Hinky The Heartless Monkey Does the AMTC Convention, part 1

Guest post by my 14yod, Diantha!

Recently I went to a modeling convention held by AMTC, at the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center in Orlando, FL.

We have this Huge stuffed gorilla named Red Floyd at home, and after we got to the hotel we would be staying at for the Convention we saw that they had a jungle setting, and decided he would be perfect for the plan we cooked up, which was to put Floyd in situations all over the place to make it look like he was having fun!

But there was a problem. We didn't bring him. So we just had to go to the local Big-Box store and get Hinky the Heartless Monkey. (He had a red heart, but we cut it off to give to Betsy.) Here's a pic of Hinky in a huge Aloe plant!! I love Aloe plants!!

Hinky went lots of places that week, and had a lot of Adventures.

First he wanted to have his picture taken by the waterfalls. In the atrium of the hotel, there is a big, false Spanish Conquistador castle, with ponds and waterfalls.

You can hear them from all over the hotel.


Next he wanted to walk down to Key West and get his picture taken. It's a REALLY long walk from Orlando, but we made it.

And then, he said he needed a break when we found a little moss covered table and chair set outside one of the restaurants. After a little set-a-spell, he said he felt much better.

We decided to go back to the room. Because Hinky is a curious and slightly naught monkey, he got left a little behind. We went back and found him using the (working!) antique phone in the hotel lobby. We still don't know who he called.

We duly scolded him and headed back to the room. We got out some snacks. When we turned around to check on Hinky, we found him eating very-bad-for-you food!


When we confronted him about his terrible choices, he pretended to be asleep.





On the way to one of the seminars, Hinky tried to hide from us again. But we found him, because we're so clever.

It wasn't all work and no play at the convention! In fact, one of Hinky's favorite places we visited was the arcade!

He got to ride in a yellow helicopter.


During one of the breaks at the convention, mom and I found a local shooting range and went shooting. Hinky didn't get to go, because he's still young and careless.

But in the arcade, he got to practice shooting an automatic weapon at bad guys.

And, he got to ride in a real-life pretend spaceship. I was a little jealous!

Because the hotel atrium is HUGE (4.5 acres), it took him a while to get around to exploring the end farthest from our room. That end was designed like the swamps of the Everglades. We found him hiding from us in the plants and mist.


And then we found him relaxing on the porch of a little fishing shack. The shack was interesting, as it had aquariums of little Everglades creatures, like snakes.

Hinky didn't seem to be afraid of them at all.

Upstairs in the convention center again, he climbed up on a decorative armoire to look in a pot. We had to get him down.

On Saturday night, there was a Christian Rock band that played. They were good, but the music was very loud. Hinky hid under a chair.


Then we found him being a VERY BAD LITTLE MONKEY! No, no, Hinky! That's not a potty! That's a donation pot for the rock group's mission trip!



After all the apologies, and the excitement died down, we went to the Haagen-Daz place in the lobby for ice cream before bed.

It seems that even bad little monkeys love ice cream!