Relentless Inquiry

Went to Epcot yesterday, as both cats seemed to be doing fine. We're slow tourists– we've been here in Florida about 2.5 weeks and this is the first “attraction” we've visited. We haven't even stopped by The Citrus Tower on our many drives past it to the store. Well, that's just us.

I had been to Epcot twice in the early to mid 80's with my family, and Mike had never been there. He and his family visited Disney World the year that it opened, and that was his only trip. On our two visits to Disney property in Florida, my family had concentrated on the Magic Kingdom but I had gone off on my own and concentrated on Epcot. I've never been to Disney in California, but I think Mike has. Anyway.

Epcot had changed a lot in almost 20 years, with a lot of new buildings and general landscaping and such. Mike kept being amazed by all the development in the Orlando area. Most of what is now suburb, restaurant/hotel area, and misc was mangrove swamp in the early 70's. We had fun, and leveraged some things I found on the 'net to have a better visit. It turns out that January after New Year's is *the* time to visit– there were so few people in the park that we rarely had to wait more than 10 minutes to see anything. If there was a big line anywhere, we moved to something else and came back, and the line was gone. We walked right up into Spaceship Earth, for instance, and boarded directly. Who knew? It meant that even though we got a late start (10:45 am), we were able to see more things than we otherwise might have. The tickets are quite expensive, even with a $3 or $4 discount from AAA, and I didn't want to buy more than a day's worth.

I am not a “rides” person, especially a “thrill rides” person, which is too bad for Mike because he most certainly IS that type, and adores rollercoasters, even the horrifying kind where you hang under the track in the open, like Top Gun at Great America. I myself am the Uber-Wuss, and found to my dismay that even slow rides like Spaceship Earth cause me distress if they go up steep hills. I start thinking about interlocks and mechanical braking and safety systems rather than enjoying the ride. It's unfortunate that the cumulative effect of almost 40 years of life experience has been to make me fear complex mechanical systems rather than to trust them. I can't blame my profession, because even though my job is to figure out what will go wrong and prevent it before it happens, there other sysadmins and even disaster recovery specialists who delight in rollercoasters, jet travel, and the like. Ditto for reading RISKS Digest. I guess that I have spent enough time stressed out in my life that simulated stress just isn't a positive adventure for me.

All that aside, Mike really enjoyed the “Test Track” ride, where you are supposedly helping test a car, including braking, crash testing, and the like. I endured it, and found that keeping my eyes shut kept it from being overwhelming. Mike was aghast that I didn't see the outdoor portion, where a steeply curved bank and some straightaway gets you up to about 64 mph, but I assured him that if I had opened my eyes, I would have ruined my whole day.

The Land was interesting; they've added aquaculture, and the greenhouses have changed and been updated extensively. The patter could use a little updating on the regular tour– the guide mentioned tilapia, which they are not growing currently, and referred to the “recent” discovery of the winged bean, a useful plant whose every part is edible and whose seeds are high in protein. They said that about the winged bean when I was there in the mid-80's, which is not particularly recent. 😉 We signed up for the Behind the Seeds tour, and got a pleasant surprise– the elderly gentleman working the counter decided to comp us the tour. They have some kind of gift card called “Magic Moments”, and various people working there get to give away something every day, so he picked us. Very nice, and saving the $16 for the tour tipped the scales in the decision of where to go for lunch. 😀

We did the buffet brunch (11am – 4pm) at Akershaus in the Norway area. Lots and lots of cold smoked fish, yum! Their hot entrees were mostly ham or pork, but there was a veggie assortment and a lamb-and-cabbage stew. I don't think of myself as being a big mutton fan (this was definitely past the “lamb” stage), but that stew was AWESOME. It had that kind of “slow” flavor that things get sometime when they are cooked really well and for a long time. You take a bite and feel like suddenly the world just got quieter and nicer and something irritating that you hadn't noticed before must have just stopped. The last time I tasted that flavor was in some baked apples we got at Asilomar when we spent a weekend there in 1999 or so. I wish I knew how to cook that way!

More stuff happened, and many pictures (primarily of the greenhouses, not of the attractions), but this is plenty for now! More late