Mike and I have had our trip, and nothing went wrong. Oh, a couple of oddments - shortly after we got to Orlando I got a text from Suzie letting me know that they had to put Shirley down - Shirley being a sheep at the museum. Normally sheep live 12-14 years and Shirley was over 20; we've been catering to her (special treats and feed) for several years, and it will be strange not to hover over her. And when the trip was over we had to deal with a dead fox in the driveway when we got home. Other than that . . .
I was rather panicked at the idea of driving on the high-speed, high traffic interstate. But before I had even voiced my misgivings Mike had offered to drive (city boy, more used to traffic). We compromised: I drove the first half (pre-interstate) and he the second, with the reverse coming home.
Then, as the saying goes, A Good Time Was Had By All. My FIT app on the phone showed that we walked 11 miles in the 2 1/2 days we were there. Mike, being thoroughly prepared, had three typed pages of "Easter Eggs" - little things to see and do. And we found them all.
The joy of just taking it all in. For example - just past Diagon Alley, there is 12 Grimmauld Place, the home of Sirius Black. It was described in the book as being fairly decrepit, never maintained (and usually hidden by magic but revealed here). Most people take a glance, get their picture taken, and move on. Mike and I sat on a bench across the street and studied it. Not only was the facade darker and dirtier, but we also noticed that the railings and gratings which were black and polished in the other homes were rusted in this one. The windows and curtains were dirty, Eventually we noticed that the brickwork over the windows was failing. The people who created this paid so much attention to detail.
And if you look long enough, Kreacher the house elf parts the window curtains to look out.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ksAv_JA0uWo
The obligatory selfie:
We studied the windows of every shop there, with their marvelous still lifes (lives?). This is for the textbook shop - all the stuff you need for bookbinding.
There was a (fake) shop selling jellied eels and pies. Mike was amused by this pie with the fish heads poking out.
I, having a fairly esoteric knowledge of strange foods, let him know that this wasn't a Harry Potter World make-believe dish, but a traditional Cornish one known as "stargazy pie." Weird.
In Madam Malkin's Magical Robe Shop we skipped looking at the polyester robes available for tourists, and instead I concentrated on a display of actual costumes used in the movies. I was amazed that for all the roles that Maggie Smith plays with domineering personas, she is apparently a fairly petite woman. I especially enjoyed the over-the-top and beautifully tailed costume for Gilderoy Lockhart.
See how the left side of the cape is casually thrown over the shoulder? There's nothing casual about it - it's carefully pleated and sewn down.
We had lunch at the Leaky Cauldron (also at the Three Broomsticks the next day)
Here is a mermaid statue, one of the very many places where people can use one of the magical wands (in this case, if the wand is waved correctly, the fountain shoots a jet of water)
The wands seem to be a major bestseller there. Every family we saw had at least one wand. They have an IR reflector, and almost every window has something that will be animated at the proper flick of the wand (my favorite one was where an entire shop window of a lighting store lights up with dozens of lamps and chandeliers, especially pretty at night). But at $75 a wand, which wouldn't do anything special after you bring it home, we contented ourselves with just watching other people perform magic.
I think my favorite thing was our second trip through the Hogwarts castle. On our first evening there, we had gone through and taken the ride, but noticed that there was a *lot* of stuff to look at while waiting in the line. Unfortunately, the line was moving very quickly that night, and there was a person in a wheelchair behind us; there wouldn't have been enough space to let her go past, so we had to keep up the pace. But the next day we went back; we could have been to the ride in about 10 minutes, but instead we took more like 45, just letting people go past us.
Early December is the off season; there was a small fraction of the people that there is during the busy time, when the wait time can be over two hours. To keep people amused, the walls of the line are filled with shelves of magical equipment. There are some areas where, when busy, the stanchions zigzag, and a hologram of Dumbledore comes out to talk. We stopped to look and listen. The best part was a side room of a classroom - not being busy, the line bypassed it - but we went in anyway. Again, the walls were lined with magical equipment, and there was a hologram skit with Ron, Harry, and Hermione. At one point there was hologram snow falling from the ceiling. And, as Mike pointed out, we had the place all to ourselves. Of course, I liked the dragon skeleton hanging from the ceiling.
Best of all, for me, was the conversation. Mike is interested in anything and everything, and we pretty much talked from Monday afternoon when he got off the plane until Saturday morning when he got back on. Having someone to share meals, talk over dinner, chat while having a glass of wine in the evening. I was like a starving person being presented with a never-ending all-you-can-eat buffet.
I wasn't ready for him to leave. And, in a way, he wanted to spend more time with me. But, alas, he has a life, and a wife, and his cat Moonie who needed her servant back.
Back home, after I took him to the airport, it was (as they said in old Western movies) quiet. Too quiet. Echoing. Deafening silence.
But it's home, and the cats are happy to see me, and I'll be going back to the museum. And probably go to visit them some time next year.
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