I Toll You This Would Happen!

So this is our last day…kind of sad to see the trip end, but I really am excited to go home and see my wife, sleep in my own bed and most importantly, get out of this Florida heat!

Since John had never been to Florida or Walt Disney World, we decided to check out Disney’s Animal Kingdom. It’s a theme park that’s kind of part zoo and part Disney. In other words there are animals, as well as rides. It’s a pretty unique place. I enjoyed it quite immensely.

But before we could enjoy the park, we had to get there. Scott was nice enough to let us use his van so we left at like 8:00am to try to get to the park early. The Walt Disney World resort was about 80 miles or so away so we Googled the directions and off we went. Because the van had driven from Palm Bay (where the Whipples live) to Gainesville and back, we knew at some point we’d need to fill in gas. What we didn’t know was how to manage all the toll booths along the Florida turnpike.

Actually, how had could toll booths be? You give them money and they let you drive on their roads. We actually it turned out to be a lot harder than we anticipated.

We got to the first toll booth and gave the lady like $1.25. No problem she let us pass. Then we started to run low on gas and we were looking for some area where we could fill up. We drove for miles and miles and nothing looked promising so we kept on driving. Finally we saw a sign that said, “Orlando International Airport”. Bingo! They must have gas stations near there since people have to fill their rental cars before they return them back to the rental car companies.

So we take the airport cutoff and head toward the toll booth. Here’s where the fun began.

Unbeknownst to John and I, not every toll booth has someone in them. This one didn’t. It was completely unmanned. Then to make matters worse it asked for exact change (the toll was a dollar). It would only take loose change and $1’s and $5’s. Now, I had given my last $1 to the lady at the last toll booth so the smallest bill I had was a $20. John had lost his wallet at the football game (he found it later completely intact except for all his cash) so the smallest bill he had was $100.

Great, we thought, what are we going to do? We thought about reversing and trying to find another exit, but by then another car was behind us and we couldn’t back up. So the only thing we could do was go forward and take our chances. Of course we go through and the alarm sounds. So we pull over and check for cameras. Yup, there they are, pointing right at us. So we walk back to the machine to see if there’s number we can call to explain the situation. Negative, no number.

By then we don’t know what to do. We don’t want Scott to get a fine or a ticket so we start scrounging around the van looking for loose change. We manage to find a few quarters and some dimes and tons of pennies. So we count them up and we still are a few cents short. We scrounge around some more and John looks in cups and other containers and he manages to find a few more dimes. JACKPOT!

Now we’re feeling good. All we need to do is reverse and pay the toll. So we back up to the machine and throw in the dollar comprised of loose change. Nothing happens. We wait some more. Nothing happens. Now we don’t know what to do. We tried to rectify the situation, but we still don’t want to Scott to get a ticket.

John goes, “Maybe we need to reverse some more so that the machine can detect a car.” Sounds like a good idea so I back up and re-enter the toll booth. It works! Well, it worked, but now it’s asking me for another dollar. Augh! Stupid machine! I throw in a few pennies just to make sure that the machine is working. The pennies disappear and now the machine reads: Toll 0.97. It definitely works. At this point, we had exhausted our change in the car except for a few pennies so we decide to just screw it and drive away. Of course, the alarm goes off again and we speed away as fast as we can. Yeah, we’re law breakers, but we left the state of Florida so I think we’ll be okay.

Finally, we get gas and head back to Disney.

After an interesting adventure we arrive

The Animal Kingdom is divided into different lands (like the other Disney parks) with the Tree of Life right in the middle. Overall, it’s a fun place. We were told to do the safari first so we headed off to Africa to see what kind of animals we could see.

The tree of life

A rhino

Some hippos cruising under water

A croc trying to cool off

Some beast with big horns (I can't remember what it's called)

This giraffe was literally right outside of the tram

Some elephants doing their thing

A lion stretching on a tree

Of course Disney has to make it exciting and we can’t just ride a ride with out some kind of plot point, so on this ride we go after poachers.

Poacher central

After the ride we went on a jungle walk. This part is most like a zoo. Here you just follow the trail and you can see different animal exhibits. There were one of these in Africa and another in Asia. Both have animals specific to the continent.

It's a meerkat, like Timon

Ahh, what a life!

I think he knows we're watching him

Yup, he knows

After that we went to Rafiki’s place. This is mostly for kid’s as it has some characters like Jiminy Cricket and Pocahantas and a petting zoo. They also had some cool behind the scene looks at things and other neat animals in big tanks.

Here's a snake of some sort

A not-so-hidden Mickey

These ant looking bugs are really wasps

Not all the bugs are in glass tanks

Then we walked over to Asia to check out Expedition Everest, one of Disney’s newest roller coasters. But along the way we saw a crowd gathered around with their cameras out. It took us a while to see what was attracting the crowd. Can you see it?

She has the best holloween costume

By this time we were hungry so I had to have a turkey leg. What else would we eat at the Animal Kingdom?

Mmm, turkey legs...

These guys kept begging us for food, apparently they can't read the signs

On to Asia!

There's Expedition Everest

Like the jungle walk in Africa, Asia’s one had its fair share of cool animals.

That's a Komodo Dragon

A giant hanging bat

I can totally see why these guys cause nightmares

When I asked what kind of tiger this was, the lady just said, "Asian"

After the walk we did go on a few rides in Asia. Of course we tried Expedition Everest. As far as roller coasters go, it was pretty good. There were some neat surprises and other tricks. But I must say, I was most disappointed at the length of the ride. It seemed really short. Luckily the lines were short (we went as single riders and we the longest we waited was only 15 minutes) so we rode a few times.

We also did the rapids. It’s one of those “you will get wet, you may get soaked” rides. One particularly funny moment happened when we were getting in our seats. There’s a covered bowl in the middle of the raft where you can put the things you want to keep dry. Well this Asian fellow puts in his camera and phone like most other people. But then he doesn’t stop there. Much to the chagrin of the other riders on his side, he took off his socks and put them in the bowl as well. Then he put his shoes in there too! This girl made a funny face (actually it was more a face of disgust) but he didn’t seem to care. Good thing he put it on his side of the bowl.

Then we went to Dinoland USA. I think it’s a play off of a roadside attraction. As usual it’s very well done. There were some really cool rides here as well. There’s s ride called Dinosaur in which you go back in time to bring back a dinosaur. It’s very similar to the Indiana Jones ride except you go back in time.

It’s sponsored by McDonald’s so they had some fun with it.

We also went to the Finding Nemo show which was excellent. It was probably one of the coolest shows I’ve ever seen Disney do. We also saw “It’s Tough to Be a Bug” which is like “Honey, I Shrunk the Audience” and “Captain Eo”

There's John with his "bug eyes"

Lastly, did you ever wonder how they determine what the wait time for a ride is? I found out when we went on a ride and the lady handed me this:

So that's the secret!

And that concludes Scott and John’s East Coast trip. In addition to Florida and New York, we also passed through New Jersey, Arizona and Washington. That makes five states, five boroughs, four stadiums and one theme park. Whew, it’s no wonder we’ll need a vacation from our vacation. But all in all, it was totally worth it.

To see the rest of the Disney pictures click here.