Thanksgiving

The past few weeks have been busy which means we’re once again behind on our blog. We’ll start from where we left off and catch you up over the next couple of posts.

Our last day at Long Key we walked the beach as we had many times before searching for “treasures”. Though there are rarely any shells, we collected pieces of coral, dried sponges of various sizes, and a nearly perfect discarded shell from a horseshoe crab. Not sure what we really plan to do with any of it, but we had fun. That morning we found that quite a large number of jellyfish and Portuguese-Man-of-War had washed up on the beach from the previous night’s storm, and you definitely needed to be careful where you walked! Further down we noticed a couple large birds perched in one of the dead trees. As we got closer, one of them flew off, but the other remained and we discovered the largest osprey we’d ever seen.

Since it was our last night in “paradise”, we decided to start a fire in the pit that was provided with our site, and enjoyed a couple of Coronas under the starlit sky, listening to the water lap up on the shore. Later that evening we got the call about Russ’ mom.

The next morning, bright and early, we pulled out of Long Key and headed for Clermont, FL, our home for the next 5 months. We arrived late afternoon and were greeted by our neighbors, Paul and Anne, who had anxiously been awaiting our arrival (more on them later).

A couple weeks earlier Russ’ sister and her husband had planned a getaway trip to Walt Disney World to coincide with her birthday. They were to arrive Thanksgiving Day and leave the following Tues., and we had offered to pick them up at the Orlando airport. With mom’s failing health no one was sure if they were going to make it, but when she passed a few days earlier, they decided to go ahead and make the trip. After picking them up at the airport, we took them to the Grand Floridian Resort, where they invited us up to the room, and then invited us to have dinner with them. We started the evening with drinks in Mizner’s Lounge, raising a toast to mom, and enjoyed a marvelous dinner at Narcoossee’s, both places located at the hotel. Though it was Thanksgiving Day, there was no turkey on the menu, but that was fine with us. We simply enjoyed each other’s company, relaxing and catching up, as well as a fabulous meal, and ended the evening back at Mizner’s for a nightcap.

In all the years they have come to WDW, Bill and Terri had never seen the Candlelight Processional so we decided to meet at Epcot the next night to catch the 5pm performance with guest narrator, Isabella Rossellini. The story, music, and pageantry were wonderful as always, but Isabella seemed a little tentative. She’s an excellent actress, but this was her first time narrating the performance plus it was the first show on the first night of the Processional…maybe that had something to do with it. But Terri loved it anyway and wanted to come back another night (poor Bill was freezing as the temperature had dropped and he had worn shorts and had no jacket).

We didn’t see them on Sat., but they called to invite us for dinner Sun. night. This time we ate at Shula’s Steak House in the Dolphin Resort. Named for Don Shula, former coach of the Miami Dolphins, each Steak House is themed after the 1972 undefeated Dolphins and their “Perfect Season”, with part of the menu hand painted on an official NFL football and signed by the Coach (no, you don’t get to keep it). Of course, it was another fabulous meal especially the crème brulee that Terri and I shared!

Terri had planned to do some shopping at Epcot the next day and invited me to tag along. I met her at 11am at the Canada Pavilion and discovered that Bill had decided to join us. We went through every single store in each of the countries, stopping for pastries in France and margaritas in Mexico! We also stopped in Japan to watch one of Bill’s favorites, Matsuriza. These Japanese Taiko drummers are some incredibly talented women. We were done around 2:30 and drove back to the RV to pick up Russ and head for Steak n’ Shake. It was one of the places Terri wanted to go while in town, and since they had no car, we were happy to oblige telling Terri it was her birthday present. :-) We're always ready for Steak n' Shake!

Afterwards we dropped Bill back at the hotel and drove to Disney Hollywood Studios to see the Osborne Family Lights, another thing Terri had never seen. We arrived shortly before 6pm, the time the Spectacle begins, and stood with hundreds of others in the middle of Streets of America. At precisely 6pm, more than 4 million lights that drape nearly everything in sight came on all at once accompanied by Christmas music and “snow flurries”, and I wish I’d had my camera pointed at Terri’s face. The look of surprise and amazement was priceless. No matter how much you read about it, nothing compares with experiencing it! As you may recall, back in the mid-80s Jennings Osborne of Little Rock, AR, began decorating his home with lights after his daughter made a simple request for some, but that simple request grew each year into a display of nearly 3 million lights that could be seen from miles away. Unfortunately some of his neighbors complained, and in 1994 the AR Supreme Court ruled that it was a public nuisance. Fortunately WDW heard about the display and in 1995 brought the lights to Disney World. Many of the three-dimensional and motion-based displays are those originally displayed at Osborne's home. A few years ago the Spectacle was enhanced to include choreographed “dancing” lights that move in time to the music every 15 minutes thanks to the magic of more than 400 dimmers. About half an hour later we left to head back over to Epcot to catch that evening’s last performance of the Candlelight Processional, this time narrated by John O’Hurley. (You may remember him from Seinfeld and Family Feud.) Though the story is the same every performance, each narrator brings his or her own personality to it, and he did an excellent job. Now it was time to scope out our spot to watch the Illuminations fireworks with its special holiday ending, which makes it even more spectacular.

The next day Bill and Terri enjoyed her birthday together by themselves, and at 6am Tues. morning we picked them up at their hotel to return them to the airport. We greatly enjoyed our time together, and it was the perfect thing we all needed to celebrate mom’s life.