grilled-cheese-and-clothing-iron scene.
Always nice to know that I'm more intelligent than I give myself credit for. Or at least more capable of including pop culture references. 
Putty because he was always making us laugh -- Charles and I, of course, always get giddy when we see him as our Soarin' flight attendent and have to quote some of his more memorable lines.
Welcome, and thanks for subbing! 
out:::
