Chapter 147: Florida Fun

Thursday, June 7, 1984

As with the rest of this trip (save a few things) today wasn’t unfamiliar territory. I was happy to be starting at Panama City Beach, though. As much as it wasn’t a lot of fun getting back to I-10 — especially knowing I was nominally headed ‘the wrong way’ — we were well into Florida.

Tallahassee was potentially interesting, of course, but there was little to recommend the I-10 drive through Florida heading towards Orlando otherwise, for me. It wasn’t bad, just monotonous, and not at a good time in the trip for monotony. Personally, I’d much rather watch deserts that changed than forests that really didn’t.

All that said, it wasn’t a bad drive, and we got to Orlando in plenty of time to get the RV settled and go out to dinner. There were plenty of buffet places, we were all tired of our own cooking, and we’d most likely be eating whatever The Empire of the Mouse wished to serve us for the next few days.

Disney World had had great restaurants ‘back in my day’ (e.g. decades in the future). Most of those restaurants hadn’t been built yet, and many were in theme parks that themselves hadn’t been built yet. Still, Epcot should have plenty of interesting options, and some of the Magic Kingdom and hotel options were timeless classics that we would enjoy.

It wouldn’t be a problem finding good meals — except that we didn’t have reservations, and that probably mattered, even now.

We headed to bed early. The goal was to be at the gates of the Magic Kingdom before they opened, buy our passes, and then head in. I was in charge of navigating, because — even though I hadn’t been here even once before tomorrow — I’d also been here many times. A lot of things I knew of didn’t exist yet, but that was fine. The various lands would be exactly where I expected them to be, the majority of the walkways would exist, and so forth.

Friday, June 8, 1984

The plan worked exactly as it was supposed to — up until it somewhat didn’t. We purchased three-day passes, knowing that we might want an extra day (or part of one). Once I realized that it existed, I insisted that we also visit Discovery Island during the trip. It would be open for quite a while yet, but I’d completely missed it during my first life. No time like the present!

We had our passes ready to go in plenty of time, and zipped into the park. At that point, the plan sidetracked, but it sidetracked for the best of reasons. As we were crossing the square, I remembered that we really should get ‘My First Time’ buttons. It was the first time for any of us to be at Disney World (by the calendar, for me, anyway), and the cast members are known to sometimes be extra-nice to first-timers.

While we were there, one of the nice ladies handing out buttons told us that any June birthday counted for a birthday button, so Angie wound up with one.

All of that took us no more than five minutes, so it didn’t slow us down much. What slowed us more was stopping for photos.

The point, of course, was to enjoy the day, and I wasn’t going to get wound up in plans and schedules. That said, the girls knew nearly as well as I did that standing in line is one of the less enjoyable things to do at Disney World, so we mostly moved right along.

The plan worked, overall. We got through Fantasyland roughly half an hour before it became nearly impassable with the wave of late-arriving families. By that point we’d moved along and visited the Haunted Mansion and ridden Pirates of the Caribbean. At that point, I’d have been happy with the day, pretty much. Everything else was gravy.

There was a lot of gravy, though. All of the girls wanted their photos with the characters. And my photo with the characters. And the couples with the characters. That, and many of the scenic locations — there are so many! We would have photos to show until everyone’s eyes glazed over.

We rode the train around the park late in the afternoon. When we got out, back at the start of Main Street, Angie spotted a familiar store and jumped up and down.

“New mission!” she said, pointing.

“Huh?” Jas said.

“Ears!” Paige said. “Yes!”

Jas grinned when she got it, and we all headed for the shop.

Of course, it couldn’t end with just us. That would’ve been too simple.

Jas said, “You know ... Carole would love one of these.”

“Let’s get her one!” Paige said.

“We should get Jess one,” Angie said. “She’d have made one kick-ass Mouseketeer!”

“Let’s add Cammie, Amit, and Jaya,” Paige said. “If the rest of us are getting one...”

“And Steffie and Meg!” Jas said.

“And we can’t leave out Mel and Sheila,” Paige said. “Couples need hats!”

“And Ryan, speaking of couples.” Angie said, “Steffie will probably bring him to San Antonio, but if she doesn’t, she’ll still want a Mickey hat for him.”

If the others would play along, we needed a picture at Nationals with us all wearing Mickey Mouse ears.

After we had the ears in production (we would pick them up on our way out), we headed down Main Street, then picked a restaurant for dinner. Toward the end of dinner, I gave Cammie a call. She was envious of the time we were all having, but happy for us and happy to hear from us.

We revisited Tomorrowland after dinner, then stayed until after the Main Street Electrical Parade (always a favorite).

Overall, we pretty much saw everything on the must-see list by the end of the day. We might be back during this trip, and we might not, but we would be back. That much was certain.

By the time we got back, we just had time to clean up and then get to bed. Tomorrow would be the same plan at Epcot (well, EPCOT, but — like most people — we didn’t pretend to respect that acronym): arrive early, stay late.

Saturday, June 9, 1984

Epcot was ... interesting. Honestly, it was very interesting, but I kept finding it interesting for reasons that none of the girls would have.

After all, I was the only one of us to have visited here ‘before.’ My ‘befores’ were in the 1990s and later, though, and so much had changed by then.

As it was, there were things I really wanted to see that didn’t exist. In particular, I’d wanted to take the girls to the Coral Reef Restaurant, but it didn’t exist and wouldn’t for a couple of years. The restaurant in the Morocco section would’ve been high on the list, but that area wouldn’t open until later this year. It went on and on: Le Cellier wasn’t yet the steakhouse it would become, the Norway area was far from opening, and so on and so forth.

That said: Epcot functioned like a high-end, fancy museum with a wealth of both educational and interesting exhibits, and there were few better audiences for such a thing than the four of us. We went everywhere, tried everything, and read every sign.

By the time the park was closing, we hadn’t made it even halfway around the lagoon, stalling out in China, where we all wanted to return tomorrow.

It’d been a great day, and — if we hadn’t had to go right to bed — we’d have stayed up and talked about it for hours.

But, we did, so we didn’t.

Sunday, June 10, 1984

As planned, we picked right up with our Epcot adventure, starting in China (with only a few stops on the way there) and continuing around the lagoon.

Today was slightly more consumed with nostalgia, albeit of the time-traveler sort. The girls wanted to hear stories, so I told them stories.

For instance, not far past China we passed the auditorium where, decades later, I’d watched Neil Patrick Harris tell the Christmas story, complete with guest choirs from around the US. Neither Jas nor Paige knew who Neil Patrick Harris was, of course, and Angie knew him only as ‘Doogie Howser, M.D.’ but I made the point that he was an out gay man telling the Christmas story to families in a place held up as a bastion of family-friendly entertainment.

The reaction was about what you would expect. All of them knew that I’d said gay people would be more recognized and accepted in the future, but here? Telling an unapologetically Christian story? With no obvious complaints?

It was a much bigger deal than I’d consciously realized at the time, but that was because it was ‘at the time.’ Ellen’s kiss had been over a decade before. Openly gay actors and actresses weren’t all that rare.

I’d simply ignored all of the steps that took place to move from here to there, in other words.

There were other things I couldn’t remember. When had Disney started having ‘Gay Days’? I knew they’d been unofficial — but not opposed by Disney — for years. When had Disney started offering rainbow Mouse Ears? All of that would be an adventure for us, but just knowing that it was (probably) on its way, if very slowly, was a big deal.

Angie and Paige held hands more often after that, and kissed a few times. It was daring for 1984, but nothing happened — except that, again, I saw a few mothers quickly redirecting children’s gazes.

That wasn’t the only story, of course. I mentioned dining ‘in Morocco’ in the 1990s, and had to explain that ‘Morocco’ would eventually be right there. And how the kids had run amok in the Mexico pavilion during one of our visits. How we’d gone to ‘Norway’ (yet to even open) to visit a ride for a movie which itself was thirty years away and found the ride closed. We’d never ridden it.

Thinking that perhaps, one day, my kids would ride it, perhaps with my ex-wife, hit me harder than I would’ve expected, and I wound up sitting and crying for a few minutes, with Jasmine hugging me and me trying to explain why this was happening. There were so many pieces wrapped up in that, and I had to take some time to get control of myself before I could explain it.

The crux of it was that my experience was perhaps unique. Sometimes parents lose children, of course. It must hurt terribly, and one might mourn forever for the loss of what those children might have gotten to do, of the possible grandchildren that would never be, and so forth. But ... I hadn’t done that.