Showing posts with label magick. Show all posts
Showing posts with label magick. Show all posts

Epic Epcot :)

Around the World in 16 Days Tour?

Yes it's possible as long as you go to lots of cultural places and include Epcot in the journey as well!

We left Coconut Springs and headed for the Orlando area and stayed with a lovely friend of ours, Dee and her husband Francis and Dee's son, Zach. We got a tour of downtown Orlando and then the following day, Thursday, we went to Epcot and went to many "countries!"

Here's some pics to tell the tale!
I think Harry took 7 million pictures. But it's a faire night, we are partying here, and I'm off to have a beer. Enjoy the Travel blog!!

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Dee showed me her Spirit board for 2014 and I was showing her a meditation technique. A candid shot. I got caught doing Se re sa sa :)

 Ready to go to Epcot!

Look an orb on me!!

 Look!! Harry and I swimming in the deep with the 20.000 Leagues theme!

 Dee and I have been friends for quite awhile.
I'm glad that we had some time to get together and visit and soak each other up.


An agricultural miracle!
A pine tree growing in SAND.....

Just some beautiful vistas there....


For my Vogdis Viking Clan....
A Meade house in Norway :)

Looook!! Storybook Club!
A TROLL! :)

 Harry and Francis found some fun in the Viking store.

Weeeeeeee tiny horns!
It's not the size of yer horn....it's how you use it.....

 And then Zach found a one horn :)
And the guys found big ones :)
 Japan and a beautiful pagoda!
P
 I loved Germany.
There is German in my blood. Must be why I love beir so much.
I had a Grapefruit beer here that was phenomenal!
mmmmmm.....

 We, ah, snuck in some whiskey :)
We didn't forget the flasks!


In Italy we found a beauteous romantic fountain....

 moochie moochie moochie :)


But lets' not stop there....
Ok, so Dee and Francis got inspired too :)

Then in Japan, Dee wanted me to try on the Kimonos....

We found many that were so beautiful....
It was hard to pick which one we wanted!!


 Zach and Francis look SOOOOOO handsome, don't you think?
I remember when Zach was just a teenager a few years ago....
WOWSA.
Even the backs of these Kimonos are gorgeous...
 These are the ones that we ended up buying :)
 We relaxed later on in them. I love these robes. They are posh, comfy and straight from Japan.
Love the top knot Harry!

And den?

The fireworks show. An awesome light display, that is not captured here justly...
 Looook!
Another ORB!

All in all, a lovely, amazing day.

Epcot was awesome. We did more than armchair traveling, we visited, soaked up, ate lots of wondrous foods and were exposed to many cultures.


Old friends and coincidences~

I am compelled to tell you about some odd, queer or magickal happenings with our reading of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."

1)  Friday morning, as we set off on the next leg of our journey, as Harry drove he said, "OK, can you start reading the next chapter to me now?"
I picked up our book, opened it up to the next story in progress. I started reading the beginning of the passage which said: "On January 10th, we set off on our journey...."
Ummmm.....it WAS January 10th.
THAT day.
That was more than coincidence, I'd say!

2) This last Monday morning after a faire weekend, we were having coffee and a leisurely morning with everyone at Dre' and Max's house and chatting with Jay and Abby. I started telling Abby about that previous coincidence of January 10th and how magickal it was,  and all the wondrous things happening that sort of support the book on our trip....and about how kewl Jules Verne was...
While we were chatting, I looked the author up online. While there, I saw a link about "Deism" which was a related topic about Nature, Religion and Science which are all involved in the writings of Jules Verne and the novel. The 6 of us all had a wondrous theological discussion about God and Deism, and many other spiritual things. We finished the conversation and there was a knock on the door.
Max & Dre both went and answered it.
It was Jehovah's Witnesses come to call.
Just then. Seconds after this spiritual conversation.
As Max is thanking the Witnesses and sending them off on their way, Abby smirks and says to me,
"You must've psychically called them with all the talk about Deism this morning" :)
You have to admit, it was as if it was planned!

3) I've been really tired lately (what with all the holiday gigs, home projects, CD all the Christmas and holiday food) and so while on this trip, my friend Michael Edwards reminded me about a metabolism tonic with organic vinegar that my mom used to do as well. It's supposed to give you an energy boost.
It's Braggs' Organic Vinegar (1 oz. 3x a day) with some Stevia in it and water to dilute.
 Well, I figured it couldn't hurt, and so I've been adding some of these weird shots of vinegar to my diet about 3x a day to kick up my metabolism and give me some more energy. It really helped on that Saturday morning of faire when we did the 4:30am wake up call for a 5:45am promo shot for TV.
How are the vinegar shots? Odd, yes. Disgusting, well, ok. (but then again, I drank pickle juice as a child....) But then again,  it has been helping us to detox too. Highly unusual, I know, but have been doing it since last Friday.
Monday, we went out to eat with Dre and Max to the "Lobster Lady" restaurant and have seafood....oysters in particular, which I love, but haven't had in a loong time.
So, get this next coincidence: I open the book on Tuesday and start reading some more from the 20,000 Leagues book...and I read a passage about Cleopatra drinking vinegar with oyster pearls in it. :)
How awesome. I mean, drinking vinegar, and having oysters on the same day isn't a daily occurance.

Life IS weirder than fiction. :)

Onward~
We hit the road early on Tuesday  morning and headed from Fort Myers towards Coconut Springs over Alligator Alley... Didn't see any gators this morning. Boo. But I was too busy reading to Harry anyway.


We got into Coconut Creek and spent the day at Star & Mikals and joined our minstrel friends, Jay & Abby there. We played music, had fun visiting and then went out to eat dinner at Santo's.

 Abby, Jay, Merlyn, Mikal & Star ready for some sushi!



 It is a place from the other side of the world with our Japanese food dinner of fish in the form of Sushi and Sushimi. I also tried a flight of different Sakes and all kinds of deliciousness from parts far, far away from my own home port.


 Capt. Nemo would've approved of this meal.

From there we went to an impromtu outing to see our friend, Ty Billings, play music. I haven't seen him in about 6 years and when we walked in he burst into a great smile and pointed at me! Ty was playing a solo gig at....guess where? "The City Fish Market." The decor was of an old fish market and seafood joint, but very upscale. All the waiters walked around with shirts and ties and butcher aprons on like they'd just been cleaning fish. (altho sans blood :).




We even got a chance to sing with Ty as 3 of us singers from different bands (Abby from Harper & Minstrel, me from MM and Mark Belenson from Wylde Fyre) all joined in with him. It was awesome as we sang an amazing choral harmony to "Drift Away."




 It was awesome to get together with everyone and Ty even took a rare break and came over and had a great time with us as well. There were flying swordfish and octopus and fish nets on the wall. It was all very "Captain Nemo" decor and fare.

It's easy to see a Jules Verne/Captain Nemo theme in everything on our "Around the world in 16 Days" trip! So much fun!

We left Star and Mikals' early Wednesday and drove to Winter Park in the Orlando area to see our friends Dee and Francis and Zachary. They have a lovely apartment and Dee showed us around downtown Orlando. She made the most delicious ham dinner! (I have to get the recipe to give to Lynn Barbato my cuisine hound friend!) We chatted and soaked each other up and laid around and relaxed with her pets, and drank wine. I know. Tough to take.


 Even her skittish, elusive meow decided I was family and came and curled up next to me :)
You can't get better PR as a human being than to be happily accepted by a skittish kitteh!



Today we head to Epcot to visit many countries!  I'm very excited, as my dearie darling husband, does not like to fly in airplanes, so I often wondered how I would soothe my wanderlust to other lands. Aside from going on the Nautilus (where we wouldn't be able to put a foot ON land....) I think Epcot will be a great compromise till I can find a way to travel to distant lands someday.

So Epcot? Here we come!



Magick of Mortality

I think, in retrospect....
THE most magickal aspect of this trip is the fact that total annihilation was avoided.

Really.

Our car problem could very well have been a different ending.
Even though we'd had the car checked out and work done on it before we left for FL (front end alignment and inspection recently, and radiator and water pump changed before we left....)
The CV joint was bad on the front end of the car. The universal was about to break. Boot cracked  sometime on the way down to fl...the fluid drained out. We went all over hell and high water....

I mean we went from Central NY....drove thru the Troll Country of the Mountains of Va....all the way to Fort Myers....then down and across Alligator Alley back and forth....back up to Tampa area ....back and forth the Skyway Bridge....back to Fort Myers....

ALL ON A BAD CV JOINT.

When I finally talked Harry into 'getting an appointment to have it looked at", my water bottle in the car's cup holder was shaking like it was put in a paint spinner. The car was shaking our livers out.
We put it into the shop JUST IN TIME.

We were SO LUCKY it was MAGICK!

1) We were able to stay at our dear friends' house, safe, and happy....with a little extra time with them for a visit while the car was worked on before the trip home...(which we couldn't made any other way).

2) We didn't lose control of our car while we were on any of those highways and crash and burn and have to get scraped off the road.....

3) We had a reputable dealer that was recommended...(i.e. NOT BillyBob's Garage in South Bumfuck late at night on roads we didn't know...)

4) We got out of it with a brand new CV joint, 2 brand new tires (of the RIGHT size w/all tires now matching!) all for less than $500. (We'd like to thank Larry's Auto & Truck Service in Cape Coral, FL for being so kewl with us. We even brought the 2 wrong sized /but good shape tires, back with us. Any one need a pair of 215s? All season tread. $25 bucks for the pair....alright so we're trying to recover some bucks on this one....)

5) We even got better gas mileage on the way home!!
Gas mileage on way down was 20mpg....and got 25 mpg on the way back.

 We are VERY LUCKY.
It was a MUCH better car after that mechanical operation. The "tapping" sound we heard earlier, that we thought was a "lifter"...was gone. There are some noises we've yet to investigate, but we are HOME, happy and SAFE.

I read another book outloud to Harry on the way home. It is something kindred to share a story, while passing the time... and it sure goes by faster.
Two- twelve hour driving days can be hard back to back.

For my Big Bang Theory friends....I read the book "Supernature" by Lyall Watson.
Sort of a "Sheldon" book of science investigating super nature-al subjects. Very interesting. A South African, botonist, zoologist, biologist, entymologist...combining String theory and Clairvoyance and Dowsing and Telepathy all rolled into one strange 1970s book.

Some of it was mind boggling.
Some of it was bizarre.
Some of it was archaic by our standards now.
All very curious.

We saw things on this trip that you usually don't see....

Oh, and we bought some Page Oranges.
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
This is Sunshine on your plate.
The SWEETEST hardest to peel oranges you ever had.
I think I've eaten 10 in a food frenzy.
A drippy, sweet, savory, citrusy delightful, food frenzy mow down.

We saw lots of the world.....





Glad to be home. Monty has been soaking us up and was so glad to see us.



Nick took VERY good care of him. They were buds.

Our "adopted" son, Nick, did fabulous here with Monty. Sort of like a young novice hermit holed up with the squirrels and Monty. Very hermetic. Protective. Zen like, Spartan existance. Very respectful. He didn't even eat the leftovers I left for him. And he even changed the sheets and did his dishes. And I still have food.

Here's my boon acquisition :)

Like I said. It's all very lucky.... and a perfect end to the Magickal Mischief Tour.