Thanksgiving morning, this was our view from our hotel room. I wished we were staying longer!

We had a 3-night Airbnb rental in Topanga Canyon starting that night that we’d booked several months in advance. The owner called and left a voicemail that morning, so I called him back before breakfast. We reviewed the plans we’d made via email: we had dinner reservations at 7:30 in Venice, and would get to the house to meet him before 9-10pm. That worked out well for him, too, since he had Thanksgiving plans.

We ate breakfast at the little bar in the courtyard, then checked out. Here’s the daytime view down the street from our hotel. We didn’t even know those mountains were right there when we arrived.

We checked out and got on I-10 again. Our destination this time was Anaheim, and Disneyland.

I’ve been to Disney World a few times in my life, a couple times as a kid and once as a sarcastic adult who expected to hate every minute of it, and ended up having a really great time. (Occasionally for sarcastic reasons, but also because I can’t stop loving Epcot Center.) People in California really seem to have a thing for Disneyland, even those I wouldn’t expect to, so we figured it was worth checking out. Plus since it was a holiday, it wasn’t as crowded!

We got to the parking around 11am, and rode the monorail to the park entrance. Everything was decorated for Christmas, which was pretty great. Also, LA was having a huge heat wave that day, around 85 degrees, so it was heaven.

One pleasant surprise was that it’s super-easy to walk anywhere in Disneyland quickly (well, semi-quickly, depending on the crowds). That’s not really that easy at Disney World. This park is a lot more compact.

We walked down Main Street USA, and stopped to take pictures of the much smaller castle. Then we consulted the map to figure out our plan of attack for rides. I was a little nervous about them in general because I still didn’t feel great, and my vertigo was terrible. But dammit, we were at Disney, and I was at least going to go on Space Mountain.

We circled for a while to get our bearings, and then went to see what the deal was with Fastpass at Space Mountain. The last time I’d been to Disney many years ago, Fastpass was awesome and enabled us to get on Space Mountain multiple times in a row. That didn’t seem to be the case anymore; you had to go stamp it with a time you were allowed to come back and get in the fast line. Those times were multiple hours in the future, though. We stamped our passes anyway (for 4:30) and headed out again.

We needed lunch, and for some reason this was more challenging than expected. We didn’t really want a sit-down restaurant, especially since everything seemed to have a long line outside it. And while I know there’s plenty of vegetarian food there, none of it seemed apparent. We finally decided on a Mexican restaurant because they had vegetable enchiladas. They weren’t the greatest I’d ever had, but they were pretty good, and nowhere near as expensive as I’d expected.

Refreshed, we went to go get in the line for Pirates of the Caribbean. Having walked past most of the rides we wanted to go on, we’d already accepted that we were going to end up standing in line for most of the day. But it was nice out, so that made the half-hour-or-so wait worthwhile. The ride was entertaining, and I didn’t really remember much of it. There was also a guy sitting in our row who texted for the entire ride, so that was pretty funny.

From there, we decided to go on the Indiana Jones ride. It was about the same wait time, which wasn’t terrible. This one was advertised as being more jarring than the Pirates of the Caribbean, so I figured it was a good test of how I would feel in Space Mountain. We got into our Jeep, held on tight, and I screamed at every fast corner. (Screaming like an idiot is the best part of going on rides.) I was a little worse off from vertigo afterwards, but it was fine. Plus the ride was great.

Next we took it down a notch at the Enchanted Tiki Room. I’m sure I’ve probably been in there before (in Florida), but I didn’t really remember it. I definitely remembered the cheesiness of that animatronic era, though. The birds that descended from the ceiling looked a little bit ratty.

After that, it was time for some actual tiki. We walked over to the monorail, and rode over to Downtown Disney. They had a skating rink! Did I mention it was 85 degrees?

We found Trader Sam’s amongst the resort buildings. It was a glorious little tropical oasis.

We walked in, and the entire place was full. There was a bunch of patio seating available, but we’d been hoping to get a seat at the bar. Paul’s friends had told us that some of them were rigged to sink into the floor occasionally, and I really wanted to see that.

Regardless, the place was great. The bartenders were hilarious, and if you order a Shipwreck on the Rocks, they trigger this whole animated diorama of a ship on stormy seas that’s built into the wall. It would’ve been nice to stay there for a very long time, but we had places to be that holiday night.

After our drinks were finished, we rode the monorail back to the park. It was still a bit before our Fastpass time, so we grabbed a pretzel from a vendor and wandered around. People were sitting on the curbs on Main Street for the parade, even though it wasn’t happening for quite a while.

Finally, it was time for the one ride I’d come to Disneyland for: SPACE MOUNTAIN. The Fastpass line was pretty great, at least.

One thing it’s important to know about Matt is that he hates roller coasters with a passion. He doesn’t like heights, so he’s waited nervously by while I’ve done things like skydive and jump off the Stratosphere. But since it was just the two of us there, he’d agreed to go on Space Mountain with me. That’s true love right there.

We were both pretty nervous by the time we boarded. I was scared of our stuff flying out, so I had my purse wrapped around my legs as much as possible. Matt was carrying a tiki mug in a box and bag that he’d picked up as a souvenir, so he had to ride with it clamped between his feet. I was scared about my vertigo and the fact that I hadn’t even been near a roller coaster in probably 10 years. Then I looked over at Matt as the coaster started up, and he looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but there at that moment.

Space Mountain was FANTASTIC. It’s as good as I remember. Matt doesn’t agree, but he survived!! I was a little shaky getting it, but it didn’t seem to make my vertigo any worse.

Then it was time to start heading to the car. We hadn’t had very much time there, but it was good to see Disneyland. And we managed to get out before the parade insanity began.

We stopped into the gift shop to get postcards for my Disney-loving nieces, and was told they didn’t sell stamps there. Didn’t see stamps! At Disney, the place which can give you anything you want. That’s really strange, right?

We rode the parking train back to the car, and Matt pulled up directions to LA while I drove. We had dinner reservations at 7:30 in Venice, and then were heading to our AirBnb rental afterwards.

The drive was faster than expected (mostly because it’s safe to assume that generally traffic in LA will be the absolute worst), and we got to Venice with almost an hour to kill. I parked on a side street by the beach, and changed clothes in the car because I’m super classy (and was too underdressed for fancy Thanksgiving dinner). We then went to walk down the boardwalk to see what might be up in Venice on a Thanksgiving night.

The answer: nothing. There were a bunch people who lived on the beach hanging around, but all the businesses were closed. We saw one bar that was open, but the bartender told us they were just shutting down as we walked in. So went back to the car and decided to go try to find something on Abbot Kinney instead.

The one place besides our restaurant that was open was a bar that Matt had noticed more than once, and had wanted to visit. So we parked at The Brig and went in for a drink. The people at the bar were friendly (who isn’t when they’re drinking at a bar on a holiday most people are with family?) and they had sports on TV.

Then it was time for our reservation, so we drove down about half a mile (it was too cold to walk in sandals at that point!) and checked in at Joe’s Restaurant. I was a little worried we’d have to wait forever, because the bar area was packed, but they had our table waiting for us. They definitely weren’t wanting for business for Thanksgiving dinner, either – the entire restaurant was full, too.

They had a prix fixe menu that we’d approved beforehand, due to their good vegetarian options. We picked our three courses and a dessert, and Matt ordered from their awesome cocktail menu as well. My entree was half a butternut squash filled with vegetables, in case you were wondering if California is good at food.

Our dinner was going quite nicely when my phone rang in my purse. I looked at it, and it was the number for the guy who owned our rental house, so I answered right away. He started huffily exclaiming about how he’d been at the house since 7:00 waiting for us, and where were we? (It was close to 8:30 at that point.) I told him that no, like we’d discussed a couple times, we were at dinner and were supposed to meet him between 9 and 10pm. But he was having none of it; he just kept repeating over and over that he’d been waiting there forever, and that this was very rude, and what was he supposed to do? He even told me he had a recording of our phone call from that morning, where I’d told him we’d be there at 7:30. (If that was the case he probably should’ve listened to it, since I told him very clearly that we had dinner at 7:30 in Venice, and would meet him between 9-10.)

I told him we’d get there as soon as we could, and hung up the phone upset. We had to grab our server to get the tab quickly, run to the bathroom (it was still a long drive), and get our dessert to go. The restaurant was super-busy, though, so our dessert didn’t show up, and we ended up leaving. I texted the guy from my dying phone that we were on our way, and we jumped in the car and headed out of Venice and up the PCH.

We turned off the highway at Topanga Canyon, and began the 10-mile drive up into the mountains. I was glad I’d looked at Google Streetview earlier so I knew what to expect along the way. The road going up the hill wasn’t narrow, but it was really dark. We found the turnoff and headed up the wrong road initially, which ended up as a tiny narrow street that two cars couldn’t possibly pass on. After realizing that was wrong, we found the correct road up the hill to the house.

We found the driveway, which had a gate and closed garage door, with no path up to the house. My phone was dead, which didn’t much matter because Matt couldn’t get a signal up in the mountains anyway. The lights at the gate were on and there was a security camera pointed at us, so we figured he’d probably see us there. There was no bell we could find, so we waited around there for ten minutes or so, unsure what to do.

Finally, we gave up. I wasn’t thrilled at staying there knowing the guy was really flaky, accusatory and generally bizarre, and he obviously wasn’t in that much of a hurry to let us in. I wanted to just leave without telling him, but Matt convinced me that calling was the right thing to do. We plugged in my phone, drove back down the mountain, and I called him to tell him we were going to get a hotel instead. He was argumentative at first, but calmed down really quickly once I told him why I didn’t think it was a good idea to stay there (i.e. that I didn’t trust him at all, since he was being totally unreliable).

By the time we got back down to the PCH headed back toward Santa Monica, it was after 10pm. I was upset from the ordeal, and we had to find a hotel. Matt pulled up hotels.com on my phone and started searching for places, and I told him to look near LAX, since hotels were always cheap there. We decided on the Sheraton Four Points, and he used my phone to book the room while we drove there. Hooray, technology!

We got to LAX, found the hotel, and pulled into the driveway to find a ‘lot full’ sign in the parking lot. A guy who worked there was standing outside, so I pulled up and asked him about it. He told us that we should pull a ticket and go into the lot anyway, because a bunch of the staff was leaving right then, and there would be spots opening up.

Well…. no. We drove around and around in the lot, which was packed full. People had invented their own spots in driveways, so I’d go down an aisle and have to back all the way out to leave it. There were other cars circling, but nobody seemed to be finding anything. We discovered an underground parking area that was somewhat hidden, and ended up getting stuck in there and having to turn around, too.

We probably circled around there for half an hour, finding nothing. Finally, I drove back to the gate and pressed the call button and explained our problem. The lady told us to go park over at the Radisson, and they’d reimburse our parking.

We drove down a very long block, pulled another parking ticket at the Radisson, and found a parking spot. By that point it was 11pm, and I was on the verge on a panic attack. (I don’t deal with unplanned changes well at all.) We unloaded our suitcases and rolled them through the parking lot, across the street, and finally into the Sheraton to check in. When the very friendly lady at the front desk told us she couldn’t find our reservation, I wanted to cry.

It turns out that because I’d most recently been looking at hotels in Quebec in May, Matt had ended up booking a room for Thanksgiving 2015. Thankfully, that didn’t seem to be a problem for the front desk – she just updated the dates, and we were fine. We even got the same rate.

(Fun fact: while hotels.com will acknowledge that you did indeed stay for a reservation booked on the incorrect dates, they won’t credit your Welcome Rewards until the original dates actually occur. So I still technically have a room booked at the Sheraton Four Points LAX over Thanksgiving 2015.)

FINALLY, we were in our room and settled for our longest stay in one place… three entire nights!

Stephanie with the nieces at SeaWorld

On Sunday, we all went to SeaWorld, which I hadn’t visited since I was a little kid. Aquariums have never interested me much, but I loved SeaWorld, probably because you can get up close to the animals. We even got to pet a bunch of stingrays (they’re slimy and bumpier than one would expect).

In the dolphin exhibit, we saw a very excited boy-dolphin swimming around with his schlong out for all to see, and then we saw manatees doing dirty dirty things, which has left me scarred for life as regards sea creatures.

Scott and I went to ride the Kraken, which I’m pretty sure is the most awesome rollercoaster I’ve ever been on. I rode the whole way with my arms in the air, screaming my head off, and I was hoarse afterwards. My mom called right as we were exiting the ride to excitedly inform me that they were flipping through the newspaper that morning and found a picture of me making a feather-angel at pillow fight club occupying the top half of the front page of the outdoor section in the St Paul Pioneer Press. Holy crap.

We spent most of the day there, and were all drenched in sweat and overheated in the low-90s humidity. Scott took the kids home around seven, and Stephanie and Ali and I headed right over to Downtown Disney without so much as a reapplication of deodorant. We were stinky, and we were fine with it.

We had dinner at the bar in the Rainforest Cafe, one of the very few restaurants there that knew the word ‘vegetarian’. The wait was an hour and a half, but we were lucky enough to sneak into the bar right at the time that a couple people were leaving. As we were sitting there eating, a dude and his girlfriend came up behind me more than once to order drinks; he’d order a Jack and coke or something similar, slam it while he was standing there, then order another. I finally turned around and said, “Dude! You’re hardcore!” He replied, “That’s how we roll in Tennessee!” I told him of my love for Nashville, and we talked about Tennessee for a while. As they walked away, his girlfriend said in a horrible drawl that my sister and I imitated for the rest of the night: “Ah think she likes you.” Hahaha. I LOVE SOUTHERNERS.

After dinner, we headed over to the location of the evening’s main event: PLEASURE ISLAND, or ‘PI’ to those in the know. Now, I have trouble explaining just how funny a Disney-sponsored group of nightclubs is, but it seriously amuses me. It’s Disney, and yet there’s nothing Disney about them, except for the fact that drinks are served in plastic buckets and jello shots arrive in big plastic syringes, and that for most of the night I was carrying around drinks with a big blue-flashing ice cube in them, which enhanced the dancing at least 125%. SO FUNNY. We started at Mannequins, the ‘gay club’ with the rotating dance floor, but it was only 9:30, and the place was nearly empty. We checked out the top 40 club and the BET club and found that the only one with people dancing in it was the 80s club, because that’s where all the old people hung out. Ali and I didn’t care; we went in and started flailing to Wild Cherry and Run-DMC. After twenty minutes or so, Stephanie had rolled her eyes so far back into her skull that we decided to go elsewhere, and by then the other clubs were filling up.

We spent a lot of time at Motion (I am not ashamed to admit that top-40 dance and hiphop is my preferred shakin’-it medium, and the funniest moment of the night was when they played ‘We Like to Party’, the song my sister always sings when she’s imitating dancing on the rotating dance floor), more time at Mannequins on the rotating dance floor (I had one of those beautiful back-home moments when they filled the room with fog while playing Madonna’s ‘Hung Up’, a song you’re guaranteed to hear at least four times every time you go dancing at the 90’s), and ended the evening at the BET club, where we met a guy who told us he’d worked as a sous-chef at one of the restaurants in the Contemporary Resort for 9 days, working 30-hour days (yep!), and that one of his jobs was to go out and meet people as an ambassador of magic, or some such crap. We figured hitting on every chick in a club probably wouldn’t count towards his magical-ambassador award as far as Disney was concerned, but it was pretty funny. He kept welcoming me to Minneapolis. I told him I was glad to be there.

Heather and I sprung out of bed at 4am, crammed my car full of luggage, and drove out to my parents’ house, where we found my family milling around the kitchen, tired and crabby. We piled into the big purple minivan, left our coats in the car at the airport, and hopped on a plane. Since coffee rates much higher than vacation on my priorities list, Heather and I were almost the last to board the plane, and found ourselves seated in the very back row. I like to make an entrance.

Any extended time spent with my family is always, um, entertaining. My mom seems a little freaked out over the fact that we’re all now adults and she can’t take care of us like she used to, so she overcompensates. She was convinced I was going to starve to death on the 2-1/2 hour flight to Orlando because I couldn’t eat the breakfast sandwich they were giving everyone else, so she brought half the contents of her kitchen along as sustenance. Every time I looked at her, she was pushing a baggie of food in my direction. Halfway through the flight, she started fidgeting, and announced, “I’m bored.” Heather replied, “I’m going to have you sedated.”

Each time the pilot got on the radio to tell us our cruising altitude or arrival time or to apologize for the unexpected turbulence over Kentuckinois, we wondered if maybe there was something wrong. He was slurring a lot. But everything seemed fine until we tried to reach the Earth again, and then almost died. I watched about a hundred miles of runway rush past before the plane even touched down, and then he slammed on the plane-brakes (or whatever) and we all went lurching forward, convinced the plane was going to pitch over its front end and land us all right in a ditch full of alligators. All the passengers were laughing that hysterical laugh you employ to keep from screaming, “Sweet Jesus, we’re all going to die!” At least, that’s what I was doing. But, seriously, it’s really hard to try to convince your girlfriend, who is terrified of flying in the first place, that she has nothing to worry about when you know you just barely got out of that one alive.

The airport in Orlando is top-notch because it prominently features a Starbucks and a monorail. We monorailed, then shuttled our way to Thrifty Rent-A-Car, where the guy behind the counter was so condescending and evil that it was all I could do to not leap the counter and strangle his sorry ass out of its tortured, pleasureless existence. It’s one thing to be an asshole to me, because I’ll give it right back. But my parents? That’s cause for a smackdown.

I ended up driving a Nissan Sentra, which was clearly the better of the two cars, sad as that may seem. My dad was driving a Hyundai Something. Our first stop was my brother’s house (Scott, the Forgotten Ripley), where he lives with my sister-in-law, Ali, my niece, Kaitie, and two cats I can’t tell apart.

i have eye herpes!

proof jenni was here.

After lunch, the rest of the family headed to the Disney resort where we were spending one night before taking up residence in our rental condo, and Heather and I headed to the Atlantic Ocean.

We took the most direct route, which brought us to Cape Canaveral, and then Cocoa Beach. Since we were unprepared for chillin’ on the beach, we stopped to buy a towel at Ron Jon’s, which is apparently the original store, as if we cared. They would have been happy to sell us a towel with the Ron Jon’s logo on it for the rock-bottom price of $22. We declined and went to the crappy beach shop across the street (the kind with the stinky aquarium full of hermit crabs), and bought an ugly blue towel embroidered with ‘Cocoa Beach’ in pastels for $12. It was the beach souvenir we never wanted, but it would do.

I had the good fortune of parking right in front of a natural foods ice-cream shop that wanted to sell me a sugar-free frozen yogurt sundae, which was awesome, because that’s exactly what I wanted to buy. We headed to the beach with our yogurt, laid out the towel, and sat down to watch the ocean. Heather fed the menacing seagulls raisins, and I watched the cruise ships heading out to sea. She presented her plans for Epcot II, which will feature all the countries America doesn’t like, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. We discussed the awesome food they’ll serve there, and arrived at the startling conclusion that we hate all the countries with flatbreads. It’s chilling.

And so was the ocean, dammit. OK, it was January. I picked through shells on the beach, and found myself a whole sand dollar, which later broke apart in my bag. Sigh.

We stopped at a little Cuban cafe for plaintains and Cuban coffee, then headed back to Orlando. We met up with my family having dinner at Disney’s Pop Century resort. The place was bizarre; each of the buildings is named and decorated to correlate with a decade starting with the 1950s. The 1990s building, the one in which we were staying, had giant cellphones on the corners of the building (set to dial 407-W-DISNEY, of course), and huge CDs. The 1980s building had Pac Man across the top. Each of the structures also had various catchphrases from each era in giant letters atop them: ours had ‘You go, girl!’, ‘Y2K’, ‘Yo’, and other such painful reminiscences.

We went up to our room to change. Stephanie noted that even the bathroom wallpaper had a subliminal Mickey pattern hidden in it. Scary. Ali showed up and we piled in the sexymobile to drive over to Pleasure Island, conveniently located near the West End of Downtown Disney. No, I am not joking about Pleasure Island, either. It’s really called that, and I was hoping it would live up to its name. It’s the 21+ section with all the nightclubs, and we were going there to party with Ali’s Disney coworkers.

There wasn’t much going on there at 10pm. We went into one bar and waited fruitlessly for the single functioning air hockey table, listening to a really bad Disney punk cover band. Stephanie ordered a drink that came in a red plastic bucket. The bartender dissed me for ordering a Diet Coke. I know it seems inconceivable for someone to have fun at a Disney nightclub and not be stupid drunk, but, dude. Whatever.

We decided to try another club, so we headed to Mannequin’s. It turned out to be the techno club, complete with rotating dance floor and strobe lights. It was great, and it was crawling with superhot, supergay boys. You can’t have everything, I guess. So we rotated our way slowly around the club about a million times, dancing like a bunch of white girls and having a lot of fun. After a couple drinks, we even managed to lure Heather out onto the floor. Stephanie was in hysterics because every time we got near one of the few obviously un-gay boys in a grey sweater, he would whip out the thumbs-up in our direction.

After a while, Ali’s friends showed up and we decided to go to another club, called Motion. It was pop/hip-hop, packed full of sweaty dancing college students. I was a little disappointed about the lack of rotating floor and dry ice, but it was fun anyway, watching all the girls in the hootchie getup, and the series of about ten different guys I saw staring down Ali’s shirt.

On the way out, a guy came up to bum a cigarette off Heather, and managed to tell us in the first two minutes that he made 100k a year selling timeshares. Ha. We wandered around, and Ali bought a Jello shot in a giant syringe. She was struggling to, uh, inject it, so a girl came up to help, saying, “Suck and push at the same time, that’s how to do it. Suck and push. Teeth aren’t necessary.” So we yelled, “Suck and push!!” to help her along. At one end of Pleasure Island, a cover band called Kabang(!) was playing the greatest hits of the 90s, among others. We stood in the street and danced along with Nirvana, the Violent Femmes, and ‘Sweet Home Alabama’. Some kids formed a three-person mosh pit in front of the stage. One of the guys in the band was wearing vinyl pants. It was hard to tear ourselves away from Kabang(!), but somehow we managed to make it back to the resort, and sleep.

We got up bright and early and headed down to the giant resort commissary. To Disney’s credit, they had plenty of food I could eat, with the glaring exception of the Magic Kingdom. I found myself some oatmeal, and engineered my own Disney depth charge, by procuring two shots of espresso from some very confused ladies behind the counter, then filling the rest of the cup up with their crappy coffee. But it was fine.

We took the shuttle to Epcot and got right on Spaceship Earth, Heather’s favorite ride, ever. Now, Heather and I have wildly different tastes in our choice of Disney entertainment. She likes the slower, educational rides, especially if they feature space or dinosaurs. I’d prefer to avoid Disney entertainment altogether, but if it’s my only option, I choose the fast, loud, mindless rides that make you wonder if you’re going to puke. Too much learning makes me fidget. So we compromised, and went on both types of rides.

Spaceship Earth stalled twice, but we managed to escape the giant silver golfball alive (after a bone-chilling brush with the AT&T promos at the end). According to Spaceship Earth, the future of humanity, the perfection of all our accomplishments, will be videoconferencing (via AT&T networks, of course). And here I was thinking it was world peace, or something. I’m a little ashamed.

After that, we rode the Test Track, which made us scream, and Mission to Mars, in which Heather almost vomited on takeoff. She’ll never be an astronaut. Then we went to the Universe of Energy, which I have always found really amusing, because it’s sponsored by Exxon. (BTW, doesn’t Disney bring in enough cash to pay for their own rides? What the hell?) This was one of those rides that annoys me: first, because it’s educational, and second, because they stall you by making you watch a too-long and unfunny film, in this case starring Ellen Degeneres and Bill Nye the Science Guy. During these films, I mostly become irritated with the kids standing too near me and wonder whether their parents will notice if I elbow them in the head.

After the Exxon commercial we walked over to the countries in Epcot. I like this part, because it has shopping and food other than hamburgers, fries, and Mickey-shaped ice cream. Mexico was under construction. We got our picture taken with a giant troll in Norway. In China, Heather got bubble tea, while I searched for merchandise featuring the good chairman. In Germany, we bought two pretzels and a pop for $8. In Italy, we stopped.

That’s because Italy’s best feature was its boys. Since Disney is all about being authentic in an over-the-top way, the people in the countries are actually from the countries. When the boy handing me my cappuccino said ‘my pleasure’ with that accent, I almost fell over. When he said it a second time, I knew I had to sit down. Near the gelato boy, of course. Damn.

After coffee, we rushed through the United States and went on to Japan. The shops in Japan seemed to know I was there, because they had stocked everything I ever wanted to buy. I picked up and carried about half the contents of the store around with me, then put most of it back and still managed to spend almost $90. They had Hello Kitty stuff I’d never seen before, Totoro, and a million maneki neko. I’m pretty sure it was my favorite place at Disney World.

After Japan, we went to Morocco. We split the vegetarian platter, with hummus, tabouleh, and the best lentil salad I’d ever eaten. We shopped and checked out the henna tattoo artist. Then we wandered through the less-interesting countries of France, the UK, and Canada. I suppose Canada is interesting to some people, but it’s next door to me. I was unimpressed. Although I kind of dig all the maple leaf shirts; it’s a much better fashion choice than stars and stripes.

After more wandering and shopping, we stopped so Heather could have a cigarette. The smoking areas at Disney are really funny. At a few secret locations in each park, which can be located using the map and secret decoder ring, they have a garbage can with a big ashtray on top. This is the designated smoking area. The smokers huddle around it, looking guilty, and their non-smoking companions linger nearby, trying to look nonchalant. If you are caught smoking elsewhere on the property, you will be trampled by college students dressed as giant furry Disney characters.

We circled around back to Mexico so we could sit in the sun and share our nachos with the local wildlife. The herons picked bits of tomato from our fingers, and then made demanding honking noises when they felt neglected. My parents called to say they were nearby, so we walked over by the Imaginarium and waited. While Heather made phone calls, I laid on the bench next to her and dozed off in the sun. I didn’t care much about being at Disney, but I was loving having escaped the overcast weather in Minnesota, and meant to enjoy it as much as possible.

We finally found my family in the big freezer of a building where you can sample Coca-Cola products from around the universe, and get the soles of your shoes so gummy that you make weird sticky noises when you walk. We milled around near the fountain in front of Spaceship Earth while my mom tried to coordinate what seemed to be the most complicated photo-op ever. You would think it wouldn’t be a problem to get a group of eight people standing together and smiling long enough to take a picture, but you would be wrong. At least when it’s my family that’s concerned.

After we ditched the Ripleys, I went to the bathroom for the 18th time that day, and Heather got an ice cream. We went to The Living Seas, which turned out to be a really poor excuse for an aquarium, and then took a boat ride through The Land. It’s all about the future of farming, and turned out to be more interesting than it sounds, because it had giant mutant vegetables. It was like ‘It’s a Small World’, only the kids have been replaced by 50-lb zucchinis. That’s hard to beat.

We went on Spaceship Earth again, dodged AT&T, and picked up my Japan-stuff at the front gate on the way to the shuttle. On the bus, we eavesdropped on a conversation between a couple from New Hampshire, and an old couple from Minnesota (with embarrassingly ‘Fargo’ accents). NH-guy said, “I’ve never met a Minnesotan I didn’t like!” I whispered to Heather, “I bet I could give him a run for his money.”

We found the sexymobile back at Pop Century, and drove it to our new Orlando residence, the Celebration World Resort.

Resorts in Orlando are surreal. There don’t seem to be any regular hotels; they’re all located on these giant plantations with elaborate entry gates, guard-booths, and palm-lined drives. Even the ones that look like glorified apartment complexes, like ours. Celebration World was just down the way from Disney, and the way I remembered how to get there was as follows: take 192, which is easy to recall, because it’s one of those important octets in an IP address (duh), take a left at the giant inflatable Elvis, then a left just past A World of Orchids, which was featured in the movie Adaptation. We stopped there long enough to find our sleeper-sofa in the giant maze of rooms that made up our suite, changed clothes, and headed to Universal Citywalk.

Universal Citywalk is the Downtown Disney of Universal Studios, since theme parks are simply not allowed to do anything original. We pulled into the parking with our $8 in hand, and the girl in the booth said she’d give us VIP parking for $5, since she liked my purse. We were suspicious, figuring it was one of those traps they lure out-of-towners into in order to make them join a cult, or purchase a time-share or something. But, no, it was just VIP parking. We took about 7 miles of moving sidewalk into Citywalk, and looked at the map for a restaurant that might have something I could eat. We decided on Bob Marley’s, and fought our way through crowds of fratboys to get there. Citywalk had the same vibe as Pleasure Island – theme bars and clubs, Jello shots, drunk college students in the street. It also had the added attraction of girls flashing their tits in front of Pat O’Brien’s for Mardi Gras beads.

At Bob Marley’s, I freaked out over the awesome food. I had vegetable/sweet-potato patties (kind of like Jamaican empanadas), yuca fries, and bammy. It was so good, I was even able to completely ignore the ‘One Love’ singalong. After dinner, we headed to Pat O’Brien’s to meet Alina and her sheriff’s-department krew for her birthday party. When I showed the bouncer my ID, he told me that he had just been staying in Minneapolis over Christmas, about 10 blocks from where I live, because he was originally from here. He put on my wristband, stamped it, and told us to have a good time. When he stamped Heather’s hand, he pointed to it and said, “Minneapolis!” It wasn’t until we got to the entrance of the piano bar to pay cover that I even realized what he was doing. Minneapolis got us in for free.

We met Alina and her friends, and everybody was supercool and a lot of fun. Even though Alina’s only worked for the sheriff’s department for two months, it seemed like she had known everyone forever, and it was a really close group. I was a little psyched that two of the guys there worked in the morgue. And Robin was completely awesome. At one point, she was up in front of the stage, leading the whole room in a hand-motion rendition of ‘Joy to the World’ by Three Dog Night. And in my typical vacation style, I even managed to hear the hometown classic, ‘Purple Rain’.

Heather drank two cosmos and three vodka-tonics. I drink a lot of Diet Coke. I was sitting near the wall, and every time this drunk woman walked past me to go to the bathroom, she bumped into me. The last time, she leaned over and apologized drunkenly and profusely. I said it was fine and waved her away as she kept slobbering on me. The next time she passed, she smacked my shoulder deliberately.

I wanted to fight. Admire my restraint.

I figured her life was bad enough as it was, since, as Heather pointed out, her much-older and possibly even drunker date looked like a giant polish sausage. They made a depressing couple.

We wished Alina a happy birthday and left around 1am. We decided to get something to eat, and somehow wound up at Denny’s near our hotel (because, of the late-night dining options, Denny’s is the one that actually has a gardenburger). As I paid the check at the front counter, the manager kept knocking stuff over and making a mess. We laughed at him, and he said it was because I was making him nervous. I asked why, and he replied, “It’s that red hair and beautiful smile.” I didn’t quite know how to feel about being hit on by the Denny’s night manager, but I had completely forgotten about it by the time I passed out in the most uncomfortable sofa bed on the planet.

I woke up when Scott got up with Kaitlyn, and said a little prayer of thanks for not having kids. My first priority for the day was coffee, and since we weren’t going to Disney, I had to find it elsewhere. I called 1-800-STARBUCKS, and the computer voice was pleased to tell me the nearest location, five miles up I-4. This was perhaps a little shocking to me, since if you stand on the front steps of my house and throw a rock, you are almost guaranteed to hit a barista. But the south, well, it’s the South.

It ended up being at the Marriott resort, which is apparently the place to stay if you’re a golfer. I parked illegally and got myself a couple big Americanos, and headed back towards the resort. On the way there, I managed to get lost; I took the 192 exit, but going the wrong way (the sign says ‘Celebration/Kissimmee’, which is where the hotel is located, but you’re supposed to go the other direction instead). But this ended up being a good thing, because I quickly realized what I had found: Celebration, Florida: the friendliest planned community in America.

Celebration was created by Disney. It scares me, because it’s one of those places where people go when they want to escape reality, and possibly non-white people. I admit I have an extremely perverse fascination with it. I want to go there and do bad things. I want to frighten the residents. Barring that, I wanted to wander around and absorb the freakishness of a community based on everything I think is boring. Obviously, I was more than thrilled to realize how close Celebration was to the hotel, and I intended to go back and explore as soon as possible.

Back at the resort, I sat on the patio and wrote postcards to mail from Celebration. Alex showed up from Miami, and got to meet the members of the family he hadn’t met before: Scott (the Forgotten Ripley), Ali, and Kaitie. While we sat outside and talked, I turned and saw Kaitie standing at the patio door, menacing me. She stood there for a good ten minutes, giving me the look, wearing my Mardi Gras beads. We decided to go to lunch at the same restaurant we had eaten at in Miami, and then they dropped me off back at the resort and headed to SeaWorld.

I found myself alone in the condo. Alone in the condo. On vacation. This was a big deal to me. So I chilled. Wrote more postcards. Scribbled in the travel journal. Read the AAA guide to see what I might be missing, just in case there were actually non-Disney attractions worth seeing in Orlando. And there was something: Splendid China. I had read rumors on Roadside America that it had closed, and my phonecall confirmed it: not only had it shut down, but it shut down on January 1st. I was 17 days too late.

I called Alina, and she came to pick me up. I walked into the parking lot, and saw the crime scene van parked sideways, waiting for me. I knew that it was probably going to be the best day of my life.

We had decided to check out Celebration, so we drove over and found the downtown. I couldn’t believe the place. It was all manicured lawns, curved, tree-lined streets, and perfect homes. Celebration has its own hospital, office buildings, and school. It was so very Disney, completely engineered and creepy. The office buildings were so clean and new that I thought they were unoccupied until I saw a woman standing out front. I figured she was smoking, but then realized that people in Celebration disappear in the middle of the night for infractions like that. She was talking on her cell. I’ll bet you $10 it had a Mickey faceplate.

Alina parked the crime scene van on the street in downtown, and we got out to take a closer look. She was instantly swarmed by old folks, who first wanted to know if a crime had occurred, and second, wanted to tell her how much they liked that show. She was surprisingly nice to them for someone who hears that about a hundred times a day. Oh, and I should mention that the old folks were all hanging out in rocking chairs by the edge of a fake lake. Yes, the town supplies its citizens with rocking chairs.

I was surprised at the number of cars around in Celebration. It’s one of those places where you expect everyone to ride a bike. But the streets were packed with parked vehicles, which indicates to me that the happiest homes in the country do not come with garages. There was a lot of alternate transportation as well, though. People were riding Segways all over the place. We even saw a guy with his legs cut off mid-thigh riding a modified Segway, towing another Segway behind him. Also, people drove funny electric golf carts. In place of pedestrian-crossing signs, they had vehicle-crossing signs showing a fat guy in a golf cart. In the downtown, you could pay $2 to ride the train, which Alina pointed out came complete with a big pile of fake plastic coal in the back. In case you’re there, you can catch it at the corner by Happy Face Face Painting.

(Holy crap, I just now noticed that the train was a modified golf cart, too.)

We stopped at Barnie’s Coffee. I was excited that they had cortaditos on the menu, and asked if they could make it sugar-free. They said yeah, but it was basically just a macchiato. I told them to call it a cortadito anyway. We joked with one of their employees about how weird Celebration was, and he agreed. Then he went on to tell us that he was going to crack one day and starting taking people out sniper-style. Because he was from Virginia. Um, right. We left.

Then I found something I think you should buy me: a Hello Kitty bike.

We walked around and peered at the post-Xmas craftsy junk for sale on sidewalk tables. Celebration has a bunch of crappy galleries, a gourmet grocery, a few restaurants, a movie theatre that appeared to only be playing Disney movies, and a post office, where we stopped to drop off my postcards. Near the post office, I finally had proof of what I had up til then only suspected: Celebration does, in fact, have a bad crowd. Look at ’em, the disrespectful punks.

On the way out of Celebration, we missed a turn and ended up on a road lined with houses under construction, which then abruptly dead-ended into a swamp. I’m assuming it was the Artisan Park that the billboard along 192 advertised as ‘the last great neighborhood in Celebration’ (the other ones have apparently been overrun by the aforementioned punks). We didn’t linger.

Our next stop was the only thing that could possibly top Celebration: the crime lab. Alina had promised me a tour. On the way there, she gave me an Orange County Sheriff’s Department t-shirt, which I’m wearing every day, as it will undoubtedly get me out of speeding tickets.

The crime lab was kind of amazing. If I watched more TV, I’d probably have a better sense of how high-tech crime scene investigation is nowadays, but I was blown away. As far as I could tell, there were about 500 different ways to find and retrieve fingerprints, and you had to know exactly what you were doing. Alina said that it was one of the most technologically advanced crime labs in the country, and I believed it. I’d describe everything I saw, but I’m sure I’d get it all wrong and just sound stupid. In the garage, I saw a car that was covered in dust for fingerprints. I saw the little closets where they hang gory clothes and such to dry out, and heard probably the most horrifying maggot-infestation story ever. I saw the refrigerator where until recently they had been storing a bucketful of hands. Alina seemed a little disappointed to not be able to show them to me. I was fine with that, really. Then she opened the freezer, which was also empty, and announced, ‘Wow, it smells bad in there!’ I clamped my hand over my nose and ran.

I saw a cubicle full of skulls. Not real ones, but one of the officers there had a bit of an obsession. I saw the ballistics expert and sketch artists’ offices, and a huge photo lab. The bathroom was unexpectedly homey, with a cute shower curtain and flowers on the wall. I think the thing that stuck with me the most was knowing how morbid and depressed I’d be if I had to deal with that stuff on a daily basis, and yet everyone I met from the sheriff’s department was so nice. It’s awesome.

Alina and I stopped to get coffee and talk while we waited for Heather and Alex to drive up and meet us for dinner. It was an internet reunion of sorts, since we met both of them on Email Roulette. We ate at a burrito place, and I laughed so hard my stomach hurt the next day. After dinner, Alina gave us a tour of the crime scene van. We stood in the parking lot outside the coffeeshop, with passers-by peering suspiciously at us as they drove past. Alex put a huge thumbprint on the van and demanded that Alina dust it. We cheered and jumped up and down like a bunch of kids while she did.

We said good night to Alina, and Alex drove us back to the resort, then drove a hundred miles an hour all the way home to Miami. Good thing he didn’t get pulled over, because he didn’t have a sheriff’s department tshirt like I did.

That night, I drove over to the Marketplace store down the road to get pop (you call it ‘soda’), which used to be a crappy old Winn-Dixie decorated with pagodas and Chinese dragons. I noticed a bunch of Chinese restaurants nearby, too, and didn’t realize until I saw the sign what the deal was: I was staying less than a mile away from the now-defunct Spendid China. I drove past it a couple times, looking to see if there was a way I could possibly sneak in and avoid detection. I decided to wait and try to convince an accomplice to go with me.

I awoke at 7am to the sounds of a typhoon. It was pouring rain in sheets, and it was so cold and humid I didn’t want to get out of bed to close the patio door. When Heather got up, we decided to go to the Starbucks up the interstate at the outlet mall, because it had wireless internet access. The folks there were super-friendly, and we got our email, so the day was off to a good start.

We drove over to Disney and pulled a free parking trick: drive up to the booth at one of the resorts (the Polynesian is closest to the parks), tell the lady in the booth you’re having lunch and shopping, and she’ll give you a free 2-hour pass. And they never check the passes. So we parked and wound our way through tiki schlock to the monorail.

Have I mentioned that I love the monorail? I’m considering trading my car in for one.

My overall impression of the Magic Kingdom wasn’t great. It was still rainy when we got there. I thought Disney controlled the weather, too, but I was wrong. We walked down Main Street USA and over to Adventureland. Heather was on a quest to have her pictures taken with all the furries, making rock hands. She was making rock hands, I mean. The furries can’t do that with giant paws.

We rode the Jungle Cruise and Pirates of the Caribbean, which felt more like the Arctic. I was wearing Heather’s jacket, and had my own wrapped around my legs.

I think the fact that everything is so old and cheesy at the Magic Kingdom is part of the reason it’s not that great. We went on the rides out of nostalgia, mostly. Another thing that sucked completely was finding food I could eat. Epcot had given me a false sense of security, with all their semi-healthy vegetarian options. At the Magic Kingdom, everything was either meat, or deep-fried, or both. We finally found a pirate restaurant, where I ordered a pirate salad, and threw it up shortly thereafter.

I’m sure there’s something to be said about puking in the Magic Kingdom, but I’ll just move on. Lunch depressed me; it was the combination of the rain and the food (we were sitting across from a McDonald’s french fry booth, which was surrounded by flocks of fat birds), and also the families. I noticed that everybody looked way more stressed than happy. Like the effort of getting everyone there, paying a thousand bucks, and transporting themselves around was too much, but they were going to have a good time if it killed them, dammit. I couldn’t stop staring at this woman who was alternately arguing quietly with her husband and telling her dumb kids to eat their PB&Js. She was tearing the crusts off one of their sandwiches, dunking it in ketchup, and eating it. What was I saying about puking? Right.

After lunch, the sun came out, so we were feeling better. We walked back up to the front of the park to stow our umbrellas and coats in a locker, then decided to hang out and watch the parade. Heather wanted a cigarette, and I just wanted to sit in the sun. When we found espresso and an ice cream shop with sugar-free butter-pecan ice cream, I was feeling 100% better. We took a seat on the curb and watched all the funny people while we waited for the parade.

I’m glad I wouldn’t let Heather take my picture, because now I have proof of ocean hair. It is fabulous, no?

The parade was really, really weird. I’m glad I was completely sober, or it might have brought on a psychotic episode. All the famous Disney characters rode in big glass bubbles on top of floats. They were flailing and gesticulating. I kept trying to imagine the people inside them, and I’m pretty convinced they’re all super-perverted. Which is cool. I’ve just heard rumors, is all I’m saying. They kept luring all the little kids into the street to dance, too. I don’t know. It’s just kind of creepy.

Hammer time!

After the parade, we went over to Tomorrowland. It may have looked futuristic 20 years ago. But what’s the awesome thing about Tomorrowland?

Space Mountain!!!

It was pretty much the only reason for going to the Magic Kingdom. That, and ‘It’s a Small World’, which gives me flashbacks to the Precious Moments Chapel.

We grabbed FastPasses so we could get on the ride again as soon as we got off. I mean… yeah. Anyway. On the way up the miles of dark ramp inside the bowels of Space Mountain, I discovered the kind of thing that could excite only me: my pants had a FastPass pocket. It was the exact size, a tiny little pocket that velcroed shut. That is hot.

So, Heather hates roller coasters, but had agreed to go on them with me since I was tolerating her learning. She wasn’t pleased about Space Mountain. I was screaming and laughing hysterically; she was screaming, ‘Oh fuck!’ When it was done, we exited, sat for five minutes until our passes were good, and got back on again. Space Mountain rules.

We started wandering around again. We ended up mobbed with kids in ‘Toontown’. My blood sugar was dropping, and I was crabby as hell. Several of the restaurants closed at 5pm, which confused me. We found our way onto a boat, which floated us into ‘It’s a Small World’. Holy shit.

We found a fresh fruit stand, so I ate some pineapple and felt better. We went in the Haunted Mansion. Then I ate a pretzel (it’s a fetish). Then we waited in line forever to ride Big Thunder Mountain. It was the first time we had really encountered a wait at all, which was nice. Once again, I screamed and laughed, Heather just screamed.

We had had enough of the Magic Kingdom, so we headed back up to the front of the park. Heather shopped for souvenirs, and I lingered around outside while the fireworks started. We saw the rest of the fireworks from the monorail on the way back to the Polynesian. Unbelievable as it may seem, we lost the sexymobile and ended up wandering the parking lot. That’s because it’s not as sexy as I’m making it out to be, and in fact looks like every other vehicle in America, excepting my own, which is always easy to find.

I figured it would be easy to find dinner at Downtown Disney, over yonder by Pleasure Island. So we drove over there, parked, and started wandering. Downtown Disney features a bunch of stores, a movie theatre, and maybe 5 or 6 restaurants, but they’re all in supersized, comically giant versions of themselves. It’s bizarre. We looked at all the menus, and there was absolutely nothing I could eat. We decided to go to Rainforest Cafe, because I knew they had a gardenburger. So we followed the signs from one end of Downtown Disney, past Pleasure Island, and finally we could see it across this giant lagoon. So we kept walking. Heather was exhausted, and I was crabby again. I was pushing my way through crowds. After about a seven-mile hike around the lake, we reached Rainforest Cafe. They had an hour-long wait. We wanted to cry.

Instead, I left Heather by one of the giant shops and speed-walked the seven miles back to the car. I’m sure people could hear me yelling ‘excuse me! excuse me!’ in the doppler effect as I blew past them. I got the sexymobile, cranked up the stereo because that Holiday Inn song with Snoop was on, and there’s nothing funnier than a white girl in a sexymobile blasting that song in the parking lot at Downtown Disney. If only the sexymobile had hydraulics.

We drove around the entire state of Florida looking for food. Much like the Magic Kingdom, Orlando’s restaurants mostly feature deep-fried meat. We finally settled on Bahama Breeze, a tacky Jimmy-Buffett-style restaurant. We took turns going to the bathroom, and both got to witness a girl who was staggering-drunk and had vomited all over herself, being cleaned up by relatives. It was great. I ate my mushroom sandwich, and we went back to the condo to sleep.

I woke up stiff, despite the real bed. (‘I woke up stiff’ has a completely different meaning for girls and boys. Did you know that?) Heather and I went to Bob Evans for breakfast, because if there’s one thing she loves, it’s Bob. I had oatmeal and fruit and bad coffee. I missed Dunn Brothers.

We drove to Animal Kingdom and parked in Unicorn 22. Then we hopped on a tram, which drove all of fifty feet and dropped us off at the park entrance. We felt dumb, but it didn’t seem to bother anyone else on the tram. I got espresso, and we ran back to the Jungle Safari, having heard that you’re more likely to see real, live animals in the early morning.

That was only half-true, because they do come out in the morning, but not when it’s cold. And it was cold. La Florida isn’t tropical year-round, apparently. But we did see some animals.

I had originally thought Animal Kingdom was kind of nice because it was more jungly and not completely open like the other parks. All the paths were lined with huge trees. However, the shade meant cold, and so I found myself standing in little patches of sun whenever Heather stopped to look at animals. I would pull my hands up into my sleeves, shove them in the pocket on the front of my hoodie (I think the technical term is ‘hoodiemuff’), and then tuck one sleeve inside the other. I might as well have been back in Minnesota.

Also, those furries sure did like my girlfriend.

We got a pretzel and sat on a bench in the sun for a while. I malingered while Heather shopped. Then we went to see ‘It’s a Bug’s Life’ in a 3D movie theatre underneath the gigantic tree in the middle of the park. I though it would be pretty lame, but it was amusing. They sprayed water on us and made it stink in the room, and at the end, we felt bugs running under our asses. Entertainment.

We walked over to the dinosaur section of Animal Kingdom, which is sponsored by McDonalds. Why does Disney need corporate sponsorship for everything, again? I’m so confused by that. Anyway, we rode ‘Dinosaur’, which got my seal of approval for making me scream and giggle like a dumbass. Then we went on a ride that was a combination of a roller coaster and Tilt-A-Whirl, which was also pretty cool. Then we left Animal Kingdom, and took the shuttle to MGM Studios.

By that point, I think we were both pretty sick of Disney. I know I was. I had one goal at MGM: to ride the Tower of Terror. I grabbed a FastPass. We wandered around for a while, and the fake-Hollywood shit actually made me nostalgic for California. We shopped, then had burgers for lunch: Heather, ham-, and me, garden-. When it was time, I went to the Tower of Terror. It was the one ride Heather refused to accompany me on, because it involved freefalling.

I liked it a ton. You sit in a big box with about 20 other people. They run you through this cool Twighlight-Zone scenario, lift you up 14 stories to the top of the building, and drop you. It’s mostly in the complete dark, but occasionally they slide open doors so you can see outside, especially when you’re at the very top. The best part is that it varies how far it drops you, and in the dark you sometimes can’t even tell whether you’re being lifted up or you’re falling. You just mostly want to keep from puking. It was awesome.

We had an hour to kill before dinner, and not much interest in exploring Disney any longer. We sat on a bench in the sun. I wanted to absorb it and take it home with me. The daily parade had just let out, and so hoards of people were walking past, in our own personal people-watching parade. The nice thing about MGM was that the people were more interesting, as it’s more adult-oriented. (Man, if they had an adult-oriented theme park, I’d be there in a second. Dirty.) Also, they vacuum the streets. On the way out, Heather wandered in and out of the shops, and I placed myself on various benches along the way, knowing my hours in the Florida sun were numbered. I think I got a little too much, since I left with a pounding headache.

From MGM, we took the shuttle bus over to Animal Kingdom Lodge to meet the rest of the Ripleys for dinner at Bona, an African-themed buffet. We were early, so we took a seat in the bar and waited for the rest of the family to show up. I paid $4 plus a $1 tip for a single shot of espresso. Heather’s drink was a far better value.

My family members started showing up in groups, even though they arrived together. Ali appeared, and called Scott on a walkie-talkie. Scott showed up. Escobar was missing. Scott and Ali left. Ali reappeared with Stephanie, who was carrying Kaitlyn, fresh from her first haircut. The three of them wandered off again. My mom showed up, then my Dad came up from downstairs to beckon us to the table.

Finally, we ended up downstairs in the restaurant, and found Escobar already sitting down. We took turns going to the bathroom, and it was good 15 minutes before all nine of us were actually seated at one time. I was dreading being able to find something to eat at the buffet, which are notoriously meat-oriented, but I was happily surprised: I immediately found two kinds of hummus and flatbreads, falafel, and tons of fresh fruit.

The food was really impressive. I wanted to try it all. I was standing by the salads wondering out loud which of them had sugar in them when a chef came up and asked if I was diabetic. I said yes, because it’s close enough. He told me he’d show me everything that was safe for me to eat, because a lot of the savory dishes had sugar in them, too.

He went up to the salads and started pointing them out, then quickly realized that almost everything there had sugar in it. He was clearly disappointed. I told him not to worry about it; with the other stuff I had found, there was more than enough to eat. He argued. I reassured him. He kept saying, “Let me make you something! I can make you a salad!” I protested, but finally, he said, “Look at this uniform! It’s perfectly clean! I hate that!!” So I gave in. I told him I was vegetarian, too, and he yelled, “Great!” I think maybe I was his own personal Iron Chef episode. I pointed out where I was sitting, and he told me to get myself some fruit, and give him 15 minutes in the kitchen.

Ten minutes later, he appeared with a big plate with three different salads on it. I thanked him several times. It was a ton of food. Then he said, “After that, I’ll bring the soup. Then your entree. Then dessert.”

I almost died. The salads were already enough. There was no way I could eat all that food, especially when everyone with me had already eaten most of their meals. I told him over and over that he didn’t have to do that, that this was more than enough. But he insisted.

The salads were great. The soup made me want to cry, it was so good. The entree was a work of art. Every time he brought out another dish, I would thank him over and over and tell him, no more! I can’t eat it! I was begging Heather, Stephanie, and Ali for help, because I felt bad barely touching it. The rest of the family had long since finished their meals and left to see fireworks at Epcot.

He insisted on presenting my dessert, even though I swore that I could not possibly eat it. He wanted me to bring it home with me. If I hadn’t been getting on a plane the next morning, I’d have taken all of it in a giant doggie bag, and had a feast to last the week. When he brought out the platter, I understood why he made such a big deal of it: it was also a work of art. There was sugar-free cheesecake surrounded by fresh fruit, and little Mickeys made of sugar-free chocolate piped on the plate. It was incredible. And right after showing it off, he took it back to the kitchen and put it in a to-go container for me.

Turns out Tjetjep (T.J.) is sous chef at Bona. Our server couldn’t say enough good things about him. I took his card so I could write to Disney about him. Also, I’m pretty sure I’m in love.

Ali drove us back to the sexymobile, and Stephanie, Heather, and I went back to the condo, where my family was still talking about how awesome T.J. was. I showed them my dessert, which I ate later that night. I spent the rest of the evening writing, packing, and even crocheting a little in an attempt to force myself to relax on vacation. Then I took a picture of my pants.

Well, I wanted to show you the magic that is my FastPass pocket, but it didn’t turn out that great. So, pants.

I woke up gasping and choking at 5am to the beautiful sounds of construction work. I had the sense that I had woken up unable to breathe several times during the night, but wasn’t sure if it was a dream or not. The humidity and pollution were killing me. I went back to sleep for a little while, then got up, tired. We headed back up to Starbucks to get our email, and the people there remembered us:

Barista (looking at my superspecial Starbucks card from Seattle): Are you from there?
Me: Nope, I got it on vacation.
Barista (looking at my tshirt): Oh, you’re from Vancouver!
Me: Um, no. Vacation.

Right as Heather started to reply to her first email, her computer shut off. Just died. We stared at it blankly for a few minutes, then got on the road. We were going to the Gulf of Mexico.

I don’t remember much of the drive to Tampa, apart from the fact that I didn’t see any alligators. I was tired, and it was raining. We stopped in Tampa long enough to determine that it was kind of crappy, except for Ybor City. Since everything was closed there, we decided to stop back later in the day. We kept going to St. Petersburg, and got there around lunchtime.

I dug St. Pete completely. There were a million little shops, galleries, and restaurants. Fortunately for my bank account, most of them were closed, because it was Martin Luther King day. In the north, the holiday is generally unnoticed except by banks (which sucks), but in the south it’s at least celebrated. As we walked over to a Cuban restaurant for sandwiches, they were blocking off the main street for a parade.

We drove through town, out towards the coast. There were a million more awesome shops. It was a little rundown, but really cool. Then we crossed onto Treasure Island, and the tacky began. It was great.

It was still cold and raining on and off, but I was determined to see the ocean anyway. We parked at a public beach, took off our shoes, and headed towards the water. I immediately realized my mistake, as the beach was all crushed shells, which was slightly more comfortable than walking on glass. It started raining again, so I headed for a little beach cabana. Heather and I huddled at the back of our beach chairs to keep out of the wind and rain, but, dammit, I was at the ocean again.

After the rain let up, I left Heather talking on the phone in the cabana and went to look for shells. I found one huge one that I bravely dodged the surf for; otherwise the beach was littered with fish carcasses and hermit crab shells. We left.

We headed down the coast to St. Pete’s Beach, which was your typical beach town. We found a little ice cream stand that advertised sugar-and-fat-free ice cream. I went up and asked the guy which of their 66 flavors came sugar-free, and he said, “All of them!” It only took me about an hour to pick one. I’m not used to having options. After that, we got coffee at a coffeeshop that had one effective and one completely ineffective employee, and headed south along the coast again. I didn’t want to get on the giant toll bridge while eating ice cream, so we drove around and ended up in Pass-A-Grille, a city so small it took me forever to find its name online. It was pretty and untouristy, and the waterfront along Boca Ciega Bay reminded me of Charleston. At the very southern tip of the peninsula, there was a public beach, so I demanded to see it. And I’m glad I did.

The sun had finally come out, and it was warmer. There was a huge storm rolling in from the Gulf, but we were ahead of it. The beach was incredible: fine, white sand, and tons of shells. I was searching for a sand dollar to replace the one I found on the Atlantic coast and broke. I didn’t find a whole one, but I found plenty of other stuff, including dead fish with no eyes, and later, a thorn that embedded itself in my heel. I found a questionably-live starfish, and lots of squirming conchs, and tossed those back in the ocean. And I found many cool shells, too.

After the beach, it was time for Heather’s favorite part of the trip: driving over the Sunshine Skyway. It’s one of those large bridges over open water, in this case Tampa Bay, that makes her freak. In a phobic kind of way. To keep her from panicking and diving out of the car into the ocean, I hand her the camera and tell her to take pictures, which is why we ended up with about 20 blurred photos of the cable span in the middle of the bridge. Did I mention that this bridge collapsed once? Awesome.

We drove back up to Tampa so we could check out Ybor City. It’s the old part of town, and used to be cigar central. It’s getting overrun with Urban Outfitters and about a hundred tattoo studios, but it’s cool. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to have any good restaurants, so we decided to go back to Orlando for dinner.

On the drive back, Heather called around and then announced that she had found the perfect place, and that they were going to make me a special vegetarian dinner. And that’s how we ended up back in Celebration, at Columbia Restaurant.

We were extremely underdressed, and didn’t care much. There wasn’t anything vegetarian on the menu, but they made me up a plate with plantains, yuca, and vegetables. I had a cafe con leche. We spent all of dinner quietly ridiculing the super-annoying couple at the next table, because we’re assholes. On the way out of Celebration, I got lost again, in the same exact under-construction neighborhood. At night, it was infinitely scarier, and Heather couldn’t get me to turn around fast enough in the dead-end street. I realized that I had gotten lost driving around town twice, and also taken the wrong exit and ended up there twice. Coincidence? I think not. Celebration was trying to trap me.

Back at the condo, we found the rest of the Ripleys eating tacos my mom had made. Scott and Ali had gone home, and my mom had apparently tried to erase all traces of our existence there by moving all our stuff into the other half of the suite. I didn’t know how to feel about that, but at least we got to sleep in a real bed for once.