The Half Marathon Comeback Run-Final thoughts(1/21) About This Page:

[luvnwdwgal]

LOL Kim!! I would sooooo love to hang out with you and your folks someday!! Can't wait for more!!

[Tara O'Hara]

I think your Dad looks adorable Kim!! Great photos!!

[KimandMark]

I woke up at 8AM to the sound of rain. What? How can it be raining? You've got to be kidding me. Then I actually wake up and realize that its Mark in the shower. I get up and mosey around for a few minutes and try to organize my stuff to pack. I need clothes for today, another predicted high of 80 and then clothes for the plane as it will be in the 20s when we land. I get that stuff out and start packing clothes. Now that I don't have my homeless chic throwaway clothes in my suitcase I have way more room! The only big concern in packing is my race stuff. Man, does it stink. Not just a little stink, but bad, old locker room, rotten sweat stink. And its wet. I cram that nasty stuff into a plastic bag and boy oh boy, I can't wait to unpack that when I get home. MMMMMM, sweaty clothes wrapped in plastic for 20 hours, that's some good stuff. I take a shower, eat a bagel, check and recheck the room for stuff we may have forgotten and find 10 beers we didn't drink. Mark bought a 12 pack on saturday I think, assuming he and I would drink them at some point (when?). I said just go give it away. Someone in one of these rooms would love 10 free beers, we can just give it away. But no, he paid for them (at premium Disney prices no less) he wants to take them home. Are you on drugs? Why would you want to take 10 miller lites home with you. Then he discovers that only 8 will fit in his bag. I'm not sharing my space with the beer because I think this is stupid. So what to do with the remaining two beers? What do you think is the best plan, its 9AM, its only 2 beers, we should just leave them right? No. Mark should drink them. Yeah, thats a better idea, beer for breakfast. Would you like some eggs to go with your kegs?

What ever.

We leave the room at 9:30ish, I teared up a little as we left. Sometimes that happens, sometime it doesn't. I don't know. I had a great weekend with a great race, so now I'm sad to leave. We pull out and head for Universal.

Last summer when we did the water parks only trip (because we had 3 plusses each that we thought we'd never use if we didn't go in the summer) we also bought the power pass to USO. Basically its an annual pass with blackout date and no benefits, but it only costs $110. We went twice in August, we are going today, and maybe I'll go when I visit Mom and Dad. We got to USO with no problems despite the fact that I'd left the directions at home. We paid $9 to park and were offered "preferred" parking for $5 more. I guess you get closer or something? Hardly seemed worth it as it wasn't crowded. We parked in the Jaws lot, floor 2 and took the moving sidewalkd all the way in.

Our first stop was USO. Our plans today are pretty limited to the rides we liked best when here last summer, so Mummy, MIB, and Shrek are pretty much it. We get right in line for Shrek, wait about 10 minutes for the preshow. I notice here how the CMs are more into their role than at Disney, maybe that's just with some of the rides, but with Shrek, they are just talking to you like prisoners and making jokes that are darker and more adults. I love it! Shrek is good "smellovision" movie, but I still like ITTBAB better.

Our next stop is Mummy. Its weird, but I know I went on this twice last summer and now I can't remember anything. We stayed at RPR and had FOTL access before, now we have to wait in line with all the other cattle, but the lines were short today. Again, the CMs are different, one of them scared the crap out me (where we he sunday morning when I really needed him!) by sneaking up behind me, sort of like they do at HM once in while, and this old lady CM was trying to scare people with her bugs and creepy eyes. Very funny and cool. I like this ride alot. I didn't close my eyes during the beetle part and its wasn't that scary at all.

Next stop, MIB. ALl I have to say is, I kicked Mark's ass at this. It will never happen again so I rubbed it in as much as I could. (nah nah nah nah nah, I beat you, I beat you, You suck at shooting, I got the big alien and you didn't, I win, or something to that effect)

Back to Mummy for one more ride and then lunch at Finnegan's. This place is as Irish as, well, I guess a pretend Irish pub can pretend to be. Really, I don't remember these chicken sandwiches when I was in that part of Europe. Anyway, Mark had a turkey sandwich and I had a chicken sandwich and we paid and left. Seriously, there is no time to waste here, we've got to get over to Hulk, right now!!

We head over to IOA, but first we have to stop at the NBA place so Mark can buy his boyfriend a tshirt. Mark's best friend, Dave, is watching the cat for us so we have to get him a gift, but I swear Mark spends more time shopping for stuff for Dave than he ever has for me. Dave lives 8 miles from us. Mark and Dave talk on the phone every night, no really, every night, for a long time too. And its like watching teenage girls on the phone, they don't want anyone to hear them so Mark goes and sits by himself and I'm sure Dave does to and they go on for hours like this. Dave even asks "is my boyfriend there" when he calls. Its even worse when sports are on. Anytime, I mean everytime, something interesting happens in a game on TV, Dave calls. Then they sit and watch the game together, in their separate houses, on the phone. For God's sake, will the two of you just kiss already?

After spending way too much time picking out a Knicks shirt (after I told him there was no way we were buying Dave an authentic jersey) we finally left that man cave of a store and entered IOA. HULK!!! Yippee! No line! Yippee! I love his ride. Alot. I hate that I might lose my sunglasses, but love this ride anyway. Of course, the halfwits in the car with us know where the camera is and give it the finger so we have no picture. I don't buy the pictures, but I like to see them!!

Then Spiderman, also, I don't remember this very well, what's wrong with me. I think this is the best use of 3D in any of the 3D things at either Disney or US. Easily. We decide to walk the long way around to Duelling Dragons, of course not knowing it was the long way around. We also tried to go on the Pterydon (whatever) Flyers. Who knew you had a have a kid with you? I was tempted to borrow someone's child so I could go on this, its looks so cool. DD!! The line seemed short, as we wound through the mountain. Again, last time we had FOTL access so we didn't walk through the cue, this is a long cue and you really can't tell you are at the end until you are at the end. The loaded area was crowded, they were only running one car on each line so it took forever. I think it was the longest wait of our trip. No matter, still a very cool roller coaster. However, now we only have time to do one more ride, either Hulk or Spiderman. We thought we could do both, but ultimately settled on Hulk. Again, minimal wait.

I noticed at both Hulk and DD that there is no CM to direct you to a row or car. That seems like it could cause some loading problems on a crowded day. Perhaps on crowded days there do direct crowds. They also didn't take any effort to fill in empty seats. We would have gone on 2 cars earlier if DD had just filled in empties. No matter, we didn't wait long, but still.

Then its time to leave.

Now I'm sad again.

[Jillybean]

Boy, you guys were making some serious time at Universal.

I love your description of Mark and his boyfriend, Dave. Sounds like my husband. He moped around all day Sunday until the phone rang. After the call, I asked "was that your boyfriend?" and he answered back yes.

Gotta love them.

Jill

[Jillybean]

I love that picture of your dad - - just like I pictured him!

Jill

[DebbieG]

You write a great trip report Kim. I'm not a big laugher, and you have had me rolling! Thanks!

Debbie

[KimandMark]

What's left to tell you? We went to the airport, I changed, we sat around forever. Oh, I jumped the check in line big time! I'm sure that made people mad. I went to the airtran self check computer kiosk and it only printed my boarding pass, but not Mark's. I was a little worried that our flights got screwed up, so when the airline guy whose station was next to the kiosk was done with his customer, I just said excuse me, this kiosk only gave me one boarding pass. I still need my husband's. I thought for sure he was going to send my to the back of the line, but he just took me right then, looked at Mark's id, moved our seats so we were together, and printed new boarding passes. Cool.

I called Mom and Dad to let them know we were at the airport. We discussed my visit next month. I'm going to see their them over my Feb. break, just to check out the RV park they are living in and see how its going, meet the neighbors, that sort of thing. Mom asks me to see if I can book a night at FW will I'm there. I told her that wasn't necessary, but she insisted. We knew we would go to Disney for a day or two while I visited, but I didn't think it was like a whole trip or anything. I agreed to call Jean (Magical Journeys) when I got home.

As I'm talking to Mom I hear our flight called. Its the last call!! We are at the wrong gate!! Hurry, run, hurry, AAAHHHH!! We made it. All is well.

The flights home were fine, the layover in Atl. is annoying as usual, but uneventful. We land at 10:20 and are home and unpacked (right into the dirty laundry basket) by 11:20. In just 7 hours I'll be at work. BOOOO!

Epilogue:
I did try FW, but nothing was available. Then Mom said try Pop or All Stars. What's going on with them? Jean gets us a room at Pop, and then Dad says why don't we stay for two nights. So now I'm going back next month, with the parents for 2 nights. I have a two day hopper ticket (purchased before MYW, just in case we went to the parks. Mom and Dad purchased their florida resident passes. We have a Fantasmic Dinner Package PS at Mama Melrose, a PS at Boma, and Chef Mickey's (its like a tradition now). I know its going to be crowded, but I can't wait!

[Caldercup]

Fantastic trip report - I loved every step of it. Can't wait till your next trip!
Eileen

[Jillybean]

Kim,

I really enjoyed this trip report - - I can't wait for your next trip!!!

Jill

[Joy J]

Kim, what an excellent trip report! My only regret is that it's over - I can hardly wait for your next one.

Joy

[KimandMark]

Wow, since we've been back lots of stuff has happened.

First, my running...I know that I just qualified for a preferred corral at the Chicago Marathon, but I started to think that maybe I should ride the wave I'm on right now, keep training (this unfocused no plan training seems to work for me!) and try a spring marathon to get my Boston Qualifier. I chose Ottawa, because its only about 4 hours away, lots of friends are going, and the exchange rate is good for me. And its Memorial Day weekend, so I don't have to take anydays off. I briefly considered and even closer on, only 8 weeks away, figuring I already did 10 weeks of training. The best choice was the Martian Marathon in March in Michigan, but it didn't have the looks of good, fast course and the weather could totally suck. I basically drove Mark nuts for several days and now have about 4 bazillion spread sheets of potential training plans. So much for not planning my running.

Also, the saturday after we got back I ran another race in the series I mentioned before. It was a 5K, very cold out, like 15 or so, so I didn't expect much, plus I had just run hard 6 days earlier. Well, slap me and call me Sally, I ran another PR. I dropped 26 seconds off my best 5K. I haven't done alot of these, but usually improvments come in single digit increlments in short races. WooHoo!

On the family side, Mom and Dad have moved to the old people RV park, played cards with the neighbor folks, found their bank, the cheap movie theater, Curves, and the Super Target. They already sound like crazy snow birds, "its so cold, it only got up to 60 today". BooHoo!

We had a great time, as usual, with them and at Disney. We didn't really try anything new this time, except Philharmagic and Stitch. The Illumnations Cruise was new and very cool. I highly recommend it. As far as food and restaurants, nothing new at all. The hotel wasn't new, but it sure was better than I remember and I would stay there again in a heartbeat. Oh yeah, the Flights of Wonder show was new one too, totally worth the time. Restrantasaurus for lunch is nothing to write home about, Disney still doesn't have a good burger or good coffee. We had two lacking waiters, but only lacking by Disney standards, pretty average by (insert chain restaurant name here) standards.

My trip with Mom and Dad in February doens't include anything new to me, but two new eats for them. I haven't seen Fantasmic since 2001, so I'm looking forward to that and I'm considering try a tour one of the days.

After this, I think its going to be awhile before I go back. I promised Mark that we wouldn't go for at least 18 months, mostly because we've gone 4 times in 13 months. He really would like a garage and I would like to pay off my car and its time for a new truck for Mark as well, so our money may have to go elsewhere for a bit. I did add the caveat that our next trip would be a she-bang. At least a week, with a meal package and deluxe hotel. Probably in late August again, so we can hit the water parks and stay out late. But, I won't be surprised if I go see Mom and Dad again next year. Could make an annual pass worth buying...lets see, if I run the marathon (WHAT?) and go see the parents in Feb. and then we go for a big trip in August, I could probably save a bundle on rooms and tickets...

[luvnwdwgal]

Thanks for the awesome trip report Kim! It was a blast to read! You crack me up!

[DrDolphin]

Great trip report Kim - good luck training for Ottowa and good luck on the Boston qualifying (cause this chick will NEVER qualify for Boston - no way no how).

[Tara O'Hara]

Awesome and thoroughly enjoyable trip report Kim!!

[mom2my4dwarfs]

Wonderful TR Kim! Can't wait for your next one.