Hidden Lovebirds

Most of my life multiple times a year I was unknowingly fueled the passion for adventure and exploration. It was family vacations to historical cities and sights like Boston and Williamsburg, or Gettysburg and Yosemite, and anything else in between. Different theme parks like Cedar Point, Disneyland California, or Six Flags. Zooming up I-95 for a family event for what ever it may be, as a child being the passenger and eventually being of age to drive myself back. So one would think with the passion for travel, writing a blog would be super simple..right?

For anyone that doesn't know, I am a resident here in Central Florida. I've been happy to call this area home my entire life, and proud to be a born and raised Floridian. Being a resident of Central Florida, and having grown up with the parks all around, Disney is a place that I frequent often. Whether it's for my other job at the springs, or going to one of the parks for a few hours with family and friends. Growing up my entire family had ties to employment with Disney World here in Orlando. So as I say, it just runs in my blood. This past Thursday on February 26th my family and I ventured off to Animal Kingdom for the morning and into the afternoon. We do what I would say is "our usual". Hit the safari in the morning before the crowds get there (and of course say hi to all the animals on the walk there), and after that head to the gorilla exhibit to go into one of our favorite spots..the aviary. Birds are some of mine and my family's favorite animals to watch and be around. We always make an effort to hit an aviary whenever there is one, absolutely wherever we may be. At the Africa aviary in Animal Kingdom there are I think about a dozen and a half species of exotic birds openly flying around the area. Every single time we go, we try to find the most elusive bird in there..The Masked Lovebird. They're a green color that matches the green of the leaves in their environment, and they're not very social to the humans around them. So they come down from the tree's to feed in the morning, and go camouflage the rest of the day. Out of sight, out of mind. We always make it a thing of ours to go and look for the Masked Lovebirds and we could never find them, ever. Out of nowhere my son spots three very hard to spot, dark green silhouetted bird figures in the foliage above. The sun kind of shined through that spot of branches so you could just barely see them. There they were, for years going to Animal Kingdom and never being able to spot them..I couldn't believe my eyes. Three Masked Lovebirds perched in a row on a single branch. As ridiculous as it may sound, it was a very exciting moment that we finally spotted such an elusive bird, that was so good at camouflage that even in a small-medium aviary they're nearly impossible to find in the leaves.

As we know at Disney and other theme parks, you're done with one thing and you're off to the next. So from Africa we walk towards Asia...funny enough, to the other aviary. Walking along we're always looking around, observant to our surroundings to maybe see anything cool that draws our attention. It isn't abnormal to see random works of art, painted rocks, anything at Disney World whether it be dropped by a guest, or be a piece of the park itself for decoration purposes. At Animal Kingdom around the outskirts of the Tree of Life there's rock like structures that are pretty tall and my fiancée spots something kind of out of place. She sees a different colored rock wedged on one of the edges, and it had paint on it. It was pretty high up on the structure but being tall I grabbed it and took a look.

I seriously couldn't believe my eyes. What were the odds? The image painted on the rock was an identical image of what it looked like looking up at those Masked Lovebirds in the aviary that took years to find. Yes, they're blue on the rock (ironically my favorite bird is the Eastern Bluebird) but that's what it looked like with the sun shining through the foliage towards us. Dark silhouettes, three of them, on a single branch, in a row. It was one of those moments I had to look over my shoulder and wonder if this was a joke and where is Ashton Kutcher..am I being punk'd? But there was more paint on the other side in different colors with some hearts. It was a social media tag, the name said @living4lew. We looked up the Instagram and saw why the rock was placed there. My heart sank...and my brain started going a million miles an hour. I don't want to get too deep but I have personally lost a lot of friends to the sometimes unforgiving workings of mental health. I honestly don't even know what else to say...besides I was supposed to find this. Here's one to travel Lew...from what I saw on the Instagram you're already countries ahead of me. It's great to know how many advocates you have, that'll take a piece of you wherever they go around the world. And that when they drop a painted rock like this one in Animal Kingdom, a random person picking it up immediately can connect with it. I'm happy that we were the ones chosen for this perfect moment, and thank you for being a part of it.