After the shuttle launch (see previous post) Marla and I spent 4 days at Disney World. Both Marla and I have fond memories of Disney World from visits when we were younger. It was a lot of fun but we came back liking Disneyland and California Adventure more. At Disneyland everything is closer together and more walkable in general. All of the really good attractions are included in both parks (for the most part).

Epcot is what Marla and I were most looking forward too. We were a bit disappointed because some of the rides have changed or been torn down. The second half of Spaceship Earth is a computer exercise and Horizons is completely gone (in favor of Mission: Space which we renamed Mission: Nausea after riding it…). In general we were hoping for a bit more 80’s styled goodness from Epcot. The International Showcase was a lot of fun, and if you are into overboard Americanism then you shouldn’t miss the American Experience… its pretty over the top. I took some nighttime photos during the extended Hours at Epcot, and I think they turned out pretty good.

Disney’s Hollywood Studios wasn’t as good as I remember (when it was Disney/MGM studios), but the Walt Disney museum and Animation exhibits were both excellent and must-see attractions there. Animal Kingdom did have a cool safari ride but was a bit underwhelming.

I was breaking in my new Leica D-LUX 4 camera on this trip. I have been really happy with it. It has a super wide angle lens and shoots HD video (720p).

It turns that my work wasn’t going to be as hectic as I thought it was going to be so Marla and I decided to pick up some tickets to the latest shuttle launch. There aren’t many more shuttle missions left so we figured if we were going to watch a shuttle launch we had better do it sooner rather than later.

We got into Orlando at 5am on a red-eye flight from LA. We had a great breakfast at Waffle House (a luxury to us Los Angelenos from the south). We showed up at Kennedy Space Center at about 7:30am, two hours before they opened because we couldn’t check into our hotel yet. We got an awesome parking space, let me tell you! We checked out the Visitor Center there until about 3pm when the lack of sleep started catching up to us and checked into our hotel.

Two days later, the launch went without a hitch. They actually moved the launch day ahead by 24 hrs to get the launch done before bad weather rolled in. Luckily we were watching TV at the right time and didn’t miss the announcement. The launch itself was brighter than Marla and I expected. The solid rocket boosters are basically the color of the sun, but not so bright you can’t look right at it. After the boosters are done you can see a blue pixel in the sky that are the main engines taking the shuttle into orbit. The whole event was over in a matter of minutes, but was very exciting!

We spent 3 days at Kennedy Space Center in central Florida (where humidity migrates during the spring and summer) before heading to Disney World.

Our Christmas vacation in Park City, Utah was fantastic. We spent a couple days snowboarding and there was 18” of snow dropped during a huge winter storm on Christmas Day. It was challenging to snowboard in, but we managed to get in a couple runs without too much trouble. The following day had some fantastic powder though :)

We also visited the Utah Olympic Park. This is where the ski jumping, luge, skeleton, and bobsled events were held during the Salt Lake City Olympic games in 2002.

We were fortunate enough to be there on a day where they were allowing members of the public to ride bobsleds. Our ride was fantastically exciting. We pulled upwards of 5 G’s and attained speeds greater than 80 miles an hour bobsledding down the hand-maintained ice track. The Utah Olympic Park is the only place in the world that lets members of the public ride bobsleds down an ice track. Our driver was a two time Olympic bobsled team coach Pat Brown.