Fun Find Friday
April 22, 2011
Location:
Dinoland, USA, Disney's Animal Kingdom
It's Earth Day so naturally I'm
going to be talking about a fun find in Disney's
Animal Kingdom (which is celebrating it's 13th
birthday today)!
For anyone who has ever watched
the W.E.D.nesday Show! or read my Fun Find
Fridays, you have probably realized by now that
numbers found throughout Walt Disney World
aren't just random, but really have some meaning
behind it. For instance, take a look at the
picture above. Here we can find a road sign for
US 498.
Why 498? Well, I'll give you a
hint. It's the 13th anniversary of Disney's
Animal Kingdom today, which means it would have
opened on April 22, 1998, or 4/22/98. Get rid of
the 22 and you've got 498!
I know, "Brent, pretty cool fun
find, but you gave it to us right off the bat in
the picture." True, so class, please gather on
the carpet because it's story time! The road
that travels all the way through Dinoland, USA,
which we all now know from the picture is US 498
(with the county being Diggs County) has an
interesting story to it.
After dinosaur bones were
discovered here years before (as the story
goes), this town was similar to Radiator
Springs....forgotten, broken down, and scarcely
populated. When the dinosaur bones were first
discovered though, people began to travel down
US 498 to visit the now popular Dino Institute
or go to the poorly constructed Chester and
Hester's Dino-Rama area created by local married
couple Chester and Hester.
In fact, if you continue down to
the end of the road you can find the parking lot
for Chester and Hester's. You can tell what
business has done to these (now greedy) locals.
While parking use to cost 50 cents, Chester and
Hester have upped the price to meet demands by
charging $2 for parking.
This parking lot sign is just the beginning of
the Chester and Hester story though. In fact,
Chester and Hester have a lot more fun finds up
their sleeves for us, but it all starts with us
cruising down good ol' US 498 to the parking
lot. Now that we've parked, the Fun Finds will
really begin!
Happy Birthday Disney's Animal Kingdom!
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Find Friday