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Saturday comes and everyone's just about theme-parked out. A few
minor incidents with the brats staying on either side of us -- and a bus
full of cheerleaders that decided to break into a chant in the middle of
the Quality Inn parking lot at one in the morning while we were trying to
get the Little Monster to sleep -- set an interesting tone for the
morning. I'd wanted to go back to the Zoo to grab a few shots of the
Kraken -- and to ride the thing a few more times while i was at it -- and
Seth seemed okay with it. There were just a couple of problems.
The bus schedule for the Zoo was weird, as previously mentioned.
There was only one bus departing for SeaWorld from our hotel, at 12:10pm.
And there were only two buses departing from SeaWorld, the first of
which didn't arrive until 3:25pm. So we'd be going to the park for
three hours just to ride two things and snap a couple of pictures.
Then we stepped outside to check the temperature. It was even worse
than the day we got frozen out of Wet 'n Wild. Think the high for
the day was somewhere in the low sixties. So that pretty much ruled
out Atlantis. So it was either go to the park to ride one
thing now, or forget it and just grab the photos the next time we happen
to be in town. And i wasn't much of a fan of the latter option.
So i pressured Seth into getting out of bed and going with me to the Zoo.
He went along, but he didn't pretend to be thrilled about it. There was no line for the Kraken, so we pretty much walked right up and got front row seats. Now at this point, we were both pretty much beat. I hadn't been sleeping well the whole week, and Seth had had some trouble sleeping the night before. Nothing like a blast of cold air in the face and a few inversions to wake your ass up. =) So we got about two or three rides on the Kraken, i got my snapshots, and we got some calzones -- at least, they called them calzones ... personally, i've seen bigger croissants, but they cost the same as a regular calzone, so yeah, whatever. So we got everything out of our system that we wanted to get done, and we still had an hour before the bus arrived. And being the end of the week as it was, we didn't have another $10 to burn at the arcade. Then i remembered the one thing Seth hadn't gotten to do on Tuesday -- see Shamu. So we made our way through the crowds to Shamu stadium, just in time to grab a seat and watch the pre-show. The show let out with just enough time for us to exit the park and get to the bus pick-up point. So yeah, Seth got to see Shamu and family, and i nabbed some photos of rides and killerwhales and stuff. One thing i hadn't noticed during our first trip to the zoo -- idunno, it might not have been there before -- they had Christmas stuff up everywhere, and at a few points in the park they had live musicians playing various Christmasstuff. 'Twas really neat. And they had girls standing around holding cats for the kids to pet. And i thought it was weird that they had a Clydesdale stable there -- until BIL reminded me that the park was owned by Amheiser-Busch. But yeah. Girls with cats. The ride home was a bit of an adventure. The Hispanic guy that had been driving the afternoon bus wasn't around. We'd noticed on Wednesday that there was an older lady in the front passenger seat talking with the bus driver -- i thought she was just a friendly tourist, pestering the poor guy while he was trying to drive the rest of us around. Well, as it turns out, she was a new driver -- and we had the pleasure of joining her for her first solo flight. Luckily Keanu Reeves and Dennis Hopper decided not to make an appearance ("Oh darn!"), but it was an adventure nonetheless. [Lady (over the PA): "You guys haven't heard any bad stories about female bus-drivers, have you?" Me (to Seth, quoting the Pirates of the Caribbean ride): "Dead men tell no tales!"] So we got back to the hotel, and Sis and BIL (and LM) were still there. No one really felt like doing anything parkwise, so Sis decided they'd just walk up and down Int'l Drive, see what was happening on the Strip and whatnot. I, on the other hand, took the opportunity to stay behind and cash out on the bed for a few hours. (A moment of peace in the midst of dealing with lots of stoopid people and my hi-strung family.) Seth joined the other three, and from what i understand they had a good time -- aside from LM getting sick and puking everywhere on the way back. And i got some good sleep and TV watching in. When they got back, we all sat down in front of the TV and watched four episodes of the new series based on the "All Growed Up" episode of Rugrats. (Hey, we had to watch something the 2yo in the room could enjoy, too. It wasn't like i enjoyed it ... and it wasn't like i watched the AGU marathon the Sunday after we got back ... ... heh ... whoops) Then Sis looked after the sick Li'l Monster while the rest of us threw stuff in suitcases and prepared to head out. |
~ The Two Actual Rides There. ~
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 The Kraken. |
 Baby Kraken. |
 A Building. |
~ The Shamu Experience ~ |
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 Doh! |
 Better ... |
 Ah! There we go. =) |
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