Milady enjoys hot chocolate and her companion for the day.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: sometimes we celebrate holidays! Sometimes we leave the house! Sometimes we celebrate holidays by leaving the house!

With Valentine’s Day on a Saturday this year and our schedules cleared, my wife Anne and I made plans to grab an early breakfast before the rest of the world woke up and packed every restaurant in central Indiana for the next eighteen hours. We put our heads together, looked up places that we hadn’t been to before, and loved where we wound up. We didn’t cross-index our search results for sightseeing options in the vicinity, but were pleasantly surprised to wander into some. We ended up taking many more pics than we’d expected that day.

A mural welcomes us, a prologue to our forthcoming art walk.

The two of us are lifelong Indianapolis west-siders and don’t hang out in Carmel too often, that most prominent among the the well-to-do cities and suburbs up on the northeast side. At times the relationship between Indy and Carmel bears more than a passing resemblance to the Pawnee-vs.-Eagleton rivalry (as it’s always seemed to this class-underdog, anyway), but the fact remains their non-chain culinary creators outnumber the west side’s by roughly 10,000-to-1. We made reservations, made the half-hour drive, and made ourselves at home at Goodness Gracious Kitchen & Cupboard, a breakfast-and-lunch spot that celebrated ten years of coziness last year.

Note the winter and valentine flourishes harmonizing in their windows, including an entire Valentine’s Day tree in one corner.

For Anne, the lemon ricotta pancakes, dusted with powdered sugar,

For me, the Chick(Hen) and Waffles — with touches of hot honey and topped with an entire buttermilk-fried Cornish hen.

We figured that’d be the end of our expedition and we’d be heading straight home to binge some King of the Hill or whatever. Au contraire: Goodness Gracious is in the heart of the Carmel Arts & Design District, which overflows with each and every item in its name. Temperatures had risen into the 40s and the two-week-old suffocating snowstorm blanket had mostly melted away throughout the week. This happy couple took advantage and took ourselves a nice stroll to walk off those breakfast carbs.

Among our missed opportunities: down the street was the Museum of Miniature Houses and Other Collections, which wouldn’t open for a couple more hours.

Free sights in their windows included Kwanzaa figures.

Miniature average Carmel house.

The museum’s tiny library, probably with different books than their gift shop sells (assuming they have one).

Last time we were in this specific neighborhood was some 15-20 years ago when we visited Bub’s Burgers & Ice Cream for my birthday and I had my very first elk burger. Bub’s is still rockin’ on, but Main Street Carmel has built up a lot around them since then. Their stretch was revamped into the Carmel Arts & Design District, with public art on just about every block and the Monon Greenway trail blazed north-south through one end for pedestrians and bikers to enjoy to their hearts’ content.

The art assortment includes 23 statues by a single artist: J. Seward Johnson II, grandson of one of the founders of Johnson & Johnson (whose “no more tears” shampoo was a childhood household staple I endured under protest), whose son J. Seward III was one of BuzzFeed’s co-founders. Under the aegis of their previous mayor, the city purchased the statues between 2005 and 2023, the last one installed after Johnson himself passed away in 2020. These entries from his “Man-on-the-Street” series, dispersed across multiple localities, illustrate a sort of throwback community mostly conforming to a “Forever Small-Town 1950s” motif. Carmel hasn’t been a small town in decades, and definitely didn’t spend like a small town to acquire these. The Indianapolis Star compiled a complete list of locations, dates, and price tags.

If we’d known we would be in the middle of all this, I might’ve done the legwork so we could track down all 23. On our own without any online guidance, we approached 16 of them in all, in the following order:

There, Now You Can Grow. (The kid’s got work to do.)

Sidewalk Concert. (That’s fake money in his violin case, not real.)

Who’s in Charge, the nearest statue to Goodness Gracious.

Things To Do, plus a bonus Indiana-flag-themed deck chair.

Unconditional Surrender, based on the amazing true story of that one famous WWII photo.

Strolling Professor, whose textbook is turned to a chapter about chemical motion, illustrated with parabolic graphs.

Captured, the most recently installed Johnson statue as of 2023.

Holding Out, demonstrating how folks in the good ol’ days used to go buy their groceries themselves in person from fellow live humans.

Confirming Predictions, demonstrating how there used to be companies that printed entire news sites on paper and delivered them to your house every morning. The best part was that angry troll replies sometimes took days to show up.

Waiting to Cross, attached to a real stop sign.

The 2005 inaugural Johnson statue First Ride, with a father encouraging his daughter.

Shaping Up, appropriately along the Monon Greenway.

Wine, Food, and Thou. Fortunately for her there’s no Yogi Bear statue nearby.

Oh, It’s You, Welcome! Gee, Officer Krupke, you shouldn’t have!

One Man’s Search, featuring wardrobe by the Carmel High School bookstore.

Ambassador of the Streets and its pet human.

A selection of works by the outnumbered other artists:

Sail by Owens & Crawley, near the southern entrance to the District along the Greenway. I understand it lights up at night.

Brickhead Human by James Tyler.

Gavin – Aspiration by Jason Myers. The latest in his worldwide series, the 30-foot Gavin – Divergence, has been causing quite the fuss among Broad Ripple residents.

Swing Me Higher, Mama by Dominic Benhura.

Eternal Spring by Jerry Joslin.

We couldn’t resist one last stop along Main Street before returning to the car: a round of snacks from Tous les Jours, a chain of French-Asian bakeries that originated in South Korea and have apparently been around since 2004. We’d never heard of them till last year, when we had breakfast at one in Huntsville, Alabama, on our 2025 road trip. (Someday I’ll post those pics too. Someday! Lord willing!) Until this very Saturday we didn’t know they have at least three Indiana locations. We had no idea because of course none of them are on the west side. This Valentine’s Day was just full of learning experiences for us.

Sample luscious cakes.

Sample macarons, including double-stuffed options, because Indiana.

Our haul: one chocolate creme donut, one matcha creme donut, a strawberry croissant snack sandwich, a hazelnut-filled chocolate muffin, and a loaf of mascarpone cream bread.

…and then we returned to our malnourished side of town, ran errands, went home, exchanged gifts, and enjoyed the rest of our weekend except for the part where we didn’t stumble across any more surprise gourmet delicacies.

Critical minerals collide with #tourism in B.C. resort town.

A #Calgary based mining company called West High Yield Resources wants to extract #magnesium ore from Record Ridge, about seven kilometres outside of town, and ship it overseas.

West High Yield holds mineral claims over 8,972 hectares at the site — an area 4.6 times bigger than the city of Victoria. In October 2025, the #BCgovernment approved the company’s #mining permit.

Several #Rossland residents say they have been confounded by what they see as abnormalities in the siting and permitting of the mine. Many have united under the banner of the non-profit Save Record Ridge Action Society ( #SRRAC ).

At one point, WHY Resources sought to remove up to 200,000 tonnes of ore a year, but later reduced that to 63,500 tonnes per year — below the 70,000-tonne limit that often triggers an environmental assessment.

In a May 2025 letter to the province, the #Ktunaxa Nation Council argued alongside SRRAC that the mine footprint only dropped by 5.7 per cent, despite a 68 per cent cut in proposed production.

The stated lower production capacity “masks and understates its true capacity” and environmental footprint, added the nation, arguing it’s designed to avoid initial regulatory hurdles and be scaled up later.

SRRAC requested that Ottawa carry out an environmental review of the Record Ridge mine project.

A report issued last month from the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada rejected that request. It found the mine project did not require federal designation, and that existing laws were enough to manage the potential impacts on fish, migratory birds and Indigenous rights.

timescolonist.com/islander/cri…

#BCpoli #CDNpoli #StopEcocide #Environmental #Climate #EcoJustice #UNDRIP #IndigenousRights #ProtectTheWild #biodiversity #EcologicalHealth #OneEarth #BritishColumbia #AbolishCorporateLobbyists #StopCorporateWelfare #NoSubsidiesForMining

The Circle of Life…after dark!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

Before we recount what happened with the company dinner at EPCOT, it’s important and calming for me to focus first on the most breathtaking part of that long Wednesday evening. At 8:30 p.m. all of us guests were ushered from the banquet facility on the park’s west edge to a centralized, gated party space on the north shore of World Showcase Lagoon. Snacks and booze were offered while we were treated to the 9:00 showing of the park’s resident closing-time light show, a 30-minute program called Harmonious. A synchronized, beauteous onslaught of fireworks, fountains, spotlights, kaleidoscopic effects, oddly shaped screens on floating platforms, songs familiar and unfamiliar, and a barely discernible narrative. It’s all you could want from the end of an amusement-park day and more.

As time-stamped in previous chapters, our Harmonious experience played the night of March 8, 2023. Not till well after the fact did we learn Harmonious was due to be retired. Its final performance was April 2, 2023, three weeks after our vacation. Consider this amateur photo gallery an overdue eulogy or an overlong retrospective, whichever.

The Stargate opens into another dimension of Disney World proportions!

With the exception of our lead photo (which falls near the halfway point), all photos herein are presented in the order in which we took them, or as close as I could get from the time stamps.

At one point Anne switched from her phone camera to her camera-camera. Those shots might be a minute or two off, but close enough to actual presentation order.

Not like anyone’s grading me on the shot order, mind you. Just mentioning it for fun.

As you can imagine, this was a fraction of the total pics we took. I struggled to whittle this down, then gave up after a certain point.

I usually limit each MCC entry to about 20-25 pics, but it’s Disney World. “Overkill” is the point, even when no one’s looking.

Fun trivia: the Disney World miniseries has not been burning up the MCC traffic charts. Hence why I’ve been in no rush to crank these out and we’re now running 13 months behind.

Time was, other WordPress users used to flock to entries about vacations or travel. Nowadays, not so much.

Y’know what’s retaining traffic nowadays? The movie entries, even the ones without scenes after the end credits.

Over the past two weeks, the entry with the biggest clicks is the one on Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days, which only made $3.5 million in domestic box office.

Between the Heartland Film Festival and my annual Oscar Quest, the site content has admittedly skewed heavier toward films over the past several months. That may have bored away some folks who just wanted to see a middle-aged geek couple enjoy unironic bumpkin pleasures.

I mean, there’s more of that come! After the Disney World miniseries, there’re the matters of how we spent my birthday last year, then “Our 2023 Road Trip”, which will be heavy on food and history.

That’s one thing I realize has always crippled MCC: my refusal to focus on a particular hobby or subject. Blogging rules say I’m supposed to post only about movies, or only about travels, or only about geekery or whatever.

A blog whose topicality is “Me Me Me: The Series” only really works if you’re someone apart from the blog. It’s supposed to be, like, a brand extension of your claim to significance, or whatever.

Blogging does not, in and of itself, bestow significance on you. Whenever you see a movie or TV show feign otherwise, it’s because it’s written by an old.

I nearly forgot April 28th will be MCC’s 12th anniversary. Twelve years of blogging! And the site has yet to make its first thousand.

In fact, the ad revenue hasn’t been enough to cover my annual fees in nearly a decade. I’m not whining or passing the hat around, just noting for context.

Time was, an internet presence with longevity alone was cause for notice. There’re plenty of social media trolls who’ve been plying their edgelord prankster ways far longer than I’ve been amusing myself here in my tiny virtual hermit shack. Some probably make money off Twitter now.

Clearly I’m not doing this for the money, fame, or because You, The Viewers at Home, demanded it. You’re more than welcome to demand it, but you don’t.

Blogging scratches an itch. Blogging creates an external hard drive for storing whichever memories I think ought to be captured in paragraph form. Blogging keeps me from running around the streets and getting shot at.

Blogging is my response to all those teachers in my life who saw something in my writing and kept encouraging me to do more, including the one or two college professors who said nice, individualized things to me before I dropped out.

Blogging is a hobby. Blogging is exploring what to do with this alleged voice I’ve been given. Blogging is my vain search for what God really intends of me, in addition to being the best husband and sidekick I can be to the amazing colossal Anne.

Blogging is a way of life! Blogging is like Happy Fun Ball but less deadly! Blogging is a floor wax AND a dessert topping!

Blogging can be even more fun if you’re pretty sure no one is reading the captions!

Seriously, of the few people who’ve made it this far into the entry, the majority are just scrolling through the pics and skipping the captions. Even Anne has admitted to doing this.

In a gallery of 40 photos, I was not about to come up with 40 different captions synonymous with “ooh” or “aah” or describing what you’re looking at, like a 1950s comic book writer.

Longtime MCC readers have seen me do this before — toss an entire stream-of-consciousness mini-essay into the fine print, like a Ryan North comic.

I intentionally didn’t plan any of these captions. Sometimes it’s invigorating to write without pre-writing in my head, and see what happens.

I can blow off steam, let my mind wander, ramble about whatever. It’s fun when it’s fun!

Or if you’d prefer, I could revert to stale basics. “Here’s a thing. Here’s a firework. Another firework. Here’s a light. Here’s water. Here’s more light.” Et cetera.

Sure, some galleries are basic slideshows. Some of them lend themselves to more varied captions than others, when the facts are interesting to write about.

The last thing I want to sound like is Patty and Selma banally growling about their trip to Mexico to a captive audience.

The best-case scenario would be to sound like Don Draper selling you the Kodak Carousel with the greatest pitch ever.

If you’ve seen our photos, you know I’m no Don Draper. But that’s a good thing on many levels.

You can definitely keep all his smoking and drinking. Very much not my thing. Which makes me uncool, but so be it.

That’s okay. My wife thinks I’m cool! (Said in his best Milhouse voice.)

Anyway, we’re almost out of captions, so I should wrap up this double-secret digression as we prepare to rejoin everyone else who just scrolled quickly through the pretty pictures.

If you actually read all these, thanks for joining me on this very special pretend DVD commentary! I appreciate your closer attention in this crowded era of waaay too much content.

In those quieter moments when reader and writer can connect, that’s my kind of harmonious.

…and those are mere slivers of the bedazzling half-hour experience.

It was not, however, the end of our EPCOT evening. Alas.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Midlife Crisis Crossover!

2024-03-04 00:50:14

Yes, There’s a ‘Word of the Day’ After the “Perfect Days” End Credits

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays this cleaner from the swift completion of his appointed rounds.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Oscar Quest continues! We do our best to see how many freshly nominated works we can catch before ABC’s big, indulgent Academy Awards ceremony ends the viewing season. As is often the case, candidates in Best International Feature endure the slowest rollout of any category due to the complexities of overseas finances and/or struggles to get Stateside studios to pay attention to them and give them turns at our box offices, especially cities outside NYC and L.A.

So far in the BIF competition we’ve caught Spain’s Society of the Snow set in South America, the U.K.’s The Zone of Interest set in Nazi Germany, and Germany’s The Teachers’ Lounge, whose protagonist is from Poland and whose director is of Turkish descent. Our next nominee for your Oscar consideration is Japan’s Perfect Days, from German director Wim Wenders. Thus the mixing-and-matching of nationalities among creators and works continues, apropos of its main character’s aesthetic tastes.

Koji Yakusho (Memoirs of a Geisha, Babel) is Hirayama, a diligent employee of The Tokyo Toilet. Each workday morning in his cubic bachelor pad, he undergoes the same precise procedures of hygiene and plant care. He suits up, gathers his arsenal, and zips around the city in his company van. He cleans a variety of public restrooms that in no way resemble America’s infected, infested, grimy, grungy, claustrophobic, intimidating, brutalist assembly-line death-holes. Tokyo’s own will never resemble our worst-case scenarios as long as Hirayama is on the job.

Each and every facility has its own unique architectural grandeur to it — some whimsical, some serene, some technologically upgraded, some so eye-catching that they’d make fantastic selfie backdrops. Hirayama and his story are fictional, but the bathrooms are real. Wenders doesn’t clarify whether the examples seen and cleaned here are uncommon luxuries or indicative of Japan’s impeccable standards for common-area commodes. He also doesn’t test Hirayama’s mettle or their real-life owners’ boundaries by depicting any of them trashed by drunks or sufferers of severe GI distress.

Hirayama is polite and patient toward restroom users who come and go while he’s working. He’s congenial yet taciturn, speaking only when necessary, and sometimes not even then. He has a separate yet firm regimen whenever he’s not scrubbing and freshening — lunch at a peacefully tree-lined park alongside the same set of strangers, bicycling to dinner at his favorite joints where everybody knows his name, browsing a used bookstore, errands at the same places every week, and so on.

His career is the core of his life without necessarily defining it. He lives in the present but prefers the past, and not just through the narrow gateway of his flip-phone. His bedtime reads include William Faulkner and Patricia Highsmith. Later on a recommendation he samples Japanese poet/novelist Aya Kōda. For drive-time companionship he listens to a cassette collection that’s some years older than mine and larger than today’s worldwide average of zero cassettes per household. He’s a fan of Lou Reed, Van Morrison, Patti Smith, and other early-’70s staples along the edge of the mainstream path. I’ve not yet seen Wenders’ other works, but I used to own the Until the End of the World soundtrack on cassette. I’m confident Hirayama’s predilections track with his own.

Alas, innocent Hirayama’s insular yet perfectly content world is irrevocably shattered when…wait, no, that’s where a thousand other films would go. Once we’ve settled into his quotidian comfort-groove, we see him gently tested by interruptions. A millennial coworker named Takashi (Tokio Emoto, who was in a 2021 Japanese remake of Cube) with zero work ethic begs him to sell his tapes, which could fetch ludicrous prices among trendy retro music fans. His niece Niko (Arisa Nakano) pays a visit out of the blue and decides she’s staying over for a few days without asking. Car trouble, that irritating demon I’ve known all too well, rears its entropic head. A stumble into one couple’s embrace awkwardly weirds him out. Will he face each surprise with grace and poise? Or will one of them damage his calm and send him over the edge, screaming at his capitalist overlords to clean their own frickin’ toilets?

More often than not, nothing damages his calm, nor Wenders’ serenity. If you’ve ever seen Yasujirō Ozu’s Tokyo Story (Anne and I just watched it a few weeks ago), Perfect Days is charmingly akin in its elevated, metropolitan establishing shots, in Hirayama’s tranquility, and in the precisely layered staging of his humble abode. It’s all confined within the same old-fashioned aspect ratio of the time, a vintage vantage in a 70mm-IMAX world, but can convey emotion and action just as efficiently today in the right artist’s hands. Occasional handheld cameras add some verité jittering that diverges from the legacy of Ozu’s fixed gaze — a concession to modernity, not unlike Hirayama’s minimal personal tech.

He rarely allows himself a raised eyebrow or untoward exuberance. When he does react, it’s only when it really counts – say, at coworker-induced stress, or during a brief bout of family drama that hints at whatever secrets he closely guards or simply never dwells upon. Rather, he lives and thrives in the simplicity of the ever-pleasant now. His happiness is in watching someone else’s newfound joy in discovering music for themselves that he’s loved for years. It’s in a game of Tic-Tac-Toe with a mystery opponent. It’s in sidewalk horseplay with a terminally ill stranger. It’s in the black-and-white images from his dreams, which serve as untitled, unnumbered chapter headings between his days. It’s in the towering trees everywhere he likes to be. It’s in the old-fashioned satisfaction of a job well done.

And Our Hero’s happiness is in the closing moments, when the camera fixates without cuts as he drives into the sunset, listening to one last tune on tape. If the viewer has keyed into his wavelength, they too can ride along with him feeling the singer’s spirits rise, fall, and rise again. Tomorrow is another day, another song, another day to find joy in dutifully making the rounds.

…

Meanwhile in the customary MCC film breakdowns:

Hey, look, it’s that one actor!: Min Tanaka (47 Ronin, The Great War of Archimedes) is an even more silent homeless man who keeps crossing Hirayama’s path and strikes poses like a mime imitating a bonsai, his preferred expression of happiness. Inuko Inuyama (Pokemon‘s OG Japanese voice of Meowth) pops in twice as the kindly bookstore owner.

How about those end credits? There’s no scene after the Perfect Days end credits per se, but before fading to black, the scroll leads to one last black-and-white dream image of leaves fluttering in the breeze above our heads on a bright day. Over this parting shot, Wenders shares the word komorebi, along with its definition. I didn’t write down his exact verbiage, but it refers to sunlight filtered through treetops and its interplay with the shadowy undersides, whether in a forest canopy or a modest copse in a city park. English doesn’t have an analog that’s succinct or poetic. (“Treetop-rays”? “Chlorophylluminescence”?)

While the text rolls along to a instrumental piano cover of “House of the Rising Sun”, other tidbits include Wenders thanking his own leading man (how often are directors so openly grateful?) and the names of all the toilet designers. When all’s done, viewers intrigued by Hirayama the curator can visit Neon’s official website for the film for a sort of Works Cited page with the soundtrack’s complete set list, same as in those credits, and the books he’s shown reading, some of which you might find at a used bookstore or your local library. (Well, maybe not Kōda.)

collection | PERFECT DAYS official movie site

collection | PERFECT DAYS official movie site. A beautiful tale woven by master German filmmaker Wim Wenders and acclaimed Japanese actor Koji Yakusho.

^{PERFECT DAYS}

No, I mean this kind of Disney Easter egg.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

During the late afternoon of my one-man tour through the Grand Floridian grounds and around the Disney Resorts’ monorail track, in their main lobby I came across what’s apparently an annual Easter feature in their Main Building: an exhibit of egg-shaped sculptures honoring their companies’ films and theme park rides. Some weren’t egg-shaped, instead containing egg motifs. Some were new for 2023; some were holdovers from the past. A few were works-in-progress. All were a gentle admonishment to myself that, yes, I’m sharing these pics well outside the Easter 2023 season when we took them, but in plenty of time for Easter 2024, skipping right over Valentine’s Day and getting ahead of Hallmark for once.

Not all the pics are mine; Anne finally got a chance to peruse the Grand Floridian for herself Wednesday afternoon when she found some unexpected free time between activities and I was several miles away. Between the two of us, we found most of the Easter eggs, which of course weren’t really “hidden”.

Cinderella Castle with your host Walt Disney and a cameo from 101 Dalmatians.

Bambi and his surviving friends.

Snow White’s house with eggs on the lawn.

The Princess and the Frog on the front…

…and the back.

Daisy Duck possibly throwing eggs at Donald, but with lousy aim.

Fantasia‘s unicorns from Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony segment.

The White Rabbit has non-traditional ideas about what should be inside an Easter egg.

Disney’s Winnie-the-Pooh floating through the Hundred-Acre Wood.

Merlin and friends from The Sword in the Stone.

Our Hero from Raya and the Last Dragon, which was released during the pandemic and forgotten by one and all till just now.

Isabela, Mirabel and Casa Madrigal from Encanto.

A nod to Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride on the 25th anniversary of its last run at Disney World before it was removed to make way for Pooh.

Another Disney World ride tribute, the Country Bears Jamboree.

Figment sitting atop an ovoid Spaceship Earth. This made a little more sense after I eventually got to EPCOT.

More salutes to Disney Parks traditions from before our time.

The titular star of Pixar’s Luca and Disney World’s iconic Orange Bird, or so we were told.

Dadgum! It’s Tow Mater!

Remy from Ratatouille, easy to miss among the larger eggs.

The eponymous bird from the 2016 Oscar-winning short “Piper” (which was released in front of Finding Dory), and Pooh’s honey jar.

Avengers Assemble!

I’m old enough to remember when Disney’s Buena Vista Home Video began releasing Miyazaki films on VHS, like My Neighbor Totoro.

Not an egg, just the largest Easter bunny in the exhibit, begging to be Disney-fied.

Also not an egg per se: Kevin from Up.

The all-star collage egg in our lead photo was only half done. By the time we had to leave Friday morning, this is where things stood with its other side.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Midlife Crisis Crossover!

2024-01-12 05:13:59

Disney World! Part 4: Party of One v. Party of Many

Far from other tourists, this was my view across Seven Seas Lagoon of Disney’s Contemporary Resort. The glowing blue mountain is Cinderella’s Castle.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

Our Disney Resort experience had only just begun. We’d been together all day, but wouldn’t be for long. Among the divergences in the four-day itinerary, Anne had to attend an “evening event” for employees only beginning at 5 pm at the Grand Floridian’s Convention Center. We plus-ones were cordially asked to go bug off on our own recognizance. At first I’d worried about possibly spending my solo night sulky and depressed. It’s a thing I do sometimes.

Then I remembered I was at DISNEY WORLD. I had some light exploring to do before my big, big day tomorrow.

First things first: I was starving. The snacks we’d been given while waiting an extra hour for our room hadn’t lasted me long. Disney restaurants generally, legendarily require reservations weeks or months in advance. For this particular evening I decided in advance I’d wing it. I walked over to the Grand Floridian Cafe and saw the tables were less than half-full. For decorum’s sake I logged into the official My Disney Experience Mobile App — an essential travel tool that came in constantly handy throughout our trip — and joined the waitlist. Five minutes later they were ready for me. Three cheers for off-hours on off-days.

My dinner of shrimp and grits, generous with the Florida seafood protein.

Minute Maid Zero-Sugar Lemonade with a Mickey Mouse berry powder head to be plunked in and dissolved for extra flavor.

Biggest letdown: the menu promised the lemonade would be served in a souvenir cup honoring Disney World’s 50th anniversary, which explained why it was priced more than alcohol. I’d expected something larger, showier, and not made of Dixie plastic. I left it behind.

I wandered the Grand Floridian’s Main Building, passed other restaurants, and peeked inside some of their shops. My souvenir want-list was short, but “shirt” was at the top. To my chagrin and complete lack of surprise, the only ones in my size were $120 Tommy Bahama tops in an upscale clothier — not my comfort level. For the moment I settled on a Disney World logo magnet for my cubicle collection at work. It was a start.

On the brighter side, on the second floor I found a smashed penny machine. Longtime MCC readers know these are Anne’s favorite memento. She has several books filled with li’l mutilated coinage restamped with happy fun travel images. I’d brought no change with me, for the sake of simplifying my airport security gauntlet (which worked!), but to my delight the machine took credit cards. I bought all the choices for the woman I love. For all I knew, it might just be the one and only smashed penny machine I’d see this week.

Other sights along my aimless path:

Live pianist in the lobby, one of many signs we were having the most decadent time of our lives even before we touched a single square foot of theme park.

Olde-tyme beach painting for ambiance and to plug the Disney Vacation Club. In daytime they had signup tables set up.

The Floridian grounds south of the Main Building, on its opposite end from the Convention Center.

Across the Seven Seas Lagoon, the monorail runs in front of Disney’s Contemporary Resort.

For fun and science, I decided to give the monorail a whirl. The complimentary rail service around the lagoon ran a full circle through the Grand Floridian, the Magic Kingdom, the Contemporary, the Transportation Hub (site of the Magic Kingdom’s parking lot and a transfer point to other monorails), and Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort. Some reconnaissance for the next two days’ travels seemed wise and maybe I’d see cool stuff gratis. The Grand Floridian’s station was attached to the Main Building’s second floor and included a minor security checkpoint. I barely registered on their radar as they waved me past.

Monorail! Monorail! MONORAIL!

The Grand Floridian campus from afar.

I had no view at all of the Magic Kingdom from my seat, but the Contemporary was just down the way.

A full lap took slightly over ten minutes. Back at the Grand Floridian, I wandered a bit more as nightfall continued and I worried not one bit about safety. I took it on faith they had people for that. I found the pier where guests could take boats to the Magic Kingdom and back again, but it was closed. I settled for taking the lead photo and went on my way before alligators or snakes could pin down my location.

The water jungle gym at night, kid-free on this fine Tuesday.

A 1929 Cadillac that’s been parked by the Grand Floridian since at least 1996 or so.

The Cadillac had absolutely no signage around it for context, which I had to look up ex post facto. Once upon a time it was part of the finale in the Stars and Cars Motor Parade at Disney Hollywood Studios, where it chauffeured park “cast members” in their larger-than-life Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy suits. The car, or ones like it, was also available for rental in Disney destination weddings. As of this night it was merely a display item.

Meanwhile, on the clock: after a couple hours of introductions and classified Company Business for business-trip purposes, Anne and her fellow winning employees were treated to a beach dinner party, complete with sand everywhere. Business dinners are never a thing for us, but she was fed on their dime and felt obliged to stick it out for the duration.

Hors d’oeuvres round 1: “spicy Korean on a cracker”, according to her text.

Hors d’oeuvres round 2: crab cake with mango chutney.

Dinner is served: chicken breast, mahi mahi, mashed potatoes, and quiche.

For dessert, Magic Kingdom blueberry macarons and a flourless chocolate torte with chocolate Mickey head coin.

(Not pictured: Hors d’oeuvres round 3, a “truffle scented tenderloin”.)

A different kind of after-dinner treat: complimentary Ray-Bans!

The party didn’t have the best view of the Magic Kingdom’s nightly fireworks show. We’ll come back to that, though.

For those who didn’t simply want to sit around and get drunk, beach party activities included Giant Connect Four…

…a fancy beanbag-tossing game on what looks like a giant smartphone…

…and caricatures! Anne’s artist may have taken some liberties. To be clear, that isn’t a drink in her hand; it’s her phone.

(Longtime MCC readers may recall this isn’t Anne’s first time in caricature.)

Not till sometime after 9:30 pm was she informed that, other than dinner itself, absolutely everything about this evening was optional and she could’ve left anytime. Once aware, she split. Even then, the evening wasn’t over.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Our Road Trip Checklist

Every year since 1999 Anne and I have taken a road trip to a different part of the United States and seen attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home in Indianapolis. From 1999 …

^{Randall A. Golden (Midlife Crisis Crossover!)}

This isn’t a setting where people like us hang out. This is where Higgins gives Thomas Magnum his latest case.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

After landing at Orlando International Airport, we wandered a bit in search of the exit where Anne’s employers (hereafter referred to as The Company) had arranged for a charter bus to pick us up. We stopped to ask an NPC for directions, but misunderstood and took three passes to spot the turnoff — a down-escalator in a narrow, unmarked passage with no up-escalator twin next to it. At the bottom we found the doors, checked in with company reps, took off our now-superfluous winter jackets, and hung out in the lobby for a bit with a fellow employee Anne knew from another department. Soon our plushly seated chariot arrived and spirited us off to the resort where we’d be staying for the next three nights, which would prove the poshest place we’ve ever stayed in our lives.

A half-hour later we pulled up to Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort and Spa, an immaculate Victorian complex est. 1988 comprising six buildings surrounding a palm-treed courtyard, positioned on the western shore of Seven Seas Lagoon, and dotted with special features here and there. One building, Sugar Loaf Key, was walled off for construction, but we’d otherwise have the run of the grounds. In the planning stages The Company had given winners the choice of staying either here or at Disney’s Contemporary Resort, a separate hotel on the other side of the monorail loop (which in turn would lead to other points of Disney interest). We took a few pics of the Contemporary in passing later on, but our first impression of the Grand Floridian assured us we’d chosen wisely.

The Main Building houses multiple restaurants, shops, and decorations, as well as the spa we never tried. For Anne’s free day Thursday, the spa was one of several options she could’ve availed herself of as part of her reward package. We chose differently, but if she wins again in the future, we’ll keep it in mind.

The Main Building, viewed from the southeast Friday morning. The main entrance was on the west side, but we’re jumping around in the timeline for a general Grand Floridian mini-tour.

Our stay coincided with the celebration of Disney World’s 50th anniversary. A welcome mat was one of many flourishes in its honor.

The opulent main lobby. One afternoon there was even a bespoke player at that piano.

An awestruck gaze upon their skylight array.

The elevator.

The carpet on the second floor, which was as high as we could travel in the Main Building without actually having a room there.

Decorations included a Ferris wheel model and a Poppins-esque Seurat homage let’s call Sunday in the Park for a Balloon Race.

A fake window lets guests think they’re next to some other lagoon, or pretend Orlando is anywhere near the ocean.

The Grand Floridian monogram was a repeating Easter egg of sorts, not unlike the Mickey Mouse heads reputedly found everywhere on Disney grounds.

Mrs. Potts suggested we go that-a-way.

Chip was not far away on the same floor.

The chandelier from a closer vantage.

A chocolate Cinderella Castle hand-decorated by the Grand Floridian Bakery.

In the lobby is the Grand Cottage, a snack shop where we bought treats Thursday: a Mickey Mouse-shaped lemon blueberry whoopie pie, macarons, and a guava cream cheese sweet roll.

Shortly after 3:00 the bus dropped us at the front door of the Grand Floridian Convention Center, on the grounds’ northwest corner and next door to the Main Building. Two rows of representatives from The Company stood on either side of the walkway leading inside, applauding and high-fiving winners and us guests as we strolled the carpet and walked in. New arrivals checked in and were directed to their assigned rooms elsewhere in the resort, where their luggage would be waiting for them.

Decor inside the Convention Center included horsey statues, Unisphere replicas, and another Seurat pastiche we’ll call Sunday in the Park Outside the Grand Floridian, The Balloon Race Bores Us Now.

All the other new arrivals departed one by one (or two-by-two), leaving only the organizers, their welcoming-committee volunteers…and us.

We were the last couple standing, left to wonder if there was room at the inn. For some reason we and only we were asked to wait for a while, as our room wasn’t ready yet, whatever that meant. In the meantime we were invited to enjoy a selection of snacks in a nearby room, gratis — half-cut sandwiches, sugary treats, soft drinks and so forth. That helped, especially since I was starving (the airport bagel brunch had been hours ago), but a combination of Impostor Syndrome and FOMO began to set in and fray at my temper. Why us? Why only us? Everyone else got to go dancing an prancing around the resort, but not us. What did we do wrong? Did someone delete Anne from the roster by mistake, and now we’d have to beg someone to let us crash on their floor, with only Mickey-head rugs as our pillows?

Also, somewhere out there in the universe was our luggage, out of our grasp and beyond our control, a sensation I hate hate HATE, which is why we’ve almost never flown with bags large enough to require checking.

When a Disney Resort photographer asked to take our picture, I bottled up my anxieties the best I could.

Anne was much more optimistic that everything would be fine, as she enjoyed a Rice Krispie treat that was chronologically the first of many edible Mickey-heads to come on this trip.

Around 4:30, a full ninety frustrating minutes after arrival, we were finally told our room was ready. We headed out and followed the directions. As Anne unlocked the door to our accommodations, I felt all anxieties evaporate in a flash to be replaced by stunned joy.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Your humbled narrator, who’d rarely stayed this close to scenic waters in past vacations.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

After 90+ minutes of going stir-crazy on the convention center’s patio despite free snacks, we were at last escorted to our room in Boca Chica, the building at the Grand Floridian’s eastern edge on the bank of Seven Seas Lagoon. Renovations were completed in fall 2022 to upgrade the rooms to a Mary Poppins theme, apropos of the resort’s Victorian-chic ambiance. Fortunately we weren’t required to wear Sunday suits or hoop skirts.

Their overhauled lobby, as seen from our second-floor perch.

Mary Poppins art in the lobby.

The second-floor carpet.

In terms of square footage, we’ve stayed in bigger hotels. Fairfield Inns routinely have pretty spacious accommodations for us middle-class ragamuffins. But the bathroom was appreciably spacious, and there were the cutesy animals and floating nannies in the details. Boca Chica was a vast improvement over our 2007 Orlando matchbox.

Disney beds, one of each of us for value-added sprawling space, which is something we each crave. I just realized I left my pill organizer on the nightstand.

Birdie chandelier.

Flowery closet doors.

Bonus mirror outside the bathroom.

Closer look at the birds next to the mirror.

Mary Poppins diptych.

Mary Poppins lumbar pillow.

Amenities included Disney brand K-Cups, the most free coffee I’ve ever had in a hotel room. Now that I’ve recently gotten into using K-cups at work, I wish I’d taken a few home with me.

Disney toiletries! I took the cooling gel home because it worked like magic. Months later I tried to order more online only to learn it’d been discontinued.

Disney cleaning fluids! Or course there were!

The room’s real star was the balcony view.

On the balcony was our first look at Seven Seas Lagoon, adjacent to the main park and other Disney World resorts. A monorail surrounds the lagoon.

Soothing lagoon ripples and oceanesque sounds abounded even though we were nowhere near the ocean. In the distance is Disney’s Contemporary Resort, our backup option if the Grand Floridian had been full.

A happy Disney ferry full of guests who got to start having Disney fun before we did.

On the lagoon’s north banks, Disney’s Magic Kingdom beckoned.

COMPUTER, ENHANCE IMAGE. Voila: our first-ever in-person glimpse of the iconic Cinderella Castle. Alas, our first footsteps in its presence were still a full 48 hours away.

East of the Castle lay what looked like a billion-dollar futuristic indoor agricultural complex. On Thursday we’d learn this was Tomorrowland.

Lest our exotic getaway feel too idyllic, exiting Boca Chica’s back door brought us to this sobering reminder of that time in 2016 when an alligator mauled a 2-year-old to death right around here.

ANYWAY, WELCOME TO FLORIDA, YOU CRAZY KIDS!

On the brighter side, this was sunrise Wednesday across the lagoon.

Most importantly, more so than any Disney-classic Easter-egg-deco flourishes: all our luggage was safely in our room, waiting for us as promised. Everything else was extra credit. Lots of extra credit.

As of March 2023 a stay on our own dime would’ve run $900 a night. This is not who we are. For three nights we could escape into a temporary fantasy that this was real life.

Unfortunately the next step on our itinerary was to go our separate ways.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Midlife Crisis Crossover!

2023-12-11 02:47:09

Disney World! Part 2: Welcome to the Grand Floridian

This isn’t a setting where people like us hang out. This is where Higgins gives Thomas Magnum his latest case.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

After landing at Orlando International Airport, we wandered a bit in search of the exit where Anne’s employers (hereafter referred to as The Company) had arranged for a charter bus to pick us up. We stopped to ask an NPC for directions, but misunderstood and took three passes to spot the turnoff — a down-escalator in a narrow, unmarked passage with no up-escalator twin next to it. At the bottom we found the doors, checked in with company reps, took off our now-superfluous winter jackets, and hung out in the lobby for a bit with a fellow employee Anne knew from another department. Soon our plushly seated chariot arrived and spirited us off to the resort where we’d be staying for the next three nights, which would prove the poshest place we’ve ever stayed in our lives.

A half-hour later we pulled up to Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort and Spa, an immaculate Victorian complex est. 1988 comprising six buildings surrounding a palm-treed courtyard, positioned on the western shore of Seven Seas Lagoon, and dotted with special features here and there. One building, Sugar Loaf Key, was walled off for construction, but we’d otherwise have the run of the grounds. In the planning stages The Company had given winners the choice of staying either here or at Disney’s Contemporary Resort, a separate hotel on the other side of the monorail loop (which in turn would lead to other points of Disney interest). We took a few pics of the Contemporary in passing later on, but our first impression of the Grand Floridian assured us we’d chosen wisely.

The Main Building houses multiple restaurants, shops, and decorations, as well as the spa we never tried. For Anne’s free day Thursday, the spa was one of several options she could’ve availed herself of as part of her reward package. We chose differently, but if she wins again in the future, we’ll keep it in mind.

The Main Building, viewed from the southeast Friday morning. The main entrance was on the west side, but we’re jumping around in the timeline for a general Grand Floridian mini-tour.

Our stay coincided with the celebration of Disney World’s 50th anniversary. A welcome mat was one of many flourishes in its honor.

The opulent main lobby. One afternoon there was even a bespoke player at that piano.

An awestruck gaze upon their skylight array.

The elevator.

The carpet on the second floor, which was as high as we could travel in the Main Building without actually having a room there.

Decorations included a Ferris wheel model and a Poppins-esque Seurat homage let’s call Sunday in the Park for a Balloon Race.

A fake window lets guests think they’re next to some other lagoon, or pretend Orlando is anywhere near the ocean.

The Grand Floridian monogram was a repeating Easter egg of sorts, not unlike the Mickey Mouse heads reputedly found everywhere on Disney grounds.

Mrs. Potts suggested we go that-a-way.

Chip was not far away on the same floor.

The chandelier from a closer vantage.

A chocolate Cinderella Castle hand-decorated by the Grand Floridian Bakery.

In the lobby is the Grand Cottage, a snack shop where we bought treats Thursday: a Mickey Mouse-shaped lemon blueberry whoopie pie, macarons, and a guava cream cheese sweet roll.

Shortly after 3:00 the bus dropped us at the front door of the Grand Floridian Convention Center, on the grounds’ northwest corner and next door to the Main Building. Two rows of representatives from The Company stood on either side of the walkway leading inside, applauding and high-fiving winners and us guests as we strolled the carpet and walked in. New arrivals checked in and were directed to their assigned rooms elsewhere in the resort, where their luggage would be waiting for them.

Decor inside the Convention Center included horsey statues, Unisphere replicas, and another Seurat pastiche we’ll call Sunday in the Park Outside the Grand Floridian, The Balloon Race Bores Us Now.

All the other new arrivals departed one by one (or two-by-two), leaving only the organizers, their welcoming-committee volunteers…and us.

We were the last couple standing, left to wonder if there was room at the inn. For some reason we and only we were asked to wait for a while, as our room wasn’t ready yet, whatever that meant. In the meantime we were invited to enjoy a selection of snacks in a nearby room, gratis — half-cut sandwiches, sugary treats, soft drinks and so forth. That helped, especially since I was starving (the airport bagel brunch had been hours ago), but a combination of Impostor Syndrome and FOMO began to set in and fray at my temper. Why us? Why only us? Everyone else got to go dancing an prancing around the resort, but not us. What did we do wrong? Did someone delete Anne from the roster by mistake, and now we’d have to beg someone to let us crash on their floor, with only Mickey-head rugs as our pillows?

Also, somewhere out there in the universe was our luggage, out of our grasp and beyond our control, a sensation I hate hate HATE, which is why we’ve almost never flown with bags large enough to require checking.

When a Disney Resort photographer asked to take our picture, I bottled up my anxieties the best I could.

Anne was much more optimistic that everything would be fine, as she enjoyed a Rice Krispie treat that was chronologically the first of many edible Mickey-heads to come on this trip.

Around 4:30, a full ninety frustrating minutes after arrival, we were finally told our room was ready. We headed out and followed the directions. As Anne unlocked the door to our accommodations, I felt all anxieties evaporate in a flash to be replaced by stunned joy.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Midlife Crisis Crossover

Midlife Crisis Crossover. Gefällt 90 Mal. Aging mind hosts pointless fight scenes among cultures of pop, geek, and faith

^{www.facebook.com}

Far from other tourists, this was my view across Seven Seas Lagoon of Disney’s Contemporary Resort. The glowing blue mountain is Cinderella’s Castle.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

Our Disney Resort experience had only just begun. We’d been together all day, but wouldn’t be for long. Among the divergences in the four-day itinerary, Anne had to attend an “evening event” for employees only beginning at 5 pm at the Grand Floridian’s Convention Center. We plus-ones were cordially asked to go bug off on our own recognizance. At first I’d worried about possibly spending my solo night sulky and depressed. It’s a thing I do sometimes.

Then I remembered I was at DISNEY WORLD. I had some light exploring to do before my big, big day tomorrow.

First things first: I was starving. The snacks we’d been given while waiting an extra hour for our room hadn’t lasted me long. Disney restaurants generally, legendarily require reservations weeks or months in advance. For this particular evening I decided in advance I’d wing it. I walked over to the Grand Floridian Cafe and saw the tables were less than half-full. For decorum’s sake I logged into the official My Disney Experience Mobile App — an essential travel tool that came in constantly handy throughout our trip — and joined the waitlist. Five minutes later they were ready for me. Three cheers for off-hours on off-days.

My dinner of shrimp and grits, generous with the Florida seafood protein.

Minute Maid Zero-Sugar Lemonade with a Mickey Mouse berry powder head to be plunked in and dissolved for extra flavor.

Biggest letdown: the menu promised the lemonade would be served in a souvenir cup honoring Disney World’s 50th anniversary, which explained why it was priced more than alcohol. I’d expected something larger, showier, and not made of Dixie plastic. I left it behind.

I wandered the Grand Floridian’s Main Building, passed other restaurants, and peeked inside some of their shops. My souvenir want-list was short, but “shirt” was at the top. To my chagrin and complete lack of surprise, the only ones in my size were $120 Tommy Bahama tops in an upscale clothier — not my comfort level. For the moment I settled on a Disney World logo magnet for my cubicle collection at work. It was a start.

On the brighter side, on the second floor I found a smashed penny machine. Longtime MCC readers know these are Anne’s favorite memento. She has several books filled with li’l mutilated coinage restamped with happy fun travel images. I’d brought no change with me, for the sake of simplifying my airport security gauntlet (which worked!), but to my delight the machine took credit cards. I bought all the choices for the woman I love. For all I knew, it might just be the one and only smashed penny machine I’d see this week.

Other sights along my aimless path:

Live pianist in the lobby, one of many signs we were having the most decadent time of our lives even before we touched a single square foot of theme park.

Olde-tyme beach painting for ambiance and to plug the Disney Vacation Club. In daytime they had signup tables set up.

The Floridian grounds south of the Main Building, on its opposite end from the Convention Center.

Across the Seven Seas Lagoon, the monorail runs in front of Disney’s Contemporary Resort.

For fun and science, I decided to give the monorail a whirl. The complimentary rail service around the lagoon ran a full circle through the Grand Floridian, the Magic Kingdom, the Contemporary, the Transportation Hub (site of the Magic Kingdom’s parking lot and a transfer point to other monorails), and Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort. Some reconnaissance for the next two days’ travels seemed wise and maybe I’d see cool stuff gratis. The Grand Floridian’s station was attached to the Main Building’s second floor and included a minor security checkpoint. I barely registered on their radar as they waved me past.

Monorail! Monorail! MONORAIL!

The Grand Floridian campus from afar.

I had no view at all of the Magic Kingdom from my seat, but the Contemporary was just down the way.

A full lap took slightly over ten minutes. Back at the Grand Floridian, I wandered a bit more as nightfall continued and I worried not one bit about safety. I took it on faith they had people for that. I found the pier where guests could take boats to the Magic Kingdom and back again, but it was closed. I settled for taking the lead photo and went on my way before alligators or snakes could pin down my location.

The water jungle gym at night, kid-free on this fine Tuesday.

A 1929 Cadillac that’s been parked by the Grand Floridian since at least 1996 or so.

The Cadillac had absolutely no signage around it for context, which I had to look up ex post facto. Once upon a time it was part of the finale in the Stars and Cars Motor Parade at Disney Hollywood Studios, where it chauffeured park “cast members” in their larger-than-life Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy suits. The car, or ones like it, was also available for rental in Disney destination weddings. As of this night it was merely a display item.

Meanwhile, on the clock: after a couple hours of introductions and classified Company Business for business-trip purposes, Anne and her fellow winning employees were treated to a beach dinner party, complete with sand everywhere. Business dinners are never a thing for us, but she was fed on their dime and felt obliged to stick it out for the duration.

Hors d’oeuvres round 1: “spicy Korean on a cracker”, according to her text.

Hors d’oeuvres round 2: crab cake with mango chutney.

Dinner is served: chicken breast, mahi mahi, mashed potatoes, and quiche.

For dessert, Magic Kingdom blueberry macarons and a flourless chocolate torte with chocolate Mickey head coin.

(Not pictured: Hors d’oeuvres round 3, a “truffle scented tenderloin”.)

A different kind of after-dinner treat: complimentary Ray-Bans!

The party didn’t have the best view of the Magic Kingdom’s nightly fireworks show. We’ll come back to that, though.

For those who didn’t simply want to sit around and get drunk, beach party activities included Giant Connect Four…

…a fancy beanbag-tossing game on what looks like a giant smartphone…

…and caricatures! Anne’s artist may have taken some liberties. To be clear, that isn’t a drink in her hand; it’s her phone.

(Longtime MCC readers may recall this isn’t Anne’s first time in caricature.)

Not till sometime after 9:30 pm was she informed that, other than dinner itself, absolutely everything about this evening was optional and she could’ve left anytime. Once aware, she split. Even then, the evening wasn’t over.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Midlife Crisis Crossover!

2023-12-14 15:25:58

Disney World! Part 3: Three Nights in Boca Chica

Your humbled narrator, who’d rarely stayed this close to scenic waters in past vacations.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

After 90+ minutes of going stir-crazy on the convention center’s patio despite free snacks, we were at last escorted to our room in Boca Chica, the building at the Grand Floridian’s eastern edge on the bank of Seven Seas Lagoon. Renovations were completed in fall 2022 to upgrade the rooms to a Mary Poppins theme, apropos of the resort’s Victorian-chic ambiance. Fortunately we weren’t required to wear Sunday suits or hoop skirts.

Their overhauled lobby, as seen from our second-floor perch.

Mary Poppins art in the lobby.

The second-floor carpet.

In terms of square footage, we’ve stayed in bigger hotels. Fairfield Inns routinely have pretty spacious accommodations for us middle-class ragamuffins. But the bathroom was appreciably spacious, and there were the cutesy animals and floating nannies in the details. Boca Chica was a vast improvement over our 2007 Orlando matchbox.

Disney beds, one of each of us for value-added sprawling space, which is something we each crave. I just realized I left my pill organizer on the nightstand.

Birdie chandelier.

Flowery closet doors.

Bonus mirror outside the bathroom.

Closer look at the birds next to the mirror.

Mary Poppins diptych.

Mary Poppins lumbar pillow.

Amenities included Disney brand K-Cups, the most free coffee I’ve ever had in a hotel room. Now that I’ve recently gotten into using K-cups at work, I wish I’d taken a few home with me.

Disney toiletries! I took the cooling gel home because it worked like magic. Months later I tried to order more online only to learn it’d been discontinued.

Disney cleaning fluids! Or course there were!

The room’s real star was the balcony view.

On the balcony was our first look at Seven Seas Lagoon, adjacent to the main park and other Disney World resorts. A monorail surrounds the lagoon.

Soothing lagoon ripples and oceanesque sounds abounded even though we were nowhere near the ocean. In the distance is Disney’s Contemporary Resort, our backup option if the Grand Floridian had been full.

A happy Disney ferry full of guests who got to start having Disney fun before we did.

On the lagoon’s north banks, Disney’s Magic Kingdom beckoned.

COMPUTER, ENHANCE IMAGE. Voila: our first-ever in-person glimpse of the iconic Cinderella Castle. Alas, our first footsteps in its presence were still a full 48 hours away.

East of the Castle lay what looked like a billion-dollar futuristic indoor agricultural complex. On Thursday we’d learn this was Tomorrowland.

Lest our exotic getaway feel too idyllic, exiting Boca Chica’s back door brought us to this sobering reminder of that time in 2016 when an alligator mauled a 2-year-old to death right around here.

ANYWAY, WELCOME TO FLORIDA, YOU CRAZY KIDS!

On the brighter side, this was sunrise Wednesday across the lagoon.

Most importantly, more so than any Disney-classic Easter-egg-deco flourishes: all our luggage was safely in our room, waiting for us as promised. Everything else was extra credit. Lots of extra credit.

As of March 2023 a stay on our own dime would’ve run $900 a night. This is not who we are. For three nights we could escape into a temporary fantasy that this was real life.

Unfortunately the next step on our itinerary was to go our separate ways.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Our Road Trip Checklist

Every year since 1999 Anne and I have taken a road trip to a different part of the United States and seen attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home in Indianapolis. From 1999 …

^{Randall A. Golden (Midlife Crisis Crossover!)}

Mission Space, one of many rides I skipped.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

Touring EPCOT solo felt less lonely and awkward as the day wore on and I got used to it. I couldn’t linger too much longer, though. Anne’s company had scheduled a celebratory dinner for all employees and their plus-ones at 5 p.m. The exact location was TBA, traditionally kept secret every year until hours beforehand. One of Anne’s coworkers was a previous winner whose shindig was held in Disney’s Animal Kingdom. There was no guaranteed hers would do the same, but if it were, that would mean we’d indeed get to see all four Disney parks in Orlando on the same trip. We crossed our fingers and hoped for the convenience.

In the meantime, I had a few more sections of EPCOT to see.

EPCOT’s World Showcase area continued with Disney’s Norway!

The Norway pavilion is the home of their Frozen ride, but the wait was an hour long and my time was growing short.

Salute to Norwegian runner Grete Waitz, a longtime marathon veteran and Olympic Silver Medal winner.

I failed to get an establishing shot of Disney’s Mexico. This art was my first pic in that pavilion.

Live music courtesy of Mariachi Cobre.

Plaza de Los Amigos is the place to be for Mexican souvenirs, Day of the Dead paraphernalia, or merch from Pixar’s Coco.

Skulls for sale.

Not for sale: Sugar Skull Wall, a 2017 installation by Alba Hernandez Santiago, an artist from Oaxaca.

Still more skulls hung from a tree of orange leis.

Another 2017 piece, Bridal Couple by Felipe Linares Mendoza.

I understand they put on quite the Day of the Dead celebration every year.

Unofficial special features around the Wold Showcase Lagoon included ibises…

…and an actual egret. Florida welcomed so many birds we don’t see ’round the retention pond behind our house.

Back in the vicinity of gift shops sans specific nationality, Marvel fans can now fill their entire kitchen with logos.

One of many shops commemorating Disney World’s 50th anniversary.

I am Groot!

I was pretty tired by the time I reached the World Discovery section, filled with thrill rides such as the Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind.

…and my one-man walkabout wrapped up around 3:00. I boarded the monorail and headed back to the Grand Floridian for some much-needed rest. Maybe I’d return one day, but I wept lightly inside, for there would be no new EPCOT worlds to conquer.

Well…at least I thought I would weep. At precisely 2:00 Anne had texted me from one of her mandatory work meetings to inform me the location of the celebratory dinner had been revealed unto all guests at last.

The night’s festivities would be held at EPCOT. So I would, in fact, return much sooner than anticipated, for better or worse.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Spotted on my way out: a 16-foot acrylic fountain installed in December 2020. Farewell for a couple hours, EPCOT!

At last I would see the world’s largest golf ball for myself.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

Lo, there shall come at long last an actual Disney Theme Park in this saga! Well, for one of us, anyway.

DAY TWO: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2023.

One of us had been looking forward to this day. Once again Anne and I would have to go our separate ways for the first several hours. Her company’s itinerary began generously with a magical breakfast buffet. Unfortunately magic came with a price: they’d have to spend the day’s first half legitimizing the “business trip” concept with mandatory meetings, workshops, team-building exercises, product updates, and other numbing duties that could kill a readership dead. I’ll spare you the same way she kindly spared me.

We’d have all of Thursday to spend together, but Wednesday morning we plus-ones were ordered to bug off and go make our own plans. I’d asked myself months ago: what’s something I could do alone that Anne might not be jealous about missing? The answer came to me in seconds: EPCOT. All throughout our childhoods, since its opening in 1981 it’d been badmouthed as the black sheep of the Disney Theme Park empire, until 1992 when Euro Disney came along to take the heat off it. We’d heard The Simpsons mock EPCOT (“Awww, it’s even boring to fly over!”), as did my son, who’d gotten to visit it with his mom’s family when he was 8 and came home underwhelmed. We were definitely not wasting our precious Thursday quality time on it.

My alone-time was a different story. I couldn’t help feeling inquisitive about it. Why the backlash? Nobody talks trash like that about Disney’s Animal Kingdom (especially after they added the Avatar ride in 2017). Clearly I ought to see EPCOT and judge for myself. Like, for science. What’s the worst that could happen?

Admittedly my first guess was “I could be mistaken for a stalker.” I’d never visited a theme park alone. Sure, I’ve been to more than a few since age 4, the first time my family ever took me to Kings Island in Ohio, but who pays an extravagant price to wander a theme park alone? Do a lot of guys do this? Would I stick out among the happy families and cliques? Consider how many fat, bearded, white dudes regularly turn into bullies, brutes, pervs, or internet trolls on any given American day. (This is something I think about every single time we meet an actress at a comic-con, where I try to present as harmlessly as possible, sometimes even pitching my voice up a little, in a humble act of Midwest code-switching. I don’t like the idea of being lumped in.) Would Mouse Security spot me sticking out, profile me and surveil me extra closely just in case? Or could I just, y’know, relax?

After wishing Anne well and praying the Lord would deliver her from ennui, I adjourned to the monorail station, where I seemed two mere counterclockwise stops away from the Transportation and Ticket Center, the hub where I’d need to transfer to the dedicated EPCOT monorail. That day I learned the monorails around the Disney resort grounds only rode clockwise, necessitating I go nearly a full lap ’round. To be fair, that only took ten minutes, but I wanted to be in official Disney World now now now. After I disembarked at the TTC, I bounced nervously in place while waiting seven whole minutes for the next car to EPCOT. The subsequent four-mile ride took forever according to the impatient child inside me. I wished I’d had someone with me so I could ask over and over again, “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”

Eventually, we were there yet.

My view of some future attraction’s grounds as the southbound monorail bypassed Spaceship Earth by several hundred feet before doubling back and stopping at the entrance gates on the park’s north end.

I took the lead photo as I approached the front gates ten minutes before 9, just as cast members were dismantling the daily early-entry perk signage for Disney Resort guests like me. I was sad to have wasted that perk, but it was my own fault for not parting from Anne sooner and/or beginning my preparations at 4 a.m. Worse still, I’d decided to skip breakfast at the Grand Floridian after noting the EPCOT map’s numerous opportunities for grazing throughout the day. Their prevalence came in handy later, but I might’ve rethought my strategy if anyone had told me none of their concessions would open till 11. The discomfort of escalating hunger wasn’t fun.

On the bright side, I took about ten minutes to stop feeling self-conscious about going stag. At first I consciously tried to look cheery on the outside rather than lonely or anxious, and hoped I didn’t look predatory. That’s challenging sometimes when you’re born with resting ogre face, which runs in the family. My skittishness faded as I got comfy, got into the Disney World spirit, and came to realize, more so than any other theme park I’ve seen, EPCOT is basically one big outdoor shopping mall (or “lifestyle center”, if you prefer that euphemism). I’ve done malls alone plenty of times. This was just an old-fashioned mall, except the motorized kiddie rides cost more than a quarter and there’re no cool book or record stores.

Also, they had museum exhibits sprinkled here and there for educational purposes. Remember back in the ’90s when the U.S. government required a certain percentage of Saturday morning cartoons to be spoon-fed after-school lessons that felt like small-screen home detention? I was reminded of that. But now I’m 51 and sometimes I love me some museum exhibits — more so than thrill rides, frankly. It didn’t help that I can be prone to motion sickness (longtime MCC fans may or may not recall the 2003 Six Flags incident) and had forgotten my Dramamine back at our room.

Of course EPCOT has rides, but they’re a minority percentage of the total activities on hand. First-time visitors who’re undecided what to do first can stop pondering when they realize the very first object in their way is Spaceship Earth — that iconic, 7,760-ton geodesic dome towering 18 stories over one and all. Given its prominence in every advertisement or briefest glimpses of EPCOT, it’s easy to assume Spaceship Earth all there is to EPCOT — like, you enter the gate, enter the dome, walk on the walls in zero-G, buy a T-shirt, and presto, you’re done for the day, go back to the hotel. Not quite! Spaceship Earth is a ride and you can go inside it. It’s not an impenetrable display model like Mount Rushmore.

Welcome to the belly of the ball.

I only had a half-day to spend at EPCOT, so I had to be judicious about which lines I braved or skipped during the time allotted. Thankfully this was only March, and Spaceship Earth’s line moved quickly.

I was inside in less than 15 minutes. The polyhedral tiles were wild to stare at while I waited.

Next to the entrance is a mural painted by Claudio Mazzoli, who also had a hand in the ride’s interior designs.

Inside the air-conditioned geosphere, a series of Omnimover cars (read: extremely slow, leisurely roller coaster) takes riders on a scenic tour of the timeline of human civilization and milestone innovations from cave-dwelling times to EPCOT’s original, contemporaneous setting at the dawn of the home computer age. I had a two-seat row to myself as I coasted past an assortment of animatronics, dioramas, and sparkly stars — altogether a tidy runthrough of any given state history museum but on a much bigger budget, minus the real dinosaur fossils and arrowheads of disputed provenance. Working off a script that was originally written by Ray Bradbury but oft-amended since then, its recorded narrator since 2008 has been none other than Academy Award Winner Dame Judi Dench, star of such Disney classics as Home on the Range, Artemis Fowl, and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. (Previous narrators in reverse order were Jeremy Irons, Walter Cronkite, and Vic Perrin, the Outer Limits guy.)

The ride should’ve taken about 15 minutes, give or take a minute, but dragged a little because our Omnimover stopped suddenly while going backwards downhill, and sat there for a few minutes of darkness that were accompanied by neither sights nor sounds and did not feel scheduled. After some time we moved on, completed our faux-time-travel journey and were then herded into an interactive kids’ science museum as an epilogue.

Surprise activities for the kids! Notice my face there in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for some reason.

I did not try every station, but did pause at a control panel that would allow riders to email themselves an electronic postcard précis of the experience, with a photo of their own face (taken during the ride) pasted onto the body of a wacky PowerPoint avatar. I thought I’d downloaded the postcard for posterity and/or for sharing in this entry, but I can’t find the file now and the link has since expired. It was nonessential and my heart will go on, but it was cute in the moment.

The email image that once linked to my now-deleted kiddie souvenir.

Once outside Spaceship Earth, I spent the next 100-odd minutes wandering the grounds, browsing and doing some light shopping. On Anne’s behalf I looked around an entire shop dedicated to collector pins, which have become her thing over the past couple years. Fans of Disney, Marvel, and Star Wars can find IPs to their liking, including a plethora of Grogu (one of which I nabbed for her). I also discovered smashed-penny machines all around, which longtime MCC readers know full well are totally her jam. At first I bought her every available smashed penny I could find as consolation prizes for her morning spent on-the-clock on this sunny Florida day. After a while I had to knock it off because EPCOT has smashed-penny machines everywhere and my pockets were getting heavy.

Souvenir shops still carried merch from EPCOT’s 2022 celebration of its 40th anniversary.

Random sights along my path included “The Seas with Nemo and Friends”, some indoor whiz-bang thingamabob that was closed that moment and had several cast members standing weirdly stoically in front of its entrance.

Those distant pyramids are “Journey into Imagination with Figment”, starring the park’s dragon mascot about whom I know nothing except what I just typed.

At the park’s west entrance, the Skyliner takes fans to and from other parts of Disney’s Orlando terrain.

Our next several chapters won’t necessarily come in chronological order, but rather in themed galleries that hopefully simplify my posting process. EPCOT’s southern half is divided into various territories saluting the most famous countries according to whichever EPCOT planners had the most voting power. Some areas inspired me to take so many pics that they’ll each get their own entries, while others will be space-sharing blog-roomies. As one example, please enjoy fleeting looks at EPCOT’s take on the world of France.

Of course France has an Eiffel Tower, just like actual France and Kings Island in Ohio.

A presumably French fountain amid an ostensibly French shopping neighborhood.

Chapter 10 will cover the second and third attractions I checked out, but my fourth attraction in EPCOT was located squarely and aptly in France — Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, inspired by one of Pixar’s most underrated films. In this trackless ride, guests flit around in smoothly magnetic cars through a giant-sized simulation of Gusteau’s, the restaurant where our rat hero Remy lives and surreptitiously works. At rat height the cars scurry across the floor and flee the kaiju-sized chef who chases and tries to kill any rodent-sized intruders, while various 4-D effects and occasional sudden drops liven things up even more. New dialogue accompanies all of it, courtesy of the returning voice talents of Patton Oswalt, Brad Garrett, Lou Romano, and Elemental director Peter Sohn.

The entrance to Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. The marching John Hammonds are indifferent to its animated allure.

The line led indoors through differently simulated streets of France through a Pixar lens.

Also along the path was a recreation of a Pixar artist’s studio during the film’s production process.

I finally found an open snack stand right before I joined the line. (Our Disney World culinary experiences will be rounded up later in this series.) The wait for Remy’s ride was nearly an hour long, but worth it. I ended up sharing a car with some other dude, who seemed to be enjoying EPCOT solo like me. He kept his phone up and shooting through the entire ride, and surely posted some fun footage later minus the optical VFX that only work in person. I did no such thing; I was there to enjoy the ride for myself, so you’ll forgive me for not dedicating myself to living instantly vicariously instead of being physically and mentally present in-the-moment. ‘Twas much more fun that way…except for the sudden drops, which were really jarring without Dramamine. I’m glad my stomach forgave me, because the two of us had lots more to do.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Fun trivia; English citizens use Shakespeare busts in their gardens the same way we Americans use scarecrows.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. One thing we rarely do is fly. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so. Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation! We could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

For Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. Much of the time, she’d have to work. Not ME, baby…

Most of my EPCOT experience was spent dawdling in the World Showcase, a combination outdoor international shopping mall and museum complex, subdivided into eleven nation simulations across four of the seven continents. Guests can learn about their cultures, sample their cuisine, buy their merchandise, and decide for themselves which bits are authentic carryovers and which are fun stereotypes. All the artifacts, curios, and souvenirs were doubtlessly vetted by multiple committees, but opinions will nonetheless vary among subscribers to the “Death of the Curator” interpretive theory.

Some areas showed up more in my photos than others. Exhibit A: England, as well as its next-door EPCOT neighbor Canada.

The Rose & Crown Pub, one of EPCOT’s high-end restaurants, exemplifies British architecture after a good power-washing.

English phone booths for time travel, or for Clark Kent’s use whenever he drops by.

A Hamlet quote sign in the same garden as the Shakespeare bust in our lead photo.

Crops include Earl Grey tea, which Patrick Stewart does not in fact like.

Cameo by Spike the Bee from various ’40s/’50s Donald Duck shorts, amid flowers that probably bloomed long after my visit.

An outdoor tea cart, essential equipment for any British campsite.

Shops sell Minnie Mouse tea service. I’m not sure if they’re microwaveable.

Monty Python was once peak counterculture; now it’s all over their boarding school uniforms.

Dragon eggs, unrelated to either the Grand Floridian’s Easter egg exhibit or the world of Harry Potter, which is in some other Florida park.

SWORDS!

To the immediate south of Disney’s England is Disney’s Canada, which at first glance resembles an amazing mini-golf course.

Much of what I saw there was quite, shall we say, indigenous-forward.

In this solo adventure I had no companions to stick their heads through the holes and pretend they were Canadian gods.

Deconstructed totem pole.

Subjects from all walks of Canadian life agree: freshly whittled bears are fun.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete major trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Anne the lucky winner, photographed by the guy who’s lucky to be by her side for 19 years and counting.

Welcome to the launch of a brand new MCC miniseries!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: each year Anne and I take one (1) road trip to a different part of the United States and see attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. We’re geeks more accustomed to vicarious life through the windows of pop culture than through in-person adventures. For years we contented ourselves with everyday life in Indianapolis and any surrounding areas that also had comics and toy shops. As our relationship persisted and blossomed, we chucked some of our self-imposed limitations and resolved as a team to leave the comforts of home for annual chances to see creative, exciting, breathtaking, outlandish, and/or bewildering new sights in states beyond our own, from the horizons of nature to the limits of imagination, from history’s greatest hits to humanity’s deepest regrets and the sometimes quotidian, sometimes quirky stopovers in between. We’re the Goldens. This is who we are and what we do.

One thing we rarely do is fly. The first time we ever boarded airplanes was in November 2015, when Anne was sent to scenic Colorado Springs on her very first business trip. I was permitted to tag along, provided I pay for my own plane ticket and meals. I had more free time for enjoying the surroundings than she did, but it was a groundbreaking experience in many ways.

The following summer we introduced my son to this same luxurious travel mode and, in lieu of our annual road trip, used planes for our return visit to New York City. It was nice to save some hours not having to drive through Ohio and Pennsylvania, but we lost some of the quality-time along-the-way joy that enlivened some past family vacations. And we couldn’t just ask our pilots to pull over at the nearest gas station so we could pick out some snacks. We had to settle for whatever pittances the attendants just so happened to have in their pockets.

NYC Part II was seven years ago. Next year, we went back to road-tripping. Ultimately we prefer to control our own vehicles and itineraries. Some airline prices may be lower than in past eras, but they’re still a luxury. Most annoyingly, the changing cabin pressure upon ascent and descent wrecks my hearing and fills my head with the roaring of an imaginary ocean for hours afterward unless I perform a lot of inner-ear calisthenics throughout the last half-hour of every flight. Given the choice, we prefer Avis over airlines. We’d much rather drive than be flown unless we absolutely have to…or are given some pretty sweet incentives to do so.

Fast-forward to December 2022 and a most unexpected opportunity: The Powers That Be at Anne’s rather large place of employment recognized her and several other employees nationwide for outstanding achievements in the field of excellence. Their grand prize was a Disney World vacation!

The prize package included round-trip airfare for her (and only her) to Orlando, Florida; a three-night stay at a Disney World resort; and a pair of Disney World one-day Park Hopper passes. Other, smaller objects were also thrown in along the way, such as a Disney MagicBand+, which looks like a watch but doesn’t tell time. Instead it’s this wearable, ostensibly interactive toy that’s supposed to trigger special features on various park attractions. We were so busy being bedazzled by everything else around us that she didn’t get much use out of it. Not every Disney-labeled object is magic, as their shareholders seem to be realizing about the company’s other lines of business in 2023.

Wait, sorry, I’m drowning out the lede: we could at last announce to friends and family, “THE GOLDENS ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!”

Two major catches tempered the blowing of our minds. One: for Anne it was officially, legally a business trip. She had a fixed itinerary filled with mandatory business meetings, seminars, luncheons, and other gatherings rife with proprietary jargon implemented to leverage daily-inculcated encouragement of attitudinal synchronization with HR behavioral objectives for long-term performance improvement and personal evolution into team-built role models within their proactively for-profit paradigm. In short: much of the time, she’d have to work.

Not me, baby! Same as with Colorado Springs, I was allowed to tag along again provided I paid my own way, and was excused/barred from almost all those appointments. My company and hers have had dealings in the past, but her bosses aren’t my bosses. Employees were granted one (1) free day on the trip to spend off-the-clock with their plus-ones, but by and large I’d be on my own recognizance and free to enjoy whatever pleasures I could afford until then. I could go crazy Broadway-style!

The second catch: we had to fly. We couldn’t simply drive down early and arrive the same time as everyone else’s flights. We dealt with it.

We’d driven to Orlando once before, the endpoint of our 2007 road trip, but we hadn’t done Disney World. My son had already seen all Orlando’s major parks years earlier on a vacation with his mom’s family. Based on his experience and choice of encore options, we did Universal Studios instead. Anne and I had never been to a Disney theme park in our entire lives…until now.

Our departure from Indy was scheduled Tuesday, March 7, 2023. We’d return home Friday, March 10th. This miniseries will cover what happened in between except her boring work matters that’re none of my business or yours — our extravagant accommodations, my first time wandering a theme park alone, our first glimpse of the fabled Magic Kingdom, the very few rides we rode (we are slightly over 50), the foods, the statues, the characters, the fireworks, the one evening we spent in a fit of mutual rage, and, for anyone who knows us and/or this site well, the one section of the one park that you know had to be our first stop together, even before the Magic Kingdom or whatshisname the mouse.

If you visit Disney World, internet bylaw says you’re required to blog about it. MCC will be the sixteen billionth blog on the subject, but chiefly as an experiential narrative and hardly an authoritative tips-and-tricks advice column. Our version will run at least thirty chapters. As you’d expect, we took a plethora of photos. The more responses we get, the faster I’ll try posting them. Then I can finally post about our official 2023 road trip, which followed three months later.

For the third round-trip flight of our lives; Indianapolis International Airport.

DAY ONE: TUESDAY, MARCH 7TH.

Our Southwest Airlines flight from Indy to Orlando was scheduled shortly after lunchtime. We arrived a couple hours early per the style of the times. We went through the usual motions to which all frequent flyers are accustomed, which is not us. A dozen or so passengers were ahead of us in the TSA line, which moved reasonably quickly. After I sailed through my inspection without incident, I stood by for a floor show I already knew was coming.

Despite frequent reminders in the days leading up to takeoff, Anne had a hunch that the whole “liquid containers must be less than 3.4 ounces” thing was more of a guideline than a rule, and/or that 22 years after 9/11 was more than enough time for security to start loosening up on that one, especially for cute tiny middle-aged ladies who were Grand Prize Winners. This hunch did not pay off for her.

While I re-pocketed my possessions and put my shoes and belt back on, I watched from afar as Anne was asked to step aside toward The Bad Booth, where a more thorough inspection of her carry-on bag would be conducted. One escalated X-ray and rummage session later, the very polite TSA agent confiscated one normal-sized tube of toothpaste and an entire, brand new, unopened, hefty bottle of sunscreen. Anne accepted their decision and did not go full Karen because she is not that sort of woman. I, on the other hand, am not the sort of man to deny himself a gentle I-TOLD-YOU-SO giggle-fit. I did try to contain myself till we were out of earshot, because that seemed more gentlemanly.

One of several art installations along either concourse: We Are the People by D. Powell-Smith, 2021.

After stopping by a supply store for much smaller replacements that would not get her tackled and manacled, she grabbed a terminal seat while I fetched us bagels for brunch from Shapiro’s Deli. Along the walk, I happened to run into my old boss, who taught me a lot of what I know before she retired several years ago. She and her husband were going to visit their grandkids down in Texas, which sounded pretty keen. Our chat was the sole reminder of my own workplace for the entirety of this trip.

The chariot we awaited.

Our flight boarded without incident and took off only a few minutes later than the original posted time. On the way up into the heavens and on the way down, I tried my best to keep my ear canals opened and/or exercised and/or constantly contorting to maintain proper head pressure and avoid hearing loss — a combination of Valsalva maneuvers and chewing. In lieu of gum, which had done absolutely nothing for me on the NYC trip, I’d brought a bag of beef jerky that tasted like Ren Faire leather. On the way up, none of this worked and I couldn’t hear a single word of the conversations between Anne and the woman sitting next to her over the next two hours. On the way down, I figured out my system and was back to normal eardrum sensitivity within a few minutes of disembarking.

And thus we beheld Orlando once again. It took a few seconds to confirm we definitely would not need the jackets we were wearing for the next three days.

Our first lagoon of the trip, and not the last.

Welcome to Orlando International Airport! Obviously!

Palm trees inside and out. We definitely weren’t in Indiana anymore.

To be continued!

* * * * *

[Link enclosed here to handy checklist for other chapters and for our complete road trip history to date. Follow us on Facebook or via email sign-up for new-entry alerts. For further signs of life between entries, wave hi to me on . Thanks for reading!]

Introduction

Within the State of Colorado, much of the western two-thirds of the state is notable for the Rocky Mountains, including numerous mountain peaks with elevations in excess of 14,000 feet. National Forests in the State of Colorado are typically known as national forests in the Rocky Mountain Region, with seventeen (17) national forests–not all of which may exist in Colorado–within the region. Apart from Colorado, additional states associated with the United States National Forest Service in the Rocky Mountain Region include Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, and the Cimarron National Grassland in Kansas.

Forests

The State of Colorado is home to all or part(s) of seven (7) United States National Forest units, including officially-designated National Grasslands. Select units are actually combined units between distinct national forests, as is the case with the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests and the Pawnee National Grassland on both the east (Great Plains/High Plains) and west (Rocky Mountains) sides of the Front Range Urban Corridor. Further west, the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison National Forests are often identified as the epicenter of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, with the Grand Mesa in particular representative of tablelands in the north-central portion of the State at relatively higher elevations. Additional features of the Rocky Mountain region of Colorado include the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests and Thunder Basin National Grassland; the Pike-San Isabel National Forests and Cimarron (Kansas) and Comanche National Grasslands; the Rio Grande National Forest; the San Juan National Forest; and the White River National Forest. Rocky Mountain National Park is also largely located among the protected national forests generally west-northwest of the Greater Denver area in the State of Colorado.

Counties

The units representative of the Arapaho National Forest include Grand, Clear Creek, Gilpin, Routt, Jackson, and Jefferson Counties. For the Roosevelt National Forest, the included counties are Larimer, Boulder, Gilpin, and Jefferson, with the Pawnee National Grassland located further east in the High Plains region of the State. For the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison National Forests, the particular counties associated with the Grand Mesa include Delta, Garfield, and Mesa, with Uncompahgre located in portions of Montrose, Mesa, San Miguel, Ouray, Gunnison, Hinsdale, San Juan, and Delta Counties. Also within the nearby area is Gunnison National Forest, within Gunnison, Saguache, Hinsdale, Delta, and Montrose Counties. Though the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests are associated primarily with the State of Wyoming, in which the Thunder Basin National Grassland and Medicine Bow National Forest are located, Routt National Forest is associated with portions of Routt, Jackson, Rio Blanco, Grand, Moffat, and Garfield Counties–all toward the northwestern portion of the State of Colorado opposite the Wyoming line.

Interestingly, the combined Pike and San Isabel National Forests are associated with Mount Elbert, the highest peak in the State of Colorado at over 14,000 feet, as well as a number of significant mountain peaks elsewhere within the local portion of the Rocky Mountains at large. Today, Pike National Forest is associated with Clear Creek, Teller, Park, Jefferson, Douglas, and El Paso Counties, with San Isabel associated with Chaffee, Custer, Lake, Huerfano, Fremont, Pueblo, Saguache, Las Animas, Park, Costilla, and Summit Counties. Numerous wilderness areas are located within the San Isabel National Forest, along with nearby national forests such as Pike, Gunnison, and White River, just to name a few. To the southwest is the Rio Grande National Forest, associated with the areas surrounding the headwaters of the notable Rio Grande within the southern portion of the State of Colorado. The included counties are Saguache, Mineral, Conejos, Rio Grande, Hinsdale, San Juan, Alamosa, Archuleta, and Custer. Even closer to the Colorado portion of the Four Corners region is the San Juan National Forest, located within the Counties of Archuleta, Conejos, Dolores, Hinsdale, La Plata, Mineral, Montezuma, Rio Grande, San Miguel, and San Juan.

Of all the national forests within the State of Colorado–and within the United States of America as a whole–the most significant national forest area is White River National Forest, the most visited national forest in the entire system largely thanks to the twelve (12) ski areas within the forest boundaries. The national forest is located within portions of Eagle, Pitkin, Garfield, Summit, Rio Blanco, Mesa, Gunnison, Routt, and Moffat Counties, and is managed from offices of the United States Forest Service located within the City of Glenwood Springs toward the western edge of the State.