"We lost them!"

Saturday, January 3, 2009
7:43 pm My room

As promised, I will be blogging about some of the adventures we had in Disney World. The first one occurred on the very first night...

My family and I had just enjoyed a delicious dinner at The Flying Fish and were strolling along the Boardwalk when we heard the explosions. High-pitched whistling, followed by earth-shattering bangs suddenly surrounded us. Fire and light exploded in the skies ahead of us, followed by billowing smoke, and we all turned to each other with the same harrowing realization: fireworks.

For most families, a fireworks display would be nice way to spend time together, but we are not most families. The fireworks were up ahead, in Epcot, which meant that thousands of people were watching them, and that when the show was done, those thousands of people would be crowding the monorails - our monorails - to get back to the hotels. The look in all of our eyes was one of pure fear.

"We've got to run," someone said. We looked at each other, eyes wide at the possibility. Somebody whimpered. Someone else shivered. Could we do it? Could we really take on all of those crowds? The answer was simple - we had to.

I don't remember who started running, but I was reminded of the time I was stuck in the ETA demonstration in Bilbao - except this time there was a lot of laughing, and I stopped running long enough to do a little grapevine to the music that accompanied the fireworks.

Through the park we ran. In China, I almost fell over a small child. In Morocco, I got a stitch in my side. In Italy, I looked longingly at the wine shop as I ran by but told myself to focus. In Canada, I inhaled the smoke from someone's cigarette and almost hacked up a lung. In France, we almost lost it all.

We were sprinting through the last country, almost to the bridge, when we got split up. The entire time we ran through Epcot, as we leapt over small children and ran up the sides of buildings (think The Matrix) to avoid crowds, we managed to stay together. But when we were almost to the bridge, Mom, Kaitlyn, and I realized we were missing Stephanie and Dad.

"We lost them!" Explosions were happening every second now - it was the finale of the fireworks display. The music blared, lights and smoke blinded us. It was too late to go back. What got them? I wondered, blinking away the tears. Was it the Asian tourists by the Eiffel Tower? Or the overweight twins by the patisserie? There was no way to know, and now it was too late.

"No!" cried Mom, whipping out her IPhone while she ran. Kaitlyn and I grasped hands and continued to run behind her, praying for the best. Suddenly, Mom was yelling into her phone. Dad had answered!

"Bravo! Delta! Omega! Meet us under the Epcot ball!" she hollered. The fireworks were now over and the crowds were catching up to us. I tripped a kid on crutches just to keep him from getting ahead of me. I saw Kaitlyn punch a pregnant woman in the face. It sounds horrible now, but we did what we had to do. Then, up ahead, we saw Dad and Stephanie waving to us. They seemed to have an otherworldy glow about them. Ok, maybe that was the streetlight they were standing under, but the point is we all embraced, knocked over a group of senior citizens, and jumped on the monorail together.

Love,
Tara