Today started out a little early. We had a 5pm flight to catch and wanted to do some shopping at "Downtown Disney" before we took the car back. We ate a good breakfast and finished the last minute cleaning-up chores. We got basically ready to go and I went to settle our bill around 10am. Shortly thereafter, we hauled our considerable bulk down to our little rental Dodge and piled in.
Finding Downtown Disney wasn't hard at all. I just followed the numerous signs posted along the roads and they led us right there. We found a parking spot literally just a few feet from the World of Disney store we wanted to visit first and headed inside.
We bought souvenirs for friends and family and I exchanged my watch for another, slightly nicer model and we headed out the door. Lisa decided that she wanted to get a couple more things, so while she went back into the store, Gabe and I went to the Lego Store a couple doors down. What a Lego Store! They had some amazing Legos at this place. Pretty much every Lego you could ever want. $600, 4000-5000 piece sets of huge Star Wars ships and even huge models of the Disney Cinerella's Castle. We found a remote-controlled car that had a re-usable chassis that let you basically make any kind of remote controlled car that your Lego imagination would let you, so we had to get that! ;) We met Lis as we left the store and we all went in search of one more souvenir for someone else. We went to the Disney Sports store, but they really didn't have anything we were looking for and ended up getting a very interesting Disney "Peace Sign/Mickey Head" t-shirt for a friend at a store called Trends, which specialized in hard-to-find clothing.
After we left there, we were getting hungry. It was around 1pm and we figured we had plenty of time for one last sit-down meal. So we chose a cool themed restaurant in Downtown Disney called the "Rainforest Cafe". It was a cool place with a very detailed 'rainforest' theme, complete with huge animatronic elephants and real-live macaws and toucans outside the door. Every once in a while, a 'storm' would move in and the animals would all make lots of noises and the lights flickered and the sounds of rain and thunder filled the restaurant. Then the storm would pass and everything would go back to the 'normal' jungle mode. It was a cool place to eat, but honestly, the storms and everything were just a little bit too loud; when they were going, you really couldn't have any conversation.
After our meal, we headed for the car. The ride to the airport was relatively uneventful, and we basically just followed the signs straight there. We found our rental return area and unloaded the car and pulled all our cargo up to the Southwest ticketing area. As I'd checked in from my phone the day before from somewhere near Frontierland, I'd not been able to print out our boarding passes, so we it looked like we were going to have to get in the rather long twisty line when out of no where this nice young guy comes up and says he'll check us in right outside at the curbside check in, "no waiting". So we pull our stuff out the door and, BAM!, like that we are checked in and have boarding passes. I gave him a very generous tip and we thanked him profusely as we headed straight to the security lines. Security was a breeze and within moments we were on the train heading to our concourse.
We got to our gate (121) with plenty of time to spare and spent the remainder of the time just goofing off and reading Gabe his new Wilderness Explorers book (based on the Pixar movie UP!). Boarding went smoothly and we found a great seat over the wing (where we figured it would sway back and forth a little less and Gabe might not get sick again) and settled in for an enjoyable flight. We had no troubles getting off the plane or getting our bags and within a very reasonable time we were heading home. Gabe fell asleep on the ride home and we stopped at a local Asian place for some carry-out (we called ahead from the car on the way into town). Jasper was already out back waiting for us (Chad had dropped him off around 6pm) and he was excited to see us of course.
We were all -sooo- happy to be home. The trip was truly magical, but there's no place like home!
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