After a very stressful week....

We are on vacation!
After quitting my job and moving to Corvallis Friday and Saturday, Bryan and I took off for our first vacation in three years...to Orlando, Florida.
The trip started out with a drive up to the airport at 4 a.m. (thanks to Bryan's parents!). We boarded our plane on time, but when we were waiting to take off, we look out the window and notice the ominous empty luggage cart coming back to the plane. Then, the captain informs us that the flight has been cancelled because of a cracked water pipe. So the 6:25 a.m. flight did not work out so well, so we got a new flight at 1:07 p.m. So we waited around PDX for nearly 7 hours. For our troubles, Delta gave us a $7 food voucher, which made everything better...NOT. I spent a lot of time playing Scrabble online and even took a small nap. It was not a fun way to start out our vacation. Eventually, we got into the air, and this was the amazing view of Mt. Hood that we got out of our window! I also had an interesting fellow sitting next to me, who got into it with the flight attendent and then drank four bottles of Bailey's in the process. We did make it to Orlando by 11:30 p.m. after watching four hours of television and burning out my eyeballs on the plane while Bryan slept.
On our first day here, we hit up Animal Kingdom. We were thoroughly impressed with the park...and saw lots of animals and awesome props. They have an amazing setup there, it is basically a theme park, but with a zoo on the walking paths. It's no regular zoo, either, because there are no metal cages...instead, they make things look rustic and make fences out of rocks and wood. They also have a whole safari, where the animals just roam around together. Below are some photos of our day!
They called this an upside down tree because this tree from Africa doesn't ever have leaves (to conserve water) and looks like its roots are on the top of the tree.
Tiger. Three little monkeys.




This rhino was so close to our safari truck!

This ostrich wanted to come in the truck with us.
I love Bryan's face in the photo below! At this point in DINOSAUR, the T-Rex was about to eat me. Bryan claims that he wasn't scared. I beg to differ and use the photo as evidence.
We also saw "Finding Nemo" the musical...which was awesome! This was a puppet/actor thing and man could they sing! Below, you can see Crush (the puppet) and the actor playing Crush on his back singing.
Here is Bruce and his shark friends.
Here's Nemo and his friends in the fishtank.
More animal photos....slash me making monkey faces because this gorilla was just laying aroung and being no fun. Meerkat manor!
Hippos fighting/making out underwater.
Family of giraffes.
Did you know that flamingos are grey/white when they are born and they turn pink because they eat crawdads?
This is Expedition Everest, the big roller coaster.
Elephants.
Some kind of cows...
Us on our way to Kali River Rapids...we were on a raft with some Asians and Austrailians. One of the Australians got totally soaked by a tsunami rapid! Bryan and I got away with just wet pants...which felt great in the 85-degree heat. Don't be jealous, Oregon!
We also went to the "It's tough to be a bug" show, where we got to wear these awesome glasses!
Lots of fish!
And birds.
And bats.
And Gators. We are in Florida, after all.

Comments

A & K Finch said…
Charissa!!!! Great Great Pictures! We loved Animal Kingdom! I am so glad that you two are away and taking a vacation in a sunny warm place. I am glad that you two were able to get to Florida!!!!! Thanks for posting pictures and seriously enjoy your time and all the tings about Disney! Andrew and I are soooooooooooo jealous of you right now!
lyndsey said…
I'm not going to lie -- I cried when I saw "It's Tough to be a Bug." Seriously, do they still have hornets and spiders? So scary.
Acker Family said…
So glad you get a chance to get away! I wish I was there with you! :)

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