Things You Realize at the Top of a 40-Story Ferris Wheel
by Scott Hardie on March 16, 2022
Kelly and I just got back from a two-day getaway to Orlando to celebrate our anniversary. No theme parks; we've been to them many times and they're jammed with people right now anyway. We tried small local attractions instead. Thoughts in no particular order:
* Man, I forgot how expensive tourist traps can be! We rode a 40-story-high Ferris wheel for $80, played games in a video arcade for $75, and explored a wax museum for $75, none of which were worth anywhere near that price. Compared to those, the $30 that we paid to play a round of mini-golf almost seemed reasonable.
* I've always wanted to visit a wax museum, and I guess now I can say that I have. I'm not really one for posing for photos -- the Instagram fad is completely passing me by -- and there's not a ton else to do there except shrug and say, "Yep, that looks like Donald Trump. Yep, that looks like Beyonce." The figures do look lifelike (except for the eerily dead-eyed Katy Perry), and there are a few neat details like seeing how short Lady Gaga is or how many visible tattoos Johnny Depp has, although the extra-trim bodies suggest that all of these celebrities went on strict weight-loss plans for a few months before posing for immortality. A few exhibits had interactive elements, like a puzzle built into Ponce de Leon's pirate ship or some special effects that can be activated around the DC superheroes, but again, taking pictures was really the only point here.
* We were staying only three blocks from Bahama Breeze, the Caribbean-themed restaurant where Aaron, Amy, Jackie, Kelly, Matthew and I went out to dinner during GooCon: Citrus Ridge (how I wish I still had the photos!), but we opted not to return because the friendship was the highlight back then and not the food. Instead we found a delicious tapas restaurant for lunch, got steak for dinner -- well, Kelly got steak; I had salad because I'm avoiding fatty meat for reasons -- and had another decent lunch of French croissants. The hotel breakfast buffet was a basic assortment of cereal, toast, apples, and so on, so I wish I had taken the opportunity to try the hot-breakfast vending machine in the lobby. I've never had a ham-and-egg bagel sandwich from a vending machine but YOLO.
* I snark about some of this, but I really did have fun (the pirate-themed mini-golf was superb), and getting time away with Kelly was the best part. We're both so busy with work and projects and illnesses and other distractions, and we needed some time together just having fun. It's been now 8 years since the wedding and 26 years since our first date in high school, and those are years worth commemorating. Here's to more years together ahead.
Three Replies to Things You Realize at the Top of a 40-Story Ferris Wheel
Scott Hardie | March 17, 2022
Awesome! Thank you, Matthew! "breeze4.jpg" is the image I was picturing in my head when I mentioned Bahama Breeze.
I was focused on the negative when I wrote the above commentary, so here are some positives:
* Florida has a lot of pirate-themed entertainment, from dinner shows to day cruises to bars to festivals and more, so I was not at all surprised to find a pirate-themed mini-golf course. What surprised me was how good it was: Immaculate theming with great attention to detail, thorough maintenance and cleaning (we saw barely a leaf out of place), and a thoughtfully designed course. We played the best mini-golf we ever had (three holes-in-one between us), but it was also clear that Kelly's artificial shoulder made this painful and it might be our last time playing this beloved old game together. Kelly won the game by two strokes, so she got to sit on the pirate throne at the end and give off some Notorious B.I.G. vibes.
* I mentioned above having a salad while Kelly got steak, but I didn't mean to imply that I was somehow forced to eat something I didn't want. I ordered the salad because it looked like the tastiest thing on the menu. (I'm not a steak person.) Please withhold judgment for us eating at a chain restaurant while on vacation; we were lost and tired and hungry. :-) Anyway, if you like the Wendy's apple pecan salad as much as I do, this is like a heftier, tastier version of the same thing. Best dinner out I've had in a while.
* The upgrade to a suite at our hotel was a mere $10. Considering how pricey everything else was, it was a pleasure to get lots of extra space to spread out and put our feet up for such a small cost. I wake early, so I spent an hour dressed and reading the news on my phone without disturbing a sleeping Kelly in the next room. This makes me wonder, is it unethical to request a disability accommodation room at future hotels if we don't have some kind of doctor's note? Between Kelly's painful frozen shoulder and my girth, it's difficult for us to stay in a normal cramped room and use a normal tub-based shower and so on. We've wound up in disability rooms at hotels before when they've been the last rooms left for the night, and they're far easier on us.
* We have a few little traditions when we travel, like the aforementioned mini-golf. Another is that whenever we visit a video arcade and earn some tickets, we gift them to a kid in the area, because what toys are we going to buy for ourselves with them anyway? Kelly has to do the handing over, because there's a difference between a strange man walking up to a kid to hand over free prize tickets and a strange woman doing the same, but she found a boy wandering the arcade and made his day with the hundreds of tickets we'd racked up. That burst of joy on a kid's face always makes my day.
Scott Hardie | March 25, 2022
I am sickened at the news that a child died at the same park a week later. Kelly and I walked past that drop ride numerous times, stopping to watch people as they plummeted 43 stories in the ride vehicle, and a firm "nope!" was Kelly's refrain every time. Not that I wanted to ride it either: My girth makes it hard for safety harnesses to close over me, and that appears to be exactly what happened to this poor kid. It won't bring him back, but I hope that the ride operator gets sued into oblivion (video shows the workers skipping a safety check and riders trying to get their attention), and I hope that the state enacts stricter ride-safety regulations to stop reckless companies like this.
Logical Operator
The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »
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Matthew Preston | March 17, 2022
Scott (and all). Here are the pictures I had from GooCon: Citrus Ridge in October 2009. Take any/all that you want.