Margaret & Ian's life together, including Ian's MINIs!
A few weeks ago we visited nearby LunaSea Alpaca Farm and had a great time interacting with the animals there – especially the new born! And Kate wanted to visit there too, so we returned today (also with a few other friends, Denise, Resa, and Donna).
Once again a great time; the young we saw last time were a bit older but there were new young – including Loralai born just this past weekend, and especially curious about visitors to her home! Lots of pictures, as always …
We have another visitor, this time Margaret’s sister Kate over from England – and of course we’re back at Disney! On Sunday we went to Epcot (after breakfast at Boma with friends Pedro & Laura and Christian) doing Soarin’, Spaceship Earth, Figment, Living With The Land, and NEMO (and some great butterfly views!). We gave up walking round World Showcase because Kate’s not used to the Florida heat …
On Monday (later in the day to catch the fireworks) we went to Magic Kingdom; there we did Buzz Lightyear, TTA, Haunted Mansion, Small World, Mickey’s Philharmagic, Pirates of the Caribbean, Peter Pan, and Winnie The Pooh (after fireworks – really quiet so we rode twice in a row!) … and of course the amazing castle projection / fireworks show:
A fun couple of days!
We’ve just returned from a few days in Chicago, our first trip there and a great city to visit so long as you don’t rent a car (which we didn’t); we stayed right in the skyscraper center next to the river, and had easy walking along the riverside, down to The Bean, over to the Navy Pier – and then clean reliable train service out to further parts of the city.
It was cold when we arrived, warmer another day, cold again – we bought hats and wore a coat most of the time; we walked, and took loads of photos. Our hotel room overlooked the river and Trump Tower, for when we weren’t out walking …
We took an “architectural river cruise” with Wendella, learning about the skyscraper history and getting great views as we traveled through the lock and out to Lake Michigan, and back …
We (twice) watched all the bridges open to let tall mast yachts through (a very slow process with so many bridges, opening one-at-a-time!)
We walked to The Bean (Cloud Gate), spectacular and beautiful art!
In the evening we watched Art on theMart, a somewhat strange and soundless projection (sound is supposed to be available from the website but it was unconvincing); some great night time views from the riverside too:
There was more too, shopping, pizza (of course), and endless chocolate; a great vacation!
After our Magic Kingdom visit with Michael, we returned to Walt Disney World to Epcot, riding Spaceship Earth, Living With The Land, Nemo, Frozen, and walking World Showcase.
More pictures of course – including that this time we did need ponchos for a while as the evening weather got bad (indeed eventually after an hour of delay, they annoyingly canceled the fireworks!) …
When we lived in Independence we frequently saw Sandhill Cranes (and their young) but since moving we’ve never seen them – till today! Still in bed this morning I heard the distinctive / loud call and rushed out with camera in hand; happily they let me get quite close for some photos …
I took some video as well:
Our Gloucester friend Michael is visiting us for a few days and we took him to Disney Magic Kingdom today (we took him in 2013Â and 2010 and before that he hadn’t been since the 1970s!). Margaret planned fast pass rides that Michael likes, and managed to book even more once we’d done our three – with that and a few short queue rides, we had a very busy day!
We did the Swiss Family Robinson tree, Jungle Cruise, Enchanted Tiki Room, Country Bear Jamboree, It’s A Small World, Haunted Mansion, It’s A Small World (again! Michaels favorite), Under The Sea, TTA, Buzz Lightyear, Pirates Of The Caribbean …
Some photos from our day:
The LunaSea Alpaca Farm is only 10-15 minutes away, and Margaret and I (and a couple of her friends) had a really fun visit today, getting up close with Alpacas and Llamas, including a few only a couple weeks old; the small entrance fee is well worth it! I’ve managed to reduce the 150 photos I took down to a more manageable 40-50, for your enjoyment …
Our first visit is with the male Alpacas – there’s a lot of different personalities there, including one that hasn’t yet been sheared and was standing in a water fountain to keep cool!
The next field was the “girls” and included two Llama with their distinctively different upright ears – much bigger too and these two were “checkered” instead of single color:
The third paddock had the young Alpaca, including a couple born within the last two weeks! Our guide picked up a couple to more closely introduce them – but one of them was really friendly and wandered over to sit with Margaret, later …
The farm also had chickens (you can spot some sitting in the Alpaca food/hay containers), ducks, and geese – and a few ducklings with a goose mother! Our guide again provided close-up opportunities with one duckling (and you can see in the final pictures that all ducklings were safely returned to “mother”):
