Monday, July 17, 2006

The Adventures of Sock and Friends in the Orlando Theme Parks -- part 1

As many of you know, I joined "Socks for Sanity" and always have a plain sock at hand to work on in odd (or not so odd) moments. The sock that started the trip was one of my Leaf Cuff socks and it did not start growing until just before we landed. I have to admit that I shoved it aside in favor of CeCe during the plane ride -- CeCe was more involved and gave me less brain to focus on the family I was seated with.

When we got to our hotel the sock was awed in to silence. The picture below shows only a small part of this place. It is huge! I got lost several times and never saw the entire thing.
The water in front is the "Harbor." I was standing on the Ferry Landing when I took this and I have to admit that we never took the ferry. While waiting the first time, we were greeted by a pedicab driver and let him take us to Universal Studios. The ride made us realize that we were within walking distance and after that we just walked to the City Walk (where the entrances to Universal's two theme parks meet and where there are lots of retail and dining opportunities).

After checking in to the hotel the sock insisted that we go to the Universal Studios theme park. Compared to the Magic Kingdom, Universal is cozy but it was still overwhelming for the sock. It hid in its bag for quite a while, occassionally poking a needle out to take a peek.

Since I have been to these places (though many, many years ago) I let my friend take the lead. Once the sock glimpsed the NYC skyline however, it started to dictate where we went.
Initially, it did not realize that we were essentially on a movie set and it insisted on going to the Guggenheim Museum. My socks are big fans of Frank Llyod Wright.
The sock was sorely disappointed however, when we got to the other side ...
The we all spied the Subway. Being a proper NYC kind of sock, it was hoping to catch a train heading uptown.Once again, the sock was thwarted. (Pictured is my friend, Ellen. She really tolerated this whole sock thing and even started enabling it once the sock stopped being camera shy.)

And then the sock started getting in to it. The sock insisted on jumping in to my hands on every ride line and even managed to stay there for the entire special effects show. The sock however, remained camera shy until it saw Woody Woodpecker. At that point, the sock lept out of my hands and in to Woody's. If you look closely you will see it on Woody's finger. It is somewhat camoflaged as it is made of Trekking XXL #100.

Then the sock went to the animal show and saw the dog from MIB II. It also saw some cool bird stunts but it was the MIB dog that most impressed it. The poor creature smashed, unintentionally, head first into a set of stone stairs. The sock did not laugh.

After catching a special effects show and being so rude as to insist on being knit while in the first row, the sock directed us to a lovely seafood resturant where we all had a leisurely meal and stayed to watch the fireworks / film clip show. All in all, a lovely day.

Tomorrow -- the sock does Disney and gets to see Pooh Bear but does not get stuck in Rabbits Hole.

1 comment:

Ann said...

A real friend is a sock photo enabler.

I am a bit worried, I am already plotting Sunday Sock photo opportunities. Do you think there will be any other socks posing for photos at the Def Leppard/Journey concert this weekend???

Keep up the stories and photos from your adventure!