Tag: vacation

Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run So for the first time in many a year, Michelle & I took a proper vacation. We’ve been back from the vacation for nearly two weeks and I’ve been meaning to write up my thoughts but I keep getting distracted from doing so. I’ve been asked multiple times by different people how it went; so below is what I’ve been saying to those I’ve talked to about it. Also, you can find all my photos from the trip in my WDW Vacation 2022 album on Flickr.

While I’ve been to amusement parks before; this was my first time at a Disney park. My number one tip for going to Disney is to have the trip planned by somebody who loves you. All the reservations (flights, hotel, parks, & meals) involved in a such a trip makes planning it a nightmare; but fortunately for me, Michelle decided to tackle all of that work herself. My only contributions to that phase of the trip was getting the time off from work and making sure there were funds in the vacation account. This made things super easy (for me), for which I’m grateful for all the love my wife showered me with. Thanks love!

My second tip is stay at one of the Disney resorts. Their easy transport options to all of the parks made it simple to retreat back to our hotel when we needed a break. This is more important than I realized before going to Walt Disney World; as there are very few places for people to sit down in the parks. The few spots that are there were almost always full of other people. For somebody on the older side and who tends to be sedentary, walking around the Disney parks got exhausting. Being able to retreat to the hotel to relax was a blessing.

My third tip is to try to schedule time at each of the parks both during the day and at night. Galaxy’s Edge in Hollywood Studios was especially spectacular at night. Admittedly, it was harder to navigate the parks at night; as so many people were wearing dark colors and the streets weren’t brightly lit. Though if at all possible, don’t do both times on the same day. If you try to do it all in a single day, it would be easy to over do it and get burned out.

Best Rides

  • Hollywood Studios: Star Wars – Rise of the Resistance was balls-to-the-walls amazing… when it was running. We rode it our first day/first ride and got in after about 90 minutes, even though the line was huge. At the end of that day, the line was half the size, so we decided to try it again. We got about halfway through the line when it broke down 2-3 times and we were kind of stuck in place. We clocked it as taking 3 hours to get through the line the second time. We were also stuck near some really annoying people; so that wasn’t as fun an experience.
  • Magic Kingdom: While Haunted Mansion was a very close second; Jungle Cruise just managed to edge it out with the delightful patter that our guides used during the ride.
  • Epcot: Soarin’ Around the World is this wicked ride where they strap you into a seat and then lift you up in the air in front of something like a curved IMAX screen. Shaking you around to match the aerial video footage of various spots around earth. We only got to ride it our last day at Epcot; but if I’d known it was as cool as it was, I would have insisted on riding it sooner
  • Animal Kingdom: Flight of Passage was basically an Avatar themed version of Soarin’ Around the World. It’s all special effects rather than real video, but just as amazing… EXCEPT to maintain their immersion into the Avatar stick; when the ride started/stopped they flashed a bunch of strobe lights at us to signify the link to our avatars being opened/closed. The bright strobe lights were an instant headache for me. If I realized that was going to happen, I’d still happily have ridden the ride, but would have closed my eyes before the strobes started to avoid that pain.

Best Food

  • Hollywood Studios: Free-Range Chicken à la King at The Brown Derby
  • Magic Kingdom: Pot Roast at Liberty Tree Tavern
  • Epcot: Filet Mignon at Le Cellier Steakhouse

Best Drinks (DisneyDrinkathon)

  • Hollywood Studios: Fuzzy Tautaun at Oga’s Cantina
  • Magic Kingdom: Modern Fashioned at The Brown Derby
  • Epcot: The Nebula at Space220

Before I left for vacation, as I was signing off from work; I sent my co-workers a message telling them to have a good weekend and that I’d see them in a couple weeks after I have a delicious mai tai… Or two or three and who cares I’ll be on my first real vacation in ages. Since I sent that message, I couldn’t resist keeping track of all the lovely adult beverages that I enjoyed while on vacation. Hence, the group of photos I’ve taken to calling my DisneyDrinkathon.

Most weeks, I take maybe a dozen or so images and choose the one I like best to post as my weekly photo. Today’s post will be quite a bit longer, as Michelle & I just got back from a short vacation to Chicago and I’ve got rather more pictures to share than usual.

We drove out Thursday morning, hitting Chicago around 3. We were hoping to get there before the traffic went completely nuts for rush hour, while still not having to wait around too long before we could check into our hotel. We managed the second part without any problem, but the first was a bit more …. problematic. I’m not sure if it was actual rush hour traffic or not. But when we got within a couple of miles of the hotel the traffic turned into a snarled mess of bumper-to-bumper nonsense of the sort we don’t generally have to deal with at home.

A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in.
Robert Orben

Our Hotel (in Minature)
Scale model of our hotel at MSI

We made it safely through that mess to the hotel, handed the car over the the valet service, checked in, went to our room and collapsed for a bit. Oddly I find driving to Chicago to be a much bigger nightmare vastly more stressful and tiring than driving to Minneapolis. *shrug* Eventually we got back up and headed out to dinner. We decided for our first night to just hit the hotel’s restaurant.

I know it wasn’t particularly adventurous of us, but it had gotten some decent reviews and the menu promised both Italian food & pizza. We ended up having an excellent dinner[ref]Spinach supreme pizza with fresh mushrooms as well as a new (to me) and most excellent hard cider (Wyder’s Dry Apple)[/ref] and were served by an outstanding waiter.

Museum of Science and IndustryThe next morning we headed out to the Museum of Science and Industry. We got there early, bought our tickets and then waited a in line for a few minutes. Shortly afterwards, they opened up and we headed up into the museum. We went straight over to the area holding the MythBusters: The Explosive Exhibition. This was actually one bonus to not getting around to visiting MSI the last time we vacationed in Chicago. The MythBusters exhibit is a temporary exhibit that only arrived at MSI earlier this year and leaves for its next stop in a couple of weeks. So if we’d come when I’d first wanted to, I probably wouldn’t have gotten to see this exhibit. (more…)

Drove up to Mom’s house.  We should have arrived between 9-10 hours after we started.  One wrong turn meant we arrived 12 hours after we started1.  On the bright side, it was a pretty drive (at least until it got dark) and we did arrive safely.

It was a good visit and while we were there:

  • enjoyed a bit of Christmas fun at Bronner’s
  • bought a new hat (kind of like this but in a dark grey)
  • picked up a new light fixture for our porch (only $56!)
  • picked up Zoe’s Tale and read it (very likey Mr. Scalzi’s best work yet)
  • some books from the local used book store
  • ate far too much food, including some fresh taffy we picked up in Frankenmuth
  • reminisced with Mom & Aunt Penny (including going through a bunch of old photos)

Ah, good times.  🙂

Update: Oh yeah, I almost forgot.  Friday (day before we came back) got a call from awelkin that our furnace had gone out while we were gone and the indoor temp was down to 40 degrees.  Urk!  Fortunately with some slight prompting, the inestimable Bryon was able to revive it.  My in-laws stopped in to check on it the next day while we were in transit and the house was all nice and warm again.  Wahoo!

1 Versus the 9-10 hours we were expecting the drive to take.

Not sure what kinds of fun you lot had with your Memorial Day weekend but my was just a barrel of laughs. To make sure I kicked the weekend off right, Friday morning I used the screen door to rip a chunk out of the back of my foot. Saturday, Michelle & I ran errands and did a bit of shopping1. When we stopped at the bookstore, I was getting out of the car and started to kick the door open a bit more with my foot. Only I goofed and hit the car door with my toes, breaking back part of the toenail on my big toe. Fortunately it didn’t hurt2. Unfortunately it was bleeding. So here I am hopping across the parking lot into the bookstore behind my wife. Only she’s so focused on getting inside that she’s doesn’t hear me complaining about my toe on any of the 3 times I tried to get her attention before getting inside. Even then when we did get in the store it took a couple of minutes to get her attention. *seesh*

Sunday was a better day though. We drove out to Davenport to visit with a friend, as she invited us out for a bit of a BBQ3. The BBQ was very nice, though everybody else who’d talked to her about it cancelled on her (shame on them!). After we ate, we sat around chatting for a good, long while. Though he add to move away from her brick oven/grill as the wood was popping/crackling and spitting bits of hot ash out at us. Later we went out and caught a movie (Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End). It was a fun movie, but not good. Over the night, Michelle had multiple coughing fits and finally around 3 AM this morning I gave up trying to get any sleep. I dinked around for a while and then ended up mowing the lawn in the early hours of the morning. It wasn’t fun, but it needed to be done. On the bright side, I did make some progress on my super-secret decorating project (more on that when I finish it) this weekend, which is a very good thing.

1 Some gardening books for her, some paints for my super-secret decorating project.
2 At least it wasn’t hurting at the time.
3 And unlike other people issuing invitations to get together, she actually replied when we contacted her.

Well, I finally feel like I am at least partly back from the dead. But really, that’s getting ahead of myself; allow me to backtrack a bit.

2005. May. 7th. Ariesna and I were joined in wedded bliss. Unfortunately with her just finishing her degree and paying for a wedding money was tight so we didn’t have the cash to go some place exotic and we couldn’t really afford to spend more than a night away. So I picked a B&B just a few hours drive away. A helpful friend had recommended it as the most romantic B&B in the area. After the ceremony & reception, we drove out and enjoyed our one night there.

2006. Ariesna and I went back to the same B&B for an entire weekend. We ate out at a couple of nice restaurants, did a little shopping and hit up an art museum while we were there. It was a grand time, but by the end of it we were both tired. We got home, chilled for a while and eventually went to bed. Blissful slumber was interrupted at 4:30 AM by me waking up feeling like I was choking and/or drowning. I ran into the bathroom and spent the next 15 minutes or so kneeling in front of the porcelain throne. After getting myself cleaned up, I tried going back to bed but woke up a while later with the same problem. Again, I eventually got cleaned up and tried going back to bed. Later, I got the intense fun of making a trip to the doctor on what was supposed to be the last day of my vacation. I got weighed1, poked, prodded and a q-tip was shoved down my throat2. The doctor confirmed I had the flu combined with a sinus infection. However he was worried that I was severely dehydrated and wanted to put me on an IV to get some fluids in me. Alas after much poking (in both arms), they realized I was too dehydrated for the needle to go in properly. Eventually, they gave up on the IV and let Ariesna take me home. Though they did tell her to keep pushing fluids down me and recommended she get me to drink 2 liters of gatorade that day and keep pushing the fluids at me the next. She did so, continually waking me up from some of the best sleep I’ve ever had to drink, drink drink. And I don’t even like gatorade! *sigh* I mean the fruit punch version isn’t too bad but the rest…. yeck.

Anyhoo, I ended up spending the entire week home sick and now the night before I finally go back to the office I am feeling much better. I’m just not at 100% yet. My sinuses throb (and continually drain down my throat) and on top of that I’ve got an evening cough3 which feels like it’s going to rip my throat in half. But I’m still taking the anti-biotics the doctor prescribed and I’m hoping when the pills are gone so will be the last of my health problems.

Oh yeah, if you’re wondering about the title on this post that’s pretty much all the food I’ve eaten in the last week. It’s been thrilling. 🙁

1 No, I’m not repeating what that lying hunk of metal claimed was my weight.
2 Apparently, that’s part of the test for strep throat. Only nobody warned me in advance. Incidentally, the test came back negative but it has a 15% chance of failure.
3 It only happens after 5. No idea on why that is, but there you have it.