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.