Picture of the Day Catch-Up: January 1-5, 2010

We're back here today, catching up on some of the Pictures of the Day I took at the start of the new year. Specifically, these are from January 1st to 5th. On January 2nd, Angela and I went with my family to Walt Disney World in Florida, so some of the pictures are from there. It was a great family vacation, and Angela will have stories about the rides to last her the rest of her life!

January 1st: This is a wall outside of a house at the entrance to my parents' neighborhood in Fort Collins. The house was once a school many, many years ago, but the owners seem to have renovated it. It looks pretty great now. I don't know if they put the bench there or not, though.

January 1st: I decided to have two Pictures of the Day for the first day of the new year, since I thought the snow and empty bench was a bit sad. So hopefully these nice warm flowers that were in my sister's house will brighten up the day. We went there with my mom's family to celebrate her birthday (she was the first baby born in Englewood, Colorado in the year she was born!) Happy birthday, mom!

January 2nd: This is a picture taken on Interstate 25, on the way to Denver International Airport. Once we were talking here (in Costa Rica) about the "winter" (dry season) here, and how everything looks so "dead" and "brown" during that time of year. I guess when you compare it to Colorado's winter, though, it seems pretty lush here.

January 3rd: This Picture of the Day comes from EPCOT's World Showcase at Walt Disney World. For a person who's into geography, traveling, and cheesy souvenirs from other countries, World Showcase is amazing. It's got around 10 or 12 countries represented, and each country has its own pavilion with buildings, restaurants, shops, cultural information, and sometimes rides or movies. It's great, actually, and was my favorite part of Disney World. I took this picture of the Japanese area in the evening. I'm still new to night photography, but I was happy with how this one came out.

January 4th: On our second day at Disney World we went to Hollywood Studios, which is basically dedicated to movies, music, and whatnot. They also have some pretty great rides, which are the ones that Angela will be talking about for decades to come. This particular picture is of the Tower of Terror, I believe it's called. Basically, it's a Twilight Zone-themed ride, and you strap into an "elevator" car that leads you around the hotel. Near the end, you go up 13 stories or so, and they drop you. Then you come up and they drop you again. You shit your pants, possibly, or you scream like a madman or madwoman. It's pretty fantastic. Angela said it was great, but she'd never, ever do it again in her whole life. I chose this picture because of the ghostly effect in the front of the frame.

January 5th: On this day we went to Disney's Animal Kingdom, which is like a zoo with rides, basically. It also had a ride that scared the crap out of Angela (the yeti-themed Expedition Everest roller-coaster), and lots of animals. It was actually chilly that day, though, about 32 degrees Fahrenheit, so we tried to do indoors stuff when possible. This statue was at a sort of Pan-Asian restaurant where we ate a tasty lunch (served by a nice Argentinean guy, of course).

So, that's it for today. I'll try to get completely caught up in the next day or so, but since we were on vacation during vacation, if you will, I had an extra hefty load of pictures so sift through.

Also, for each picture here, there are at least 5 more on my flickr page. Please check out the official collection of Pictures of the Day for January, as well as the January Leftovers Page, which has quite a few more interesting photos (at least they're interesting to me!).

Thanks again for reading and looking!

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