Florida Aquarium, but mostly LEMURS!!!!

Well, last summer Jeff and I went on an adventure out to the Florida Aquarium for the first time and got to play with an amazing penguin, while exploring the aquarium we passed signs for an upcoming 2014 expansion "Journey to Madagascar" with a photo of a lemur and, well, I knew we'd be back....

So here we go... Journey to Madagascar is now open and home to three super awesome Ring-Tailed Lemur's and the adorableness began...

Oooh man, here we go!

Aww, lemur lemur lee-mur!

It was snack time!

And time to climb/bounce around!

(lemur lemur lee-mur)

 And make adorable faces!!

(lemur lemur lee-mur)

And snack some more!

lemur lemur lee-mur!!!

After being slightly over-stimulated by these super awesome animals... it was off to the other side of Tampa to see the new IMAX Film, "Island of Lemurs: Madagascar" playing at the MOSI. wooo!

Oh yeah, and there are fish and stuff (and ducks!) to see at the aquarium but that's already been covered (here)

woo

100 things you must do in Orlando before you die?

One day at work on my lunch I saw a tweet sent out by Orlando Weekly with a list called "100 things you must do in Orlando before you die" and the claim that it was a list of things everyone who lives in Orlando should do at least once. Well, everyone knows I love lists... After setting myself up for a good laugh I was kinda surprised at how little I myself had done but most of what I was missing was like "getting drunk at Epcot" or "eating this nasty-ass-meat product" and one even saying "get high and go to Disney"... and suddenly I didn't feel bad I was missing these check boxes... Although one missing that needed to be checked off immediately was "#40. Take a date on a swan boat paddling tour of Lake Eola." not so much of a date... but an excuse to ride the silly swan boats downtown! I've always liked going downtown and walking at Lake Eola, so this was just kinda an excuse to see some ducks.

Woo, Lake Eola! Orlando's answer to Boston Gardens or Central Park.... 

although on a far less grand scale.

The Linton E. Allen Memorial Fountain, the centerpiece of

Lake Eola Park

(and it's actually a sinkhole filled in with water) 

The Florida State flag, US flag, and City of Orlando flag, woo

Annddd.... the reason were here!

While I've been down to the lake a good 10-15 times.. this would be my first time going for a Swan ride.... butttt.....

It turns out you can pick between swans or ducks!

I obviously went with the duck :D

And away we go!

I was to manly for a swan anyways...

Oh hey, and a there's a whole bunch of real swans!

Look out geese!!

(honk honk!)

After our 30 minutes were up and a failed attempt at making a full-round around the fountain we made a lap of the park itself on foot.

 Where we found some baby swans! Aww, they don't look evil.

 yet

Unlike this one, that's clearly plotting something...

Mr. Squirrel came over to say hello.

Little baby Mallard's with mama duck :V :v :v :v :D!

Annddd the best part of Lake Eola!!!

Yeeessssss!!!!

So yeah, swan DUCK Boat was ridden and the mental check-mark was made. Just one less thing to do on the 100 list. The entire list can be found here and for what its worth... I've manged to do 2, 5, 13, 22*, 25, 36, 47, 49, 55, 57, 73 (ugh), 85, 97, and now.... 40. 

Woo

Uh, random shout-out to Wild Thing at Valleyfair!

Back in 2010 I made my way out to Minnesota for the first time and visited Valleyfair!, the Mall of America, and Como Park on what was the first vacation I took since moving to Florida and starting my job at Disney... Valleyfair! (yeah, the exclamation point is part of the title) ended up being surprisingly nice, odd for a Cedar Fair park and home of Wild Thing, the now 18 year old Morgan Hyper coaster that seems pretty forgotten about. The ride was also surprisingly good and while not as good as some of the Intamin's built well after it.. it still gives a fun ride and has one awesome floater-air hill that's over 100 feet shorter than the hill it follows! So I'm gonna show it some love.

 woo

  Wild Thing opened in 1996 and was the first coaster built by Morgan*

It was also only the third Hyper-Coaster in America when built

(after Magnum and Desperado)

And second tallest

Wild Thing is still the tallest coaster in Minnesota, at 207 feet and is unlikely to be surpassed... seeing is how Valleyfair! is the only outdoor amusement park in the state and I doubt the Mall of America will add a +200 foot coaster :P

Ha, kid in the front row is taking a POV

The pretty bulky Morgan Hyper train... All but three of their coasters use this style train, including their kiddie coaster!

Wild Things... uh.. station. 

Woo, the ride has back to back banked helix turns... and takes them pretty smooth.

 Wild Things layout was enlarged four years later for Steel Dragon 2000.

For some reason in their press release, Morgan compered Steel Dragon to its Mamba coaster at Worlds of Fun... but anyone who looks at the actual layout can tell they more-or-less mirrored Wild Thing's layout and increased the height some 100 feet.

Wild Things 'famous' hidden hill tunnel

Classy classy

And one last random shot that I liked for this completely random post that's from four years ago at this point.... <3

Woo, Morgan Hypers!

So this one time at Denny's........

Yeah....So I love finding all these random "off the beaten path" or Roadside type.....things....

Anyone who's looked into this blog should know that by now

anyways.....

So this one time Jeff and I were at a Denny's on 192 in Kissimmee that had just been refurbished with all these photos from the 40's and 50's and one that caught my eye was a reproduction of a postcard showing "the Monument of States" this awful looking tower... thing. I pointed it out to Jeff and we pretty much assumed whatever it was... was long gone (not even knowing it was *in Florida*) 

A few months later we just happened to be driving around downtown Kissimmee and ended up going right past the thing! needless to say a parking spot was found and photos were taken.. After wondering what the hell we were even looking at I googled Monument of States and found an article about it on RoadsideAmerica. Yeah....

 And... there it is!

The completely awesome Monument of States!

 Each "brick" contains stones and items from a different state, 48 at the time it was built

(now it includes all 50 as well as some 21 other countries!) 

Oh.. and did I mention that one of the other items happens to be a human skull?

And of course I found the Massachusetts brick, dated 1941.

Disney even has a marker... 

placed some five years (almost six, given its placement in January) before the Walt Disney World Resort even opened!

Yeah, you could say I was pretty amused.. even dumbfounded yet oddly excited to have found such a treasure.

More info on the Monument of States can be found on the amazing website RoadsideAmerica

The disaster that is Flea World (and the loss that was Fun World)

Intro: So... Since I moved to Florida in the fall of 2009 I've always been intrigued with this place in Sanford named Flea World, "the world's largest flea market". What makes the place interesting is it featured a small amusement park area known as Fun World. At the time I moved, I was living at Jeff and Brian's house and they kinda laughed at me for wanting to check it out and pretty much talked me out of going...although they themselves had never even been. They also were fairly certain the rides were long gone. Jump ahead nearly four years and I'm sitting at home watching random videos on YouTube during a thunderstorm and an ad for Flea World plays showing rides..... Without any real hesitation I called Travis (who used to work in Rails with me) up and asked if he wanted to go on a random adventure... and off to Sanford we went....

woo

FLEA WORLD!

 The world's largest flea market, home to over 1000 booths and restaurants

This place is a beast.

With rows and rows of... well... crap.

And more crap

And also, stuff?

And more stuff too!

Yeah, its a beast....

Shout out to South of The Border in Dillon, South Carolina

Oddly enough a place I've visited some 6 or 7 times now

After searching and searching.... there is (was) an amusement park hidden within

Fun World, the place was Ghetto-Lovely. An odd mix of run down rides...but in a well kept sort of way... and something I'd even say would have been worth a revisit based on one of the rides within, sadly after the 2013 summer season the amusement area of Flea World was closed and removed once and for all but at least I made the trek once and got out there.

$5 was enough to go on six rides although I only rode four 

(Travis rode two with me but got sick after the first one...)

Walking up to the park you only see the kid rides, most of them being things I'd never seen before....

Some looking almost... homemade......

Or right out of Roller Coaster Tycoon!

But outside and around the back were some full sized rides.

Once the rain cleared they slowly started opening but run on a rotation cycle where some rides are open while others stay closed and then they switch?

The Eli Scrambler was in far better condition than the one at Old Town! It amused me a Flea Market could keep a ride better looking than a so-called "amusement park" could.

It also gave a long cycle at a pretty good pace!

 The Tilt-a-Whril looked pretty OK as well, it gave a good ride too. Travis managed to stomach it out with me.

The SPACE ROUND-UP ran well too

I tried to get Travis to ride it with me.. but he sat out while I took a spin.

Maybe I should have had him ride this instead.

There was an odd looking Himalaya style ride next to the round up.. but it was closed 

Um.. and missing a car

Now... the real reason I pretty much dropped everything and ran out to Sanford was for this..... the second I saw it on YouTube I HAD to ride it.... right now

The extremely rare Loop-O-Plane

Since Miracle Strip closed in 2004 I was unaware of any in the state, let alone one 30 minutes from my house.

It might not look like much... but if run well it can be very intense and Fun World didn't disappoint... In fact, they ran it 3 times longer than the only other one I've ever come across, at Keansburg in New Jersey...

(where I had an interesting ride... pretty much... the door opened as the cycle began and the door opening leads to the lapbar unlatching and also opening.....)

But nothing happened on the Fun World ride, well, to me at least... After going around and around some 20 times with at least 3 direction changes and 2 inverted holds...Travis needed some BENCH: The Ride.... <3

So while the overall loss of Fun World isn't the end of the universe... its still pretty sad to lose such an odd place with some classic and fun rides and I'm pretty bummed about the Loop-O being gone (luckily the *new* Miracle Strip opening this week picked up one.... just some 360 miles away from here, but hey... it's still in Florida)

Also...

BONUS HIPPO!