Where to Start?

Phew. What a two weeks that all was. In a most definitely good way, of course! It was nice to have the internet in New York, so I could update my blog during that time. No such luck for the last week and a half, so I will do what I can...

8/19: Susan and her dogs picked me up and we drove to Charleston. I 'heart' Charleston. It is on my personal list of places I'd like to own a house some day. But I digress, and time runs short (I intentionally left my power cord at home, so I'm limited in internet time today) It's about a five hour drive from Winston, and we filled the time by listening to various musicals. Much fun. Better than any old back o' the seat DVD player, says I. We chilled poolside for a few hours (okay, we didn't actually 'chill' - we spent the time doing underwater handstands and somersaults...) and then Susan's madre joined us. We picked up some food, and watched the Olympics.

8/20: From Charleston to Orlando, leaving the puppies behind with Susan's mom. We again filled the 7+ hour drive with melodious sounds of musicals. We stayed at the Ramada Inn. The hurricane actually did hit Orlando, but not in a bad enough way to make world news. The Ramada smelled like mildew, though, and our carpet was damp. I guess they were lucky to even have power - parts of Orlando were without it for over a week! It was really smelly, and hard to get used to. I put lotion on my pillow so that I could get to sleep. Only problem? I woke up with my face all slimy in the morning, cause I'd been drooling onto the lotion. Eew.

8/21: DISNEY WORLD!!!!! The Happiest Place on Earth. I love it. I can't express how much I love Disney. Now, I'm not buy-everything-Mickey-(or Donald, Goofy, Eeyore, etc.)-to-decorate-every-possible-surface-in-my-home-and-body crazy, but I am crazy nonetheless. We started at Animal Kingdom at 9 am, when the park opened. It was a great place to start. We rode DinoSAUR, Primeval Whirl, and the Kilimanjaro Safari rides. I highly recommend the safari - they have actual animals on it, not like the Jungle River Cruise thing at Magic Kingdom.

MGM Studios was next, where we did Tower of Terror, Aerosmith's Rock n' Roller Coaster and Star Tours.

And, finally, we ended up in my favorite of all the four lands: the Magic Kingdom. It was POURING rain. Really, really pouring. We were forced to take shelter for a while, which was okay, since we were hungry. Then we ran around and tried to get in as many rides as possible before they closed at 10. We got in Haunted Mansion (a fav of mine), Pirates of the Caribbean, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (three times), Splash Mountain, Space Mountain (twice), Peter Pan's Flight, Mad Tea Party, and the best ride for a good relaxing time - the Tomorrowland Transit Authority.

So much fun. And exhausting. Susan and I decided that Disney should run the world. Or at least airports - they would be so organized and every detail would be covered. I definitely think there should be a Disney Airport.

8/22: Orlando to Miami. We weren't out of musicals yet, but we did change the pace on this day! We stayed at the Wyndham Grand Bay Hotel which promised to be a luxurious accomodation (you can only valet park your car!), but in reality ended up causing quite a bit of grief. I won't go into the details (I'll let Susan do that if she wants to), let me just recommend to everyone out there: DON'T BOTHER staying at ANY Wyndham Bay Hotels or Resorts. Just save yourself the hassle. We just chilled in Miami. "Chill" here is a relative term, as it was freaking HOT. We did some shopping at a rather upscale-looking mall, got room service (the nidus of the problems) and watched a movie.

8/23:We've now reached the day of the big cruise! But this blog is freaking long, my battery is just about dead, I need to do laundry, and I think it is really quite impressive to end the blog with the use of the word 'nidus.' So I'll stop here for now. Did anybody even bother reading this far???