Almost a full week off the bike, eating at restaurants, and spending obscene amounts of money at the "happiest place on earth." Last Sunday, with the car fully loaded yet without a bike, we headed east on I-10 in the general direction of Disney World. The Wife's long-awaited vacation to never-never land was underway. I had checked around a bit to see if riding would be feasible, but what I learned convinced me that I'd best just write off the whole week and try to make the best of it. The next six days would be the longest uninjured stretch of non-exercise I've had in a long time. Well, unless you count endless hours of walking and standing.
We started out slow, hitting Epcot around mid-day on Monday. Of all the Disney parks, Epcot is definitely my favorite. One of the first things I saw when we got off of the ferry from the hotel was a neat little display down by the water with an old bike. I'm probably one of the few people who actually noticed it. Later on, I would be surprised by the number of authentic old bikes used as props at Animal Kingdom. Some were a bit out of context, but most people wouldn't know. The crowds are a bit thinner, the attractions a bit more sophisticated, and practically every "country" is selling wine and/or beer by the glass. That certainly helps smooth out the whole experience. 
It had been a long time since we'd visited Mickey Land, although not all that much had changed. The Epcot fireworks were even better than I remembered, and since The Daughter's roommate was in a wheelchair with a broken foot (she got spiked playing rugby, broke some bones in her foot, and then ran a marathon the next weekend before getting it x-rayed), we often got to avoid waiting in line. The Daughter had mapped out the plan for the four days we'd be there. You have to have a plan, you know. For the most part, it worked out pretty well. We hit all of the big rides and shows without spending too much time standing in line, and the weather was quite cooperative the whole time. As for me, well, there's just way too much "retail" and predatory pricing going on there for my own comfort. The rest of the crew, however, spent hours searching for just the right sweat-shirt or whatever. This is something I will never understand. I walk through these shops, look around, realize there is nothing there that I need, and leave to look for the next wine bar.
Diner in "Germany" was pretty much fun. The test track ride at Epcot was good, as was one of the big roller-coaster rides at discovery island (or somewhere around there), and the stunt car show at Hollywood Studios was pretty impressive. It's pretty much all a blur now, though. And there's just no getting around how spectacular the castle is at Magic Kingdom at night when it's all lit up for the holidays. All-in-all it was a nice change of pace that was probably worth the two days of driving. If I had been able to ride for a couple of hours each morning, it would have been perfect. As it was, however, I probably gained five pounds last week that will take me until March to lose - if I'm lucky. For the truly curious, there are photos. So tomorrow I will attempt to re-enter reality by way of the deep end, in this case a long group ride in the country. I'm not expecting it to be easy. I am also scheming to start doing a little bit of work in the gym in the evenings after work. Maybe a couple of rounds on the weight machines to work on my pathetically weak core, and perhaps a spin class or two.
We can hope.
In the meantime, I have a lot of stuff to catch up on. The LAMBRA meeting is this weekend and I still have to arrange for some food and stuff, plus I need to work out an agenda so that it doesn't turn into a big pointless gripe session. There are always those who want to add more classes and categories to the points series. Some want to require promoters to offer a long list of separate races. It would be nice. It would be especially nice if those people would actually promote races themselves. Yeah, I'm a dreamer.....
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