31st
Why I will always love Disney World
My wife, Amy, and I took an impromptu trip to Walt Disney World a few weekends ago in our first trip away that took us both away from our daughter, Indra, over night. We live less than three hours by car and my in-laws were very gracious to watch Indy for us. We have also had less than 10 days off together since she was born. That was one of the sacrifices we made.
This trip was surgical strike on the Magic Kingdom: Get in, ride all the “Mountains”, eat lunch, Get out. Our first stop is always Space Mountain. We both love Space Mountain a great deal. Mostly because it’s such a great ride. It is an older style roller coaster, meaning it’s about going fast and taking tight corners while flinging you up and down enough to make your body think for a split second that your gonna die. (I mention this in contrast to the newer skyscraper style roller coaster that manages to convince your body that your gonna die.) It also takes place in near total darkness, like space. Hence the name.
This was the first time we had been there in several years and the last time we went we took a pop-culture addicted Australian with us. That was a great trip, but it’s the kind of thing that makes you keep your head down and get stuff done. This time, I got to view Disney through the eyes of someone who understands and appreciates the value of design and visual communication.
Holy Mother of Crap. It really is incredible what you see when you sit back and just look at it. I grant you that most people are too busy trying to keep track their kids or just trying to make sure they ride all the rides to notice typeface choices on one of the snack bars.
It is perfect. It is exactly what it needs to be and it is nothing else. It’s not the pinnacle of human achievement, not that type of perfection. It simply is. The part that struck me the most is the modernism of Tomorrowland. A lot of it has been dismissed by fancy splashiness on the newer attractions, but it’s still there. It calls to us to reach for the future we were promised, the future we know we still deserve. The idealism of believing we can be better, for no other reason than to simply be better. There is nostalgia in such idealism, for certain, but that does not mean it is in the past. That hope means a great deal to me. I know I’m not the only one.