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Today was an historically melancholy day, our Last Day in the Parks. We're hanging around the resort all day tomorrow until our bus picks us up to take us to the airport. We're getting in pretty late at night so I'll probably spend the night on Staten Island with Steph so's I can get a ride home with my heavy-ass luggage on Thursday. (Sorry J-Rock.)

But I'm ahead of myself. Today was fabulous. I got to experience that rare bit of magic, the First Time on a New Disney Ride. In this case, it was Expedition Everest at Animal Kingdom.

Animal Kingdom is my least favourite park, of course, because I've had but little time to bond with it in the scheme of my 23 years of Disney vacationing. However fond I am of the place, I don't consider visiting in a "necessity", and, consequently, I hadn't been there in a couple of years. I actually skipped the Dave Foley Experience (a.k.a. "It's Tough to Be a Bug") this time because a) I want to keep it special and b) the wait was too long for our purposes. But I did take a paparazzi photo* of Flik posing with some children.

I digress. "Expedition Everest", the verdict: AWESOME SAUCE WITH SPRINKLES. Loved it. It was just scary enough for me to be wholly alert, but the drop wasn't godawful. I loved the darkness, the backwardsness, the speed, the climbing, and most of all, the gigantic scary Yeti that tries to grab you. I highly recommend that all people free of head, back, neck, shoulder problems, motion sickness or expectant motherhood ride this ride.

We also did Dinosaur and the Kilomanjaro safaris, where I SAW THE BABY ELEPHANT! It was so cute! I love me a baby elephant. There's just nothing like a baby elephant. All hail baby elephants.

After Animal Kingdom we scuttle-hurried back to Magic Kingdom to do the necessaries (Peter Pan, Touching the Slipper) and some extr-ys (Tiki, Country Bears, Haunted Mansion again.) Then we headed for the monorail to do our Fabulous Dinner at the California Grill.

This has become quite the hot spot. A cast member (neither young nor old, this was a rare middle-aged cast member, a security guard) overheard Steph and I reminiscing about the Castle's Pepto days, and fell into step with us as we headed out of the park. When the subject turned to the fireworks and he heard we had reservations at the California Grill, he said, and I quote, "You guys bite." This was extremely hilarious, and he made us promise never to tell anyone he said that because he's not allowed to, but boy were we in for a treat. (I didn't tell him that I've had dinner at C.G. at fireworks time at least four times, because that would be both snobbish and sad.)

Dinner was all that and a bag of chips (not literally, more like all that and a platter of exotic cheeses) and we got a coveted Window Table (ooooh, ahhhhhhh) and ate too much and felt sick from eating too much and rode the monorail around twice before catching our bus.

Tomorrow it all ends. But first, swimming all day!

*This appears to be my new thing: taking pictures of Characters from afar as if I were stalking them for photos to sell to the Enquirer. I know it's just an 18-year-old-girl in that Friar Tuck costume, but the Little Tavie inside of me says that's really truly him!

Why are you in Tavie's head? 1:40 AM | shower me with attention