Disney

On Friday afternoon, we left Indiana for Grant's first visit to Disney World. We decided to drive down through Knoxville to Chattanooga for our first night. Now I realize this isn't the most direct route, but it only adds a little bit of time on paper, and Erin and I have had less than great luck with Louisville and Nashville traffic. Wanting to stick to our "no chains" rule for vacation dining, I had scoped out a little place in Richmond, Kentucky called Opal's. Opal's turned out to be a fantastic little place with classic southern home cooking. We'll definitely be stopping again. We hit Chattanooga fairly late on Friday evening, and all of us crashed.

Saturday morning we got up and headed over to our favorite breakfast joint in Chattanooga, Aretha Frankenstein's. Aretha's was packed, so we ended up sitting at the bar, wolfing down Godzilla sized portions of pancackes and eggs. It was tremendous. I ate all of my meal and most of Erin's.

It was already raining as we left Chattanooga, and as it turned out, it was destined to rain for the next six hours. Our drive through Georgia was absolutely brutal. Erin endured about three hours of hard, white knuckle driving in a thunderstorm. On top of it, I-75 was under construction, and there were several spots with two feet of standing water in the road. There were accidents everywhere, and by the time we hit Valdosta, the trucker's were discussing whether the road should even be open when we stopped at a truck stop. Luckily things changed as we entered Florida, and we were able to stop for a nice dinner and stroll around the Univ. of Florida campus in Gainesville.

Our first day in Florida was spent lounging around our room at Disney's Port Orleans - Riverside resort and eventually eating at the T.Rex restaurant (the dinosaur, not the British glam band) at Downtown Disney. I ate all of my ice cream sundae at the Ghirardelli restaurant, plus most of Grant's (do you see a theme here?) Afterward, we rode the boat back to our resort. Grant was declared the "captain of the boat" complete with a certificate and ovation from other boat-goers. He couldn't have been more pleased.

Today we got up bright and early for a "character breakfest" with Minnie, Goofy, and Donald. Grant smothered Minnie with kisses on her giant plastic nose, guaranteeing his exposure to all potential viruses carried by the other kikds enjoying their Disney vacation. After breakfast, we decided to head for the pool.

Our pool features what looked like a delightful waterslide. Grant was excited to give it a ride with Daddy, so we ventured to the top soon after arriving. I sat him in my lap and headed down, only to be met by the steely glare of a life guard when I reached the bottom, informing me that the slide was "one person at a time."

Not about to let this interfere with my son's amusement, which had been obvious upon our splashdown during the first ride, I headed back up the slide again with him. When we got to the top, I explained quickly that he needed to stay upright. As I let go of him, it occurred to me that I hadn't really gone through all of the potential scenarios in my head, and as he hit the first turn, I saw him sort of rotate in an unnatural direction.

Erin was waiting at the bottom for him, and I was delighted to see her intercept him as he hit the water. I jumped onto the slide and made my way down, this time arriving to the steely glare of Grant's mother AND the life guard. This time the lifeguard was yelling "He can't go down face first." I yelled back, "He didn't start that way!" This didn't help matters. At some point in the journey, Grant rotated down onto his stomach and ended up dragging his lip along the slide, leaving a small but mommy-detectable mark. Erin informed me that as he hit the pool, his eyes were the size of dinner plates, and he was doing all he could to keep his face out of the slide water. He didn't seem at all bothered by the experienced, but we determined that good parenting probably meant no more water slide.

This evening we had dinner at Ohanas at the Polynesian Resort. This is a takeoff on the traditional Brazilian steakhouse, featuring meat carted around on spears. The food was excellent, and the bread pudding at the end was a wonderful finish.

Tomorrow we're headed to the Magic Kingdom, and while Grant has enjoyed most of the trip thus far, I suspect tomorrow is when the wheels will really get rolling.