Wednesday, March 24, 2010

hey there y'all*

*(a little aphorism I picked up in the great state of TX. Man that is one big state allright- it'll have y'all talkin' jus' like a local by the time you clear the state line.)

Well greetings my friends, feels like a lifetime since I last composed something of questionable worth. Just walked home for lunch thru one of those curious weather oddities we've somehow gotten used to this spring: a sun/snow shower, wth?! Crazy spring indeed: East ABQ getting snow, West ABQ all blue sky like today, heard Denver's got a snow day. Hard to believe our Rio caddis hatch is just a coupla weeks away, in a normal year that is! Looks like Spring is a month behind already, wonder if the bugs feel the same?~

In a nutshell, my last coupla weeks went something like so:
  1. burn midnight oil attempting to complete my latest project.
  2. Neglect family, physical & mental health, fun, blogging (in that order) under crush of looming deadline.
  3. Publish project Friday PM
  4. rush home to pack, spend restless night attempting to transition between Work Dad and Play Dad.
  5. wake well shy of crack-of-crack-of dawn to hit the road on fabulous road trip to all things Disney Orlando, FL.
  6. wring every last drop of fun out of every waking minute exploring five Disney parks in five days
  7. reverse the drive back home, thru yet another storm-of-the-century no less. How many is that now? I forget~
  8. spent last coupla days shoveling all the paperwork that piled up at work while away. Hey c'mon now guys, I was only gone five days!
whew!

For those of you who haven't gone, FWIW DisneyWorld was simply the best family vacation this Wulffpack has ever experienced, hands down. And I like to think we've done some things, ya know? YNP, RMNP, Black Canyon NP, Hood River, Crested Butte, Moab, Leadville, Creede, Taos, Pagosa, Fruita, Steamboat, Marco Island, Ann Arbor, Aspen, Durango, Flattops, Weminuche, list goes on, but there's unanimous agreement round here the House of Mouse rules the roost!

For my fellow New Mexican'ts: you can indeed make the drive (in two days!), save yourselves a coupla grand and a lot of air travel hassle in the process. Done right, it simply proves to be an Epic All-American Road Trip to make Clark Griswald proud. 15 hours to Shreveport, a mere 17 more on down to Orlando, all fueled by ample supplies of Starbucks, gummy bears, XM Radio, crawfish eats in roughly equal proportions.
From of Dry Flies & Fat Tires...
Make sure you target Amarillo's Big Texan Steak Ranch & Opry and Lafayette's Prejean's restaurants to add some Bam! to the drive. Heck, you can't go wrong with any restaurant on the gulf coast!

It's just now occurred to me, Team Roughrider has driven this great country from coast-to-coast in two fabulous road trips just this past year: Coastal Oregon last July, Orlando just now in the bag. Have to give credit where due, it all starts with a Team of the highest caliber, absolutely essential to any great road trip's success. I've found my team makes even 32 hour slogs an adventure unto itself, never mind the destination! Luv you Roughriders!

Wow, trip highlights:

  • the entire gang belly-laughing on Buzz Lightyear while targeting neon aliens from our ridiculous spacecrafts.
  • EPCOT, and I mean the entire park, smelled like.....flowers, ahhhh. I spent the entire day just inhaling all the flowery freshness, ya know? Guess we've been away from parts East a good while now, huh?. ;-)
  • One and all screaming like little girls on RockNRoller, Tower of Terror, Expedition Everest, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Kijali Rapids, et al. Not sure if Grandad's recovered even yet, but dam those were fun!
  • Absolutely pwning Magic Kingdom. Thanks to Mrs Wulff's astute research and my, ahem, Exemplary Leadership in the Field, Team Roughrider achieved every single major objective (in record time!), were even able to hit our favorite rides twice. Magic Kingdom: PWNED, Booya! ;-]
  • Mission Space at EPCOT is not to be missed- that motion simulator had us all yammering how we just narrowly escaped disaster on our epic voyage to Mars. AbFab schweet- one of my fav's.
  • Prejeans restaurant, Lafayette LA: The boy afterwards: 'I wasn't too keen on eating that gator...' 'Weeeell, you didn't have any gator...' 'good' I guess everything in that restaurant looked like gator to a seven year old native New Mexican, lol.

    From of Dry Flies & Fat Tires...
  • Electric light parade and fireworks over magic kingdom: Magical, of the eye-misting sort not experienced since I was a kid myself. Even for this been-there-done-that-40-somethin Dad!

    From of Dry Flies & Fat Tires...
Well rumor has it the extended Wulffpack Alphas are prowling our fair city as I write this, my brother's pups in tow. So it's likely to be a coupla/few days more before our den truly settles down again and this blog can resume abnormal programming. Til then, I leave you with this thought:

Expedition Everest coaster (AKA: where we lost Granddad) from ABQ RoughRiders on Vimeo.



Have a Magical day!~

    2 comments:

    1. It's been fun to watch the pics come rolling in over the last week while the wulffpack's been having fun. It's good to see you made there and back all in one piece.

      ReplyDelete
    2. yep, that trip was one for The Annals, for sure. Still suffering withdrawals from all that Star Treatment they dole out in Disney. Been ringing for room service all morning- no response but surly looks from my darlin wife. Methinks I better make my own coffee this AM, sheesh.

      ReplyDelete