We were planning to get out early on Friday for Epcot, so I set my alarm for way too early but then realized upon waking that sunrise isn't until about an hour later down here in FL, so I fell back to sleep and quickly got dressed so that we could head out the door running by 6:30 am. It was perfect timing for the sunrise over Bay Lake - really truly gorgeous! Of course, heaven forbid that we try to get anywhere near actual nature 😂 Disney does a really good job of corralling and controlling you into not going where they don't want you to go. We tried to hit what had looked like a nice walkway along the Lagoon, but we were turned around by security. Path not open yet. Then we tried to get down closer to the lake but it was all roped off. Then we tried to get over to the Wilderness Lodge and there were no sidewalks. Then we ran along the busy highway to get there anyway and tried to get down to the lake and there were "end of trail" signs and gates keeping us out. Crazy how hard they tried to keep us out! But it was cooler and nice to not be doing laps on the concrete around the hotel, so all told a good, if slightly random and possibly slightly dangerous, run 😁😉😅 (5.4 miles)
Hard to see but there were three turkey vultures roosting on the pilings along the lake
Then it was off to Epcot for the day! I really liked Epcot as a park, it was more spread out and they had some nice flower and nature exhibits throughout, plus more open space, which added a nice respite from the more obvious man-made exhibits and rides. They even had a colony of purple martins roosting! Cool!
Butterfly garden
Fancy dessert at the Coral Reef restaurant
Sam's slightly odd and fancy ice cream sandwich
Cool jellyfish in the Nemo ride
Neat fountain!
Orchid exhibit
Samantha's figment 😀
Loved these flowers! Bismark palms.
Colorful flowers
We did some of the rides in the main area of the park, including Spaceship Earth, Soarin' (which was really cool), Mission Space: Earth and Imagination Station with Figment, and then after lunch, Sam, Ryan and I headed across the bridge to explore the countries. It was hot and crowded but neat to see and explore.
View back across the park
Italy!
France!
Mexico!
Norway with the Anna and Elsa topiaries
Germany
We did A LOT of walking at Epcot, and before my watch died right before dinnertime in Japan at 6:20 pm, it had recorded 9.75 miles. Yes, some of that was rides for sure, but even after dinner we had to walk our way back through the park to the monorail, so I'd guess we probably did actually really walk about 7 miles or so. Whew. I was whooped! We all were.
Magical 😂😆😅
Of course, there was still a sunset and fireworks to watch before bed 😊 so a good but very full day!
No comments:
Post a Comment