Walt Disney World, 2022: Miscellaneous Scenes, 1

Vicki and I camped in WDW's Fort Wilderness campground February 26-March 9, and were in the WDW parks nearly all of six days. Other days we were "on property," more or less, riding the monorails or skyliners, shopping at Disney Springs, hiking in Fort Wilderness, or watching Penelope swim in the Meadows pool complex. 

Unlike Gaul, Walt Disney World divisa est in quattuor partes: the original Magic Kingdom, the Experimental Prototypical Community of Tomorrow (known among the unwashed as EPCOT), the Animal Kingdom, and the Hollywood Studios. We did all four, some more than once. Also some more than twice. Personal bests, of a sort. Vicki says we had also camped at Fort Wilderness before, but, as Gandalf said, I have no memory of this place. Of course, one doesn't do all of what's in the parks, but cherry-picks among favorite rides and attractions from past visits, among new rides, among the most popular, and also among whatever the ten-year-old in your party says she wants to do (within limits). Also one cherry-picks from among the various wait-times, Genie+, and Lightning Lanes (all of which are beyond my skill) available. One day, amazingly, we did 16 rides in three different parks, but that was under very special circumstances, thanks to Rebecca and Jeremy.

WDW is a photogenic wonderland, especially if you're into kitsch and simulacra and people-watching. Also plants, landscaping, and faux architecture. I took some 1,100 pix. Few were on rides, however, since one doesn't want to risk losing one's phone/camera while the G-forces are rearranging one's internal organs, spine, etc. Also I didn't take many pix while standing in lines. For this and the following posts, I have organized the best pix into 1) miscellaneous scenes, 2) family, 3) fireworks, and 4) the inevitable out-takes. Quattuor partes. All brutally edited.

First day, rope drop: in Hollywood Studios, the
Toy Story department

Overall, I thought the Star Wars department was best done

Food on Tatoine or some other planet; the food at WDW has
improved greatly since our last visit...reflecting the venue, with
interesting ingredients; here, a beef stir-fry with fried yucca

X-wing fighter

Under heavy guard, we are proceeding to interrogation on Rise of 
the Resistance; the location of the rebel base? Cleveland, I kept
telling them, but they never broke character

Princess and Chewy

Now at the Indiana Jones stunt show

Indy and special lady friend escape after blowing up the enemy
aircraft

Somewhere in the Hollywood Studios park, maybe

Sunset Blvd., there was a nice Disney museum 

preceding an excellent 16-minute biopic of Walt; above

is the original Abe Lincoln model and control board,

from the 1964 World Fair: the birth of Disney 

animatronics; Vicki would have seen it there, having

ridden the Greyhound bus from Miami to New York,

alone, as a 16-year-old; things have changed

Enemy aircraft

On the lake at Disney Springs; one of the non-Disney rides was
on these water-going cars from the 1970s; $125 for a 20 minute
ride; no lines

Now in the Animal Kingdom park, which I much enjoyed: a river
view, with Mt. Everest in the background--except, it looks more like
the Matterhorn; maybe a spare from Disneyland?

On the safari ride, where a real truck takes you around to see the
real animals; can't tell the players without a program 

Non-animatronic hippos

Ditto, crocodiles

Baobab tree; real? There were many

Suitably-attired Penelope eyes a giraffe

Oliphants, Mr. Frodo!

Rhinos

So Vicki and I saw only four of the Big Five at Kruger NP; can
this count as #5? Sing: "I can't give you anything but love, baby..."

Above and below water views of a hippo

Merely meerkats

Excellent signage throughout, seriously

And specimen

Walt Disney World, 2022: Context And Family History

As students of this blog know, this was not our first Disney experience. That first experience was in 1970, at Disneyland, famously but unknowingly in the company of the Yippies and the Anaheim PD. DisneyWorld opened October 1st, 1971, and, as dutiful Floridians, we were there within a few months (see below). Having family in Miami meant that, over the years, during visits, we returned to WDW...again, and again, and again, perhaps 8-10 times, Vicki reckons. Following retirement, our visits have continued, even accelerated, with the birth of grand-daughter Penelope. By my count, we have done a Disney thing 8 times since 2008, and these visits include Disney Paris twice and the Disney Family Museum at the Presidio (my personal favorite). As an aid to further research, I have included links below to some of our post-retirement Disney visits. 

I will not speculate on the reasons for this admittedly unusual behavior. Vicki assures me that her obsession with Disney (and amusement parks more generally) is relatively mild, and, judging from the various WDW "tips" sites I have seen, she is correct. I will let other family members comment on their own interests and reasons. For my own part, I would cite affection for family and our family past, desire to faithfully discharge my family responsibilities--OK, sometimes grudgingly--as well as a certain fascination with Walt himself, biographically, the corporate history, at least into the 60s, and interests in critical aesthetics and post-modern kitsch. Disney is the mother of mother lodes of the latter.

In any case, when Vicki first broached the idea of a family reunion at WDW--more than two years ago--nearly everyone consulted was enthusiastic. Part of the idea was for Penelope to experience the really big Disney park while she was still a child. Two years of COVID intervened, but, vaccinated and masked, with Omicron on the wane, and after months of reservations calls, web research, and so on, we finally made it. Rebecca, Jeremy, and Penelope did a couple days of Universal before joining us at WDW, mainly to do the Harry Potter thing, which Penelope is seriously into. Happily, she was chosen for the wand ceremony there, so she already was in high spirits on arrival at Disney World. But here I'm getting ahead of myself...

Approaching Disneyland, Anaheim, August, 1970

Yours truly, contemplating the Haunted Mansion, late 1971 or

early 1972; shirt bought at Nick's Toggery, Tallahassee, c. 1968;

an updated version of this shot appears in a subsequent post

Original WDW Cinderella Castle, 1971-72

Main Street, 1977

With Rebecca, 1977

Ditto

Main Street parade, 1977

No longer there department...1978

Still going strong department, 1978

Rebecca and cousin Stacey, 1978

Moving right along, Vicki, sister Marie, daughters Rachel and
Rebecca, 2009

2010 at Universal Studios (I do not distinguish sharply between
WDW and Universal); Vicki and me and Rebecca and Rachel,
and Jeremy and Will; for Vicki and Rachel, it was their second
Universal visit, Rachel having won a trip there to appear on the
Home Show in 1988

At Harry Potter Land, Rebecca, with child, and
unidentified cast member

https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2009/04/d-day-or-when-in-rome.html

https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2010/12/wizarding-world-of-harry-potter.html

https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2014/07/disneyland-paris-les-out-takes.html

https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2014/07/disneyland-paris-deux.html

https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2014/07/disneyland-paris-un.html

https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2018/04/disneyland-scenes-2018-1.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2018/04/disneyland-scenes-2018-2.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2018/04/disneyland-princesses-2018.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2018/04/disney-history.html

https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2018/04/return-to-lower-california.html

https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2019/06/ne-baise-pas-avec-la-souris.html

https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2019/03/disneyland-2019-part-i.html

https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2019/03/disneyland-2019-part-ii.html

https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2019/09/walt-disney-family-museum.html

Interim Update #1,263; with Carole and Jim and Lexi

We are in Fort Lauderdale, Tamarac, precisely, at the Kozy Kampers campground, which is probably the oldest establishment on Commercial Boulevard. My sister Carole remembers trying to annex it years ago when she was in city government in Lauderhill. Camper storage in Fort Lauderdale is tres cher, Carole and husband Jim live in a gated community that is RV-unfriendly, and we are more comfortable staying in our little home anyway, so...we are at Kozy Kampers, seeing them in the evenings and weekends, using Jim's car to get around. Jim is now long-retired from law enforcement, but Carole is still working in city government, in Plantation [sic], vowing to retire after their daughter Lexi graduates. Lexi's in her final semester at Florida Atlantic U. After Carole retires, they're interested in RVing for a couple years, so there's been plenty to talk about in addition to all the usual catching-up, family history, and so on.

Things have been pretty busy the last three weeks, and there have been wifi issues, too, so I'm some weeks behind in the blogging. Eventful weeks, too, with 1,100 pix from Disney to go through, select, edit, etc., plus a narrative arc to construct (!). We hope to slow down a bit in the coming weeks as we turn back north, and, hopefully, I'll start to catch up.

Jim, Lexi, and Carole; and Cooper and Maisey

Interim Update #1,262

We are at Mousetopia, where the campground (Fort Wilderness) wifi is so poor I can't really blog using my laptop. We are here with daughters Rebecca and Rachel, and grand-daughter Penelope, as well as sons-in-law Jeremy and Will. Family reunion. So far we have done all the parks, and more, and today is our VIP tour. We leave for Ft. Lauderdale Wednesday. Needless to say, there has been much to blog about, but it will take some time to get it all posted. Stayed tuned for the Magic. 

Us, there, about to make the jump to Hyperspace; note the four
girls have matching WDW 50th T-shirts

Into Florida

We continued on I-10 into our native Florida, planning to see a bit of the Panhandle beaches, then swing up to Tallahassee, where we were undergraduates, and then down to Bushnell, in the center of the state, to rest and gear-up for the big gathering. The beaches were beautiful, as advertised, somewhat marred by hurricane damage and by the massive rebuilding and upscaling. We lived the better part of three years in Tallahassee and, impoverished students that we were, never saw those sugar white sands and crystal clear waters; back in the days when it was just the north Florida beaches and not even the Redneck Riviera. The highlight of our Florida incursion so far was three days spent with Susan and Ken, friends from college days with whom we have kept up these 50-some years. It was great fun reminiscing, catching up again, and seeing Tallahassee through experienced eyes. The place has changed, as every place has, but there was still plenty to see that we actually remembered. After Tallahassee, we drove south on uncrowded state and county highways to the Sumter Oaks SKP RV park, near Bushnell, in deepest, darkest central Florida. We will break camp again on February 26th, to head to WDW, Le Monde d'Isgny, aka Mousetopia. 

Our first night's stop was up the river in Milton, FL, which dates
from Florida's earliest days as a state; and where you can still see
some charming old Florida architecture; linguistic change is always
interesting..."blackwater" means something entirely different to us

Pensacola Beach, on the national seashore there

Not the wild west

We wanted to go to the end of the island and see Fort Pickens, a
former star fort, dating back to the Jacksonian era, and known
mainly for being one of the few southern coastal fortresses never
captured by the secessionists

Most photographed item at Fort Pickens

When you go to a fort, you expect to see walls and cannons

Thus

And excellent National Park Service interpretive signage

Spare parts...actually, 18th century cannons from Florida's earlier
Spanish and briefly British periods

Says "GR"...George Rex, George III, I would think

Distant view of walls and cannons

Battery Langdon, an outlying bunker housing a WWI 12" gun,
capable of firing some 17 miles out to sea; reminded us of some
of the German art deco we saw in Pas de Calais

Moving right along...back east along Pensacola Beach; about every
five blocks is an Alvin's Island...beach attire, fashion, sports, etc.

Now walking the beautiful beach at Destin

Water as clear as we've ever seen it

White sand and little birds

Us, there, then

With Ken and Susan in Tallahassee...not our first visit...nor,
hopefully, our last...thanks for the great food, drink, hospitality
and conviviality...all boosted and tested

Among several old sites still standing

"Smoking" a glass of bourbon after dinner; seriously

Gotta' get me one of these to try out on scotch; also a portable
sous vide for the camper

Us, there

At the SKP park near Bushnell; pastoral squalor in darkest
central Florida

Sort of says it all

Except just outside our window, this forbidding swamp...with
benches for brave birders

Interim Update #1,261

On February 7th we decamped and, after re-provisioning a bit, set our course east, on Interstates 8, 10, and 12, mostly 10, headed for Florida, for les rendezvous with friends, family, and a reunion at Mousetopia. It is our 8th cross-country trip since retirement, our fifth in Le Sport. We are both native Floridians, so the trip is just bursting with meaning. 

Presently, February 13th, we are Wally-docked in Spanish Fort, Alabama, alongside fellow travelers Kathy and Rick (Travelin'Tortuga.com), whom we have known since 2010, meeting up on various continents over the years. After a stint hereabouts, they are headed back west, then north, for a summer traversing Canada. We had a pleasant dinner and evening together talking about--what else?--travel, past and future. 

Today, we will dip down into Florida, with stops eventually along the Redneck Riviera, Pensacola, Tallahassee, Bushnell, Orlando/Kissimmee, and then Ft. Lauderdale. By the end of March, we will have worked our way back north, visiting some of the coastal cities of the southeast, before returning to our eastern base in Knoxville. And whither then? Europe! Stay tuned.

One of the most significant commercial marvels in the South is
Buc-ees, the largest of all convenience stores; Vicki had learned of
them through her voluminous reading and contacts; from the highway
they look like enormous truck stops: but, no! no trucks! seriously;
above, me, with Buc-ee; we did not go inside; diesel was $3.39/gal,
which explains most of it

Baytown, TX: alpenglow on a refinery stack

Rick and Kathy, fellow travelers, with Travelin' Tortuga

Designing personal apparel for Mousetopia...