The Must Do’s of Disney World by Bennett

Magic Kingdom

Magic Kingdom is the most popular and ‘ride-iest’ of all the parks.

Imagine flying through space at millions of miles per second.  That’s Space Mountain, a fast thrill ride that is dark and jerky.  It is one of my favorite thrill rides in Magic Kingdom.  The first time on this ride may be scary, but the second time you will be ready.  It is in my favorites because of its sudden ups, downs, and turns.

My favorite ride in Magic Kingdom is Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, which I will be referring to as Big Thunder.  Big Thunder was my favorite thrill ride in Magic Kingdom.  Big Thunder is an open air ride that is very rickety and its like Space Mountain with lots of ups, downs, and turns.

My favorite show in Magic Kingdom is Wishes.  It was a great fireworks show that is even better than the one at Disneyland.

Epcot

Epcot isn’t really for kids because it’s mostly displays.  Here are the fun parts:

1. Mission Space: Use this newest type of rocket ship to fly yourself to the Mars.  This extreme simulator really made me want to throw up.   (It also made dad want to.)
2. Test Track: Make your own car and test its abilities on the Simtrack.  You can check out how well you did at the finish.  Carter got in the top 5 for the fastest of the day.
3. Chinese Acrobats: Watch these acrobats flip, balance barrels on their feet, and make human pyramids.  Try to get their a few minutes early so that you can get a good spot.  We got their late and got bad spots.

Disney Hollywood Studios

DHS is made for the movie lovers.  There is a Star Wars Ride, Jedi Training Academy, and The Great Movie Ride.

I’m on the ride, Tower of Terror, and I have my eyes closed and my ears plugged.  Then I’m lifted off my seat and I hear people screaming (even with my ears plugged).

“Woohoo,” I think while I’m on Rock Coaster, the best roller coaster in DHS.  You start super fast and the photos come immediately after you start.  Then you go on lots of turns.  It’s like Big Thunder, but you go upside down and it’s much, much faster.

Lights, Motor, Action is an extreme stunt show that you should really go to.  It is a high action show with everything I wanted to see, firing of guns, cars jumping on trucks, and real fire.  Watch a car jump backwards at this extreme stunt show.

Disney Animal Kingdom

DAK has a lot of rides, but not many thrill rides.  Here is one fun thrill ride: Expedition Everest.  Watch out for the Yeti on this ride or you’ll be sorry.  I had a close call with him.

Here’s a must do: Kilimanjaro Safaris. Watch animals roam these safari.  You can see giraffes, elephants, and cheetahs in this safari.  I was able to see a cheetah run.

If it’s a hot day, you’ll want to go on Kali River Rapids.  One warning: You may get soaked.  That’s what I did.  Once I got off the ride I was soaked from head to toe.

Summary

Those are the must dos of Disney World.  You should try to do everything (except the little kid rides – unless you are a little kid), but make sure you do the ones I wrote about.   Feel free to ask any questions.

 

Note from mom: Bennett usually reads these to me after he has written them out by hand and then he makes all the edits on the computer.  I can’t help but add commas, etc when I type.  It’s automatic.  Sometimes when he edits he takes them out or makes other changes (making any mistakes entirely his fault 🙂 ).  I just don’t want anyone to think he has grammar down this well.

 

Carter’s Take on Disney

This blog is not about what we did at Disney World. It is some facts and secrets about Disney World.

Disney World – Magic Kingdom

Adventureland

Did you know that only 2 countries flags are permanently on display in the parks: the American and Swiss flag.  The Swiss flag is hanging over the Swiss Family Tree House. I think that’s a great honor. Be careful around a large golden camel next to the Magic Carpets of Aladdin ride, it spits. I think with that one Disney has gone too far.

On Tom Sawyer Island, it is rumored that the creaks and groans of the mill wheel actually play “Down by the Old Millstream.” They don’t, but it would be pretty funny if they did. Bennett and I ran around on the island for a long time on the day we went just with mom.  We really liked the fort there since they had shot guns that made shotgun sounds.  There was a rickety bridge made out of barrels that was fund to run across.

Here are some fun facts about the Magic Kingdom

Did you know that Big Thunder Mountain is 197 feet high – the tallest any building or object can be in Disney is 200 feet?  Now that’s high.  Space Mountain is 183 feet. In it’s a small world there are 289 miniature figures all singing the same song and you have to listen to it for 5 minutes. The 289 miniature figures have 2296 specific garment pieces.  When we were waiting in the line, the ride got stuck.  We thought the people coming off the ride after it got started looked a little shaken – can you imagine getting stuck with all the some miniature figures doing the song over and over and over again?

Epcot

Did you know that Test Track has nearly one mile of track and goes nearly 65 miles per hour. It’s the longest and fastest ride at Disney World. Maybe that’s why we rode it 3 times!

In Mission Space, take a look at Mars It has color shifting paint that costs $800 per gallon. I think that that is exactly what Disney does.  They buy expensive stuff and get more money then they spent.

Stop for a moment in front of Mexico pyramid.  It looks tall, but it is only 36 feet.

Stop at the outpost between China and Germany and lift the lids on the old fashion Coca Cola coolers. I didn’t know about this when we went or otherwise I would have done it.  If someone knows, please let me know.

There was a problem when they made ‘Soaring’ because flying above national parks is not allowed.  It took months to get permission to fly over and film it but it was worth the time, well at least I think so. Those rock climbers at Yosemite had to stay suspended there for 6 hours.  I don’t think I could take it.

Did you know that the Eiffel tower in the France country section was made using Gustavo Eiffel’s actual blueprints? I thought that one was cool.

Animal Kingdom

In Africa next to the Tusker House listen closely and you will here a landlady banging on a door shouting.  That one was funny.

For Kilimanjaro Safaris come early in the day the animals are most active then.  I planned our itinerary for Animal Kingdom and we did this.  It really worked, we saw lots of animals and the line was really short.  We even had to stop the tour bus because some giraffes were standing in the road.

On Expedition Everest, look down at the track when the yeti is tearing up the track.   If you look down you will actually see the track flip over.  It’s really cool we saw that one. The ride is awesome. Just to show you how awesome, I went 8 times. All right that wasn’t to show you but its still. AWESOME!

Here are some facts for the Animal Kingdom. There are 1,500 animals in the Animal Kingdom these 1,500 animals require 4 tons of food each day. Now that’s a lot of food!

On the Tree of Life there are 103,000 different leaves each placed to sway in the wind.

Hollywood Studios

In Muppet Vision 3-D as you go in LOOK UP at the clock, specifically the minute hand. No, he is not going to fall. He is tightly secured on it. It’s doing its job and I laughed.

To get the feel of the Twilight Zone for Tower of Terror, Disney imagineers watched all 156 episodes more then once.  The elevator cars on the Tower of Terror ride is pulled down faster then the speed of gravity.  You know that because you are pulled up agaist the strap.  Mom screamed.

I got all this information from Walt Disney World Notecast. It’s a great app and there is much more information.  Also there is a hidden mickey guide.  There are 200 fun facts and 250 secrets. I really enjoyed this app. (its 1.99 but it’s worth your money.)

Being in the parks is just so tiring (well at least for mom) but it’s tiring for me too when we are there from 9:00AM until 10:00 and don’t get back to bed until 11:00pm. It’s a ton of fun though so it makes it all worth it. It’s also big so you have to be a fast walker, but you can rest your feet in the lines, so that’s not so bad.  The lines are usually big so Fast Pass work well, but also you have to stop for a moment and just rest.  You should try to go.  It’s fun.

Orlando

We just finished up our 14 days in Orlando.  This is the longest we have spent anywhere on this trip.  It was nice to be in one spot, but our reason for being here was exhausting.  We did 6 days in the theme parks, 2 lazy days of visiting relatives in St. Pete, some poolside days, and a few days just sleeping and trying to recover from the theme parks.  The theme parks are too tiring.  Nothing was shorter than a 9-hour day and we had some 14-hour days!  I certainly racked up the steps on my Fitbit.

First, the RV Stuff, we stayed in a private RV park that was near Disney, had cheap weekly rates, and a nice pool.  It was just a sea of RVs, but the location and the pool saved it from being boring.  Plus it had the fun name of Magic Lake and it was in the same town as my mommy grew up, Clermont, Florida.

Everyone tries to give advice for Disney visits.  Here’s mine – if you can afford it, spread out the days, buy an app that give you a suggested itinerary, bring your own snacks, and then completely block out how much you paid to try to enjoy yourself.   (By the way, the app that we liked was called touringplans.com.  It suggests a list of rides and parades based on the age of your kids – you can add and delete from the suggested list – it then continuously optimizes the order based on times and where you are.   Having an app ends the thought process of ‘where should we go next’ and you can just blindly follow the app if you so desire.)  After the first day, we made the kids come up with itineraries.  Carter took this very seriously and read additional articles and some library books on the parks.

Summary, we had one day in each of the Disney World Parks, one day in Universal (for Hogwarts), and one final day in the Magic Kingdom for just the boys and me while David caught a spring training baseball game of the Minnesota Twins.  The kids had a great time, the Disney Corporation awed David and me and we don’t want to see another theme park for a long, long while.  It also cost more than a months rent at a nice house for a family in most cities in the country.

To make the blog post more interesting, I thought our foray into Disney pin trading gave me insight into my boys and was somewhat informative.  First, a pin trading explanation is in order.  Here’s a Wikipedia article, but basically, you buy a starter set of pins ($7.95 and up each) then you can walk up to any Cast Member (that’s what you call ANY Disney employee) that has a pins on and trade one of your pins for one of theirs.  They have to accept the trade as long as yours isn’t a fake / knock-off pin.  The pins that the Cast Members have on are PROVIDED BY DISNEY.  When they get their uniform on, they are given 9-20 pins on a lanyard and they have to come back with the same number.   Here is what a trade looks like, you walk up to the shop attendant who has a lanyard with pins, and you stare at her chest to decide if you like any of hers better than yours, if so, you trade.  If not, you move on.

Some think that this is a fun way to talk to employees or other park visitors.  It is a whole sub culture, with conventions and forums, and massive amounts of eBay listings.   It didn’t really sound like my thing because, you know, you have to talk to people.

However, we had dinner with my lovely cousin, Katie and her husband David who works for Disney.  David has been a Disney photographer for over 30 years and has amazing Disney stories to tell.  You’ve seen his work if you have ever seen a commercial or print ad for Disney!  He and his team will photograph an attraction or even a whole resort months before it is finished construction.   The marketing department has to make it look ready to go so you want to be there opening day.

Katie gave each of the boys two exclusive pins for their last day at Disney so that they could experience the art of the pin trade.   The pins she gave us were super cute of Mickey and Goofy saying “CHEESE” for a photographer.

If you know my boys, you can make a prediction of how our trading day went.   Bennett got really into it and traded quite a few times.  He struck up conversations with employees and other guests. Carter really, really liked the exclusive pin he started with and could not find anything he liked better.  I finally forced the issue around 7:00 at night and told him the next look had to include an exchange because Aunt Katie didn’t want us to keep these pins and she had promised the boys that she would send them a duplicate if they really wanted.  (Carter really wants that.)

Here, in pictures is the day:

The original pin (we had 4 total of these).

Bennett: Got a cute starburst Donald Duck one.  I actually liked this one and was sad to see it go.

Bennett: Got a puzzled Mickey.

Carter: Got a nice one of Donald and Mickey hugging.

Bennett: Puzzled Mickey gets exchanged for Goofy and Mickey hugging.

Bennett: Cute starburst Donald gets traded for Chip n Dale.  Bennett really likes Chip and Dale and I’m not sure why, but he likes them.

Carter: Forced getting of an ostrich.  (Katie really wanted us to trade our pins, so yes, I’m a mean mom and forced a trade.)

 

Carter: Happiness!  Ostrich traded for a Pluto.  We love Pluto.  Bennett had wanted this trade, but Carter got his ostrich pin off faster so he won.

Carter: Last minute trade of Donald and Mickey hugging for a patriotic Donald.

Doesn’t sound so bad, does it?  Yeah, those exchanges are a SMALL percentage of the looks and conversations held around these pins.  It took the entire 14 hour day for Carter to get a system down of politely asking to see pins and then saying “no thank you, I don’t want to trade” instead of the brusque dismissal he started with.  Dude, you’ve been staring at the girl’s chest for a whole minute while she stopped her job and stayed absolutely still  – say something before you walk away!  He finally got the routine down.  Now that I look at it, they actually did the same amount of trades.  It just seems that every time I looked around, Bennett was 10 feet away talking to another Cast Member.

Anyway, I’m glad we did it for the experience, but I’m glad we didn’t do it until our last day and our second day in Magic Kingdom.  I want to thank Katie for giving my kids the experience.  We got into it and enjoyed the process, especially once I got used to the feeling that if I couldn’t find Bennett immediately, look for the nearest Cast Member as Bennett was likely chatting her up.

IF you like talking to people and want to add a twist to your Disney vacation, I’d recommend picking up a few at an outlet store or second hand store and going for the whole trading thing.   If you are cheap like me and don’t like talking to people, ignore the trend and spend all of your time concentrating on the experience that is Disney and wring as much fun as you can out of your 14 hour days.  Disney runs an incredible and admirable business and NOBODY does theme parks as well as they do.  They just do it right from the big idea to the smallest detail.

The boys are going to write up posts on the actual parks.

New Orleans City Day (Part 3 of ?)

Now, I get to describe an easier day.  Just fun in The Big Easy.

We tried to take the ferry from Algiers Point across to Canal Street – thinking it would be a fun way to transport ourselves across the Mississippi.  Well, ignore what that website says about a dollar for the car – you can’t take cars on this ferry anymore.  No cars allowed.

Undeterred, we drove over to the 9^th Ward to see the houses being built under the Make It Right Foundation.  A very small personal connection to Hurricane Katrina exists for our family, Bennett was born when all the newspapers and televisions were covering the flood and the aftermath.  (I told him that’s the only reason his birth didn’t make the front page.  He rolled his eyes.)   I remember being in labor and watching the news coverage.  Afterward, I made the typical donation to American Red Cross, but when I heard my first Hollywood Crush, Brad Pitt, was the poster boy for this group that wanted to build smart, eco-friendly houses in the 9^th Ward, I sent another donation to that.  So we went to see the houses.  They are super colorful, wild, wacky, inspiring, a greenies heaven.  They bill themselves as the largest eco LEED certified houses in the US.  There is also lots of criticism about spending so much money here in an area that is still below sea level and may never recover because the 14,000 people who used to live there have moved on.  Only 2000 live there now.  This was an interesting urban planning article on why putting houses here is a bad idea. 

By the way, 8 years later there are still abandoned houses in this area that have the international search and rescue X on the front showing if any living or dead were found in the house.  It is sobering.

Then we drove off to the French Quarter for some beignets, muffulettas, some street musicians, a lame-ish Junior Ranger badge from the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park outpost in the French Quarter,  a two hour walking tour that you only paid what you that it was worth, and finally alcoholic smoothies.  We did the tourist part of the city up in grand style.  The kids REALLY liked the tumblers in front of Jackson Square.  The funny thing is David and I are pretty sure we saw this exact group 12 years ago.

So no innocence lost on our second day in New Orleans.

These really aren’t the wacky Make It Right Houses. Check out the link for some better ones.

Just music everywhere in New Orleans. Some of it is even good!

 

I challenge someone to show me how you eat these with out getting sugar all over yourself.

Compare those prices!

New Orleans, Louisiana, Part 2 of ? World War II Museum

Going to put in one more plug for the Bayou Segnette State Park, which is a great place to base yourself to see New Orleans.

Our next morning was scheduled to rain again so we decided to go for another inside day in a museum.  We had heard great things about the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.  It used to be called the D-Day Museum.  First question you might ask is “Why is the NATIONAL museum for this war in New Orleans?”  Well, let me tell you.  The Higgins Boat, the boat that made D-Day possible, that classic shot of all the troops pouring out of the front of those boats that landed right on the beach was designed and built right here in Louisiana.  It was based on designs used in the bayous.  Never knew that, now did you?

The second question you might ask is, “do you think it wise to take two children you often protect from scary movies to a museum that is dedicated to WAR?”  Yeah, that’s a question we didn’t ask ourselves.  I’m really not sure why we didn’t think of that.  The kids learned a lot about war, with vivid, moving pictures of the horrors of war.   I’ll come back to that in a minute.  Let’s talk about the museum first.

It’s an amazing museum.  The guidebooks say allow 2-3 hours.  I say double or triple that.  We got kicked out at closing time – which might have been bad because it talked about the end of the war and some of the good and bad that resulted.  I also want to point out that this is a VERY American centric museum.  This is the war told from our perspective.  We barely mention the Allies!

The museum started on the ‘home front’ and showed the state of the country before the war.  How few people we had in our military compared to the other world powers.  That was one of my 3 takeaways – how FAST the build up was.  The immense enlisting, training, deploying, feeding, bedding, treating, dealing with the death, the building of factories – all that is just overwhelming.  My other take away was the sacrifices made on the home front, the rationing, the saving, the pain were so much greater than anything we have experienced for any war since.  This is a war that changed the entire fabric of our country.  The last take away was 650 million people.  That’s the number of people that died worldwide in this war.

There were small booths throughout where you could hear amazing personal stories of everyday people talk about some aspect of the war – from women working in the factories, to men talking about the draft, to memories about the various battles that they fought in.   Think Story Corps if you listen to NPR.  They were small moments and very personal and intimate.   That was very powerful for me.

Then there were the large moments – the guns, the uniforms, the ACTUAL planes you could get eye level with.  There was an amazing movie narrated by Tom Hanks that was big and moving and emotional.  In summary, it’s a great museum.

Back to whether we damaged our kids.   Now that it has been a couple of days I just interviewed them about their views or memories of the museum.  The day of the visit they were just blown away by the actual museum – buttons to push, screens to watch, huge planes to ogle.  Now, they still think it was an amazingly well done museum. They aren’t sure that other kids their age should experience the “bad things” that they saw in the movies and the exhibits.  Carter thinks that maybe 11 year olds should go (a year older than himself).  I don’t think they are scarred in any way.  In a way, I’m glad they saw it all, but I’m not sure with a time machine whether I would take them again at this age.   I think they learned about war, but the one thing I will give the museum overwhelming credit for is that it wasn’t just the heroes and the victories and the glamour and Hollywood version that was presented.  The museum was clear on the fact that war is hell, but I think it was also shown a picture of WHY we had to fight that war.

So – one blow against our children’s innocence on Day 1 of our trip to New Orleans.

A plane that went down in Greenland that was recovered after the war.

Louisiana – Part 1 of 2

Started our trip to New Orleans in Acadiana Park Campground, a super quiet, cheap ($15 a night) little city campground.  We took a walk on the raised boardwalk path and enjoyed our first night in Louisiana.   There was one strange guy there who was in the process of painting his run down RV all black, but let’s go for that it was in preparation for Mardi Gras, ok?   

Woke up ready to explore Lafayette when we realized it was Sunday and most of the restaurants suggested to us were closed, as was the Jean Lafitte National Park.  Things close around here on Sunday.    (How bad was the restaurant situation?? We ended up in a Mexican restaurant because we were hungry and needed to eat.  Mexican in the middle of Cajun Central!)

However, the privately run (non profit) Vermillionville was open so we gave it a try.  Vermillionville is one of those living history museums where everyone dresses in period dress and tells you about their history while showing you the ‘ways’ of the time.  In my cynical world, they are build for school field trips.  In this case the history was the Acadian, Native American, and Creole cultures – from the time period 1765 to 1890. The park sits on a 23-acres on the banks of the Bayou Vermilion with seven restored original homes.

It was all pretty standard fare and we might have been bummed about the admission charges ($36 for all of us) had the day not been saved by three things.    One, we wandered into the science center at the museum, which was run by a woman who was determined to teach the kids some science in only the way that a retired teacher can do.  She was awesome and let the kids play with dead bugs and a tornado machine and showed them pictures of snakes.   Bennett especially was eating it up (not the bugs, but the knowledge and the interested adult).  There is something about an ex-teacher when she gets a hold of interested kids.  I loved how she reprimanded one of the boys when he answered something and she said “Yes, MA’AM, son, you are in the South now and you better get used to saying ma’am and sir.”

That was highlight number one; highlight number two was getting to catch lizards and a frog with a 9-year-old daughter of one of the volunteers.

Have you noticed that both of those highlights were about the boys and not us?  Yeah, David and I were not that thrilled about the day, but it got saved for us because our admission entitled us to a Zydeco concert with Chubby Carrier and The Bayou Swamp Band and included dancing!   We had a blast watching this huge crowd of very varied age and look folks who obviously knew each other.  We went out for a turn or five around the floor too.  Zydeco – seriously, how can you not move to it??  It’s contagious. (Challenge – watch this  videos  or the ones on the side and I dare you to keep your feet completely still.) We learned later that it was a social group of dancers that are serious about their Zydeco.  The woman that we talked to had retired here, just for Zydeco. There was a film crew working and one of them was filming an unaware Carter’s as his feet just kept moving to the music while he was watching from the sidelines.  We got him out dancing too.

That concert was serious fun and totally worth the price of admission!

Off we drove from Lafayette and on to the KOC Kampground in New Iberia, LA. 

Nice little campground with the best Wi-Fi we have found on the whole trip.  When we pulled into our site, a Carter aged boy came over and asked if he could help in anyway.  (That has NEVER happened before.  Wow, we are really in the South.)  We declined, but  after we finished setting up, the boys went for a walk around the grounds with David while I got dinner ready.  They ran into the boy again and we got a little bit of a cultural education.  Dylan lives in the campground on the weekends.  He explained to David that he likes to catch alligators, not big ones – just 5-6 feet.  You just jump on their backs until they tire out, then you got to close their mouths with the good tape – the gray stuff, not the cheap black stuff –  that won’t work.   He also showed the boys a nutria pelt that they had skinned for last nights dinner.

Just how good was that Wi-Fi?  David and I got to watch a Sherlock episode with streaming video.

The next day we went on a factory tour on Avery Island.  Anybody know the factory?  Their product has been to the moon, is a featured ingredient in MREs and President’s tables… Tabasco.  Cute little factory tour on a beautiful piece of land and it was free with 4 little mini samples of sauce for all of us.  Packaging is always the best stop in factory tours.  Just watching machinery package up stuff is way cool.

If one factory tour is good, two would be even better, right?  The Conrad Rice Mill – the oldest working rice mill in the country – was right near by.  They sell their rice as Konriko – which I had always incorrectly assumed was an Asian company.  Not so much, all the rice is grown right near here in Crowley, LA.  Their rice mill is a National Historic Building so they can’t change any of it or the machinery.  All those of you who think that might be a bad idea not to keep up with any current technology, raise your hand.  Yeah, the place is dusty and the machines are ANCIENT.  It was fascinating to know that these old workhorses are still spitting out bag after bag of rice.  We learned quite a bit about the process.   I loved how they have totally jumped on the gluten free bandwagon though.  Good for them.

We drove on to New Orleans and the ever so fabulous Bayou Segnette State Park.    20 minutes from downtown and $20 bucks a night – try to beat that in New Orleans!  One of the highlights for us that every night we drove back into the park we saw some new wildlife including a live armadillo that the boys got to get out of the car to check out.  (I’ve only ever seen them dead on the side of the road unfortunately).   We didn’t spend much time in the park (hello, 20 minutes from New Orleans), but it was spacious and clean and very pretty.  Plus there is a wave pool there in the summer!

Rain was scheduled for our first day, so we got some homeschooling done and headed out of town for Laura Plantation, a creole sugar plantation a bit out of town known for its excellent tour.   We got an excellent education about Creole vs. Cajun vs. Anglo and learned, for example, that in Louisiana, women were allowed to own property, inherit, and manage their own monies back in the times when that certainly wasn’t allowed in other parts of the country.  Women ran this plantation for over 60 years!   It was quite an interesting tour and worth the admission. We again were reminded how much Carter hears and listens when Carter was able to answer all of the questions David was trying to ask of the tour guide because Carter had been walking up front with her for the whole time.  On these types of tours we tend to let the boys stick right with the leader and we hang back a bit.  They spend so much time with us that it’s nice to let them soak up some education from someone else and it gives us a mini break.    Just as some website suggested, we drove by the impressive Oak Alley Plantation for the view, but paid for the Laura Plantation Tour.

I’m going to stop here and post our New Orleans adventures in the next blog.

Today’s batch was going to an Asian country – couldn’t quite make out the labels.

Do you see the dust? Yep, manufacturing today!

I wouldn’t let Carter taste the pecan rice sample until I learned – no nuts, just a nutty flavor. It’s kind of a brown / white rice hybrid and very tasty.

Both boys were successful in their capture and release programs.

A Day in New Orleans

“Hold still! I’m going to measure you,” said the annoying mechanical voice.  I was in the Louisiana Children’s Museum in New Orleans.  I was fidgeting.  “Do you have ants in your pants?” said the voice.  I just simply walked away because there was better stuff to do.

I went to a room with a big rectangular tub.  It had four spots that water was coming out.  Each spot had a ramp that the water came out on.  Each ramp could be blocked.  At the end of the rectangular tub were lots of plastic rectangular pieces.  You could block or change the direction of the water.  I decided to do a big-ish project.  I made a zig-zag path for the water to go through.  After that I made another track that made the water go backwards.

The museum was a pretty good children’s museum.  They had an air hockey table with a bell in the middle instead of goals.  How you were supposed to “learn” was you were supposed to ricochet the puck into the bell.  Most kids didn’t learn that, but dad insisted we learn.  Altogether it was really fun.

After the museum, we went to a slightly inappropriate Mardi Gras parade.  At the parade they threw out lots of junky toys and other stuff.  They also threw out some candy.  There were lots of fun floats and great costumes.  My favorite float had lots of fake bugs on it with something that said “The SWAT Team.”  There were lots of people walking behind the float dressed as bugs.    A few of them gave out fake cockroaches.

I also liked the people on the balcony above us who every once in a while got tossed a necklace.

There were also bands between the floats.  You could easily tell the difference between the bands who worked really hard and the ones that just wanted to play in a Mardi Gras parade.

I really think New Orleans is a great city and this is just one of the fun days we spent in it.

Houses getting ready for Mardi Gras

Bennett getting ready for Mardi Gras

Note that the name of the parade was “Where the Vile Things Are”

There were lots of bands.

The floats that we saw were smaller than in some of the other parades and they were all pulled by mules. The mules had diapers on.

Dancing in the streets in front of their float.

 

Note from mom: Krewe du Vieux is noted for wild satire, adult themes, and political comedy, as well as for showcasing some of the best brass and jazz bands in New Orleans.   I’ll be writing about how we have taken away our children’s innocence in a later post 🙂