Sunday March 15th 2026

The last few days have followed a summer weather pattern. Basically they have been hazy and humid with the threat of rain in the afternoon and evening. Friday this immediate area dodged the rain, but nearby areas got a good dose. Saturday one quick storm passed through, but today we got the full impact. After a cloudy and breezy start to the day everything turned dark around 4PM. Three hours of heavy rain loud thunder and blinding lightening followed. The area needs the rain to break the drought.

This has been a slow weekend. I’ve worked on a few chores, but spent an equal amount of time on leisure activities. The main chore has been cutting down the avocado tree. I am taking my time. I cut a branch off, trim any long branches and load it into the back of my SUV. Once the SUV is full I drive the load to the park dumpster. It takes about as long to unload the branches into the dumpster as it does to cut and load the car. Today I got in one load before the rain came. I probably have two more trips before I’m ready to figure out how to get the stump out.

Thursday March 12th 2026

On my visit to EPCOT’s International Flower and Garden Festival last week I didn’t get to see the Orchids or the Butterflies. Both are favorites of mine. Today, I went back to EPCOT to check them out.

The orchids are located at the Mexico pavilion along the exit ramp from the pyramid. Every year during the Flower and Garden festival Disney adds a bromeliad and orchid garden to the trees and bushes in this area. It provides a very colorful and bright enhancement to the walkway.

The butterfly garden is located in a tent between the Land pavilion and the Imagination pavilion. Last week when I walked through the tent there weren’t a lot of active butterflies. Today the butterflies were busy doing their thing. In addition to flower blossoms, just about anything was a potential butterfly landing zone. Several people were successful getting a butterfly to land on their outstretched hand.

I also took pictures of a few more topiaries before heading for home. Overall it was three and a half to four hour visit before the rain started to move into the area. The rain never became heavy in this area, but staying dry was a good reason to call it day.

Sunday March 8th 2026

This years Disney’s International Flower and Garden Festival began at EPCOT on March 4th. It runs until June 1st. It is my favorite EPCOT festival. I waited a couple of days until Friday March 6th before joining the crowds. It was still very crowded. It’s other peoples favorite festival too.

The park is so colorful and beautiful with all the planted flowers and topiaries. This year, in honer of the 40th anniversary of Pixar, the topiaries of Pixar characters are featured. The popular character topiaries of Buzz Light Year, Woody, Bo Peep and others have been grouped at the front of the park in a place of honor. Other Pixar characters including Cars Mater and Lightening McQueen have been brought back after a few years. The overall result of these changes is a lot of positive change. Many topiaries are in new locations making it fun to discover them.

I walked around the park enjoying the gardens and discovering the topiaries. The butterfly house was crowded with people, but not so many butterflies. It is probably planned to be at peak later in the festival. The topiaries and gardens look great at the start of the festival. The Disney cast works hard to keep the horticulture looking great for the three months of the festival, but it will get hot as the weeks go by.

The crowds were heavy and got worse as the evening approached. It was difficult to get nice pictures of the gardens and topiaries. More often than not people choose the area in front of a topiary to gather or sit. I plan to go back in the morning one day this week to take some better pictures. The week after that is a blackout period for my pass level during Spring Break.

Thursday March 5th 2026

As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, the traffic in Central Florida has really picked up. Several times in the last few days I got caught in enough traffic to increase my travel time by half or more. Today a two hour drive to the Gulf coast took three hours. The return trip took longer because I refused to drive at night in a Florida thunderstorm. I waited it out in a supermarket parking lot for half an hour.

For exercise on Wednesday I went to Disney’s Magic Kingdom. It wasn’t terribly busy, but of course it is never empty. Several attractions were down increasing the wait times at the other ones. My focus was walking and people watching. How can a parent be more obnoxious with a bubble wand than a toddler. The kid pulled the trigger for a second or two near the ground. The adult took the bubble wand away to show the kid how to use it. It seems holding the trigger down while waving the wand at adult levels for multiple minutes is the “right” way. The kid’s bubbles kept the toddler entertained and didn’t disturb everyone else. I think half the soap in the wand landed where I was sitting from the adults efforts. The toddler, by the way, wasn’t paying any attention to the adult’s effort. Observing things like this is half my “fun” people watching in a theme park.

I attempted to coordinate my departure for home with my understanding of traffic patterns. I failed. Rush hour traffic is not over by 7PM particularly when augmented with tourist traffic. I waited until the sun was down between 6:30 and 7 before leaving the Magic Kingdom parking lot. Traffic was stop and go before I got off of Disney property and continued until I was halfway home. This was another instance of turning 45 minutes into an hour and a half.

Sunday March 1st 2026

I spent the weekend doing chores around my base camp. Friday and Saturday weren’t predictable outdoor days. An escape indoors at a moments notice was always a necessity. Friday was a hazy day with low cloud cover leading up to heavy rain during the evening hours and Saturday was the reverse. The rain came early with slow improvement during the day. Today was the only good weather day of the weekend.

Cleanup from the cold snaps continues in my yard. The bougainvillea bush is starting to come back from the bottom. I don’t see new growth on the avocado tree. It may not make it. I am OK with that. The tree is messy and I don’t really like avocados. I’ve been looking for a hibiscus in tree form or something similar to replace it. A little bit of color in the front yard would be nice. If the tree is dead or seriously damaged by the cold, I’ll feel a little better about taking it down.

Today was supposed to be a big day in the park for a Cancer fundraiser. From my observation it wasn’t well attended. It looked like the golf cart parade part only had ten carts. Considering that I only heard about it on Friday when the March newsletter came out, that might be an issue. Communications in this park is largely word of mouth. If you don’t attend events, you don’t hear about other events. The association just got a new WEB page, but hasn’t figured out how to maximize it as a communications tool.