(Sunday Paper, Year VIII, Issue 28)

I was trying to think of a clever title for this post, in which I will recap our vacation.

As you may or may not already know (I try not to publish details here too much ahead of time since it’s probably not the wisest thing to advertise to the world when we’re away from home), we went to Orlando for primarily a Disney trip, but we also spent a couple of days at Universal.

And there are probably plenty of punny little titles I could use but I think this week we’ll just state the facts:

It was a really great week.

Here’s a quick overview of our week:

Monday we flew in, ending up getting in a little later than expected. (We flew from LaGuardia, because we left the dog with my parents, which is always a huge help because there are few places she feels comfortable and their house is one. But the point here is there were tons of problems with flights, especially those out of Boston, and we were lucky to just have our takeoff minimally delayed.)

Tuesday we spent at Universal Studios, and Wednesday morning/early afternoon we had a short Universal day as we sort of cleaned up what we missed on Tuesday. (Log flume.) Later on Wednesday we switched to our Disney hotel.

Thursday was Magic Kingdom, where my daughter danced in a parade (so we were without her Thursday morning), Friday was Epcot, where she participated in a dance showcase, Saturday we did the Magic Kingdom again as a full family, and then Sunday we went to Hollywood Studios. We flew back to New York on Monday and returned home to Framingham late Tuesday night.

I have a lot to say about the trip and I’m not sure exactly how to organize my thoughts. I might have to drag this out into multiple posts, because I’m easing back into the writing and not ready to do anything too complicated.

I think for now I’ll say this: Universal was better than I gave it credit for. I was really looking forward to Disney World and the extra couple of days we threw in to spend at Universal were almost afterthoughts for me, but it was sneakily great in my mind.

And as for Disney, I get why people keep going back. There’s so much to do and we basically just scratched the surface. It was a nice mix of all of the things I remembered being excited about when I was a kid (Chip and Dale! Winnie the Pooh!) but also a bunch of newer attractions (Guardians of the Galaxy ride!).

So expect to hear more about this…and see more. I’ll probably do more of a pictorial recap next week.

What I’ve Been Enjoying

I guess this is really ‘what I was enjoying while I was in Disney World’ but my post, my rules: Toy Story Mania! Could it possibly be the most fun ride I’ve been on? I think yes.

Now, Toy Story Mania! is located in Hollywood Studios, in the Toy Story area of the park. It is not to be confused with the Buzz Lightyear ride at the Magic Kingdom. We had an issue with the Buzz Lightyear ride, so I don’t think we got anywhere near the ideal experience with that ride. BUT there’s no way it can come close to what Toy Story Mania! (I think there’s an exclamation point in the title of the ride. I hope I’m right.) is. We waited about an hour for Toy Story Mania! and it was worth every second.

Notes

*I kept to my running routine in Florida for the most part. I got up early to beat the heat and ran most mornings around 6am. It was hot but not unbearable. (Actually even in the parks we got lucky. Temperatures were high but it wasn’t terrible humidity and we sunscreened well. So we escaped with not a lot of burns [hardly any, really], and everyone was mostly in good spirits about the weather the whole time.) I was mindful of the fact that we were walking a ton through the parks, so I wasn’t too concerned about cross-training or piling up a ton of running mileage. I feel like my legs were getting strong no matter how I sliced it.

*This week back home my training schedule only had me running on Friday and Saturday, so I used those days to get back to the Running Every Street in Framingham project. 18 total miles around the city - I think next week I’ll start getting back to my long runs along the Esplanade in Boston.

*While we’re on the subject, Saturday’s run was rough. Very sweaty and uncomfortable and the last few miles were a slog for me. Hopefully that gets better.

*If you follow me on any kind of social media you know that I posted about my birthday on Friday and used it as an excuse to do some fundraising for Ronald McDonald House Charities. If you don’t follow me on any kind of social media, well, you can find out where to do so at the end of this post, and I should probably also tell you that I’m running the Chicago Marathon in October with Team RMHC to raise money for Ronald McDonald House Charities. You can donate at this link if you are so inclined to do something nice for my birthday. Thank you!

*Every time I think the Mets are done they show signs of life. I checked scores while we were away and they were mostly bad, and then the Mets got hot and, I don’t know. Call me crazy, but I think they might make a run in the second half. I’ll be at Citi Field for a few games no matter what because I made a potentially dumb decision and I need to see it through.

*Below are those social media links I mentioned above. Thanks for following along, everybody! (Some good stuff on that Instagram page about Running Every Street in Framingham.)