Woke up early today, and we decided to take a jaunt over to Animal Kingdom, Disney's animal park. It was promising, as usual, to be a hot and humid day. We set off on the bus to get there, probably a 25-30 minute ride. On arrival, we went directly to the more popular rides in the park, the Safari, and the Kali Rapid ride. The first is a truck ride through a Disney built African landscape. There were some pretty cool animals along the way, most notably, white rhinos, giraffes, and hippos. The Rapids is a water ride where you sit in a round tube type boat that bounces off walls, and rushes down a stream. Of course, everyone gets wet. The waits for both rides were short, a nice surprise. Then we opted for a bird show that featured some beautiful African birds. The trainer had the birds fly over the audience in many cases, quite low over the audience. The best was a crowned crane. It's feet nearly brushed Ray's head...
Since we had to get back to Alex's hotel for Ray to try on his tux, we headed out at about 12:30. we met Steve there. It turns out that Alex and Jenna had to vacate their room (along with everyone else in their hotel block), because some visiting bigwig needed to have the security of no one else in the building.
We and Steve headed back to our hotel, where we grabbed some lunch, and set out for Epcot. There, we met up with Alex and Jenna, and some of Jenna's family. Together we visited a few of the Epcot "countries of the world"--especially the ones that had air conditioned attractions. By the time we reached the China exhibit, the skies were darkening, and suddenly, the skies opened up, and there was lots of thunder and lightning. Surprisingly, the downpour lasted for at least a couple of hours. Since we had reservations for the Chinese restaurant, we arrived for dinner right on time, only having to run through the rain for a short distance.
By the time we were done our dinner, the rain had stopped and the sun came out. Such is Florida in the summer. Ray, Steve, and I met Alex again at the American pavilion, the site of Alex and Jenna's "Welcome Dessert Party". There, we mingled with Alex and Jennas friends, and Jenna and Ray's family. There was everything from fresh fruit to cake, to cookies, to ice cream bars, to apple crisp and LOTS more. The party was a huge success. At about 9:00, we moved to a privately reserved, front-row-seat viewing stage for the Epcot fireworks and lighting spectacular. In the beginning of the show, one of the effects was a raging fire. We must have been more than 100 yards away, but we could feel the blast of heat where we sat.Very, very cool.
By the time we left Epcot, the park was closing, and Steve, Ray and I took the Monorail back to our hotel. Steve continued on back to his digs. But the day was not done for Ray and me. We decided there was still time to take a dip in the pool, so we did just that in the warm evening. Disney Day 2 came to a close.
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