It was a day for Blue...

On Sunday we were heading back to Orlando to catch the a Blue Man show, stay overnight and then do SeaWorld on Monday. Because Shayna had some car trouble, we were forced to take her boyfriend's BMW SUV instead, which I ended up driving because she's not on his insurance yet (due to her losing her license at one point several years ago -- teenage follies, sheesh!). Intimidated by the three and four lanes going each direction, I gave myself a pep talk and away we went. Kirk has a really nice vehicle but the brake was touchy and it took a little time to get used to how much pressure was needed for smooth slowing and avoiding jerky stops. I'll now have car envy until I can replace my aging Chevy truck!

Traffic was pretty good until we got near Orlando, at which point it crawled slowly...past all of the Disney World exits. Once past Disney we picked up some speed and finally made it to Universal Studios' City Walk, home of the Blue Man group.

After picking up our tickets, we wandered around the City Walk shops, purchasing some T-shirts at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville before finally finding a place to relax until the show began seating. We picked the NASCAR bar for our relaxation spot and chose a patio table where we could enjoy the breeze (until other patrons began smoking anyway) and sun. We had requested some chips & salsa but they were delayed and I finally canceled the order since we had to leave for the show. Seriously now, why should it take 30 minutes to bring out an order of chips & salsa???

I didn't know what to expect at the show, but it was really funny. There was a little boy somewhere in the section to my right that couldn't stop giggling at their antics. They never once spoke a word but used their facial expressions and body language to convey their emotions. They must have very good control over their bodies because not once did they crack up with humor. I would recommend the show to anyone, even children. My only complaint is that it was too loud (rock music). Many years ago I was at a speaking event and got stuck in a seat in front of some giant speakers. The volume projected by those speakers damaged my ear drums and I had ear pain for several weeks following. I had to listen to the radio at a whisper for awhile. Since then loud volumes like what concerts use (& the Blue Man show) hurt my ears. I wasn't expecting that kind of volume so it didn't even occur to me to buy some ear plugs to help filter the sound.

After the show we wandered some more before leaving to check into our hotel. I should mention that making those reservations was quite a feat. We didn't make them before heading to Orlando and, in fact, I made them using Shayna's phone as we walked over for the show. I had several automated voice menus to get through so it didn't immediately occur to me that I had a real person on the phone until some hesitation in the response. Recalling how I kept saying "repeat" because I couldn't hear, I was a bit embarassed. When you have automated menus, the briefest and most direct command is best so I apologized to the lady with the heavily accented English and explained that it was rather loud where I was at. She just didn't quite get it, though, that I didn't have pen & paper to write down confirmation numbers or etc and I began to get a little testy with her. THEN she got it and we had a room reserved. Oy vey...

The hotel was a Holiday Inn and very close to City Walk. While not a five-star establishment, it did have a TGI Friday's directly connected to it and I did expect decent accommodations. I was to be disappointed.

After checking in we headed back to City Walk for dinner. I tried to persuade Travis and Shayna to try the seafood place (it smelled heavenly) but they immediately "ewwed" that idea and we ended up at the outrageously priced Hard Rock Cafe. Our waiter was fabulous though and we enjoyed dinner before heading out to a bar where Shayna and Travis could use their "2 for 1" beer tickets. We found a cutesy little place called Pat O'Briens with a definite Irish theme going on. Once inside I noticed an odor that struck me as...well...cat poo. Neither Shayna nor Travis could smell it for some reason...maybe their beer was odorous. Shayna was too full from dinner to linger long and we headed back to the hotel for the night.

Once there, we immediately had to call maintenance because we discovered that the toilet had...issues. According to the surly maintenance guy, guests often lose their bars of soap in the toilets which causes obstructions. I was rather perplexed with that statement since I'd never considered that soap would find its way into a toilet that often but okay...as long as it was fixed. The next morning we discovered that the shower had only two temperatures for water flow...hot and very hot. I realized that there was something wrong with the water knob because it wasn't lining up correctly with the temperature marks around it, so I imagine the "gear" underneath was stripped. *sigh* With the so-so service and our experience with the facility, I would think twice before recommending that hotel to others.

Did I mention that our room key wouldn't unlock the back door? The little card reader box didn't light up when our key was put into the slot. We even had a replacement key made...

As we packed up to leave Monday morning, I was hoping traffic wouldn't be too bad. SeaWorld was our next destination.

Bull shit and Imaginiff...

Some of Shayna's friends came over last night to play cards and games. We started with Battle of the Sexes but it quickly became tedious since none of us knew the answers. We switched to Imaginiff, which ended up pretty funny! Aside from not knowing everyone well enough to be able to accurately guess an answer for the question, I felt sure enough of my judgement of character to make an effort. (i.e. Imaginiff Travis was a famous fictitious character, which would he be? Smokey the Bear, Spongebob Squarepants, ....) After Imaginiff we switched to cards with a competitive game of Rhummy followed by many rounds of Bullshit. I'd never played Bullshit before but it was fun. I'll have to remember that one for another day.

This morning Jill the Wonder Dog once again had me up before anyone else. Once everyone was ready to face the day, we were on our way to Busch Gardens to meet Shayna's friends. Between yesterday's walkabout at Gatorland and today's walkabout at Busch Gardens, my legs and ankles are aching ferociously! Maybe it's time to get new tennis shoes... Anyhow, we viewed tons of animals at the Gardens in between walking through shops and eyeing the big roller coaster that had stopped mid-ride with passengers trapped in not-so-good places. In the souvenir shops, I had a few specfic things I was looking for but didn't find them...nor did I find a substitute good enough to make me open my wallet. That's okay though. I'd rather not buy anything that have junk sitting around.

One of the most interesting animal exhibits involved a newly constructe area that allows the public to interact more with the animals. For example, the tiger enclosure was partially made of thick plastic or glass so that the animals could come up within a foot of visitors. Also, they had what they called a "tiger pop up", a plastic/glass bubble like feature in the tiger's enclosure. Underneath was a tunnel that visitors could use to access the pop up and get a different view, possibly even be surrounded by tigers. The gorilla exhibit was also like this and we were treated to seeing a mother gorilla playing with her baby right by the wall of plastic/glass.

We also saw a possum with recessive features, which some would automatically think...albino? This possum actually was the other way...it had black tips on white fur! It was pretty interesting to see. It's tail was half black and half white, really kind of bizarre but I thought it a much more attractive color than gray.

After we'd seen nearly everything to see, we headed out for a steak dinner and planned an early night. We're tired!!

P.S. The meerkats are just as cute in person as they are on Animal Planet's "Meerkat Manor".

Lions and tigers and gators..oh my!

We went to the movies last night to catch the new movie "Marley and Me". It was hysterically funny for most of the movie but, if you've read the book, you know the ending is sad. I think the whole movie theater was in tears by the time the credits rolled. It was a great movie though and I'd like to read the book now, since the book always has more to the story than Hollywood's version.

I was up pretty early this morning with Jill the Wonder Dog. Travis and Shayna slept for a little longer before facing the new day. Later we went to Gatorland up towards Orlando-way. It was pretty interesting and much larger than I thought it would be. I was envisioning a small preserve but this place had hundreds of gators of all ages. You could buy a six-pack of hot dogs for $2 and feed the gators but the birds made off with the pieces before the gators could lazily swim to where they had fallen. The younger gators were more food-motivated and I thought a cormorant or snake bird was about to lose a leg several different times. Those slender feet were the same color as the hot dogs so it wouldn't have been a stretch of imagination. It's no wonder the birds were being cautious about where they stepped! It was about the only time they were cautious...

Also featured were some really REALLY large tortoises. They are on the endangered list and from somewhere in Africa. One was 500 lbs and the other 600 lbs. You could pay $5 to feed them a few carrots and scratch their heads. The kids loved it! We visited the small petting zoo where some very rude goats greedily snatched food out of our hands. They completely ignored my comments on sharing the goods. Typical goats... I was a little startled at the appearance of a few of them...no horns and no ears! I immediately thought they were rescued goats from an abusive farm but no...that's how their breed appear (regarding the ears anyway). They had been deliberately dehorned.

We wandered past the exotic bird cage and many more enclosures with reptiles, crocodiles and gators from other countries. Morton and Sheila were two crocs from "Down Under". They were huge! We watched Morton snag some fish while floating along the bottom of his enclosure. He must like the attention because he surfaced right by the fence and burped his fish dinner for everyone before staring at us for awhile. I stared back from the safety of my fenced perch with the words from Jaws running through my mind...."their eyes were black..." Ok, so Morton's eyes weren't black but I got the feeling that if any humans were within reach, they'd be Morton food just as quickly.

We watched a few shows - an educational show with a handler "wrestling"a gator in front a of a large audience and talking about gators in general...especially emphasizing that if one starts to chase you, you should just run very quickly because a human can out run a gator. The second show was a little more entertainment with handlers dangling raw chicken above the water to get a gator to jump into the air for it. I wasn't as entertained as others because it seemed rather demeaning but I know that some places like this have to exist in order to do good for all gators in Florida.

After a long day we headed back to Tampa, a bobble-head turtle safely tucked away in my bag so it can join the other one I purchased on a previous visit.