Flower Power

As mentioned before, part of the Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival is the Flower Power Concert Series featuring entertainers from the 60s & 70s.  Three 35 min. performances (basically mini-concerts) are held at the outdoor American Gardens Theatre on Fri., Sat., & Sun. nights by a featured entertainer.  We had

missed the first couple of weekends, but finally made it over to see The Guess Who (American Woman, These Eyes, No Time), with original founding member, Jim Kale (bass player in the black t-shirt above), celebrating his 51st year with the band, and what a concert!

 These guys are all master musicians with guitarists Dexter (lead singer) and Laurie doing some incredible work on dueling guitars and who seem to have a blast doing it, really playing off of each other.  So many hits are covered in each 35 min. set, and    keyboardist Leonard really gets the audience involved during Clap For The Wolfman.  Their shows are definitely a rockin’ good time!  We arrived for the first show, stayed for all three, and then caught the Illuminations fireworks before heading home.

      The following weekend I went over to Epcot by myself to catch the early show of Ricky Nelson Remembered by The Nelsons.  The Nelsons are Ricky’s identical twin sons, Matthew and Gunnar, who not only perform music by their “Pop”, but regularly tour with their own rock band, Nelson, and are platinum recording artists in their

own right.  In fact in the early 90s when one of their songs shot to #1, the Nelson family (Ozzie, Ricky, and Matthew and Gunnar) made history and are listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the only family in entertainment history with 3 successive generations of #1 hit makers.  We had never seen them perform so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I really enjoyed the show.  They shared memories of their dad and sang several of his songs such
as Travelin’ Man, Hello Mary Lou, and of course Garden Party.  These guys don’t look anywhere near their age of 45!  Joining the "boys" onstage were an original member of Ricky’s Stone Canyon Band, David Morgan on keyboards, and two of Bobby Vee’s sons on bass and drums.

Before the concert I spent a couple of hours wandering through exhibits like the Butterfly House and checking out the many topiaries located throughout Future World and World Showcase.  (Can you spot 3 butterflies in the photo at right? Click on the pic to enlarge.) I also stopped to watch  

a little of Miyuki in Japan create candy art, the Jeweled Dragon Acrobats in China, and Serveur Amusant (comical waiter and wine steward act) in France.  I’ll simply end this blog by sharing just a few photos of the beauty and creativity of the very talented Disney crew.

Spring Is In The Air

The Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival started a couple of weeks ago celebrating its 20th anniversary.  For those who don’t know, the Festival lasts 75 days and not only showcases all its beautiful flowers, plants, and over 100 topiaries but also includes special guest artists and gardeners giving demonstrations and tips, special events for the kids, special vendor booths, and of course the Flower Power Concert Series.

This year at the park’s front entrance is a topiary barbecue with a 14-foot tall Goofy carefully balancing the 20th anniversary cake while his pals Donald and Daisy play badminton in the background, Mickey tends the grill, Minnie relaxes on a blanket of

flowers, and Pluto’s made off with all the hot dogs.  Way too cute and clever! (Don't know the people in the photo at left...they were just in the way...tee hee.)

We got there when the park opened so we could head straight to our favorite ride, Soarin’, because we know how quickly the lines for it back up.  First thing was to get a FastPass to ride again
hopefully fairly soon after our first ride, and as it turned out we only had about a 30 min. wait afterwards. By the time we finished our 2nd ride, the FastPass return was for 3 hours later!  No photos are allowed on the ride, but this colorful pic is looking up at the ceiling in the building where the ride is housed.

The next couple of hours were spent wandering around looking at some of the sights including one of the new exhibits called “Welcome to Radiator Springs” from one of Russ’ favorite movies, Cars.  I was even able to get his picture taken
     with one of the movie’s stars, Lightning McQueen!  Of course, I also had to get a picture of Tow Mater ("Mater" to his friends) especially since he has his own interactive game for the kids within this exhibit.

We didn’t make it over to World Showcase on this particular morning, opting to save it for another day.  It was just a pleasant day to spend a relaxing couple of hours seeing the sights in Future World.

On our way home, we spotted these sandhill cranes along the side of the road with their baby chick.  I think these are one of the coolest birds, and it was the first time we’d ever seen a baby…very cool!  It really does blend into its surroundings.

Dance...Dance...Dance!

L-R: Linda, Angela, Miranda, me, Patsy

One of my best friends lives in Tampa, and when we’re here in the Orlando area, Linda and I get together at least once.  As it just so happened, she and her daughter, Angela, were going to be attending a national dance competition in Orlando where the daughter of Linda’s sister would be performing, and they wanted to treat me for an birthday present.  I hadn’t seen Patsy in about 5 years and had never met her daughter, and since I love dancing, it sounded like a great idea.

Miranda is a high school senior and has competed with her school for the past few years in the National Dance Alliance National Championships (http://nda.varsity.com/Championships.aspx).  It's held at the Hard Rock Live Auditorium at Universal Orlando with prelims on Sat. and finals on Sun.  I made plans to

 meet Linda and Angela Sat. morning at Patsy’s hotel so we could drive over together.  Prelims had been going on since 8am, but Miranda’s first performance wasn’t until 3pm so we weren’t in any hurry and spent some time tooling around Universal CityWalk

    including stopping for pics on the surf board outside this shop...such silly girls!

Once inside the auditorium the sound was deafening!  Not only was the music for each performance at full blast, but the cheering and motivation from the audience was pretty loud, too.  Just wasn’t used to that much noise during a competition!  LOL  For the next couple of hours we watched school after school perform in several categories with not much break in between groups.  Scores are posted and announced fairly soon after a couple performances so folks have a pretty good idea where groups stand.

First performance for Miranda’s school was Jazz, and we thought they were pretty awesome!  I wasn’t sure if photos were allowed so only snuck this one.  Unfortunately, the judges didn’t agree with our assessment, and we soon learned that they didn’t score high enough for the finals.  We caught up with the girls outside as we were heading for a late lunch, and they were crushed as Jazz had always been their best event.

After lunch at Hard Rock Café, we went back inside to watch more dancing though their next performance wasn’t till 7pm (yes, this was going to be a long day).  I discovered that photos were ok without a flash (and no videos allowed) so I got more pics of her other routines.   They had a

smaller group for the Pom Division, and again we thought they were awesome.  This time the judges got it right, and they would be competing the next day in the finals.

Linda, Angela, and I headed back to the car to grab some stuff since the girls’ weren’t on again until almost 11pm (told you it was a long day!), and slowly made our way back taking in the sights as we went.  Next up was Hip Hop and again…awesome!  But alas once again the judges did not agree so it

looked like they’d only be performing the Pom routine in the finals.  I wasn’t returning the next day but did learn that they placed 8^th overall in that division…way to go girls!

Also competing were a couple of schools from Japan who were so locked in and tight in their routines and placed well in the International Division.  Costuming for all
performances was quite varied by each school even within the same division with the biggest difference being in Hip Hop ranging from a kind of simple glitz to army fatigues to grunge to these skeletons!  Our favorite though were the “old men”, and I’m sorry I don’t have a picture but we were all so enthralled by their routine and laughing at their antics that I totally forgot.  It was one of those performances you would just have to see, and the great news is they won a well deserved 1st place in the large group Hip Hop Division.

I  didn’t get home till a little after midnight, but it was truly a great day spent with great friends.