"Well," I said, "there's no use wasting a rainy day in the parks. Many outdoor attractions are shut down during rain, and I didn't particularly feel like getting drenched while walking from one indoor attraction to another. The outdoor stuff is some of my favorite stuff to do at Disney, anyway." Frank agreed, sp we decided that today would be a flea market/Downtown Disney day. Personally, I was hoping to catch a movie at DD, but I knew this was a long shot, as Frank has an iron-clad rule: don't do anything on vacation that you can do at home. My rule is: do whatever the hell you feel like doing on vacation, because you're supposed to be having fun!
Anyway, we headed out to the van, yellow slickers billowing around us, and drove up to Melody Hall for breakfast. I froze solid as soon as we entered the building; counting on the typical hot September weather at WDW, I had neglected to pack any long pants or sweatshirts, and the air conditioning in Melody Hall hit the rainwater on my arms and legs and turned me into an ice sculpture. Frank hit me on the head, shattering the ice, and we went into the food court and picked up our breakfast. I found the food pretty good, and portions were fairly large, but I have to say that Disney serves the worst grits I've ever had. They were runny, watery, and totally without flavor. Yuck!
This is where the vacation from hell really heated up. After breakfast, we went back out to the van (getting wetter all the time in those flimsy Disney ponchos). Wouldn't you know it... the van wouldn't start! It cranked, but it just wouldn't turn over. It sounded like it was flooded, but we didn't smell gas, and Frank tried pushing the gas pedal all the way to the floor, like you're supposed to when a car floods, and we still got nothing. We tried waiting, and still we got nothing. Finally, Frank gave up, and we stalked back to the room to call his roadside assistance phone number. Although his roadside assistance is part of the van's warranty from GM, it's handled by AAA, so we only had to wait about 20-25 minutes for a AAA roll-back truck to show up, ready to take the van to a local GM dealer for service. Frank arranged it all with the GM rep over the phone, then we trugged back up to the van, which was parked in the Check-In parking lot, to wait for the truck. Frank, being impatient, waited 15 minutes, then tried to start the van again. Of course, this time, it started right up and ran fine! Well, not one to be taken for a fool, Frank turned it off, waited a minute, and tried again. Once more, it started right up and ran smoothly. He tried several more times, and each time, the van started right up, ran perfectly, and sounded fine to both of us.
I still haven't got a clue what made it refuse to start; in the three weeks since, the van hasn't given Frank any more trouble.
Well, when the AAA guy showed up (wearing proper rain gear, which made me extremely jealous), Frank told him the story, and sent him away. At that point, I was a little nervous about just letting the guy go; after all, what if the van pulled this 'won't start' stunt on us next week when we were driving home. I had no desire to be stranded on the side of I-95 waiting for a roll-back, with a 3-day wait to get the van fixed ahead of us. But Frank was determined; he was on vacation, damn it, and anything that got in the way of his good time would be crushed without mercy!
Right about then, all I wanted was to get some better rain gear.
NOW it was time to do some serious shopping. We headed for the super WalMart next to Medieval Times, where Frank bought a better (and cheaper) poncho. I opted, instead, to go with something a little more robust. I picked up a nylon jogging suit, which would not only keep me warm and dry, but wouldn't restrict my movement, and wouldn't get tangled on shelves or blow around in the wind. I put it on over my shorts as soon as I got in the van, and felt better immediately. I had also picked up a small clip-on sunglass case and a new lanyard for my sunglasses, as well as a string lanyard for the plastic pouch I'd made for my park pass.
As we were leaving WalMart, with my new rain gear in hand, we noticed that the rain had slacked off quite a bit. "Figures," I said, "I just spent thirty bucks on rain gear, and it stopped raining!" Frank laughed as he patted his $3 poncho, safe in his pocket.
Frank put his poncho on when we arrived at Downtown Disney, because the rain had picked up again, and was coming down pretty steadily. I just put up my hood and rolled my sleeves down into place.
We wondered around the West Side for a while, ducking into a few of the stores; Frank talked to the guy in the guitar store (what's that place called?) for a while. Frank was in a band in high school, and played guitar, so he could appreciate the many wonderful instruments in that store, whereas I saw them only in terms of their price tags. I did appreciate the fine craftsmanship on them, and the expensive materials, but I've never learned a thing about playing a guitar, so mostly they just looked like expensive wall-hangings to me. A couple of the white ones reminded me of Waynes World.
We spent much more time in the Virgin Records MegaStore, however, because Frank and I both love movies. We went over the DVD racks hawk-like, looking for bargains or hard-to-find movies. I found something I wanted: Robotech. Children of the 80s will recognize the name as a Japanese Anime import; it was one of my favorite shows during the mid-80s, and VRM had the first four disks for $14.99 each. So I bought them, despite Frank rolling his eyes at my 'cartoon' purchase. Big deal; he got his picture taken with Tigger at every opportunity, I bought Anime DVDs.
Then we went into Fourty-Thirst Street for a Frozen Sundrop, but they were out of some critical ingredient or other, so we couldn't get them. Well, it's really a hot-day drink, anyway.
We returned to All-Star Music; I made some notes in my dayplanner, and Frank called to get PS at Chef Mickeys; we wound up with 7:50, which gave us plenty of time to kill. "Let's go park at Contemporary," I said, "We can shop the gift shops, then take the resort monorail around to Grand Floridian and Poly." Sounded like a plan to Frank, so we ventured forth once more into the rain, with Franks poncho flapping in the wind, and drove over to Contemporary. We had to show ID to get into the parking lot, and tell the security CM at the gate that we had PS at Chef Mickeys. Then we parked under one of those upside-down Dixie-cup trees and went inside.
We had over an hour till our PS, so we browsed around the gift shops in the Grand Canyon Concourse. Frank spent a bunch of time staring at the Pin-Traders Station (Pin-Head Station, as I call it). He had that look in his eyes, the look he gets when he's about to buy something expensive. Of course, individual pins are not expensive, but getting into pin trading can be! I had remarked to a CM yesterday "These pins are Disney's version of crack!" He laughed, of course, but agreed; the cheap pins suck you in, and before you realize what's going on, you're hooked. I dragged him away to the monorail station.
"We must be jinxed," I thought. Just as we got to the top of the escalator, a CM announced that there was a leak in the Contemporary's roof, and some debris on the monorail track. We saw it; it was right across from the elevator core. Because of this condition, however, the Resort monorail would be delayed for twenty minutes or so. We could wait in the queue if we chose, or the CMs would let us through the gates back to the Grand Canyon Concourse. Frank and I went back downstairs.
We decided to just hang around the Concourse for a while. Frank drooled over the Pin-Head station some more, but managed to resist buying any pins. Then we went into the bar and got a couple of drinks, watching TV for a while in the little alcove. That alcove is my favorite place in the Contemporary. It has a great view, and is usually very quiet and secluded. The widescreen TV is a fairly recent addition; I kinda liked it better before the TV was there, but the alcove is still a great little-known spot to soak in the Disney atmosphere.
After we finished our drinks, we heard the monorail coming in, so we went back up and rode it around once. We were getting close to our PS time, so we didn't get off the train at either of the other two resorts; we just rode around. By the time we got back to Contemporary, it was almost time to eat; we checked in at the podium (getting a cool little flashy-pager-thing), and sat down in the bar for another few minutes, watching CNN on the small wall TV. Less than five minutes later, our pager went off, and we went into Chef Mickeys, where we enjoyed a fantastic dinner buffet with prime rib, roast turkey, and about fifty other foods. Frank and I took pictures of each other, using my camera, with Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofey. This was something of a landmark for me; in all the years I've been going to Walt Disney World on vacation, I've never had my picture taken with Mickey Mouse.
Of course, my mouth was full of food at the time, so I looked like a dork.
After dinner, we went back to ASM to let our food digest. We watched the weather channel for a while, noting that the center of tropical storm Gabrielle had passed directly over the Orlando area; that explained the unusual dry spell we'd had at WalMart. The exact center of the storm, between the swirly part and the long arms, had much less rain and wind than the swirly or the arms. The storm was on it's way north, and would be clearing out tomorrow, so we expected one more day of rain before a warm front moved in and the skies cleared.
I hate rain.