Fall Foliage Train

Guest blogger: Renee

In addition to being the Manager of Health, Safety and Environment for Halliburton I also have the responsibility for Alaska Real Estate Services. Part of Real Estate involves being a contact for the catering staff at our North Slope field camp. The catering company, ESS, has provided services to Halliburton for many years and treats us really well. They also do the catering for the Alaska Roadroad and had 6 tickets for the Fall Foliage train from Anchorage to Spencer Glacier and return. ESS gave the tickets to Halliburton and Doug and I as well as 4 co-workers had a wonderful time.

"This first class experience blends the grand autumn scenery of Turnagain Arm with expertly prepared seasonal cuisine" was the heading on the dinner menu. The ESS catering was outstanding and the weather could not have been better. The evening was bright, no rain and the trees were in their full glory. The yellows and reds were the best we had seen in many years.

One of my co-workers had gotten to the train station early and held a place in line. We were one of the first groups on and scored fantastic seats in the dome car. We got a glass of wine and started to enjoy the views. The Alaska Railroad has a series of "special events" on the train. This was the first one we had been on.

The evening consisted of Hor D'Oeuvres of cheese, sausages, crackers, vegetables/dip and roasted oysters. At 4 pm the pumpkin seed crusted halibut cheeks with saffon cream and tomato-basil relish was ready. This was followed at 5 pm with the roasted butternut squash bisque. At 6 pm the oven roasted pork tenderloin with pear-black current chutney braised red cabbage and cider reduction was hot out of the oven. The evening was completed at 7 pm with the cinnamon apple croissant pudding with calvados carmel sauce. It was neat to have the hor d'oeuvres spread out over the length of the train ride. We certainly didn't go hungry.

The train was set-up as engine, dome car, bar car, 2 hor d'oeuvre cars, bar car and another dome car. It was laid out well so that there weren't long lines for food or drinks. This is me in the bar car, it was a beautiful view. The trip was only for people over age 21, it was nice to have an evening out without any kids (ours or anyone else's). Zach and Sam had a good evening with Dustin, Cecile, Ian and Lucas.

The sun was bright. We had better enjoy it now as winter is just around the corner.

Doug and I my Dad had gone snow machining back to Spencer Glacier when Mom and Dad were in Alaska earlier in the year when Sam was born. Doug was interested to see what the area looked like during the summer/fall months. The glacier is hard to get to, it isn't a destination for a hike. You need a jet boat in the summer, a snowmachine in the winter....or the Alaska Railroad.

Here she is - Spencer Glacier. Dad and Doug had a good time exploring around the edges and looking in a few ice caves. During this time of the year you would probably also be greeting by a few moose and a bear or two. It was a clear evening and the glacier was beautiful.

The Alaska Railroad has built a "whistle stop" at the glacier. During the regular summer months, the train will drop you off at Spencer Glacier (which is near Whittier) so that you can hike and have lunch. The train on it's return trip from Seward then picks you up and takes you back to Anchorage.

The sunset was colorful on Turnagain Arm. This is why we returned to Alaska, what a beautiful place. It would be dark when we returned to the train station. Winter is near....it is getting dark 5 minutes earlier every evening.

Dillingham RALO

Well, it is back to reality. I had scheduled a trip to Dillingham for work, a few months earlier to help instruct a RALO class (Rural Alaskan Landfill Operator). The only unfortunate thing was that the class started one day after we returned home from Florida. Well, at least I got to sleep in my own bed for one night.

Same drill as before in the Bethel RALO class. About 15 students, 3 days of instruction and a landfill tour. I talk a lot of trash in those three days.

The nice thing about Dillingham is that the other instructor and myself reserve a B&B for our accommodations. This one we stayed at was very nice. They had satellite TV, a full kitchen and even beer in the fridge.

We ate out a few lunches and one dinner. Most of the time we ate in. Ted (the other instructor) and I invited the environmental health officers from Dillingham over to the B&B for dinner on the nights we ate in. This worked out well, as they are good cooks and I am not. Also joining us was Deric another DEC person from Soldotna, and Joe from the EPA. There are always a lot of funny stories when you get a bunch of people together who deal with solid waste.

Now, we did eat out one night while we were in Dillingham. The Muddy Rudder has good food and a friendly atmosphere. But, as you will soon see, it holds a dark secret too. I am holding in the above picture a ptarmigan horn. What is a ptarmigan horn you are asking? Well, I was told it is a horn used while hunting to attract the tundra chicken, or ptarmigan. In reality though, it is at best, a bar prank. Unfortunately for me, during the course of the dinner, I decided that it would be funny to give the waitress a good natured hard time. I complained about the food, how slow she was and so on. It was all in fun, or so I thought. She in turn was planning her revenge during the course of our meal. We had all finished dinner and were getting ready to pay, when I made the second mistake of the evening (the first one was picking on the waitress). I decided to use the restroom before paying and heading back to the B&B. Well, the waitress seized this opportunity, and called back to the cook to activate the ptarmigan horn. The horn looks innocent enough. It is a simple copper pipe with four finger holes on it, like a trumpet, so to speak. As I returned from the restroom and pulled out my wallet to pay my portion of the bill, the waitress challenged me to do my best ptarmigan call by blowing into the horn. She also told me that for the best result, I should be sure to cover all four of the holes with my fingers. Now, I wish I weren't so gullible, and I should have noticed that I had the undivided attention of all of the patrons in the restaurant. Thinking that I was merely going to make an obnoxiously loud noise, thus calling the "ptarmigan", I took a deep breath and gave it my very best. What happened next is kind of a blur. I put my mouth on the business end of the horn, covered all four of the holes and blew. I blew pretty hard, at the time I wanted the ptarmigan call to be heard by the residents of the surrounding villages. The next thing I know is that I am being showered with cold water being blown directly on my face. It seems that the innocent looking horn is not used to call ptarmigan at all. No sound came out, not a peep. Just a blast of icy cold water. The only sound was the erupting laughter of my colleagues, the waitress and the rest of the customers in the restaurant. If you look closely at the horn in the above picture, you will notice that the end of the horn points directly in the blowers face. When I went to the restroom, the waitress took the opportunity to fill the horn with water and then waited for me to fall for into her trap. Well, it worked. I got soaked. I over heard several people comment on how hard I blew and the effect of the water splattering all over me. Ha Ha, very funny. I quickly paid my bill, with a dripping wet face, and headed straight for the car. Seems the waitress had the last laugh. I, on the other hand, learned a valuable lesson. Never give the waitress a hard time, you are after all on his/her turf. And more importantly, never attempt to play a musical instrument sitting on the counter of any establishment, even if it is offered to you. Nothing good will come of it. Nothing! So, now you know the dirty little secret of the Muddy Rudder.

I didn't travel to any villages on this trip. I just did the RALO, no inspections this time. Dillingham is a pretty big place and has around 4800 people living there. Dillingham is right on the banks of Bristol Bay, a huge mecca for salmon fishing in Alaska. Bristol Bay salmon are some of the best fish in the world. The bay is a mad house during the summer fishing season. A truly Alaskan experience. Think rodeo, but no cows or horses, only hundreds of boats jockeying to be in the best position to set their nets, and catch their quota of salmon. Not quit as dangerous as crab fishing on the Bering Sea, but pretty close. Enough about fishing, I don't have any pictures of the bay or boats anyway. The above picture is from the field trip to the Dillingham landfill. Fun place, and one you definitely won't find in any Alaska vacation brochures.

Dillingham runs a pretty good operation. However, at the heart of this operation is two burn boxes that they use to burn the garbage. There was a lot of smoke and the unmistakable explosions from paint cans and Coleman fuel bottles filling the air. You didn't want to get too close to the burn boxes. While everything was pretty clean in the landfill, I think that the idea of burning waste for a large village like Dillingham needs to be looked at again by my department. It is just a lot of waste to be billowing nasty smoke over the tundra.

Anyway, the class went well. All of the students learned a lot about the duties of a landfill operator in a small remote village. I always enjoy the interaction with the people from the classes and learn something new myself, everytime I teach the class. A good experience all around. So, off to the airport, back on a plane and head for home. It will be good to sleep in my own bed!

Funtime is almost over

Our wonderful vacation is quickly coming to a close. It was been a great week to be away from the e-mail, phone and hassle of everyday life. Just look at the smile on Zach's face - the long trip to Florida was all worth while. We have had a great time as a family and especially with Mom and Dad. There was time for one more dip in the neighborhood pool.

Our last full day in Florida, tomorrow morning we will be getting up early to catch our flight in West Palm Beach. We decided to go to New Smyrna Beach. The land, originally inhabited by Timucuan Indians, was settled in 1767 by Dr. Andrew Turnbull, a Scottish physician. He named the town after his wife's birthplace of Smyrna, Turkey (now known as lzmir). We walked the board walk about at Turtle Mound . It is a 50 foot high mound, containing 33,000 cubic yards of oyster shells, created by the Timucuan Indians. Visible 7 miles out at sea and historically used as a navigational device. We also saw some HUGE spider webs and spiders while walking on the board walk. Zach's "eagle eyes" had a way of spotting them all.

Outdoor recreation is a way of life in New Smyrna Beach, with everything from swimming and scuba diving to golf and hiking. However, the beaches are the top draw for this beautiful island town. It has more than 13 miles of pristine white sand beaches with an additional 24 miles of coastline at nearby Canaveral National Seashore, which is located on the south end of the island. New Smyrna Beach was voted “Best Beach in Florida,” by readers of Florida Monthly Magazine. We needed a family photo for the Working Mother magazine and hoped we all could smile at the same time. It was a bit breezy and the salty air made everything a little sticky, but we sure had a great time.

A little friendly sand castle competition took place between team #1 Doug and Zach and team #2 Papa and Zach. Zach was all over that beach making sure to take in the last hours of a great vacation.
The vacation wouldn't be complete without burying Zach up to his head one more time in the sand. The sand is heavy and compacts well, it took quite a bit of energy for Zach to break free!

We had the whole beach to ourselves. What a clear blue day with just a few clouds.


We don't have wide open sand beaches like this in Alaska. We had better take a few more pictures just in case we need to warm up this winter while dreaming of being here.

We had a nice dinner at New Smyrna Beach and then headed home. Tonight we have to pack and get ready for an early departure in the morning. Renee's 29th birthday was just a few days away, so we took the opportunity sing her Happy Birthday and enjoy some cake. Someone must have made an error on the cake as it says 35?

Our last evening together for this trip. We had such a great time, I think we will do it again next year. The cake was good....even if it did have a 35 on it.

Are we ready for the long trek back to Alaska. West Palm Beach to Houston to Seattle to Anchorage. It is a long way. It doesn't take Renee long to fall asleep on the airplane, I might as well travel by myself. I had the movies and music on my I-Pod to keep me entertained.


We got to Houston and had a few hour of layover. Not long enough time to leave the airport and go see some of our friends, the marina where our old sailboat is or any of the damage that Hurricane Ike left. Not long enough to leave, but long enough to get us restless. We had some lunch at Wendy's, looked in the shops and then sat down at the gate adjacent to ours waiting for boarding time. After making sure everyone had a drink of water, used the restroom and had a clean diaper we sat and read the newpaper, roll on the dirty floor and play with Crayons. The time came and went for us to board and still we hadn't heard our flight being called. I finally got a little irritated and walked over to the counter to get a status update.....only to find the only person at the gate was the ticket agent! I said "are you boarding", she replied "yes, everyone is already on." We jumped up and were the last people on the plane. It would have been like us to have missed the flight while sitting in the waiting area 50 feet away. It is Houston...it tries to suck us in every time we get near it.

Swimming and Disney, Round Two

We all leisurely got going in the morning after the late night we had.  There was a consensus that we didn't need to be the first ones at the gate on this particular day.  So we took it slow and developed a game plan for our last day at Disney.

Ahh . . . Breakfast of Champions.  Pizza from the night before eaten on the porch of the hotel room.  Not a bad way to start the day!

The Beach Club has an incredible pool.  Actually a series of pools.  Up until now we had only taken advantage of the small hotel pool, and this was at the end of the day when we were tired.  So we decided to play in the pool until noon.  

The pool here is like no other pool I have swum? in before.  It had a sand bottom.  It was a little weird at first, but we all quickly got used to it.  The pool area had a pretty nice water slide, a whirlpool, a lazy river and a zero entry pool for the kids with a sandy beach.  The sun was out, it was hot and we didn't feel like walking around Disney just yet.  

Dad rented an inter tube and floated around the lazy river with Mom.  Everybody was getting into the spirit of the pool.  It wasn't too crowded either.  I think that everyone was already in the park, waiting in lines.  

In all of the years we have been going to Disney, this was the first year we stayed in the park.  This is the way to go.  It is a little pricey staying at one of the Disney hotels in the park, but hey, you don't have to pay for parking!

Nice family picture in the pool.  12 o'clock, pool time is over.  We had to check out of the hotel and get to the park to enjoy our last day in Disney World.  I originally had wanted to go to the Animal Kingdom, but a vote was taken and everyone agreed to go back to Disney World.  Everyone though that Zach might enjoy going back to Disney more than the Animal Kingdom.  We grabbed a bit for lunch and then topped it off with the most ginormous desert I had ever seen.  Thoroughly stuffed, we hopped on the mono-rail and headed back to the Magic Kingdom.

It was good that we got a later start.  It was hot, and because it was a Friday, a bit more crowded.  We headed first to Splash Mountain, but found that the speed pass thing didn't work as well with the park being more crowded.  So we skipped that and headed to Mickey's house to get our Mickey fix.  Zach had been talking about giving Mickey a hug for some time now.  We were there for him after all.

Well, we waited in line for about 20 minutes and were then herded into a room to meet Mickey.  The taskmaster part of me wanted to bail and do something a bit more exciting, but in the end this stop was worth it.  Zach got to meet both Mickey and Minnie mouse.  Several nice pictures of the three of them were taken, and we got a couple of nice family shots.  Zach gave them both hugs and we were on our way.  It was very cute.

Despite my protests, we rode the ride "It's a Small World".  Ahh . . . the tune is stuck in my head again!  We rode several other rides as well, Winnie the Pooh, I don't remember what else, but we tried to gear what we were doing toward what Zach wanted to do.  I had been kind of a task master the past two days.  We saw a lot of stuff and rode some cool rides, but today I was taking a back seat to my task master duties.  We took it easy and followed Zach's lead.  

It was starting to get dark and we noticed people starting to line the sidewalks of Main Street.  We asked what it was all about and someone mentioned a parade.  We, of course we would check it out.  Mom & Dad got us a spot right on the curb, and Zach, Renee and I took a slight detour to take a quick ride around the park on the train.  You can't go to Disney and not ride the train!  We'll I guess you could, and we probably will next time.  It was just nice to sit.  Anyway, after the train we stopped at a candy store to stock up for the parade.  We got salt water Taffy and some Carmel corn.  A good combo to watch the main street parade.

Well, we had the good snacks, had good seats, but the parade was lame.  There were lights and music, but for the effort, next time I would do something else.  Each of the Disney parks has some sort of parade or big show at the end of the evening.  For my money, I will stick to the Epcot fireworks display.  That show was actually pretty cool.  The thing at Hollywood Studio and the parade were lame.  Lesson learned.  

Well, that was it for Disney.  We left a few minutes early, right before the fireworks finally at the Magic Kingdom.  We've all seen fireworks.  I am glad that we made that decision because we beat the crowds coming out of the park.  We headed back to our car and steered towards Tavares.  There was no traffic at all.  Zach and Dad sat in the back and watched Evan Almighty on the DVD in the van.  It kept them entertained.  When we got back to Mom & Dad's house, the movie wasn't over yet, so all of us piled in the back and finished watching the film.  The neighbors must have been wondering what we were up to.  At least we gave them something to talk about. 

 Alright, tomorrow is our last full day in Florida, no one has to get up early, so off to bed, and we'll get up late and then figure out what we will do to fill our time.  Good plan, Good night! 

Epcot and Hollywood Studios

The great thing about staying at a Disney Hotel, is that you don't have to rush in the morning to get into the park. We were able to leisurely wake up, stroll to the Epcot gate, get in right as they open, be the first ones on a ride that the day before had a two hour wait and then get breakfast. Not a bad way to start day two.

We actually rode a couple of rides before Mom & Dad joined us for breakfast. Soarin' is one of Epcot's newest attractions. The vehicle (called a carriage) consists of three rows of seats under a wing-like canopy. After guests have been safely restrained in the vehicle (using standard lap seat belts), the canopy descends and a cantilever system lifts the chairs forward and into the air with the guests' feet dangling free. The vehicle is lifted forward so that guests look into a large, concave movie screen onto which scenes of California are projected. Since the vehicle is moved forward into the dome, the effect is such that guests can only see the images projected on the screen and are given the sensation of flight. The attraction features two theaters, each with three carriages.  It was pretty fun, but one of the ride attendants put it best, when he described the ride as basically an IMAX film with fancy seating.

Here is Zach with his "cool" 3-d glasses right before the "Honey I shrunk the audience" movie.  It was OK, but I don't know that I would take the time to see it again.  There was one funny part in the movie where a giant dog sneezes.  You actually get sprayed from some sensors in the seats backs in front of you.  I knew it was coming, so I just watched for Zach's reaction.  That in itself made the movie for me.

This was Zach's favorite ride.  NOT  He made the 44 inch height requirement, so I thought that he would be good to go.  The actual ride part did not bother him.  But the set-up of the ride proved to be a bit scary for a 4 year old.  The premise of the ride was that in the 4o's, a bolt of lightning hit the hotel and plummeted the elevators full of people to the basement.  The ghosts of the people in the elevators now haunt the hotel.  He was so afraid of being turned into a ghost, that he had his hands over his eyes for the rest of the ride.  I don't even think he knew he was on an elevator thrill/roller coaster ride.  He was just glad to be out of the Hotel and on to something different.  Lesson learned.

The Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular was more his speed.  It was also nice to sit down for the half an hour show.  We were getting pretty tired of walking after two full days.

Cool explosions and good stunts.  There was a lady in the audience behind us determined to video tape the whole show on her little camcorder.  She watched the whole show from the 3 inch video monitor on her camcorder never looking up to enjoy what was actually going on in front of her.  Funny thing is, she will probably go home watch this video about her trip to Disney and fast forward through the show to get to the parts of the vacation video with her actual family in it.  Lesson: Just watch the shows, don't record them, chances are you will never watch it again anyways.  Trust me, I speak from experience.  I have a recording of this same show that I taped 10 years earlier, and yes, I have never watched it.  I just fast forward through it to get to the parts with Renee in it.  

Here we are on the streets of New York.  Actually it is one of the sets on the back lot movie tour.

This was probably Zach's favorite part of the day.  Playing on the playground.  The playground was based on the Honey I Shrunk the Kids movie, so all of the props were giant.  The green things in the background are suppose to be giant pieces of grass.

Dad got in on the action and followed Zach around on a giant "spiderweb" maze.  Having kids has the added benefit of giving you instant access to play in some of the cool stuff usually off limits to adults.  

Here is a snowspeeder from the Empire Strikes Back.  We saw this and more on the movie backlot tour.

Here Zach is standing in front of one of the doors from Monsters Inc.

Every night Hollywood Studios has this parade, fireworks, musical thing.  We joined the 5000 other people that were jammed in the stadium to watch the show.  There were a lot of lights and different recreations of Disney movies scenes, but it was kind of dark.  And by dark I mean moody.  The scenes they chose to recreate had all sorts of monsters and good vs evil in them.  The end of the show had Mickey battling and then slaying this giant dragon.  It was actually pretty scary, especially when everything erupted into flames.   Zach was curled into a ball on the floor half of the show because it frightened him too much.  Not really the type of show to end the evening on.  I think that they could have made it a bit more cheery.  Oh well, now we know to skip this next year.  

 
All's well that ends well.  The nice thing was that Hollywood Studios was a short boat ride from the hotel.  We got back just in time to enjoy an hour in the pool.  After that we ordered pizza from room service.  We got to bed around midnight.  It was a full day, but we still had one more to go.  Better get some sleep.

Disney World Part 1

What trip to Florida would be complete without a trip to Disney World? MeMa and Papa have season passes and live only 50 minutes away, so off we went! We got on-line and found that in the long run it would be cheaper for us to purchase a seven day pass with no expiration date, and use the remaining days on a future trip. It was a good thing we did, as we all had a great time and are looking forward to a return trip to the Magic Kingdom.

It was nice to have a mini-van so that all of us could ride the hour away to Orlando together. Renee had originally rented a small car, but checked again on rates with a discount code she received from NorthWest airlines two days before our trip. Renee is so on top of things, with the coupon she rented the mini-van for $70 less than the small car! Zach and Papa sat in the middle seats so that they could watch a movie on the built in DVD player.  The movie in the car was such a big hit that Zach almost didn't want to leave.  We had to remind him that Mickey was waiting!

Disney World! We have arrived! Walt Disney World Resort is the most visited and largest recreational resort in the world, containing four theme parks, two water parks, twenty-three themed hotels, and numerous shopping, dining, entertainment and recreation venues. It opened on October 1, 1971 with the Magic Kingdom theme park, and has since added Epcot (on October 1, 1982), Disney's Hollywood Studios (on May 1, 1989), and Disney's Animal Kingdom (on April 22, 1998). We did 3 of the 4 theme parks, saving Animal Kingdom for next time.

We decided months ago, when my parents were in Alaska after Sam's birth, that it would be fun and convenient to stay at on the Disney grounds at the Beach Club. The white sandy beaches and large water slide complex of Disney's Beach Club are situated on a lake adjacent to the Epcot theme park.  This is the way to go.  No going in the car and driving to the hotel after a long day.  The sound of screaming children (Zach and Sam) not wanting to leave the park, did not reverberate in our ears like it would have in the car.  

The Beach Club was an excellent choice, a beautiful location and a kid (and adult) paradise. We dropped our bags off with the front desk as our room wasn't quite ready, took a picture in front of a bush shaped like a butterfly and we we were off to the Magic Kingdom.  Don't forget the sunscreen!

Our first stop was the Haunted Mansion in Disney World.  It took us two monorails and a boat to get there (too cool). Zach was pretty excited to go on this ride.  He had seen a show on the Travel Channel about Disney, and the segment talked about the Haunted Mansion.  He was a bit scared of the ghosts at first, but the ride is pretty tame, and by the end he was thrilled to have a "ghost" sit next to him in the car (the ghost was a hologram sitting in the car).   Fun ride, nothing to be worried about, but as we will find out later in the trip, the ghosts at a similar ride were not quite as tame.  Boo

All chained up.  I wonder how many people have put their head and hands in this stockade over the years?  Well. . . maybe I don't want to know.  

Renee and I first went to Disney World together in December of 1996. We got engaged on that trip, at a beach near her grandparents home in Sarasota. On our second trip to Disney, we were living in Alaska and were comfortable with the cold, which was a good thing. Our last day at Disney was freezing, all the plants and flowers were covered with plastic to keep the frost off of them.  It was only 32 deg., but the humidity in the air makes it feel much colder.  Anyway, with the cold temps we had the place to ourselves.  We rode almost everything we wanted to ride at the park, but left one until the end, Splash Mountain.  This ride almost guarantees that you get wet.  We figured we would do the ride and then high tail it to the care.  We ended up riding 5 or 6 times.  There was no wait, it was too cold.  Normally the line is at least an hour.  We stuck to the plan though, after getting thoroughly soaked, we ran all the way to the car, and then cranked the heat.  Our clothes stiffened on us in the cool air, and we ended up changing into some dry ones in the Magic Kingdom parking lot.  Oh, to be young again.  Back then I was just getting into video production.  I brought my video camera with a pseudo underwater housing.  I video taped most of the park, and all of the rides that we went on.  Zach loved the video footage we had of us on Splash Mountain.  It was fun for him to see in "real life" what he had seen on the video.  He loved going on the ride and pointed out everything that he had seen on the video.  So the big drop at the end was no surprise.    That still didn't change the fact that we got very wet.  But at least this time it was 80.

Zach has been to Disney 3 times now.  The cool thing about this trip however is 1 - he will finally remember parts of the trip, and 2 -  he is finally tall enough to go on some of the "big people" rides.  He only had to be 44 inches tall to go on 90% of the rides at the Magic Kingdom.  I figured he would enjoy a ride on the "train" at Big Thunder Mountain, and yep, I was right.  MeMa and PaPa went too, and videotaped most of the ride.  I don't think that Zach stopped screaming the whole time.  It was all screams of joy though.  He had a great time.  

I forgot how much walking there is at Disney World.  It was hot too!  We took plenty of opportunities to sit whenever we saw a ride without a line.  The Jungle Cruise was one such ride.  It was actually better than I remembered it.  Our "guide" was pretty funny.  She didn't take her job, or the ride too seriously.  It made it memorable.  I don't know if Zach actually thought the animals on the ride were real or not.  But I did catch him jumping a few times, especially when he saw the hippos.

Here are some giraffes doing something.  What I want to know is how did someone come up with all of this stuff?  The rides, the park, Donald and Goofy.  Especially Goofy!  A jungle tour with "robot" animals, in the middle of Florida?  Where do you come up with that?  I think it is cool and all, but for someone to dream of all of this, back in the 60/70's is perplexing.  I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when Walt was at the bank, asking for a loan for the park.  In the end it all worked out, but it still boggles the mind.

This ride was a hit with Zach.  Grand Prix Speedway.  He was super cool driving his very own race car.  I remember this ride as a kid.  It was pretty cool back then too. 

The ride was a little bumpy.  I controlled the gas and Zach steered.  I think that he has a basic idea of how to steer a car, but he has a long way to go before he is ready for any type of car that doesn't have a steel track down the center of it.  Once around the track wasn't enough though.  We had to do the ride twice.  The stiff neck was worth it though, he really enjoyed "racing" the other cars and driving like a "big kid".

When the Magic Kingdom opened in 1971, the site employed about 5,500 "cast members". Today it employs more than 63,000, spending more than $1.1 billion on payroll and $478 million on benefits each year. The largest single-site employer in the United States, Walt Disney World Resort has more than 3,000 job classifications. We certainly enjoyed the "cast members" at the Biergarten restaurant at "Germany" in EPCOT. We enjoyed festive music and dancing while eating a buffet meal of German salads, meats and deserts! Yumm.

Sam got into the action and enjoyed the cool air conditioned room, fun & lively music and being out of his stroller for a little while.

Zach on the other hand fell asleep outside on a park bench while we waited for our table to be ready. We carried him in to the restaurant, laid him down across 3 chairs and there he slept with all the music, dancing and loop-la going on around him. I wish I could sleep like that! Zach woke up as we were finishing our meal. We got him a plate of food, another show started and he enjoyed the singing as well as going up by the stage and dancing.

Tomorrow, more fun.  This was only day one of three days.  Will our feet hold up from all of the walking?  Will Zach be brave enough to ride The Tower of Terror?  Will we get to meet Mickey?  Tune in tomorrow and find out for yourselves.  Oh, the suspense!