Environmental WHAT??

Whew. Well, one of the the rumored anograms for Epcot certainly is true. I heard a long time ago that EPCOT stands for Every Person Comes Out Tired. Brian informed me today that Epcot actually stands for Environmental something or other (feel free to correct me in the comments section if you know what it is). I like mine better. And it's true.

We woke up late yet again. This morning, we had alarm clock problems. You see, we wanted to get up at 8:15AM, not PM. Oh well. Brian fixed us all a rather large omlett which we divided between us all. It was awesome. So, after a hearty breakfast, we set sail for Disney's Epcot Center. Traffic was a total bear AGAIN and it took us the better part of an hour to get to our destination again.

The park was pretty crowded. We went immeadiately into SpaceShip Earth and rode the ride that talks about the history and future of communication. I remembered parts of it, but some parts were obviously new because they talked about PC-to-PC video conferencing as something the the present tense. I don't think that was quite possible when I last visited the park back in '87.

After that, we toured the science and technology areas and learned about home networking, home automation, and some other stuff. It was pretty cool, but I think Brian, Paul, and I already knew most of what they were showing us. Here's an example:

Tour Guide: In the future, you'll be able to turn on lights in YOUR house with a remote control!

Us:: We're already doing that.

Tour Guide: Well, did you know that in the future, you'll be able to sit in your recliner and send email..wirelessly?

Us: We're already doing that, too.

It was really neat to see the displays of stuff, like Sony's 2nd generation Aibo robotic dog that can be trained, and is more lifelike than some real dogs I've met. Pretty cool stuff. Too bad it'll cost you $1500 to have one in your home. Bleh.

After that, we visited a few more attractions in the park and then caught our 5:30PM dinner reservation over in the Morocco area. It was a pretty expensive place to eat, but the food was pretty good. Not worth $20 for 2 Chicken Kabobs, but not to shabby.

After that, we toured "The Living Sea" and then watched the nightly parade around the park. It was a really neat parade with dancers and stuff.

The last thing we did while we were there was go to the area called Test Track. The idea behind this ride is to give the audience a look "behind the scenes" at a car testing and research facility. The draw to it is that you get to ride in a test vehicle around their high-speed track. Let me tell you, to totally rocked. They take you through a number of other tests, such as hard braking, s-curves, extreme weather, etc. The final test was the high-speed track test. Our little roller-coaster-type car got up to about 70 miles per hour and then went into a high-banked curve. It was just awesome. If it hadn't been too late, I would have wanted to ride it again.

So, that was pretty much it. Another hour of traffic and we were back home. I have't posted pictures from today's Epcot adventure, but I HAVE posted pictures from yesterday's day at MGM. So, go check out the photo gallery. I've now created a central page for all of my Disney photo galleries. That should make it easier for you to figure out when I post new photos up here. So, go to my main Disney picture page and see what's new!

Tomorrow, we're gonna sorta take a day off, check out downtown Disney (a sortof shopping mall and resturant area), and go swimming in the pool. I should be posting pictures from today's Epcot adventure tomorrow sometime. I'll get caught up on these pictures eventually!

Posted by Jeff at June 28, 2001 1:23 AM