When we'd last left off, I'd once again copped out of giving any veracity to the title of the TR. Melneth, Nevi, and I had ridden Expedition Everest without any T-shirt Power cropping up, and we'd consumed Chai Tea Freezes also sans T-shirt power.
Perhaps the power would be revealed in Africa. So we walked thence and procured Kilimanjaro Safaris FastPasses, and then we walked the Pangani Forest Trail. I have no pictures of the Pangani Forest Trail as I realized I may have mixed up some of those with the Maharajah Jungle Trek. If only I had taken some food porn of the Chai Freezes; that would have broken up the photos and I could have deciphered which are which.
That, or if only I had a better clue about differentiating Asian animals from African animals. Nevi might have told me something-or-other about it at one point, but I wasn't paying attention.
Anyhoo, here's a picture of us that was taken in front of the Tree of Life at some point. We may or may not have just completed the Pangani Forest Trail.
Honestly, at the time I had no idea that Tinkerbell flew above us and that a copyrighted Disney marquee ran below our feet. And it seems Nevi didn't get the memo about the toe-point. Melneth and I will have to work on our communication skills.
Once we completed the Jungle Trek, we used our Kilimanjaro FastPasses. Melneth actually took pictures. Here's one of hers:
And another of hers:
I, however, displayed a disturbing tendency to snap pictures of animals' rear ends. My defense is that they didn't realize a crack photographer wished to capture their essence for all time. Or for whatever posterity is to be had for a TR.
I did get a decent picture of a giraffe, however, and of this horned thingy that I'm sure Nevi will berate me for forgetting its name:
And I vaguely remember our guide telling us a story about why this tree is important. At the time I thought it was impressive enough to warrant a picture. Now I think it's just a tree. But a tree that appears in the TR:
Next on our list was Festival of the Lion King. On our way there, we met two important people. One was Goofy.
The other was a Cast Member named Susan. Alas, I didn't think to take her picture.
But as we neared the entrance to Festival of the Lion King--or what we
thought was the entrance; we later realized it was the back emergency exit or a Cast Member-only entrance or some other door leading to FotLK that we weren't able to get into--we heard "Excuse me!"
Since no one stood in front of the entrance-that-was-not-an-entrance and hence no rush to queue up for anything, we agreeably toward the CM who addressed us.
"Hi," she said, "my name is Susan. I noticed by your T-shirts that you're having a reunion?"
"Yes," Nevi said, "College roommates. We try to get together every year or so."
"That's great," Susan said. "And there are just the three of you?"
My spidey senses were tingling. When a CM asks how many people are in your party, it's always a good thing. Unless you have too many people in your party. At the very least, you can jump forward to fill empty spots in a ride. Best case scenario, you get Something Big.
"Yup," Melneth said. "Just us three."
"Great!" Susan said again. "In that case, I'd like to ask you something. How would you like to be in Mickey's Jammin' Jungle Parade?"
We looked at each other. Was it not obvious? We wore matching T-shirts. Not to pigeonhole, but I believe that anyone who willingly wears a matching T-shirt would be thrilled to be in a parade. Even those who like to follow touring plans (though admittedly, if we hadn't done all the "big" stuff first, a part of me probably would have whined
But the touring plan! in protest). I think we cried "Yes!" in unison. Susan asked us to meet her by the mumblemumble* at 3:30-3:45. We confirmed that we'd have enough time to watch Festival of the Lion King; she said yes, so we did. I was so giddy that I forgot that whenever my camera went into sleep mode without me turning it off, it would reset itself to its normal flash setting rather than take pictures flash-less. So if a CM who participated in FotLK during the 3:00 show on May 29 is reading and happened to be blinded by a stupid guest in the Simba section, my apologies. It was wholly unintentional, and I still feel bad about it.
Since I don't know how to take good pictures without flash, none of them came out very well. The one that
did use a flash didn't turn out well because the dancers were too far away for the flash to do any good. So here's a fuzzy Simba.
The three of us liked being lions. And we also enjoyed learning the Festival of the Lion King hand jive. It was simple enough that even I, the most coordination-challenged among us, was able to do it without messing up. Mostly. (Actually, Melneth and Nevi aren't at all coordination-challenged; Melneth was president of our alma mater's swing club, and Nevi took belly dancing for about a year not too long ago.) We loved FotLK, but it ended right at 3:30 or a little after, so we knew we'd have to book it to mumblemumble in order to meet Susan.
On our way to mumblemumble, a woman called from behind us, "Are you in the parade?" Surprisingly, I was the only one who heard her. Normally if I'm focused on something else, my observational skills go down the toilet. Seriously, I was so bad in fifth grade that I often failed to realize my teacher had announced silent-reading time was over and that we had to put our books away and get ready for math. Mrs. Ragoli never said anything to me about it; I think she pitied me.
Anyway.
I heard the woman, and looked back at her, thinking perhaps she'd overheard our conversation with Susan. Feeling very celebrity-like--
we were going to be in the parade! Huzzah!--I told her, yes, we would appear in Mickey's Jammin' Jungle Parade.
"We are, too!" she said.
Oh. I endeavored a smile. Nevi and Melneth, who had cottoned on to the conversation by now, were a little more enthusiastic.
Really, it's not like I expected we'd be the
only guests in the entire parade, but it was still somewhat disappointing, you know? We weren't as special as I thought we were. And the couple did
not have matching T-shirts.
But I shook it off. We were going to be in the parade. With the couple trailing a bit behind us (we did make sure to not get too far ahead; but we were younger and a little fleeter) we strode through the crowd toward mumblemumble.
Up next: Hand jives, jammin', and Rafiki.
*I've forgotten where, exactly, she told us to meet her, but it was by an attraction and very close to where the parade would start
Always love to hear about a fellow Wrimo.
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