I know nothing about these Sneetches but I’m almost certainly going to end up making progeny for them that will join my increasingly convoluted Dr. Seuss family tree.
Okay so we did have a plan for the morning of our anniversary which was... to have a Harry Potter breakfast. Instead, we woke up at ten in the morning and those breakfasts stop at 1030.
So that part of our plan was a bust.
Instead, we arrived at City Walk coming up on noon. Lunchtime. Because we know it better, we entered Universal Studios first, mosying over to Schwab's Pharmacy, an old-fashioned ice cream parlour, for ice cream floats, coke for me... root beer for her.
After that, we walk over to Diagon Alley to refresh our memories and, along the way (pretty quickly, in fact), happen upon the Leaky Cauldron where we settle in for, as it turns out, Toad in the Hole... and Fish 'n Chips. Kimmer swears, by the way, that Toad in the Hole definitely packs a very breakfast vibe.
PRO TIP: Order your meal online. If you have allergies, there's actually a food allergy item you order on the menu, no charge. When eventually you get to the front of the line at the pub or restaurant, let them know you're a mobile order and they'll seat you. At that point, submit the order. If you ordered a food allergy item, someone will come to the table and talk specifics with you. 😊
Leaving Diagon Alley in search of coffee, we don't get any farther than King's Cross where we do the whole Hogwarts Express experience.
Best part of the train ride? Dementors.
Over at Islands of Adventure, we walk the little town of Hogsmeade, first one way then the other... before walking to and through Seuss Land where we bum a ride on the Sneetches train, a story I'd not read or heard before.
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Afterward, we score a Thing 2 cupcake for me (Kimmer couldn't have her Thing One cupcake because of nut allergens). I ate half of mine further up the way at Starbucks whilst Kimmer indulged a long sought-after cold nitro coffee.
We take more tugboat photos for our honorary grandkids on our way out of the park and then on our way through City Walk...
...finally returning to the hotel by 430 for rest, relaxation, and a very intense rain storm with white clouds to the left in the sky, dark clouds to the right in the sky, wind kicking up aggressively, rattling beach umbrellas and rippling the pool water.
And then the rain came down.
Of course a wild scene was already playing out in the pool area wherein everyone there's basically evacuated back into the hotel. We watched from eleven stories up and then later when it was a normal summer's eve again, we watched 'em all return.
The main dinner event of our anniversary was 9PM, top of the Aventura Hotel, a covered and open area called Bar 17 Bistro with our favorite menu ever. The food was perfection and 17 floors up definitely provides its own perspective on the massive lightning show that put on quite the show before us in the distance. It really was something.
Again. As was the food.
By the time our version of dinner and a show was complete and we were back at our own hotel for the evening, it was around 10:30, just about time for lounging followed by a bit of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1.
2.10: Ecofascism and Rewilding: A Conversation With Ariel Kroon and Christina De La Rocha
There’s no question that the biosphere is in crisis right now thanks to human-driven global warming, our hostile takeover of most of Earth’s land area, and our pollution and overfishing of the seas. Slowing down—never mind outright stopping—the collapse of the Earth’s ecosystems and the mass extinction currently gaining pace calls for aggressively protecting the environment, or possibly even…