The bus ride to Animal Kingdom was pretty quiet, neither Rig or I talking much. My silence was due to nerves, his I'm sure was from his slight headache, he said he had taken something for it and was just waiting for it to kick in. I figured riding a roller coaster might make his headache worse and if need be we could hold off on it for a while.
Then it dawned on me, I was already making excuses for why I shouldn't ride Expedition Everest. The second guesses started coming fast and furious.
what if we get in to the park and I don't ride the coaster, then I have just waisted what could have been a relaxing day at Magic Kingdom.
What if we do ride it and Rig is left feeling worse than ever, then again I have waisted what could have been a great day at magic Kingdom.
I felt stupid all of a sudden and wished I had never changed our plans.
The bus dropped us off and we made the long walk to the gates of Animal Kingdom. It was way past rope drop by that time and there weren't alot of people waiting to get in. Right before we were to put our cards into the machine Rig asked me, "Are you sure?"
"I don't know anymore, if I chicken out again and don't ride what will we do the rest of the day?"
"Our favorites I guess, and some of the things we missed since we left pretty early in the day yesterday."
We stepped away from the machine to talk it out more thoroughly. My anxiety level was so high, it could have had alot to do with it being our last day, but the majority of it was coming from facing that roller coaster, the last of the Disney thrill rides, I had done them all but that one, could I really walk away from it and be happy with myself? I got angry at myself again. My gosh, why? Everytime!!!!!! I had done far more scary things in life that I didn't think twice about, of course the scary things I did had nothing to do with rides, it was more life changing decisions that I just made in seconds.
"This is so stupid Rig, I am fretting over a park decision."
"Do you want to go to Magic Kingdom instead?" he asked
"Yes, but I also want to ride Expedition Everest."
"At this point Babylee, you can only do one or the other."
"Will you be mad if I back out of riding Expedition?"
"You know I won't be." He said kissing my forhead
I took a few more minutes to think and then decided to just go for it.
So we went back to the machines and fed it our cards, scanned our fingers and then it was done, the first step towards riding that coaster was just getting into the park.
Rig picked up a park map, we didn't have our guides with us that day so we were on our own to find things. It was nice being able to just follow along before and not have to look at signs or landmarks to figure out where we were.
"Did you want to go straight to it, Rig asked, or did you want to do a few other things first?"
"If your head can handle a roller coaster right now then I want to go straight to it."
Rig took my hand in his. "Don't worry about me Leela, I'm fine."
We walked slower than slow. I was in no hurry and Rig wasn't pushing me at all to hurry, normally when I walk too slow he keeps his speed normal and I kind of get dragged by the hand, but that day he walked next to me.
We had to stop and look at the map once just to make sure we were heading in the right direction. there were a couple different ways to get to Expeditiin Everest, we chose to take a right at the tree of life and pass by dinoland USA so we could check out the times guide for Finding Nemo. Rig wanted to go into it's tough to be a bug again, of course we would I told him, we're going to do everything we can at Animal Kingdom and make a whole day of it.
As we passed by Flame Tree Barbque I thought of the Key Lime pie from yesterday.
"Oooh Piiiiie." I smiled and for a few seconds my mind was on that dessert and nothing else.
Rig laughed, "I'll order the key lime pie for dessert today and you can have both yours and mine."
"Thank you," I said
Rig nodded, "just don't fork me this time if I want a little bite."
We made it all the way to Expediton Everest and just stood there looking up at the mountain. My knees were weak and shaking, my heart pounding so loud I was surprised Rig couldn't hear it, or maybe he could and just chose not to comment on it.
Standby was a 30 minute wait. Rig suggested getting fastpasses and we find something else to do until our time to ride came, but I thought either way I would have anxiety, I could wait in the standby line and worry about it for 30 minutes, or I could get a fast pass and worry about it for the next hour when our time was up. I chose to wait it out in the standby line. So in line we went.
We walked for quite a bit, I was starting to think that the wait time posted was wrong and we were going to walk right up to the vehicle but just as I had that thought we hit the end of the line and the waiting began.
the walk through to the line was very interesting, alot of things to look at and if I hadn't been so scared of what was awaiting me I probably would have enjoyed looking at all of it more.
I looked at the people around me, kids younger than me, girls my age, parents, they were all laughing and talking excitedly. Seriously I thought, I can't be the only one this scared to ride, somebody else is just as terrified, they're just faking it. I couldn't fake anything, and I'm sure my fear showed on my face. I was standing in front of Rig, his arms around me and with each step he had to use some force to get me to move forward with the line.
I won't back out, I won't back out, I kept repeating it to myself, This is going to be fun, I am going to love this, Expedition Everest is going to be my favorite ride. I was trying so hard to believe the lies I was feeding myself. I would look down at my watch every few minutes, the line was moving fast compared to the time on my watch. This is going to be less than a 30 minute wait. After 25 minutes of waiting, we were being asked how many in your party? I tried to answer, my mouth formed to say the word two, but nothing came out. Rig answered for me and we were pointed to our spot Close to the back of the train.
We had 3 other couples ahead of us and one of them was just loading into their train. I tried to slow my breathing down and control my body shakes. I felt so pukey, then I felt like I needed to pee. I should have gone right before I got in line.
"Are you ok?" Rig asked
I couldn't speak so I just nodded. the next couple then loaded into their train. I was that much closer. I won't back out, I won't back out. Keep breathing Leela, slow and steady. I leaned back against Rig, He leaned down and started humming in my ear one of my favorite songs "she's got a way with me." by Billy Currington I closed my eyes and rested the back of my head on his chest. We started to sway a bit and I was able to relax some.
the next couple loaded into their train. Wow, I'm next, my eyes started to play tricks on me and I saw little flashes of streaking lights, the sounds around me became muffled. I felt hot and cold at the same time, then I felt my knees start to give, they buckled just a bit but I caught myself, Rig grabbed me tighter around the waist.
Did I just almost pass out? I asked myself, this was crazy.
"let's not ride." Rig said, "Let's tell them we changed our minds."
I shook my head no, I was going to ride, I changed our plans to do this and I had to stick to it now.
"there's nothing wrong with backing out Leela, you tried."
I just kept shaking my head no, then our train pulled up and we were ready to load. I got into the train with Rigs help, I felt like mush, I couldn't do anything, my fingers weren't working at all, nothing was working.
we got strapped in and the CM came by and checked our bar restraints. I looked at Rig and knew there was no backing out now. He wiped the tears from my cheek that I hadn't even known had fallen.
I managed a smile, Rig smiled back and put his arm around me then the train started forward, I felt a peace for a second then I saw the hill we were going to climb and the peace left, I buried my face in Rigs chest.
"Please Leela, don't bite me, please, that really hurt last time." He wasn't being funny, his pleading voice was so serious.
The ride up the hill took forever, I wanted it to hurry up and get there but at the same time I never wanted it to come. I did look up and one point to see how close to the top we were and I even braved a look over the side, I didn't look straight down but I did look straight out and dang! we were high up there.
We made it to the crest of the hill and then plummeted down over the other side. I was trying to hold onto Rig but the force was shoving me around so much I felt safer letting go of Rig and grabbing onto the bar with both hands. I kept my head down though and refused to look up. I felt the ride slow and come to a stop, that was quick I thought, it's over and I survived. I opened my eyes and looked up, all I could see was mangled tracks infront of me. I let out the scream of a life time, nothing in this world could ever make me scream like that again.
"Oh $h!t, Leela, Rig yelled, "that's supposed to be there, I'm sorry, I should have told you, I'm sorry."
It didn't register at first what Rig had said, and in seconds I had a million things run through my head. He's lying! was the first one, then I thought, if he isn't lying then how do we get out of this, will a new track drop down? The ride started going backwards. "I'm falling." I screamed
"It's part of it." Rig said
I buried my face in his chest again. "Watch the nipples Lee, watch the nipples." Rig shouted
Going backwards on a roller coaster is the wierdest feeling, I felt like I was falling backwards and upside down like a backwards sommersalt. I didn't like the feeling at all, it was dizzying. The train slowed down, stopped and then righted itself again. I kept my head buried the rest of the time, I could hear shrieks and screams all around me and then growls, it really sounded like a murder was happening, a grizzly horrible murder and I dared not look.
This ride went for far too long, I was over it before it even started, "God please end this now."
The train started to slow down again, is this another trick or is the ride really over, a few poeple cheered and some even clapped, I couldn't hear people saying, "That was awesome." "I'm doing this again." and things like that, so I was sure the ride was done and it was safe to look up.
the train pulled back into the station and came to a stop, getting out of the ride vehicle was not easy, I couldn't move my legs at all, they were moving mind you, but I didn't know how because I couldn't feel them, I stood up and felt myself start to go down again, Rig was right there along with a CM holding me up. I felt my breakfast in my throat, I started dry heaving, oh how embarrassing to throw up in front of all these people. I worked to keep it down, I needed to sit a minute so I sat down right there, alot of attention was on me, also embarrassing, they weren't even allowing anybody to get onto the train. Rig and 2 CM's were all talking to me at once, "Do you need water?" "Do you need a wheel chair?" "Do you want a cold cloth?" "Are you going to throw up?"
I just kept putting my hand up to all them and shaking my head no, finally I felt good enough to stand with Rigs help. After Rig assured them all that I would be fine and we were just going to find a bench to sit on for a while, the CM's stepped back and let us go, but one of them asked me, "So what did you think of our little train ride?"
I know he was trying to be humorous and make light of the situation now that nothing "bad" came from it. But I didn't think it was funny.
"You can keep your little damn train ride." I said and let Rig, who was chuckling, help me out of there.