Travel

Yet Another Cookout…

rmiles7721July 11, 20081Travel

OK folks. I was going to spend my days off this next week (the only week in July that I actually have two days off) either in Hilton Head or Destin but I think we are going to stay in town. I would love to go to the beach but I want to conserve a bit of cash. After spending well over $6k for ten days in Florida last month I need the break anyway. Thursday I think I will take my oldest daughter to Six Flags instead. The Marine and I used to do that every couple of years and we always had a pretty good time.

We are going to host a cookout either Thursday or Friday, whatever is better for folks. I’ll send some emails out but if you don’t get one that doesn’t mean you aren’t invited it just means I don’t have your fucking email address. Shoot me an email or call me if you want to come. The number is 770-313-3231. If’n you think it’s a bad thing to post my number on the Internet, hell it’s already there anyway. Leave me a voice mail because if I don’t have you in my contact list I WON’T answer the fucking thing anyway but I will call you back. Maybe. Let me know if you want to come and I will email directions. Also tell me which day it should be. I know that Friday is probably the best day for folks since it’s a work day, but since it’s summer time I figured Thursday might be acceptable as well. I can drink Thursday since I am off Friday but I have to behave myself Friday. Not that I get drunk and act stupid or anything, I just get drunk and act stupid. Oh yeah, kids are welcome too. Gotta have small moving targets.

Hollywood Studios Part Deux

rmiles7721July 1, 20081Photography, Travel

So after breakfast we caught the bus to Hollywood Studios. The last time we went I don’t think we enjoyed it quite as much as we did this time. The split up more this time. It was almost like two vacations. That way we could do things that each of the girls enjoyed without cramping the other’s style.

Most of the design in Hollywood Studios is modeled after the ’40s and ’50s. The heyday of Hollywood. This old truck sits just inside the gate.

Sometimes they just have to put up with me wanting to take pictures. Considering how shitty my memory is, photos ARE my memories.

The obligatory Mickey hat photo…

One thing that was really funny was that when we got to the area where the kids get to meet Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable Pete had no interest whatsoever but RePete wanted her picture taken. What happens when they get there? Just the opposite. Repete wouldn’t go near them. I think she was expecting cartoon people to come out because when she saw them she hid behind me 🙂

I’m pretty beat, so I will be sure to post more photos tomorrow…

June 1st: Hollywood Studios

rmiles7721June 30, 2008Photography, Travel

More Disney photos. Just what you wanted on a Monday afternoon…

🙂

Sunday we decided to go to Hollywood Studios. First we had to have breakfast. I had made reservations for the Ohana Friends breakfast there at the Polynesian Resort. It’s ‘family style’ which is sort of like a buffet all you can eat, except that they bring it to the table for you. It’s also a character breakfast. While we ate, several of them stopped by so the girls could get their autographs and pictures taken with them.

During our first visit as a family to Disney back in 2005 we seemed to run into Stitch several times. He was inside a remote control trash can that Pete got into an argument with. It was one of those ‘had to be there’ moments but it was pretty damned funny.

So do you think they were happy to be there?

Clearly I had not had enough coffee. Damn, and I need some of that hair die for men as well. I didn’t realize just how gray I was getting. That’s fucked up for someone as young as I am to be going gray already.

I was going to post more about the day but that’s enough photos. I will post about Hollywood Studios tomorrow.

May 31st: Animal Kingdom

rmiles7721June 24, 2008Photography, Travel

Saturday was our third day at the park. After having stayed up pretty late the night before we slept in a bit. Besides going to the Animal Kingdom today we also had the Pirates and Princess party to attend that evening. I honestly don’t remember where we ate that morning, now that it’s been almost a month. Had we eaten at one of the character breakfasts I would have taken pictures so we must have eaten there at the Polynesian Resort where we stayed that week. We got kind of a late start to the day.

The girls didn’t particularly enjoy waiting for the bus…

We had a pretty good time at the Animal Kingdom but we cut it a bit short that day and didn’t get to do a whole lot of stuff. Pete and the wife did get to ride on Everest, maybe more than once if I recall and Pete loved it. The wife I think was feeling a bit ill by the time they got off…

While I didn’t get to go on the safari ride there is a walk in the Asia section you can go through and I managed to get a few pictures of the animals there.

These damned bats were hanging around. The fucking things were huge…

I had a hard time getting a shot of this green tree frog in it’s aquarium.

This guy was hanging out taking a nap in the heat…

…and I did manage to get a picture of this Komodo Dragon lying around in the sun.

There is this pretty cool fountain in the Asia section section that all of the kids were playing in cooling down a bit.

It doesn’t matter when or where, RePete is always ready to pose for a photo shoot…

We also rode the Kali River Rapids, which is my favorite ride there. I’m not much into roller coasters and I usually end up hanging with RePete anyway, but water rides I love. It was pretty hot and muggy, so we left the Animal Kingdom around 4pm or so and went back to the hotel to clean up and change after a short nap.

The Pirates and Princess party was at the Magic Kingdom and ran from 7pm until midnight. You actually had to purchase separate tickets for the event, so it wasn’t crowded in the least. I think we were all pretty tired before we ever even made it to that or we would have had a much better time.

This was taken in front of Cinderella’s Castle late into the evening…

All week long by the time we finally rolled in to the hotel (this time it was after midnight again) the girls passed out…

Asleep after the Pirates and Princess party

Sunday we went to Hollywood Studios. I think we all enjoyed it much more than the last time that we went, but I will post some photos from Hollywood Studios next week.

More Disney Pictures…

rmiles7721June 14, 20082Travel

I still seem to not be interested in blogging in the least. I go through this for a while a couple of times a year. Sooner or later I will get past it and start blogging regularly. Not for lack of material that’s for damn sure. I can at least post more about the Disney trip anyway I guess, and upload some more photographs.

So I posted last about our third day at the Magic Kingdom. The girls had a great time, as did we and they got to meet all manner of Disney characters.

RePete and Holder rode behind Pete and myself on Dumbo…

While we were on Dumbo I put my camera on continuous shoot and took around 30 pictures. I had to stop because it was starting to make me queasy but it was pretty interesting. If I had thought about it I would have just caught it on video.

Pete had to try and pull the sword from the stone…

We had to have a much needed stop in the play area at Pooh Corner for the girls. I have already posted a couple of the photos with RePete playing in the water. Here are a couple more of the area.

Here are the wild animals…

Later that evening we had supper at Chef Mickey’s, located in the Contemporary Resort which is pretty close to the Magic Kingdom. It’s also the hotel we stayed at last time. One of my favorite pictures is the one with the three kids standing in front of the Mickey ears behind the resort. Of course the Marine wasn’t there this time but we did manage to get a photo of the rest of us at the same place…

Got this one of the girls at the same place.

The girls were very happy to meet Minnie Mouse at Chef Mickey’s

After supper we went back to the Magic Kingdom. All of the parks either open early or stay open late a couple days a week just for the people that are staying in one of the resorts there and MK was staying open until 2am on that Friday. We made it until right around midnight, at least some of us did. This is shortly before we left…

That was a pretty good clue that it was time to leave. I will post more about the 31st later. Saturday the 31st we spent the day at the Animal Kingdom and then went back to the Magic Kingdom for the Princess and Pirates party they have been having this year.

Disney – More Day Three…

rmiles7721June 8, 2008Travel

The post I wrote about our third day in Florida really was just the morning. I realized quite a bit into putting pictures into it that I was going to have to start breaking some of these up and posting them at intervals, so I shall.

After we had breakfast at the Crystal Palace we set out to explore the Magic Kingdom a bit further than we did a couple of years ago.

We started out in Tomorrowland, where Space Mountain resides. The wife wanted to get Fastpasses so that we wouldn’t have to wait in line for too long. While we were there we rode the tram thing and just sort of hung out for a while. The Mad Hatter’s Teacups sit right between Tomorrowland and Fantasyland. It’s one of our favorites so we made sure to ride it.

While we were in Tomorrowland we also rode the Buzz Lightyear ride. It was a frigging blast. Basically it’s an arcade game and a ride all in one. Pretty cool actually.

Afterward the girls ended up behind bars with Emperor Zurg…

There seem to be a couple of different photos with the girls behind bars during the week. That’s all I’m going to post for today. Time wise it’s about noon on Friday. I will pick through and post some more tomorrow. Considering that we took somewhere in the vicinity of 700 photos I have a couple to pick through. Believe it or not I actually took a lot less than I normally would during something like this.

Disney Day Three…Even Midgets Gotta Work…

rmiles7721June 5, 2008Travel

I say it was day three but it was really day three of my vacation. It was the second day we were at Disney. We started the day pretty early.

This was taken out on the dock in front of the Polynesian Resort. You can take a ferry over to the Magic Kingdom from there as well as to/from several other resorts. I wasn’t entirely sure how often the boat ran and we were running short on time so we ended up taking the monorail to MK instead. The reason we were running short on time is that we had reservations at the Crystal Palace shortly after 8am, even before the park itself opened. The Crystal Palace is buffet, which is cool and it’s where Pooh and his friends hang out, which is even cooler. I’ll bet Tigger holds doors open for people and doesn’t worry about offending people by helping them out if they are bleeding in the street…

The little Piglet that RePete is holding is kind of an interesting story. When we took the kids back in 2005 I bought her a Pooh. She’s never really shown that much of an interest in Pooh. Of course she will occasionally play with him but for the most part he’s just one more fucking stuffed bear to contend with when cleaning her room. Anyhow, Pooh is in several pictures with her from that trip, which she spent 90% of in a stroller. She was two and a half after all. That’s a lot of walking for a toddler. Anyhow, I had asked her if we should take Pooh back with us since he might miss his home. She thought that was a wonderful idea. So I forgot his sorry ass and left him at home. She was cheered up when I offered to get her Piglet so that he could report back to Pooh on our vacation and come to live with us and keep Pooh company. The fact that he is small and pink certainly didn’t hurt. If you can’t tell already, Pink is RePete’s favoritist color. Piglet went EVERYWHERE with us in Disney, although I had to put a stop to it when we were ging to the water park on our last day there.

Apparently Zonker scared this dude so bad at the Atlanta Airport that he ran off and went to work for Winnie the Pooh in Disney World.

The star of the show finally made his way over to our table…

We had plenty of eating time with lots of characters and the girls completely filled their autograph books. As a matter of fact if I had thought about it I would have dug up their books from last time and still had room.

After breakfast we headed out into the Magic Kingdom. Right outside of the Crystal Palace there was some sort of ‘Dreams’ show going on in front of Cinderella’s Castle.

Hell, Walt, I got a dream for you. How’s about an adult Disney where I can bone the Disney Princesses? Some of them weren’t too darn shabby. Heck, I would even settle for a couple of the dancers up there…

Good thing this blog isn’t kid friendly…

Back to the subject at hand. We went on a bunch of rides and had a blast but sometimes the most fun is found elsewhere…

Disney Day One (and two)…

rmiles7721June 5, 20081Travel

The first couple of days of my vacation were pretty uneventful. Wednesday I spent the morning running around, taking the dog to the kennel, packing and repacking the car, doctor’s appointments and filling prescriptions prior to leaving town. It seems like a lot to be doing on the very day that I was leaving town but it was also my first day off of work so I had not had the chance to take care of any of it prior to that day.

I actually managed to get a nap in prior to the wife coming home from work as well, which was going to be needed. I planned to drive to Lake City Florida and spend the night, which is exactly what we ended up doing. Prior to that we stopped somewhere south of Macon for dinner. I had picked up cold cuts, boiled eggs and other goodies. Last Wednesday was our actual 20th anniversary so if we were going to be on the road I wanted our celebration to be nice. We drove on and made it to Lake City around 9pm or so and spent the night at…Best Western I believe it was. I would have to find the receipt to be sure. It certainly wasn’t anyplace I would remember. Just another generic hotel room with crappy too soft beds and a continental breakfast.

We made it to Disney before 11 on Thursday morning…

Once we got there we immediately drove to the Polynesian Resort to check in. While it was too early to actually get the room and put our stuff in there I knew that we could get our keycards which contain ID, park tickets, room keys, and meal information. I also had mine linked to my bank account so that we could just charge any purchases to the room as well. Very convenient. Once we had checked in the bellhops locked our stuff up and we changed so that we could head off to one of the water parks, Typhoon Lagoon. It was OK, I think the girls enjoyed it a bit more than I did.

We hung at the water park for a while and once we were able to check in to the room we took the bus back to the resort and I took a nap while the girls went swimming.

I am almost sorry I napped, but I was pretty beat from the drive and then hanging at the water park. The wife got to watch the Space Shuttle lift off in the distance from the beach while I was asleep. I don’t guess you could see much more than the smoke but cool nonetheless.

After they woke me up we went to eat supper and then hung out on the beach to watch fireworks.

They also do this light show on the lakes on either side of the magic kingdom that is pretty cool as well. Some things never change I suppose. I can remember the light show out on the lake when I went as a child 31 years ago. I guess Disney World was about five years old at that point. We stayed in the Camp Wilderness camp ground when I was a kid. My version of camping now revolves around a hotel room with air conditioning and someone else to prepare my food.

Post Without A Name :)

rmiles7721June 4, 20081Travel

So we are most likely leaving this morning. We don’t have to check out or anything since I did the express check-out deal, which is sort of cool. Originally we had planned to go to one of the parks today and then stay at a hotel halfway home but the wife and I are both ready to get the hell on and get back to our own house. The girls would be happy to stay for a bit longer I think but I want a couple of days at home prior to going back to work as well. The fact that I have been trying to quit smoking again hasn’t improved my mood much this week. It’s been seven days since I had a cigarette and some minutes I just want to choke the life out of something.

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Tigger!

rmiles7721June 2, 20081Travel

I am sort of updating each of the posts that I did via my cell phone while we were on vacation. I will have updated versions of most of these that were actually taken with a camera later on Flickr. Anyhow, we had breakfast at the Crystal Palace at the Magic Kingdom one morning and I shot this one there.

Mobile post sent by Richard using Utterz. Replies.

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Yet Another Cookout…

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Hollywood Studios Part Deux

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June 1st: Hollywood Studios

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May 31st: Animal Kingdom

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More Disney Pictures…

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Disney – More Day Three…

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Disney Day Three…Even Midgets Gotta Work…

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Disney Day One (and two)…

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Post Without A Name :)

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Tigger!

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