Chapter 12: The One With DISMeets and Pie
As we drove away from the Everglades, I kept glancing in the rearview mirror. I was waiting to see the mushroom cloud emanating from Flamingo after I’d called in an airstrike. But it never came. I’m assuming the Air Force was busy eradicating Super 8 motels off the map from my previous calls and would eventually turn their attention here when they had the time. Also, they appear to have changed their phone number as my calls are no longer getting through. Does anyone have an updated contact?
We did a quick check to make sure no one had to visit the hospital due to extreme blood loss before continuing on. After the Debacle At Flamingo, the next item on the itinerary could have been just about anything and it would have felt like paradise in comparison.
Kids: “Where are we going next, Daddy?”
Me: “We’re going to spend 5 hours visiting a distant relative in a 55-and-older retirement community in Boca Raton.”
Kids: “Yay!”
Well, I suppose we could have done that, if I had any relatives in Boca Raton. Instead, we went after another easy National Park passport stamp in
Biscayne National Park.
This is another unique park in that 95% of it is under water. It was established in 1980 to protect Biscayne Bay and its various offshore keys and barrier reefs, along with their fragile ecosystems. So it’s a park that is best explored by watercraft, and we did not have the time or means to do so. So we just stopped at the visitor center to get an overview. And let Drew play with seashells.
Much better than mosquitoes.
The visitor center is located on a little spit of land on the edge of the bay, and there’s a nice little picnic area where a lot of locals were out enjoying the sun. It was apparently THE place to host a family bbq, since there were several going on at the time.
While we were in the visitor center, I’d been exchanging texts with a fellow DIS Dad,
@cj9200 . CJ has achieved DIS Dad Emeritus status, which basically means he’s one of the guys who has been around since the very first DIS Dads thread was born on the DISBoards. He claims to have recently pulled back into semi-retirement from his job, but to tell you the truth, none of the rest of us are convinced that he actually had one. He appears to spend his days scuba-diving, sending his daughter scuba-diving, taking photos while scuba-diving, and drinking scotch while barbecuing something he probably caught while scuba-diving. We believe he basically owns the Florida Keys.
CJ is immensely proud of his daughter, who is something of a legend in the DIS Dads thread, better known as the Pirate Princess (for reasons I’ve long forgotten). She spends her days as part of a marine research team. I might not have all the details correct, but from what I can tell from the photos CJ posts, she basically goes out on a boat and catches sharks with her bare hands, holding their jaws shut while the team tags them for research. Don’t ever get on her bad side.
Anyway, the kids and Julie had just walked into the theater at the visitor center to watch the park film when CJ arrived. He barged through the doors and walked right past me, immediately chastising the park rangers about the kinds of people they let into their buildings and demanding I be removed from the premises.
No, seriously, that’s what he did. This is how we roll.
Having sufficiently given me crap, we shook hands and then we sat and watched the rest of the movie before introducing the family. Then CJ said the magic words:
“Come on outside so we can eat this pie before it gets warm.”
Wait, there’s pie? No one had mentioned pie before. This day just might be salvaged after all.
For some reason, we all felt like we had low blood sugar, so we figured pie might be a good idea. Actually, I’m just making that up. Fact: it’s never a bad time for pie.
CJ had figured that if we were going to be near the Florida Keys, we needed a proper key lime pie. Hey, he’s the local, so we deferred to his expertise. And it was really good! Thanks for the treat, CJ!
Julie took that photo, which means somebody grabbed her piece and ate it while she was away from the table. Hey, you snooze, you lose.
Nearby, a family was grilling up some chicken and it smelled amazing. CJ kept trying to goad Scotty into going over and stealing some for us, but Scotty was apparently feeling too cautious (read: chicken) to try it. But at least we had pie.
We took a little walk on the path along the bay. Just across, you could see Miami rising out of the water like Atlantis.
CJ got a nice family shot of us against the bay there. I think he told Scotty to try and knock me in, so I made sure to stand on the other side.
And we got the standard “Pictures or it didn’t happen” photo to proved the DIS Meet did in fact actually happen.
CJ, it was great to finally meet up and shake your hand! Thanks for the pie and for the offers to take Sarah out scuba-diving. She was certainly not opposed to the idea.
After CJ left, we wandered a little further and saw some more Florida wildlife. These are called Lime Fish, for their green color and the fact that they mostly are found near the Florida keys.
Actually, I made that up. I have no idea what these are, other than “fish”. Just trying to give you more of that crackerjack trip reporting you’ve come to expect from me.
We packed up and moved on to one more visit for the day. This one had been arranged by Magdalene (
@Flossbolna )—she had seen our general itinerary and offered the services of her (then) fiancé, Michael, to be our personal guide through the famed
Disney Character Warehouse outlet in Sawgrass Mills.
Those of you who follow along on Magdalene’s trip reports know that Michael does not like to be photographed and refuses to allow his photo to be shown on the DISBoards. This, of course, raises the question as to whether or not “Michael” actually exists or is just a figment of Magdalene’s imagination. So I was definitely curious to find out for sure.
We exchanged contact information, and after submitting to retinal scans, blood tissue samples and a CIA briefing, I was able to get in touch with “Michael” and arrange a meet for that evening. We decided to meet right at the Disney shop in the mall. He said he’d be wearing a black DVC ball cap.
We arrived right on time, found the store, and started looking for “Michael”. Several minutes passed, but he never showed. I think he got one look at our family and got spooked, and decided not to risk blowing his cover. Either that, or he never really existed in the first place.
Ok, fine. We did find him. I’m happy to say that Michael does, in fact, exist! We wasted no time getting into the outlet and scouring the place for deals. Michael knew the place like the back of his hand and was happy to show us around and point us in various directions towards hard-to-find items.
The store does have some steals in there. They had a ton of Star Wars stuff, which delighted the kids. T-shirts and mugs for $6, and so on. So, Disney merch + cheap prices = lots of shopping.
Unfortunately for Michael, there are 6 people in my family. And whenever we enter a Disney shop, everybody wants something. They don’t even always know what they want, just that they want something. And we’re also bargain-hunters, so we’ll spend time scouring the racks for the best deal. All that to say…
…poor Michael was in there waiting for us for about 45 minutes. To his credit, he never complained once, unless there was an angry rant to Magdalene later in the evening. But with us, he patiently waited until everyone had found their treasure. The deals in there are pretty great, especially when compared with the typical
gouging prices in the Disney parks gift shops. Now that we know this store exists, I’m sure we’ll never, ever spend money on the ridiculous prices in Disney parks shops ever again.
Afterwards, we walked down the way in the shopping center and had dinner at the
Grand Lux Café, which is basically a high-end version of the Cheesecake Factory (I think they’re owned by the same company). To be honest, I can’t even remember what I ordered. Maybe a burger? It was probably all of the blood loss from the mosquitoes getting to me. The food was good, though. I don’t remember being disappointed.
I mostly hung out at the end of the table with Michael while he held court. Give Michael a subject—any subject! He will have a forceful opinion on it. He actually reminded me a lot of my mother that way. I think he thought we were a little nuts with the trip itinerary we had planned, and…well, he wasn’t wrong.
He presented us with a plastic Disney Parks bag as a gift from him and Magdalene. We opened it and found a treasure.
They had recently been traveling overseas and had visited both Shanghai
Disneyland and the Tokyo parks—Magdalene had decided that maps from each park would be the perfect gift for us.
She was right! I guess she knew that maps are the way to this particular engineer’s heart. It was pretty cool looking through them and seeing all of the attractions at Disney parks we’ve never visited before. Like something familiar and exotic at the same time. Incidentally, Michael said Shanghai Disneyland has some pretty amazing attractions.
Magdelene, thank you for thinking of us! We loved the maps! And thanks for letting us borrow your fiancé for the evening! We wish you both many, many years of wedded bliss. And congratulations again.
We had one more piece of business to attend to. It was a tough call…Michael doesn’t want his photo posted…but we have a “pictures or it didn’t happen rule”…no photo…pictures or it didn’t happen…
The heck with it. I’m getting a photo. If nothing else, I want to prove to the rest of you that Michael actually does exist. So, let’s everybody line up. What’s that, Michael? Oh, sure, absolutely. I’d never dream of posting this anywhere in public. Scout’s honor.
Heh. Sucker. I wasn’t a scout.
Everybody ready? One…two…three! Say cheese!
Son of a…
Drew, you’re killing me. Somebody grab the camera before we get a thousand—
Sigh. Never mind.
Coming Up Next: My girls’ first trip to the Kennedy Space Center! If we ever get there.
Maybe it was just a manatee traffic jam.
