Walruses, Dogs, and Bears (oh my!)

Well, it may not be in that order. In fact this entire blog entry is going to be a little bit out of order from what actually happened today. The timeline is this:

Woke up. Animal Kingdom. Drove to Epcot. Monorailed to the Polynesian, Grand Floridian, Contemporary and Magic Kingdom before monorailing back to Epcot.

Let me just say that I really started missing some of my friends today. It started when I saw Baloo at Disney's Animal Kingdom. He was a very friendly bear. It reminded of my buddy Darrell. Big, hairy, cuddly...



...then Baloo got uncomfortably close.



This too is sort of a Darrell trait. At this point in our friendship, I'm comfortable with Darrell being uncomfortably close. So in a very weird way, I felt very much at home.

Second, I looked at an email I got from Liz. She send a post she made on her Puppatoons blog. She, along with many of my Black Bunny (geek) friends are so talented. At Gina's birthday (my last event with the group before coming to Disney), we basically dared Liz into making a Jamie Hyneman puppet for when she visits Adam Savage at Dragon*con. In case you don't know who that is, they are the stars of Mythbusters. This show basically asks a myth question and answers it. Like can a human be carried away by holding too many balloons or is the Lone Ranger's silver bullets more effective than regular lead bullets. They use scientific processes and prove or bust the myths. Here's Jamie.



And here is the puppet (sans glasses).



Amazing. Simply amazing. You should check out that earlier link for more puppet fun.

Back to Disney now, even though we never left. Discovery Channel broadcasts the Mythbusters show and Disney owns Discovery. But back to the World.

I did visit the Magic Kingdom again. I saw Pluto and had to stop for a photo.



And I saw the "Celebrate a Dream Come True!" parade. Pretty exciting actually. It's interactive and takes place on the circle just beyond Main Street U.S.A. and in front of Cinderella's Castle.

A lot of character are involved with the parade as you can see by the photos below.



As mentioned, I visited the resorts on the Monorail line. Here's a few shots starting with the Contemporary.



And the Polynesian.



The Grand Floridian.



Plus the Disney Wedding Pavillon.



And a few extra photos just for fun. Why not?



All right. Some hockeycop house cleaning: Let me just explain a few things real fast. First of all, I post a lot of pictures and not slideshows because the computer I use is pretty slow. It takes a while to load the pictures from camera to computer, then computer to internet photo program, then into a slideshow, then arrange the show, then post said show. It's faster to post pictures individually. I am cutting the number of entries down that are displayed at one time to conserve space and increase load times. Click on the "Older Posts" link down there if you missed something.

More importantly, I love getting comments. I really do. Most of you that don't have a blogger account have caught on and leave a name. That's perfect and preferred. I'll try to respond to them, particularly if there's a question or suggestion. I haven't really yet but that's just me having poor manners!

The pictures are also kinda small. But if you click on one it should enlarge.

Another thing: If you want to see something, let me know. If it's not a secret thing I'm not suppose to take pictures of, I'll do my best to fulfill the request.

Speaking of seeing things, I did get into the tunnels last night at work. In case you didn't know, the area Walt Disney World is built on is essentially marshland. It's too soggy to really have basements. When Walt Disney was in Disneyland (California), he saw a cowboy cast member in Tomorrowland. When he approached the cast member and asked why he would basically ruin the show by being in Tomorrowland as a cowboy, he realized that there was no way for cast members to get from place to place without being seen.

Partly due to this experience, he decided to create not just a land of fantasy, but an entire world. So, in the 1960's Walt started buying up lots of property under false names. The project was simply called "The Florida Project". Word eventually got out, but not before 47 sq. miles were owned by Disney.

Walt decided he wanted a tunnel system to allow cast member to move from place to place without being seen by guests. Remember that basement problem due to wet earth? The tunnels were thusly created as the ground floor on the existing land. Dirt was scooped up and place on top of the tunnel structure and the vacated hole was filled with water. This is the Seven Seas Lagoon.

The Magic Kingdom park where you walk around on is actually the second story and about 10-12 feet above the real ground level. And that lake that was created? Well, there had to be a way to get people to the park so enter the ferry boats and Monorail. The Monorail had been used in the Disneyland park before the opening of Disney World, but it was more of an attraction than needed transportation. The whole idea was that once guests park their cars (either in the day parking lot or at a resort), they wouldn't have to worry about anything, including transportation.

A whole world unto itself.

That's a very brief history of Disney World and the Monorail. Hope you enjoyed that, class.

Another little note. I will post an entry then re-read and tweek it, sometimes for a good two hours. That being said: it's probably a good idea to check the time of the entry and check back at least a few hours after that for any additions or changes.

One last picture. This is me right after I got lei-ed at the Polynesian.