If that redhead blows his nose at the table one more time I’m going to stab him in the throat.

Larry was feeling sick when we left home.  Jen was feeling sick on Monday.  Rob was feeling sick on Tuesday.  Jen and Rob got to Animal Kingdom on Tuesday and almost immediately turned around and took a cab back to the hotel and went to sleep for the whole day.  We spent a massive amount of money on various over the counter cold remedies including Mucinex, (which didn’t do much for me and caused one rough night for Larry) Cepocal, (which did good things for Larry and Jen but not much for me) NyQuil, (which usually doesn’t do much for me but this week saved my life at least twice) vast quantities of aspirin and cherry flavored halls cough drops (a godsend) and piles upon piles upon piles of tissues.

We saw the Space Shuttle Discovery launch from about 20 miles away or so.  It was beautiful and majestic and amazing all at once.  Later that night Mickey Mouse cooked us dinner.  We went to Sea World and hand fed dolphins.  We went to Epcot and flew to space and trotted the globe.  We went to Animal Kingdom and turned around and went home. (ah-choo!)  We went to Magic Kingdom and rode Space Mountain and visited a haunted house and had Mickey Mouse himself tell us that dreams do come true… even though Donald Duck was seriously skeptical.  We went to Universal Studios and rode around Springfield with the Simpsons and New York with Spiderman and then got ourselves shamefully soaked thanks to Popeye and Bluto.  We went to Hollywood Studios and hung with some Star Wars survivors and saw Indiana Jones drop his gun then blow up everything in site.  Later that night Larry and I tried to eat Alligator and were both surprised by just how gross it was, then we all ate the best steaks any of us had ever had.  Then we went home and Jen and I bought air conditioners because the 95 degree heat followed us north.

Along the way Manny Ramirez hit his 500th home run and the Red Sox got in a huge fight with the Tampa Bay Rays…again, and then Manny and Youk had a brawl in the dugout.  The Boston Celtics took a 2-0 lead over the L.A. Lakers in the NBA finals moving two steps closer to title 17 and cementing the once great franchise’s return to greatness.  The Detroit Red Wings made me look bad by winning the Stanley Cup in 6 games after I picked Pittsburgh to win it.

The musical wonderfulness begins in earnest this week as we are going to see Mission of Burma at the Paradise on Thursday and Rush at Great Woods (now the Comcast Center… urgh) on Sunday.  Jen and I are also booked to view a number of function halls as we get the wedding planning under way.  It’s going to be another exciting summer.  The vacation kicked it off with a bang.  Despite being sick for most of the week it was still a total blast.  I’d do it again in a heartbeat, head cold and all. 

In closing here is a picture I took on May 31st from the side of a highway in Eastern Florida.  If you ever doubt humanity’s potential to be amazing just look at this.