Wait, Penguins Can't Fly!

I officially have lost track of what day it is. Friday sled into Saturday and Saturday has gone crashing into Sunday at this point. Dinner happened at between 11 p.m. and Midnight after a long day at Animal Kingdom. We were fortunate enough - in retrospect, I use that word loosely - to obtain a "Year of a Million Dreams Special Time Park Pass" that let us stay an extra hour and a half late in the park. Getting out of there at 8 a.m. p.m. (corrected the next morning... I told you I have lost all track of time and space) threw things off completely.

Anyway - to recap the day: we slept in for a bit, had an extended eating period that I think you could call "brunch" since there was some breakfast stuff and and some lunch stuff in the mix. We then struggled with the pool alarm on the sliding door. It took only four of us - two of us college educated - to figure that out. Go us.

Then we headed to Disney Animal Kingdom. This was the first time at this park for several of us, myself included. I have some thoughts about it that will end up on Pop Culture Gangster at some point.

We started off with the "Tough to Be a Bug" show, which was really great - the 3-D effects were awesome, as were the physical stuff that came out to the audience was a great touch. I'll be sure to think about it the next time I kill a bug with some bug spray. It won't stop me or make me feel bad, but I will think about it.

Then most of the group went to the Dinosaur ride. I held back, but then went back for it and that started me feeling the ride thing. I passed on the next two roller coaster rides (Everest and Primeval Whirl), but braved Finding Nemo, The Musical. Laugh if you will, but it a theater full of tired, hot and cranky kids scares the crap out of me a lot more than any steep fall strapped into a roller coaster. The show did provide possibly the best lines of the day: when they made the general announcements in both English and Spanish, Jenn asked "are they going to perform the whole show twice too?" And then there was the line that made Chris and I crack up: two penguins were talking (it's Disney, don't ask) and they were in mid-air while doing so, and they said "Wait a minute! We're penguins! Penguins can't fly!" and fell to the ground. HAHAHAHA. Umm... man, that was REALLY funny when we were there and is making me chuckle right now. Might be heat stroke though (record high for April in Florida: 92 degrees; first day of the Johnson vacation: 90 degrees).

Next stop was the Kali River Rapids ride. We thought MP was going to kill us all when she saw the first climb, but what she didn't realize at the time was that she was going to want to kill us when she got the full-on brunt of one of the water geysers. She came off looking like a drowned rat. Great photos for the Christmas letter this year, 'ya know?

The rapids got me braving the ride thing a bit more and after a breather on the very cool Safari ride (I think Chris got an awesome picture of a zebra's ass), we headed back to Dino-Land for our official greeting into the extended park hours we had become a special part of. We ended up getting a button and buying some slushies (no one else wanted one, but when I went to get one, suddenly we need four. HA!) So... whoop.

We then started to take full advantage of the extra time in the park: I went on the Primeval Whirl with Emily, Meghan and Dave. With the four of us, and Poppa J and I in one half of the car, we were spinning REALLY fast. At that point, I made up my mind I was going on Everest. We went back on Dinosaur and then headed to Everest. This is the first real roller coaster I have been on years, and once again I found myself asking what the hell my problem is. I had been a wimp all day and didn't go on rides at first, but as usual, after one or two I found myself ready for more and by the end of the day had ridden all the rides at least once.

We dragged our tired, pitiful selves out of the park around 8 and started thinking about dinner, hence the late meal and a handful of low-blood sugar level related mini-meltdowns. Chris - I love you man, but I'm shoving a burger down your gullet at 5 p.m. tomorrow night if I have to sit in front of you on Everest and let it fly out of my hand on the big drop.

After dinner, we had our first voting off. Chris got voted off, with four votes, and then followed by Kaitlyn Emily (also corrected the next morning. I just assumed it was Kaitlyn) with two votes. I voted for Kaitlyn because she thought I was taking too long to pee earlier in the day. I'm not actually sure what was supposed to happen with getting voted off, since really nothing has.

So now some people are in bed, others are in the hot tub, Meghan's cutting up melons for tomorrow morning and I'm obviously writing this blog, because if I was doing anything else, that would be kind of weird.

Key lesson from the day: Never go to Disney without the Diamond Parking Pass from AAA. That thing rocks. Wait, no... scratch that. No one else should know about that. Its too good. We want it for ourselves.

-Derek (The Prince To Be)