GenePool Humor

Vacation 1999

Day Four: Veldt Too Hot

6:00 A.M.

There is only one place in Disney that one does not simply get up one day and decide, for the heck of it, to visit. That place is the Animal Kingdom. It is extremely difficult to get animals to adhere to a schedule, and I know this well, having house-trained pets. All the really fun animals-- the elephants, lions, giraffes, middle linebackers-- know enough to get out of the heat, whereas the foolish humans do not. Disney World recognized right away that they would have to open Animal Kingdom very early to compensate for this, or else change the name to No Animals Kindgdom, which doesn't sound nearly as charming. ("And on your right, you'll see where the lions were juuust a minute ago. On your left, some fabulous elephant footprints.")

This is why our wake-up call today is set for such an ungodly hour.

6:45 A.M.

A quick check confirms that Becky's rash has almost disappeared. We still don't know what it was, but it's gone now, so we don't care.

7:00 A.M.

We have not had any coffee. Any of us. Prior to leaving the room I attempted to use the coffee maker that was conveniently installed in our room along with the coffee packets that come with no instructions whatsoever. (Do I know how much water to add? I do not.) The product that resulted from this ill-planned alchemy was undrinkable-- and I have a pretty high tolerance for bad coffee.

So, standing at the bus stop, there is a high probability that we're all going to fall asleep. Since it was Deb and I that insisted we all get up this early, we should be concerned for our lives, but we're too tired. And I don't think anyone else will be able to muster up the energy to do much more than assault us with harsh language.

7:30 A.M.

We're actually late. Animal Kingdom opens at 7:00 A.M. Worse still, they've added attractions at the very entrance, and we have to stop to examine them, rather than high-tail it to Africa for the safari. The attractions include people on stilts and people wearing body stockings with leaves on them. They look much cooler than I'm making them sound, but I can't really give you an idea of what they're supposed to BE, because they don't look like anything I've ever seen before.

7:45 A.M.

Our determined assault on the African side of the Kingdom has been halted unexpectedly by a large crowd of people who arrived with the exact same plan. Inexplicably, although Animal Kingdom opens its doors at 7:00, none of the "countries" open until 8:00 so we are now in a large, smelly queue of extremely dissatisfied guests who have been forced to stop near the gates to Africa.

8:15 A.M.

We reach the safari.

I won't go into detail on this because we did it last year and it hasn't changed all that much in the intervening twelve months. I will say we saw more animals this time around, including lions. Last year the lions were on a gazelle break and unavailable.

8:40 A.M.

Now the moment we've all been waiting for: breakfast.

We're following in the footsteps of our trip here last year, at least for the first part of our day, and last year, after the safari, we ate at Kusafiri Coffee Shop. They serve breakfast sandwiches here, along with some fabulous hash browns. Some dissent erupts in our ranks, though, when not all members of our party are entirely satisfied with the dining options. (I'm not attempting to protect anyone's identity; this happened before I could drink my coffee, so I don't remember who it was. I'm fairly certain the discussion DID take place within OUR family, however.) The best we can do by way of responding to this sudden riot is point out that the only other source of food is the Rainforest Cafe, which we walked past an hour earlier and which will take us another hour to get back to. Plus, it takes so long to get a table at the Rainforest Cafe, it would be much quicker to return to the safari to hunt and kill a wildebeest, even without the appropriat weaponry.

9:15 A.M.

Okay, we're all considerably less grouchy now, as we attempt to make plans for the next hour or two.

[We interrupt this account to inform you of some last minute changes. Rhoda has regretfully submitted her resignation following her discovery that we are unable to pay her because we are poor. While we thought we had made this clear to her from the outset, we believe Maude had something to do with this, or possibly Flo. We have made several attempts to find an emergency replacement-- we asked EVERYone, INCUDING Blair from Facts of Life who, we don't need to tell you, is a real step down in quality here-- and came up empty. Fortunately, we came across a young actor who shows a great deal of promise and who will also work for free. So for now until further notice, the role of Flo/Maude/Rhoda will be played by Bobo the Chimp. We now return you to your regularly scheduled travelogue. Thank you.]

Dawn, Marissa and Bobo would like to see Festival of the Lion King. This is a live stage show. Deb, having heard what a great show this is, would also like to see it, as would Becky and Mamom. Me, Papop and Tim couldn't care less, but it looks like we're going to end up going, especially since the show starts at 9:45 A.M., meaning we have to go NOW. There's just not enough time to argue about it.

Then we get up from our seats and start walking toward the exit when my father says what may very well turn out to be the last words he ever speaks. "Dear," he says to his wife, "where's your camera?"

Understand that my mother's camera is sort of like the family talisman. It's a sacred object that is carried from event to event with religious regularity. She is the high priestess, and it must follow her wherever she goes. I believe she thinks if she has not taken a photo of an event then the event did not actually take place. My father is the sacred keeper of the camera. It is his responsibility to carry it when the high priestess cannot, because, well, the damn thing is heavy. This is because it's expensive, and because it comes in a weighty little carrying case with lenses and film and, I'm guessing, ballast.

What happened when we first sat down is that we realized there was not enough room for all of us at the first table my father chose. So we all moved. The keeper of the camera neglected to transport the sacred camera to our new table.

In the first frantic moments after realizing the camera is nowhere to be found (including at our former table) we all scatter about the room looking as if perhaps it will simply reappear spontaneously in a chair somewhere. I tell the children to say their final goodbyes to Papop while he starts looking for a priest who can deliver last rites, and then someone (I don't remember who) thinks to ask the help there if they found a camera.

Miraculously, they had. The camera is reproduced from the back room, after having been discovered by one of the cleaning people at our vacated table. The keeper of the camera rejoices.

9:30 A.M.

All this, of course, puts us even further behind schedule. The women in the party want to head immediately to the Lion King show. Tim would much rather deface a penny.

They have these little machines all over the place here. What you do is, you put in two quarters and a penny. The penny is then loaded into a gear-intensive machinery where it is mashed and elongated into a vaguely oval shape with a pattern stamped onto it. In this instance the pattern is the Tree of Life emblem. The machine, unfortunately, keeps the quarters.

Since Tim wants to do this far more than he wants to see any stage shows, I stay with him and Papop (he's still reciting Hail Marys in the corner) while everyone else heads for the show.

9:45 A.M.

We're left with something of a problem. The show everyone else went to see doesn't end until at least 10:30. The coin-flattening toy takes us maybe two minutes. So we wander. We stop briefly at an outdoor stand and buy, yes, more hats. This time I go for a thoroughly practical hat that I will never ever wear again. Fashion and practicality never seem to intersect in my world. Not sure why.

The rest of our time is spent wandering around the Tree of Life to look at the random samples of wildlife there. For example, we get to see the world's largest rodent. Insert your own congressional joke here.

10:10 A.M.

We are nestled at the edge of Camp Minnie/Mickey. This is the only part of the Animal Kingdom that has characters making appearances, but in keeping with the theme of the rest of the park, all of the characters are hidden behind plant life. I bet you think I'm kidding.

While my father and I sit on a bench and rest, Tim wanders into the greenery behind us and finds a lizard. Frankly, Florida is lousy with lizards, but Tim thinks this is a feature unique to Animal Kingdom. I keep my mouth shut, as I'm afraid if I don't, he'll try and catch it to keep as a pet.

10:15 A.M.

The show releases its audience. We catch the remaining members of our party, but only ever-so-briefly. Marissa, Dawn and Bobo now want to see Pocohantas and Her Forest Friends. I have to say that as little interest as I may have had in Festival of the Lion King, I have even less interest in seeing Pocohantas and Her Forest Friends. Deb and Becky and Mamom are also not so interested in seeing the Pocohantas show, so Deb collects the park passes from Marissa, Dawn and Bobo, we arrange a meeting place, and off they go, roughly twenty feet from where we're currently standing, since the Pocohantas show is also in Camp Minnie/Mickey.

10:35 A.M.

Let's talk for a moment about the heat, shall we? When we were here last year we made the mistake of visiting Animal Kingdom on what turned out to be the hottest day of the year. It turns out this is a feature; EVERY day in Animal Kingdom is the hottest day of the year. This is all because the Disney people had the temerity to install real live plants, and not just in a few places, either, no, they had to put them all over. And don't tell me it's because of the animals. For God's sake, they're ANIMALS! What do they care? I bet they'd be perfectly HAPPY in an air conditioned cage, and I bet we'd be able to seem all of 'em that way too. But no, that would be too easy. All this vegetation has the effect of sucking up every single cool breeze and turning it into moist humidity, and the result is that Animal Kingdom has its own climate. What they should do is deliver a separate weather report just for this park. ("The first winter frost could damage this year's orange crop... and in Disney's Animal Kingdom five more people burst into flames, bringing the total this year to 167.")

I'm just pointing this out so you understand that it's nearly impossible to make sensible decisions in this weather. Movement of any sort is not recommended either.

So it's not even Noon yet and it's already hotter than anything Dante had in mind. My parents have been reduced to grunting occasionally, having lost the ability to form words some time ago, so we lead them to Dinoland USA and the Boneyard Playground. The one thing the playground has going for it is the several massive industrial-sized fans arranged strategically inside. After taking their park passes, Deb and I leave Mamom and Papop there with the children with explicit instructions to not attempt to follow the children anywhere within the playground. (Children, I am convinced, come with their own cooling systems.) "Tell the children where you'll be," I say, "and they will find you when they need you."

I don't really think this will work, but it's worth trying.

10:30 A.M.

I bet you were wondering why we collected all the park passes. Well this is the other thing you need to know if you ever intend to use Disney's FastPass system in the future. The machines allow only one FastPass per park pass. I know this because I tried it yesterday, and rather than getting a second FastPass I got a little note that said "you already got one, you bastard." So we know if we're going to get everyone on a ride, we need everyone's park pass.

The ride we're heading to is Countdown To Extinction. I really don't know how we were able to convince everyone to go on this ride, since my mother doesn't go on roller coasters, Dawn and Marissa avoid scary rides in general, and Bobo doesn't like to do much of anything except scratch herself and eat bananas. I believe our logic thread went something like:

--It's air conditioned,

--It's not very scary,

--It's not really a roller coaster,

--It's air conditioned,

--It doesn't move all that fast,

--It's air conditioned.

God only knows why they believed us.

11:10 A.M.

After getting all the passes, Deb and I returned to the Boneyard Playground, at which point Deb removed my mother from the playground and walked her to the 1999 Dinosaur Jubilee. She did not do this to confuse you, the reader, although by the time I'm done here, she will have succeeded in that as well. She did this because my mother needed to get out of the heat. I'm guessing she didn't heed our advice and tried to follow the children. Me and Papop stay behind to attempt to locate the children and also to wait for Dawn, Marissa and Bobo to arrive, as this is the meeting place we had arranged. They arrive not long after Mamom and Deb leave, so we give Marissa a few minutes to sprint about, then collect the children and go see if we can find the 1999 Dinosaur Jubilee.

11:20 A.M.

All right, it's not much of a walk. The advantage of the Dinosaur Jubilee thingie is that it's a large indoor tent with copious amounts of air conditioning and fossils. People generally come for the air conditioning and stay for the fossils. We would very much love to stay, but our FastPasses are for 11:30.

11:30 A.M.

We almost lose half the party when we walk past the warning sign on the way into the Countdown To Extinction building. These signs all say pretty much the same thing. (Warning: [insert ride name] is a high speed, low calorie ride with twelve Gs of constant pressure on every part of your body including your groin. Do not attempt this ride if you if you are pregnant, have back problems, or are perfectly healthy. Please sign the insurance waiver before boarding.) The problem is just that; they all say the same extreme things, even on some pretty tame little rides. (Warning: Cinderella's Golden Carrousel spins fast enough to open a hole in the space-time continuum. Do not attempt this ride if you are obese, have gas, or are ideologically opposed to time travel.) The one constant about the warnings is that they always make the ride sound much worse than it really is, and this is a point Deb and I find ourselves stressing repeatedly in order to keep our entire party intact.

12:00 P.M.

Or, maybe it's just us. My mother, can personally attest to the validity of the bad back warning on the sign. Marissa produces a veritable dissertation regarding exactly how scary the ride is. Becky screamed her little head off, but that's okay; we were expecting that. Tim, who insisted he was going to go through the ride without screaming once, succeeded in not screaming, but only because he had his head down and eyes closed the entire time.

It turns out Marissa was unaware that dinosaurs no longer exist. This was something we did not know about her, and on a ride in which several very lively dinosaurs lunge out at us repeatedly, this might have been something she needed to know in advance. We expect to be billed for her therapy.

12:45 P.M.

We race on over for a chance to be in line for the Tarzan Rocks! show. (I know I said I have no desire to see a show. I don't, but my brain is just about gone now.) We also get to see the Disney World emergency team race into action.

Just before they open the doors, a woman elects to pass out from the heat while waiting in line. I have often wondered how well they train their Disney crew in such an event, and let me tell you, they waste no expense when it comes to advanced medical training here, nosirree. In a matter of moments they had checked the woman's pulse, fetched some water, rearranged the line so that nobody would step directly on her, and waited eagerly for her to wake up again so they could give her the water. It was straight out of E.R., especially the episode where everyone in the operating room waited for the gunshot wounds to clot so they could send the patient home.

1:00 P.M.

I'm learning to hate modern pop music. I didn't always; back when I was a kid I listened to Top 40 radio exclusively, but back when I was a kid there were bands like the Pretenders, the Talking Heads, David Bowie, the Police, etc. on Top 40 stations. These were some pretty decent bands, in my opinion, and best of all, each member of these bands was old enough to shave.

On today's Top 40 stations there's a 50-50 chance the person singing the song hit puberty last week. Worse, they probably didn't write the song they're singing. (If they had, we'd get a lot of songs about much better sky blue crayons taste than ocher.) They also can't play a musical instrument, and their voice (and possibly their breasts) has been augmented in the studio beforehand. They've been artificially created, and worse, I think there are only two design models (male and female) from which to choose. But worst of all, they're EVERYwhere. They're even at Disney World.

You'll have to see Tarzan Rocks! for yourself to really understand where I'm coming from here. The show consists of a "rock" band, three singers, and a bunch of stunt people. We'll leave the stunt people alone for a moment. The singers consist of one marginally adult male, who is easly first-runner-up for Whitest Male on the Planet, and two female vocalists-- one blonde and one brunette-- who appear to be somewhat older but no less prefabricated. (To her credit, the brunette actually had a decent singing voice. The blonde was, I think, intentionally hitting flat notes just to annoy me.) What this magnificent assemblage of generic talent does is sing all of the songs from the movie Tarzan.

Now, the music and lyrics from Tarzan were done by Phil Collins, who is the winner and reigning champion of the Whitest Man on the Planet award. It's a bit hard for me to trash Phil Collins because there are people who are reading this account right now who knew me when I was a teenager myself, and back then I was a huge fan of Genesis. But let's admit one thing; the man's lyrics are just about the dullest, most cliche-ridden bits of pablum this side of Jon Bon Jovi. Don't believe me? Here's some samples. Avert your eyes if you just ate.

"Put your faith in what you most believe in
Two worlds, one family
Trust your heart, Let fate decide
To guide these lives we see...."

Let's put on our thinking caps and deconstruct this, shall we? Line one is intrinsically redundant. "Eat the food that you are currently chewing" makes just as much sense. Line two isn't bad, but it's tough to screw up only four words. Line three not only comes with two ready-made cliches, but they contradict each other. Line four, suddenly we're in first-person: "we" who exactly? I've tried to figure out what message I'm trying to get out of this, and I can't. Be faithful to what I believe in my heart? But you just told me to let fate figure it all out, so why should I put faith into anything? Should I put my faith in fate? Why bother? Fate is gonna happen either way; it wouldn't be fate otherwise. Then again, maybe this isn't happening to me at all. Apparently, it's happening to someone I'm just watching.

(And if anyone out there wants to argue that, well, of course, it's from a Disney movie, which is for kids, after all, so why should I be expecting Bob Dylan here? I heartily recommend you all shut up and run right out and rent Beauty and the Beast. Thank you.)

Now then. You've got your banal lyrics. You've got your generic Backstreet Boys wannabe. Put them together. This is ALMOST what Tarzan Rocks! is like. The singer prances about on-stage making all of these "aren't I cool, I'm not white, really, I'm not" gestures while singing barely on-key to Phil "am I cool yet?" Collins' music.

The only entertainment to be derived from the entire affair comes from the stunt persons. Most of the stunt people are dressed up in something that could be considered monkey-like provided one visited the zoo while tripping on PCP. They are all rollerbladers. A portion of the stage is a ramp sort of thing, and they do all sorts of stunts over it. This, I admit, is sort of neat.

But the most entertainment comes from Tarzan and Jane. They do a little choreographed number to the corresponding song in the movie ("Generic song #3") tha begins with Jane coming out on stage in her big yellow dress. She wanders about, taking notes or something, while the monkey people pull up a sheet over the front of the stage. Thus, Jane slips away behind the sheet, and when she comes out the other side she no longer has on the yellow dress. Now she has on a sensible skirt and a half-unbuttoned blouse. She prances about a bit more, and then goes behind the sheet again, and comes out in a miniskirt and halter top. Then they lower the sheet and put it away, much to the tremendous disappointment of every man in the audience. (My father very nearly blurted out "go behind it again!" in the middle of the show.) Then Gypsy Rose Jane and the already mostly-naked Tarzan do a little dance while swinging about on a vine.

To round out the show Mr. New Kid on the Block delivers a heart-warming message about us all being a part of "two worlds, one family." Within the context of the film this means that even though the people and the apes are from two different "worlds" we're all part of the same "family", which begs the questions: do creationists allow their kids to see this film?

2:00 P.M.

We end up at the Restaurantosaurus, which is the coolest name for an eating establishment I've encountered in a while. Unfortunately, the food itself doesn't hold up to the same creative standard. This portion of Animal Kingdom is brought to us by MacDonald's, so the menu here is a mixture of their food and some random fast food products that one can encounter most anywhere. But we're not here for the food so much as for the air conditioning.

Deb and I again nab the passes, and then leave everyone at the restaurant. We walk as rapidly as we can to Asia. There's one more ride we want to do, but first, we need to get some FastPasses.

2:45 P.M.

Asia wasn't open for business when we were here a year ago, so you'd think we might want to look around a bit and see what they have there. You'd be wrong. There is a wilderness tour here, much in the spirit of the African Safari we've already gone on, but in this instance it's a WALKING tour, and this is just about the last thing any of us want to do. The only thing we're interested in, in Asia, is the Kali River Rapids. And by the time we get to it, we discover that everyone else in the Animal Kingdom is equally interested. This is why FastPass is becoming my new favorite feature.

3:10 P.M.

The only person who has doesn't want in on this ride is my mother, which is okay because we have lots of things with us that we do not wish to get wet. So we leave her seated near the exit with a plethora of items we hope to be able to collect again once we're done, provided we survive.

The Kali River Rapids is a flume ride. One gets into a large round boat that gets carried about along a "river" and then plummeted down a waterfall. A similar ride, in Agawam, Massachusetts, recently overturned with people on board, nearly drowning the entire crew. Frankly, at this stage in our day, I kind of like the prospect of being submerged for a long period of time.

This marks only the second time I've ever agreed wholeheartedly with the warning signs in front of the ride. (The first time was last year, at Alien Encounter.) The signs for this ride say "You WILL get wet. We mean it. REALLY wet." They have the same signs in front of Splash Mountain, and I never got much more than a face full of water then, so I didn't really believe it. Then I took the ride.

We get soaked. Completely soaked. A veritable psunami overtakes the boat. Even my FEET get wet. And I don't get the worst of it. The boats seat ten people, and we're only eight people, so they seated one stranger with us. He gets absolutely nailed. Once the boat comes to a stop he announces that he's off to buy a new wardrobe.

3:30 P.M.

Now things get a bit dicey.

About a month before we even started packing for this trip Deb decided to reserve a dinner theater show for all of us. She'd heard good things about a show called "Hoop De Doo," although I don't know WHERE she heard it. The Hoop De Doo takes place at the Wilderness Lodge, which is one of the Disney resorts. We have to be there at 4:30, and knowing what we already know about how long it takes to get from one place to another in Disney, we figure there's going to be a lot of running involved in order to make the reservation.

What we have going for us is Dad's rental car. Today, for the first time, he had decided to drive himself and mom (and the three kids) to the park rather than take the bus, so it's sitting in the parking lot. (I apologize for not having mentioned this at the beginning of the account. I'm also too lazy to page up and correct it.) Reasoning that the slowest among us are mom, dad, and the kids, me, Deb, Dawn and Bobo half-sprint to the bus stop, while they walk at a leisurely pace to the car.

4:15 P.M.

It takes us this long to get here because the bus also stopped at Blizzard Beach before reaching the Wilderness Lodge. But while we are happy to have arrived so promptly, we are disheartened by the lack of signs indicating exactly where to go. Deb and I walk to the front desk and find out that the Hoop De Doo show does not actually take place at the Wilderness Lodge. It takes place at Fort Wilderness. These are evidently different locations, a detail that we find more than mildly annoying. Worse, we instructed my father to go to the wrong place.

We're told to take a bus called Crockett.

4:30 P.M.

Crockett takes us where we want to be, but we can't sign in for our reservation because the rest of our party is not here and we have no way of knowing when it will arrive. But we're not panicking.

4:50 P.M.

Now we're starting to panic. Deb goes down to the bus stop to see if her presence there causes them to arrive more promptly. I pick up the house phone and spend ten minutes trying to get in touch with the restaurants at Wilderness Lodge in the off-chance they are standing outside of one of them waiting for us. This turns out to be impossible. Every attempt ends with me talking to the Disney Dining people, who can make a reservation for me, which I do not want, but cannot look through the front door of a specific restaurant, which is what I need.

4:55 P.M.

Suddenly, they appear. The had been instructed to park in a lot especially reserved for Fort Wilderness guests, and they were told to wait for an internal bus to take them to the Hoop De Doo. Naturally, since my mother was there, the internal bus they were waiting for never arrived. They walked from the lot instead.

We still can't go right in, however. First, we have to pose for a photograph. Mind you, we've all been awake for far too long, we're standing in god-awful heat in wet clothes, we're hungry, thirsty, and insanely stressed. And they want our picture. When we see samples of this photo later the most amazing thing is that we all had the energy to smile for it. Or, they airbrushed smiles on for us. Hard to tell.

5:10 P.M.

I definitely recommend the Hoop De Doo. It is the hokiest show I have ever seen and worth every penny. (It takes a lot of pennies.) It's an old fashioned musical revue, with lots of vaudeville routines mixed in. I even recognized one of the routines from an Abbott and Costello film. The children are unrelentingly entertained, and I like it too, even though my shorts are still soaking wet and the air conditioning is going full blast. The pitcher of sangria helps.

7:30 P.M.

We come up with our own Abbott and Costello routine.

The first thing we do after exiting the show is hop on board the Crockett bus. This bus goes from Fort Wilderness to the Wilderness Lodge and then the Ticket and Transportation Center, which is a central location for most of the resort buses and the monorail. Deb and I want to get off at the Wilderness Lodge, because a friend of hers from work-- Cheryl-- is staying there, and we want to page her so we can say hello. We expect everyone else to stay on the bus, but we can't tell them this as the bus is so crowded we all got separated. So when my parents and the kids get off as well we say "no, stay on the bus."

"We can't stay on the bus," my dad says.

Then Dawn and Bobo get off, and we know that while they won't fit into Papop's car with all three of the children, they can still ride the bus to the Ticket and Transportation Center, then get a bus to the Caribbean Beach from there, so while trying to convince my father to get back on, we turn to Dawn and say "no, stay on the bus."

"Then why did you get off?" Dawn asks.

"It's going to the Ticket and Transportation Center," we say.

"But I don't want to go to the Ticket and Transportation Center," my father says.

"What is the Ticket and Transportation Center?" Dawn asks.

This goes on for a few minutes. Turns out Dad DID have to get off the bus because the bus that stops at the parking lot he left the car in is the Boone bus, not the Crockett, and, unfortunately, the Boone bus passed us while we were having this discussion. By the time it's all over, Mamom, Papop, and the kids successfully board the Boone, Dawn and Bobo catch the Crockett, and we go inside.

7:50 P.M.

Apparently we have had an insufficient supply of irony for the evening, and so, to compensate, whatever deity is orchestrating this vacation decides to make sure Deb's friend is staying not at the Wilderness Lodge, but at Fort Wilderness. (The difference, in case you're wondering, is that the Lodge is a single large hotel, while Fort Wilderness is a collection of time share condos.) We're just fortunate the man at the desk was able to locate her for us, even if he had to search the entire Disney hotel computer system to do it.

8:30 P.M.

We've now overdosed on irony. The Ticket and Transportation Center-- the same place we instructed Dawn and Bobo to go in order to get back to our hotel-- does not have a bus stop for the Caribbean Beach Resort. In order to get to it we actually have to take the monorail to Epcot, and then catch the bus there.

9:15 P.M.

What's really remarkable is that we all make it back to the hotel. Everyone is, understandably, exhausted, and some of us are STILL wet from the flume ride six hours earlier. (Never ever wear denim shorts when going on that ride.) We plan the next day and then make it an early evening. Most of us.

10:45 P.M.

I return from the pool bar MUCH more relaxed.

11:00 P.M.

Sleep.

© 2000, Gene Doucette