Florida Connection - the New Year

We're traveling to Florida because Greg is off his rocker.  I mean nutso.  I guess I really mean totally crazy.  What else would you call it when someone signs up to run a 1/2 marathon, followed by a marathon the very next day?  And later decides that's not quite enough so he'll start the racing one day earlier with a 5K.  Three races, three days, four medals.  He gets an extra one because that's supposed to make up for the fact that he belongs in the loony bin - it's the Goofy medal, given to any locos out there that think running a 1/2 and full marathon back-to-back sounds like it could be fun, so gee let's sign up...  I really wish I'd upped the life insurance before we got here.

Since the races are held at Disney in Florida, we decided to take a couple extra days and see some of the sights.  I mean, if you're going to be traveling for almost 20 hours, crammed like sardines in the tiny seats on the airplanes, racing from one gate to the next, for three different flights... we may as well spend a couple more days to make the pain worth it.  (At this point, I can only imagine how Greg is going to feel after 3 days of races, followed immediately by 20 more hours of cramped travel.  I should make sure we have plenty of drugs.  Not sure if it'd be better to have them for me or for him, but I'll get that worked out over the next couple days.)

It's absolutely amazing to go from single digit temperatures to 70 degrees.  It's so nice to spend the day wandering around in shorts, t-shirt, and sandals.  And when evening hits... well, the temperature hasn't dropped that much, so a light vest or jacket works great to beat the chill.  If we'd been home, I'm not sure we'd've gone anywhere, because I just don't want to deal with the below zero temps after dark.  No way could I stand to be outside watching fireworks at midnight - hoping the neighbors ignore the 200' rule and light some off so I could see them through the window would've had to be good enough for me.  But instead we're in sunny Florida, and spending time in the car arguing about how high we should go with the air conditioner.  (I'm still a wuss, so if it's up too high I'll be cold.  Greg could live in a igloo and when there's sun, he'd want cold air blowing on him.)

We arrived in Orlando for New Year's Eve, and decided that spending the evening at Disney Hollywood sounded like our best option.  Apparently lots of other people thought the same thing.  We wandered around checking out displays and rides, trying to avoid overly large crowds and bumping into people.  The fireworks were lovely - it's been a long time since I've watched fireworks outside without some part of my body freezing.  The only drawback was leaving the Disney property.  For all the work and effort they put into managing crowds in the park, they're sadly lacking when hordes of people are leaving.  Everyone is released to the parking lot, and that's it.  Disney could take some notes for how to handle that kind of thing from the folks that run the Alaska State Fair.  Now, that's one super-organized party.  It's never taken anyone two hours to leave the property for the fair, like it did for us to leave Disney.  That was just asinine.  But it was the only blemish on a fun, if tiring, day.  We'll continue our tourist-ing throughout the week, and return to Orlando the following Thursday for all the racing.

Happy New Year!  Hope your celebrations were filled with family, friends, and loads of good cheer!!!