After a night at Boma the couple wasn't very hungry. They just got a standard breakfast at the standard All-Star cafeteria, and after standing in a standard line, the standard breakfast was standard;
Then off to Animal Kingdom, home of the big wooden fort;
Animal Kingdom is by far the most beautiful park. Everything is surrounded by such a lush greenness that one can forget that there are 20,000 other people walking around trying to soak up the lush greenness. There is really no park in Disney World that one can go to in order to relax, but Animal Kingdom probably comes the closest. Mike really enjoyed the various strange flora and fauna. He can't even get a blueberry bush to grow in his front yard without strange brown spots appearing on the leaves slightly before the bush explodes and shrivels into a raisin sized ball. Disney on the other hand;
They can transport trees that appear to be from the Planet Zaxon-Five and gets them to grow in a climate that could be described as Tropical With Occasional Freeze Spells On Your Fricken Honeymoon, and not only grow but thrive;
One of the great things about AK is that much of it is more like a zoo than an amusement park. There are many different animals which you can just look at for a while without having to wait in line for. One of animals the Happy Honeymooners came across was a meerkat, which failed to dress in drag and do the hula;
Given that the couple had walked five minutes and hadn't eaten in almost an hour, it was time for a snack. You know, when you think about it, eating a Mickey shaped food is a little weird. Your symbolically eating an anthropomorphisized rodent. Perhaps it wouldn't have seemed so weird if Mike hadn't screamed, "I'm eating your head Mickey! Resistance is futile, I will consume you and you will provide nourishment for me! Mwa-ha-ha!"
AK is a pretty big place, with tons of places to explore and wander. Here are Mike and Suzy on a path to nowhere, or possibly adventure;
Kilimanjaro Safaris was probably the best part of AK. Reality is just plain cool, and while the animals are not in their natural environment, they are still read living breathing animals and to have them so close that your tour is held up for a wildebeest crossing is spiffy keen;
Let alone being held up for a rhino crossing, which is super-extra-spiffy-keen;
There were also plenty of colorful side acts to watch as you were walking from one ride to the next, like this jumping act. If the African nation this troop is from is ever invaded by an alien race of hoops that can only be defeated by jumping through them at increasing speeds, who-boy, those aliens are _doomed_;
When Mike and Suzy went to Expedition Everest they had the toughest decision of their honeymoon so far, weather to go in the singles line or not. The singles line was about 1/4th as long and moved twice as fast, so if the math is right then that means that they would arrive in San Diego at 11:35 PM on train B. But taking the singles line would mean that they would be separated for a whole two minutes, possibly even three, which in Honeymoon times roughly translated to three weeks of normal married couple time. In the end, they did split up and went in separate rides. Mike avoided shouting/singing "Near, Far, Wherever you are, I believe that the heart does go onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!" by the slimmest of margins.
Overall the ride was pretty fun. It was a roller coaster ride. It went fast. There was nice stuff to look at it. If it had been ridden earlier in the vacation it might have wowed them more, but they were beginning to be a little ridded out by now;
Ridded out! How could it be! Perhaps they just hadn't gone on the right rides yet. Yea, that was the ticket. The couple knew that they really wouldn't get hurt on any of the rides so their was no element of danger. They needed some risk, or some thrill, or some chance that things wouldn't go as planned. Hmmm . . . they had an activity to do in about and hour and a half, and it would be really bad if they arrived to it soaking wet, so yea, they should go on the Kali River Rapids and put their faith in the gods that they would not get wet! That would be a smart move.
So that is what they did. The couple kept exchanging nervous glances at each other as they passed people who looked like they had just got out of a shower that they for some reason took with their clothes on, and when they passed a sign that said, "You will get wet, you may get soaked," they came close to turning around, but almost close only counts in horseshoes and thermonuclear weapons so they got on the ride.
They buckled in with two other couples. Round and round the tube went, spinning like a roulette wheel to determine who would get soaked and who would merely get splashed. Big drop 1 couple to their left got soaked. Big drop 2 couple to their right got soaked. And on and on it went. Every time Mike and Suzy thought they were about to get soaked they merely got sprayed and some other couple got the brunt of the water.
At the end of the ride they were wet, but nothing that couldn't get dried off in an hour and a half. Everyone else in their tube was absolutely drenched though. Sometimes the bread lands butter-side up.
In celebration of their victory over water, it was time for a ceremonial devouring of a turkey leg. Now, last time Mike was in Disney World (at the turn of the century) he was a little puzzled why all these people were just walking around with big slabs of meat on bones munching on it like they were Fred Flintstone. Yet by the end of the trip, he really wanted to get one, but time and chance proved too much for the lad and no turkey leg was had.
But this trip, oh this trip he was determined to taste turkey-flesh! And taste it he did. He savored it, and munched it, and gobbled (gobbled, get it? Get it?) it;
And once the Turkey was defeated he raised it and shouted "Victory!" like he was Johnny Drama;