My wife and & got up at 3am on Thursday the 7th so we could be at the airport by shortly after 4 for a 5:50am flight. When we got up there was already 6 to 7 inches of snow on the ground and it was still snowing. So we shoveled lots of snow before leaving for the airport. Why do I tell you all of this, because I thought there was no way the flight to Orlando would leave on time. We did board on time, pushed back from the gate and sat for an hour. During that hour the plane was de-iced not once, not twice but three times. We did eventually take off and fly to Atlanta where we had to make a connecting flight to Orlando. There were probably fifteen to twenty people on the flight who had the same connecting flight to Orlando as we did. We left Bloomington one hour late, so obviously that meant we would miss the connector in Atlanta. Not so, Air Tran held our connecting flight in Atlanta. When we got to Atlanta we walked off the plane walked down a couple of gates and walked right on the connecting flight. We arrived in Orlando about 20 minutes late from our original arrival time. I don't think that is too bad considering the way the weather was that morning.
Once we arrived in Orlando we took Disney's magical express to our hotel, Port Orleans french quarter. We got checked in, our rooms were ready, so we took the luggage to the rooms and then headed to the Expo for bib number & goody bag pickup. We went to the milk house first to turn in our waivers and pick up our bibs. I also picked up my wife's goody bag for the chEAR squad.
Next stop was the expo in the Jostens center. We picked up our goody bags & shirts and started shopping. I bought several Disney related running shirts, one of them being a training for the 2011 Goofy challenge shirt. I also bought a waist strap for my bib, some Balega running socks and some gel packs for the race. We spent several hours at the expo. By the time we were finished giving Disney more money we were really hungry, so we went next door to the All Star Cafe for a late lunch.
After lunch I had the pleasure of meeting a fellow runner from Minnesota in person. I had spoken with Dom via email and through Twitter but not in person so it was really cool to get to chat in person. We probaly visited for 30 to 40 minutes. Dom is running the Goofy in 2011 as is another online friend Gordon from Run to Disney, so I will have company. You can read Dom's blog at themouseandmore.blogspot.com.
Stay tuned for part 2. Thanks for reading.
Til next time run strong & enjoy the moment.
