Doll-A-Day 2019 #281: What I Did on my Vacation & My Second Doll From the Doll Show: Sample Skipper

  We're getting back to my vacation today. Taking up where we left off last time,we reached Lori's house late Wednesday night, after driving through that huge rain storm. She had gone to bed,because she had to get up early for work. She had stayed up extra late talking to me the night before, when we arrived, so she must have figured she wasn't going to be able to do that again. It was after 10 when we got back from Atlanta. I was very tired myself. Ken and I had to get up super early to get to Disney the next morning, so we needed to get right to bed anyway. We showered as quick as we could and got to bed,only to get up again about 4 hours later. We were going to try to be there for 'rope drop',the opening of the park.
 

Are we there YET?!

You tell me. What do you think?

Mickey pumpkin heads decorated the entrance and the park.

Yay!

We didn't make for the opening,but we weren't too much later.
  I'm not going to detail Disney World too much. Everybody knows what Disney World is like. Everybody has seen millions of pictures, or, if you're my generation,seen it on The Wonderful World of Disney. It's different now, of course, than it was in those old shows,but a lot of things are basically the same. I guess. I had never been there before. Ken went to Disney World back in the 80's,when he came to America for a visit. His aunt and uncle lived in Florida,and took Ken,and his sister and brother-in-law.
  We went across on the ferry to the actual Magic Kingdom.

   As for my leg muscle that had been bothering me,it was still locked tight and really painful. The 'leisurely' day before hadn't helped a bit. In fact,it  actually got worse,as I mentioned the other day. So I started the day at Disney limping.

 

  I have to mention that our tickets were courtesy of Emma's friend who works at Disney. She gets tickets to take friends with her when she wants to go to the park for fun instead of work. (She gets in for free.) She was nice enough to treat us to two days at the park. (We took the pictures for her wedding in 2015, before she moved to Florida. You may have seen some of them on the blog. Unfortunately the marriage didn't last,but I also took the last pictures of her great grandmother,and did a nice four generation portrait for them.)

We made it! At this point,just inside the park, I only have a sore leg muscle.

  

The Cinderella castle is one of the most famous things from Disney World,so Tammy wanted her picture taken in front of it.

 There was a show going on in front of the castle when we got there, It was one of the few live shows we actually came across. We didn't know what we were doing.
   I was on vacation, so I was partaking of some of the stuff I'm not supposed to eat with my LPR, but  without going completely overboard. I am not supposed to eat pineapple, but I was determined I was going to try a Dole Whip while we were at Disney. I hadn't had any real food yet, but I know how these things go. I went ahead and got one before we ended up forgetting or missing the chance somehow.

It was good, but is it supposed to be hollow?! I look like I am about to cry, but I was in fact recovering from a bad case of the wobbles. I think I was dehydrated and I did not feel very well.

  I was feeling very wobbly and a bit sick. The Dole Whip helped. We went on from there to Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, and other things. We finally found somewhere we thought would have an option for me for lunch. Emma tells me there are a lot of vegetarian options at the Magic Kingdom, but I guess we weren't very good at finding them. I had vegetarian chili, and Ken had some kind of meat roll thing. I forget what was in it.

Another example of stuff I'm not supposed to eat with my LPR.

Ken, never take a picture of a fat lady while she's eating.

    I think I told you the story of Ken getting trapped in the It's a Small World ride. It stopped while he was in there and he had to listen to the song repeated over and over for ages. He developed a hatred of that song during the experience. But we went through and he didn't have flashbacks! I really liked it. Of course, I hadn't been trapped in it.

While we were on the ride Ken noticed that we were in boat #30. Since it was our 30th anniversary trip, we thought that was pretty neat.

It's upside down because the picture was taken from in the boat.

      There were more Muppets.

The puppeteers did a very good job.

   We went through the Buzz Lightyear exhibit. Both of us are competitive, although Ken would say I'm worse.

He won.

    Anybody who takes doll pictures in public places is bound to get embarrassed sometime. I was taking Tammy's picture at one point when a lady asked me, "What is the significance of the little doll?"

Not wanting to go into the entire explanation about the blog and everything, I gave the easy answer, which is, Tammy represents me when I was a kid. (Which is true.)
 

The lady liked that answer. She was very touched. She said she knew there must be some cute story behind it when she saw me taking the picture. She went away happy.
  As the day went on the leg pain was joined by a blister on my toe. Ken wanted to go on Splash Mountain, the little roller coaster, but it was closed down. (And it is their 30th anniversary too!) Instead, we went on the Thunder Mountain (also small) roller coaster. I have been telling the family for the past several years that I think I should give up roller coasters, because the last time I rode one, when the kids were small, I nearly cricked my neck and back. Well no one listens. I know Thunder Mountain is a tiny roller coaster, but during the ride I felt a wrench.

 

In line to throw my back out.

  My lower back has an area on the right side, where I have a lot of pain and problems. I hurt my back at work back when I was in my early 20's and found out that I was born with an incomplete spine. I have only a 'rudimentary joint' and a 'rudimentary vertebra' in my lower spine. (I should have known there was something wrong because my whole life, as long as I could remember, I would start to turn sideways and I would get stuck. I couldn't move. I'd have to do a little maneuver and there would be a click, and I could move again. I was so used to it that it never occurred to me that that was unusual!) But that spot wasn't the one that 'went out'! It was the same place on the other side!  I got off the ride in great pain, and having more trouble moving than I had even had before the ride.
  So I hobbled around the rest of the time. I hadn't had anything else to eat since the chili. Between all the things that were hurting by then, and my hunger weakness, the lack of sleep I'd had for days, and probably some dehydration, I kind of had a meltdown by the end of the evening. I couldn't find anywhere to get something to eat. The park was still open for another couple of hours, but everything was either booked up or shut down already. I had a freakout, and in retrospect I feel sorry for poor Ken. He got hold of a Coke,(Something else I'm not supposed to have with my LPR.),and it did perk me up a bit.
   We did stay for the fireworks, but my back was killing me.   Remember my auto focus went out on my camera. So I was having to do all my focusing manually. It wasn't easy in low light situations. There were also times I just forgot to focus because I'm so used to not having to now.

I really wanted to decapitate that guy.

  There was a cute little baby giving me the best smiles over her dad's shoulder during the fireworks, which helped make the back pain a lot more endurable. She did get her head in one of my pictures, but she doesn't show up well. I wish she had. Her dad was saying she knows when she's getting her picture taken and she's a ham. He apologized when I told him she managed to get in one picture, but I told him it was no problem. I really enjoyed her smiles.
  Since Lori's house was actually about 4 hours from Disney we decided not to try to drive back tired, waking Lori up when we got in,(Lori has 7 dogs and they...uh...bark. They're all small, but when you put that many together it gets a bit loud. And the 2 and a half pound dog is the LOUDEST.), only to have to drive back in a couple of hours. So Ken sorted us a place to stay for the night.
    We intended on going to Hollywood Studios, mainly for the Muppet Vision 3-D show, and Epcot. However, I had no intention of repeating the previous day, where I had hardly any food and got all emotional and wobbly. So I thought we should go to Epcot first, and eat at the international part of the park. Then we'd move on to Hollywood Studios in the afternoon, about 3.

What a ham.

It didn't work out that way though. We did a few things in the rest of the park, and then moved on to the international part.
 

  The Food and Wine Festival was underway. Food is Ken's thing, so he should have been in his element. He's cheap though, so he could have enjoyed it more. Everything was in sort of  'sample sizes'. He had a filet mignon, we shared a deconstructed pavlova, and I recall there was some other purchase, but I can't remember what it was. We moved through it to the international section. Ken was still hungry, as usual, so when we came to the British section he got himself some fish and chips at the 'Yorkshire County Fish Shop'.

He happened to be wearing his 'Yorkshire is a state of mind' shirt. That's where he's from.

  He said it wasn't as good as real English fish and chips. He even said, "I think these are American potatoes." English potatoes are much more smooth than American potatoes, which I hate because they're so gritty. I said, "Well you didn't think it was going to be real English fish and chips did you?" He said no, but why was he expecting that?
  The fake English street had a shop with a window full of Beatles merchandise, because England has produced no other band of note in the last 50 plus years.

That's sarcasm.
  Tammy found some cool ninja outfits that were just her size at the Japan shop.

 

They even came with swords.

 

There were also these.

  Ken wanted to buy me/Tammy one, but they were all just either side of $30,so I turned down the offer. Tammy did end up buying something at the Japan shop though.

Little doll sized 'Legos'!

  This little display in the colonial section had chairs that were just Tammy's size. She wanted to try them out, but there was a park employee sitting next to them and we thought he might not appreciate it.

Here's Ken doing what he did most of the day: drinking water.

 So the plan was to leave by 3 or so. Of course, Ken can never decide where or what he wants to eat, so we spent the day wandering in search of food. I had a little sample portion of some good African food, and some ice cream in 'France'. I also had some really good fingerling potatoes and bread with cheese in 'Norway'. But Ken didn't think any of the places were going to give him enough food. He eventually decided to eat at the German buffet that looked inside like an outside beer garden.

This is inside, with a fake moon.

 By the time he finished eating it was getting late, We had to walk all the way back to the entrance and catch a bus to Hollywood Studios. The park closes about 9, but the things in the park close much earlier. By the time we got to Hollywood Studios we arrived just in time to not see Muppet Vision 3-D. The fountain was nice though!

It was disappointing. But Ken had done all the other stuff I wanted to do, so really it was fair that he got to do something he enjoyed. So I couldn't really complain about it. Star Wars was closing down too, and was too dark to see anything. So I peed in Mos Eisley and we caught the bus back to our car at Epcot. By the way, it was Hollywood Studios 30th anniversary too.

Ken wanted a picture with the 30th anniversary banner because it was our 30th too. But his camera was doing something weird. He has none of the pictures he took at Epcot. My auto focus being out, this was the best I could do.

  Now, my leg muscle had finally stopped aching. However, the rest of me had had it. My back was worse than ever, my blister was bigger than ever, and my feet hurt so badly that I could hardly walk. Ken kept trying to get me to let him get me a wheelchair. I kept refusing because I thought it would be presumptuous of me to take a wheel chair, as an able bodied person, when there might be someone else who really needed it. Also I felt like I would seem like such a faker, when I can really get around on my own. However, by the time we reached the entrance of the park again, and were facing the long walk across the parking lot, I relented. Anybody who needed a wheelchair by park closing probably already had one, and I could see it taking me an hour just to get to the car. We didn't stay for the fireworks, which I felt bad about because I knew Ken wanted to. I just could not take any more.
  That finishes our day at Epcot. Now on to today's doll. She's one I got at the doll show.  I know I said everything was too expensive, but a good deal, like help at Hogwarts, can always be found by those who know where to look. I found this girl on my millionth (or did it just seem that way?), trip around the sales room. Everything that lady had was highly over priced, except this girl. (And she marked her down for me when I haggled!)

She was naked when I got her. I thought she was pretty, then I realized that she was a 'sample', or 'test market' Skipper. You can tell by the thicker, slightly short legs, the wider stance, the slightly larger slightly  tippy toed feet...

New girl is on the right.

...and the 'Japan' on the foot that runs lengthwise instead of widthwise on the bottom of the foot.

Once again, new girl on the right.

She's marked '2' on her bottom.

Here's how her face compares to a regular early Skipper. I always describe Sample dolls as having a 'powdery' complexion.

New girl on the right again.

I think she looks very good in this early Skipper fashion called 'Outdoor Casuals', from 1965.

I was really excited to find her because I love Sample Skippers, and  I have been wanting a red head. I have a brunette and a blonde, and even a two tone, but this is my first Sample red head. (To see my other Skippers, see 'Skipper' in the side bar, and to see my other Sample Skippers, see 'Sample Skipper' in the sidebar.)

  That's today's doll. See you again tomorrow for another one.