January 27th, 2020

Look at those mischievous faces.  There is a reason of course.  We played hooky on Friday.  Gasp!  Yes we did!  

Playing hooky is a time honoured tradition.  I'm sure it has happened since the dawn of man.  In my parent's era, a child might play hooky to watch the circus set up in town.  An opportunity to experience that much excitement was simply too much to miss.  School be damned!  When I was in high school in Texas it was the Ft Worth Stock Show and Rodeo that had many kids being absent.  And in fact, so many kids played hooky to attend that ultimately, we were all  "given" a skip day to go.  Kind of dings some of the fun out of playing hooky when you are given permission.  Good Times, Good Times.

Sadly, being an adult, most of the time, means we are all far too busy being responsible to even think about skipping work - the grown up version of playing hooky.  But every once in awhile, it's great idea to indulge, to have fun, to play hooky again.    And what do you do when you play hooky?  Go to the dentist?  Heaven's no.  Clean the house?  Not even close.  Go to the DMV?  If that's how you play hooky you need a serious talking to.  No No and No.  When you play hooky you go somewhere to have fun.  And around here when it comes to fun, the first place people think of is:

But no that isn't where we went.  We have absolutely nothing against the Mouse.  But as it so happens, our annual passes (which ended up being 18 months long! ) are for the other one.  Yup we went to:

It's a 2 1/2 hour drive as long as you don't run into traffic and honestly the closer you get to the theme park areas, the crazier the traffic gets.  To Tim got smart and found an alternate route. It sounds completely nuts but it worked.  We went farther north  - effectively passed Orlando - and then came around and down.  It worked.  Smooth as silk.  2 1/2 hours door to door with no stop & go traffic congestion.  Not bad.

I hadn't had breakfast before we left so I was seriously hungry when we arrived.  So the very first thing we did was head to VooDoo donuts. Totally worth the wait.

One of the things I noticed right away was how much construction was going on.  Yup they are changing things up at Universal.  First of all there is an entirely new Universal park being created. I have no idea what it's going to be all about so I am intrigued.  Then too, I understand that big changes are afoot in the existing parks.  Can't wait to see what that's all about.  But in the meantime we saw a lot of this:

That's ok. There was plenty of other stuff to see and do!

There were two rides that Tim especially wanted to go that he has somehow missed at every other visit.  Both of them are rides that I simply cannot do (at least not without embarrassing myself publicly, so that's ain't happening)  Both of these rides were in the Harry Potter section of the park which is still so massively popular  that the wait is rather long, even as a single rider.  But sometimes it's worth the wait.  And this time, it absolutely was.

It's fine with me.  While Tim is in line for and the enjoying his ride,  I get to poke around the little nearby shops and take lots of photos.  

​I took photos of flowers (Yes it's early spring here)

Sometimes it's architectural details that catch my eye:

I never realized how many archways there are at Universal.  They are everywhere!

Oh yeah, and waterfalls. They just love waterfalls there. I confess that I do too.

Of course I snapped a few photos of some of the rides.  (and Tim as he set out on his adventures!)

Naturally there were a few famous faces around:

And other random things that just appealed to me

Keep in mind that all the while I'm roaming around being a shutterbug, I am the official keeper of stuff.  It's really handy when you go to these parks to have a person, such as myself, who doesn't go on many rides, because we are the holders of all the things you cannot take on the rides.  So here was me, wearing both hats, carrying camera bag, camera and water bottle while being the papparazzi girl.  I think I probably looked like one of the crazy park characters :)

So anyway, we had a great day, lots of fun and perfect - absolutely perfect - weather.  Hooky Day was awesome.  But all good things must come to an end and eventually it was time to start the long drive home.

We may not be experts in everything, but we know how to play hooky for sure :)