Taxation without representation - Washington DC

HE SAID:
After a very long drive from North Carolina, we finally made it to DC. It was such a bad day hearing that my brother died, and it didn't help we arrived at the RV park very late, which meant a dark set up.

Before I flew home for the funeral, we had one day to take a hop on, hop off tour of DC. It was nice that the RV park had a dog walker which allowed us to stay the whole day in the city.  We took a bus and subway to the heart of the city which was easy.

There was so much to see in DC that we wanted to take the tour to know what to come back to after I got home from Calgary. We only got off to visit Madam Tussaud museum. (It came free with our tour tickets.)

The whole museum was dedicated of course to the US presidents, but they had some great statues of actors. After lunch, we tried to get back on the tour bus, but we kept getting the wrong directions where it was going to stop. It didn't help that DC was in lock down, due to a major power outage, which made traffic backed up for blocks. We did manage to finish the tour, but the narration on our headsets was way off of what we were driving by.

The next day Pat dropped me off at the Baltimore airport where I flew home to Calgary. It was weird going back to Canada without Pat.  The landscape was so different then Washington. Everything was so brown.  After renting a car, I made my way to my mom's.  My older brother Ray flew in the next day and we took a trip with mom and Denise to visit my dad's gravesite, have lunch and a nice visit to Turner Valley to see my brother Jim and his wife Judy.

The funeral was the next day and was well attended. It was family only for the internment.  There were many tributes about Chris that day.  I will miss my younger brother.  We shared birthdays when we were younger - mine Christmas eve, his Christmas day.  He was a good man.

It was a short visit and I was back to DC before I knew it.

Pat arranged for the dogs to go to a dog sitter for a few days so we could tour DC without a worry. The dog sitter wanted us to have a meet and great before he took them. This guy lived way out in Arlington, which was quite a drive from the RV. He approved of the girls, so a few days later we dropped them off.

Here are the sights we took in while in DC.

1) The National Cathedral

This cathedral took 83 years to complete and was just finished in 1990. It is a beautiful church with so many little chapels. It is also the place where Helen Keller is buried.

2) Arlington Cemetery

I have heard of this cemetery since I was just a small boy in Grade 2 when President Kennedy died. I wanted to see his burial site. This cemetery is 624 acres, with rows and rows of white crosses. We decided to walk to the tomb of the unknown Soldier and the eternal flame area where Kennedy, two of his children and Jacquie are buried.  When we arrived we saw a sign telling us the next changing of the guard at the unknown soldier tomb was in five minutes. It was a lot further then we thought. I ran ahead of Pat and made it just in time. It was a very moving ceremony. This tomb is guarded 24/7 365 days a year, rain or shine. When they played the Taps, I started to cry. I think my dad and father in law were happy in heaven that we were here paying our respects to all these service men.


3) The National Monument

A very well known attraction that is visible in so many directions in the city. (highest stone structure in the world) We never actually walked right up to it, because we drove by it a dozen times.  We were told that you could take an elevator to the top, but you have to reserve tickets weeks in advance and there are only tiny windows on top.  What is weird too is that there are two shades of stone on the monument. They ran out of money after they started it.

4) DC cupcakes

  While not a major tourist attraction, we had seen this show on TLC many times and just had to try the cupcakes. They were awesome!!!

5) Lincoln Memorial

To see this was always on our bucket list. It was just so hard to find a parking spot close to it without having to walk so far. We scored a great spot about a block away, which saved our feet.  Such a great memorial....so majestic!!!

6) Vietnam Memorial

Very close to the Lincoln Memorial is the Vietnam Memorial. Having grown up during this war, we were sensitive to all those who died in this awful war.  It is a very sombre place paying tribute to those that died in service. Many have pleased flowers etc in front of the section of the deceased they are related to or knew.

7) Jefferson Memorial

 This was our last stop of sights to see while were in the car. Again we lucked out in finding a great parking place.  Another beautiful memorial for this founding father of the USA and writer of the Declaration of Independence.

8) The White House

The White House is really difficult to get close enough to take pictures. It is well protected and they randomly block off the road that goes in front of it without notice. We lucked out after the tour of the White House visitor centre, that they just reopened the street.  

9) Smithsonian - American History Museum

This was our first visit to a Smithsonian museum. We just loved that all the Smithsonian Museums (there are 9 sites) are all free.  Even though we had to put up with a thousand school kids it was well worth it. Each museum was well worth the crowds. Loved the first one, where we got to see so much Americana...including the above which was the original chairs from "All in the Family."

10) Smithsonian - Natural History

We loved this place. Kept thinking of Night at the Museum movies and that all these animals would come alive!!!

11)  Holocaust Memorial Museum

I wasn't aware of this museum before arriving in DC. It was well worth the visit.  It is a self guided museum. It is beautifully done and it makes you really feel so humble of what happened in World War 2. 

12)  Smithsonian - Air and Space

This is one museum that I have always dreamed of seeing. It really delivered. I just love anything to do with flying and space ( I am aTrekkie after all). On top of all the amazing exhibits was the Imax movie about Airplanes.   It got Pat and I thinking of what our world would be like without the invention of th airplane. 

13) Boat tour of DC

We got a good Groupon deal on a boat tour. It was really short, and didn't get to see much except the city views. I loved seeing where they store all the helicopters that fly directly on the White House Lawn.

14) Smithsonian - National Zoo

I usually find a zoo not all that exciting. I really enjoyed this one. Didn't like all the walking we had to do, but it is well done. 

15) Washington DC Temple

Our RV park was so close to this temple. I loved that you could see the temple from the freeway.  

16) Mount Vernon - George Washington Estate and Tomb

This was well worth the drive. George Washington's home is still the same as it was when he lived there. They even still have the bed he died in ( he basically chocked to death with some desease)

17)  Gettysburg

This was bit of a drive from DC, but it was well worth it. We didn't have enough time to watch the show in the visitor centre, but we did spend some time visiting the scenes of Civil War battles.  They have set it up with a great route, that gives you great history of the area.

18) National Archives.  

Not sure why we don't have any pictures... but in this site, we got to see the original Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights (maybe we couldn't take pictures????)

19)  Bureau of Engraving

One of the last sites in DC was the place where they make all the money (well at least one of two places in the USA..the other site is in Texas). The tour allows you to actually watch the making the bills in real time....we got to see how they make the 20 and the 5.  Of course no freebies...lol

We really loved our time in DC. We were actually here for three weeks, but the time went by so fast. The RV park was so clean and accessible which made it so much easier.  We never did make it to any Art Galleries, and i'm sure there are many other sights for another visit.

SHE SAID:

My previous experience in Washington DC was when I was a child, driving to Florida to visit my Grandparents.  It was raining - the water was hitting the bottom of the car - my father went the wrong way down a one way street and was stopped by a police man.  I recall looking up at the Washington Monument and trying to be very, very quiet.  This trip was very different and I am happy that we spent a total of three weeks here.  We changed plans due to Chris passing away, and my wanting to be in civilization while alone with the dogs.  

Washington DC is a beautiful city!  We were there when the Cherry Blossoms were in full bloom and it was BEAUTIFUL!  There were also Magnolias - so much pink, everywhere you looked.  There is also a very easy to manage public transit system and there is a lot to do there that is free.  I wish that I'd known when our kids were younger as it's very family friendly.  When John was gone I stayed pretty close to the campsite area but did venture out for a few hours each day.  I loved the architecture and history that is everywhere we went - many brick homes and lots of history!

John covered everything we saw and did, so I won't get into too much more detail.  The people we met as we wandered the city were wonderful!  I think every time we got the confused tourist look on our faces someone asked if they could help us out.  One of our more fruitless mornings was spent looking for the National Aquarium.  It was on the maps, it was on street signs pointing the way.  We took the subway, then started to walk to it - seemed simple enough.  We walked and walked, and walked some more around and past where all indications showed where the Aquarium should have been.  After about an hour, with a heated discussion between us we decided that perhaps asking someone would be in order.  We were by the White House Welcome Centre, so went in - the security guard told us the Aquarium had been moved to Baltimore.  Really????  She told us - "Oh, the maps and signs haven't been updated yet."  I guess Nemo was not to be found by us.  Moving on...

We discovered some odd places to eat while wandering, one of which was at the Department of Agriculture - another longer than necessary walk as we went right, instead of left, but this working government building has a huge cafeteria that is open to the public, after showing ID and signing in.  It was cheaper that the restaurants and there was a lot of choices as to what to have, with stations for many different choices of ethnic foods and a huge salad bar.  Not fancy but food was good - lots of WW2 posters set up around the room.  Who knew?

The Holocaust Museum stuck a deep chord within me - it is a reminder of what man can do to man.  How far things can go when people get wrapped up into a magnetic personality and no one steps up to say enough.  It was an emotionally exhausting place to visit. 

Even after three weeks, there was much that we didn't see but I do think that we did do and learned a lot! 

So happy that we were in DC at Cherry Blossom Time!!

Nothing could be finer, than to be in CAROLINA!!!

Carolina Scotties

HE SAID:  We went through the Carolina's last year on our way home from Florida to Toronto in the RV.  We didn't have a chance to enjoy it, so we made it a plan to visit the two states this year and take our time.

I'm glad we did. Our first stop after Brunswick George was Charleston South Carolina. We had so many other RV'ers tell us that this stop was a must. 

Pat found us a great RV park very close to the centre of the city.  James Island county park was beautiful. It even had a fantastic off leash dog walk that was so close to the RV.  The park closed down after sundown, but they gave us a code to get in. What was strange though is that after dark, we could only walk the dogs in the RV area of the park.    

We seemed to have arrived at the beginning of the numerous spring breaks here in the USA, so the RV park was really full and they wouldn't allow us to extend our stay.

Folly Beach

We were happy that we are still very close to the east coast beaches. Folly Beach was even nicer then Georgia and certainly fuller with tourists.











We made sure that we took a hop on hop off tour of the city. Getting someone to tell us what we were looking at makes all the difference. Charleston is another southern charm city, but had a major roll in the civil war.   I know the next picture is hard to see,

 but that little piece of land in the middle of the picture is Fort Sumter. It is where the Civil war actually began. Big cost to visit the island, so didn't go any closer. 

  The old homes were amazing. Didn't realize that they used so much iron on the outside of their homes.

Many of the downtown streets still have cobletsone. 

One of our favourites places in the city was this market. It is a totally covered market and goes for blocks. Loved all the shops especially all the Sweet Grass basket vendors.  Definition : Made in Charleston from indigenous bulrush, a strong yet supple grass that thrives in the sandy soil of the coastal region, sweetgrass baskets are now among the nation’s most prized cultural souvenirs.    The baskets were amazing and beautiful, but wow they were expensive.

After touring the market, we enjoyed a great lunch at the Charleston Crab house (just beside the market).  We were told to try She Crab soup. "She-crab soup is a rich soup, similar to bisque, made of milk or heavy cream, crab or fish stock, Atlantic blue crab meat, and crab roe, and a small amount of dry sherry added"  

This was one of the best tasting soups I have ever tried. 

 On another day in Charleston we visited this amazing air craft carrier called the USS Yorkton. I have always wanted to visit this type of ship. The Yorkton is decommissioned and is big tourist attraction here. 

Inside the USS Yorktown

Pat wasn't too excited about this visit, but she didn't complain. I couldn't believe how tight the quarters were. I would have had major cluster phobia  if I had to be a sailor on one of these ships. 

Got a good groupon deal, and took advantage of taking the water taxi around the Charleston harbour. It was fun, and the best part is that dogs could come with us. Both girls had never been on a boat before and it was fun watching their reaction.

It was a fun week but time to move on. Our next stop was Surf City North Carolina. Got a great price for our RV park. We had a fantastic view 

from our front window of the intercostal seaway, but the RV park itself was nothing to write home about. It needed lots of repairs, there were too many full timers that never leave, no cable and no internet. It was a big park and we were close to the garbage bins, which we're always overflowing. 

I couldn't complain again about being right on the coast. The beaches at surf city were also amazing. 

Even though it was spring break time we were far enough north that the beaches here were not very busy. Allowed us to let dogs run off leash.  Still having issues with the load of sand in our RV.  We did take some side trips to towns close by, but nothing exciting except Le Jeune Marine corp base, where my son in law Josh had been stationed. Best place to be was Wilmington NC.  

We also took a hop on hop off tour of the city. It was unforutnate our tour guide was awful. He sounded like he really didn't care for the job and that he had said the same thing so many times, he wasn't sure what he was saying anymore. 

Loved this

church on the Tour. It is the 

1. First Presbyterian Church with a rooster on top. This was a very busy church in the civil war, and it is said the rooster on top helps distinquish the church from being a catholic church.  Go figure.
   
   
   The neatest part of Wilmington is the fact it is called Hollywood of the east.  (nicknamed Wilmywood). There have been hundreds of movies, and tv shows filmed in this city. It even has its own studio lot. Pat and I took a downtown walking tour...mostly seeing sights of Dawson Creek and One Tree hill.   Picture below is from a downtown market where many movie stars have signed their name. Kind of like a Hollywood walk of fame. 
   

   
   
   
   
   
   One of last tours was of the studio lot where we got to see the actual house used for Secrets and Lies ( a great ABC show Pat and I watch every Sunday). Also was in the cafe for "Under the Dome".  I even touched the seat where Stephen King sits while they are filming the series (end seat at the cafe counter).   The sad part is the State of North Carolina isn't giving their large tax breaks to TV and Movie networks anymore. It is said most of the filming out east will move to Atlanta. Sucks for the city of Wilmington where they already have the studios.

   

   Sleepy Hallow also filmed here.

   
   We were to move on to an area of North Carolina where Kitty Hawk was located. We even had a park reserved. But three days before we were to be there, I got bad news that my brother Chris was being moved to a hospice. Last year he was diagnosed with inoperable Pancreatic cancer and wasn't doing well. After a walk by myself and the dogs, I came in and told Pat we needed to move on to Washington DC the next day incase I had to make a trip back to Canada. The next day (Sunday)  got the news he passed away early in the morning. I was driving the RV and had a good cry. Pat was able to get me good tickets to Calgary three days later.   I was happy Pat was left in a good park in a bigger centre (Pat stayed back to watch the dogs). 
2. Overall we loved the Carolina's and we were glad we saw so much.
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4. SHE SAID:
5. I did enjoy our visit in the Carolina's.  I had lots on my to-do list, but many of them are for another day.  Never did make it to the area where the Andy Griffith Show was filmed - was a bit far from where we were staying.  We did lots and enjoyed the places we stayed.  As we were close to the coast, the ground was sandy and sweeping out the RV kept us both busy.
6. We had a relaxing time, poking around the areas we were located, taking the above noted tours.  John REALLY wanted the USS Yorktown tour, which was interesting.  My favourite part of this was going into the bowels of the carrier, looking at the crew quarters, where prisoners were held, the small canteen and barbershop.  The different areas for officers and crew were typical military where officers certainly get more space/luxury than the enlisted men.  The ceilings were low and pipes were running above us, the halls were narrow and...John is somewhat claustrophobic.  After one of the self guided loops he was done.  I was able to have a bit of fun with him during our walk about ;).
7. I throughly enjoyed our movie set walking tour in Wilmington where we went to areas of town where TV series and movies were filmed.  John included our children in Canada on the tour.  He opened our family chat and sent numerous pictures of Dawson's Creek sites as our girls were huge fans of the show.  Poor Paul was at work, with his phone beeping every few minutes - he was away from his desk for part of the tour - I think his co-workers were driven crazy by the noise of his notifications going off.  It was interesting as there were many TV shows and movies filmed in the area.  The walking tour inspired us to take the movie studio tour.
8. The park we stayed in here was not as nice as many we have been in.  The one saving feature was the beautiful view of the water out our front window.  The evening John got the call from his mother and decided to move on to Washington DC,  I had also come to the same decision and had previewed several places he could fly home from, by the time he had returned from his walk - DC seemed to be the best choice.  We packed up Sunday morning, and hit the road.  It was a long trip, as we learned that early Sunday morning Chris passed away.
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Georgia on our mind!!!

St Simons Island

HE SAID:

This is the second time that I have written about our experiences in Georgia. Not sure what happened the first time,… I guess that I didn’t save it correctly. Here I was blaming Pat for the delay in posting about our time here, but I was the guilty one.

Anyway, we did arrive in Brunswick Georgia as planned on February 21. Pat did an awesome job finding an excellent RV park that we could stay for a full month. (I was really happy to have free cable, especially AMC where we could keep up with the Walking Dead)

I really enjoyed my time here, except for the terrible no see ums that took a liking  to me.  So much so, I had to visit a walk in to get some medication to stop the crazy itching.

Brunswick itself wasn't all that exciting.  All over this area of the country was amazing oak trees. Here is Pat and I having our picture taken in front of the oldest oak tree in town.

 Brunswick is know for it being a major import port for European and Asian cars, ie. Mercedes, BMW's etc. The size of ships the cars arrive on we huge.

Brunswick though is right beside two major tourist attractions,. Jekyll and St. Simon's Island. 

Jekyll Island was close to our RV park, so we spent a lot of time here. It had miles of beautiful sandy beaches where we often walked the dogs (just had to put up with a lot of sand in the RV). This island had a very famous winter resort where the rich and famous visited from the north. Unfortunately after the WW2 Florida became more popular and this resort had to shut it down. It was saved by the state and is used now as a historical site.

The Jekyll Island Turtle sanctuary was very interesting. 

Here they save sea turtles from all over the eastern USA. Above is the "Turtle" doc helping out this little guy.


We took a really good tour of St Simons Island.  There were quite a few plantations here where they grew cotton and rice. The summers where so hot though, the plantation owners would leave this area and go to Brunswick. However they left the slaves alone where many died.

The tour we took of this Island was very interesting. St Simons also played a big part in the civil war due to its strategic location.

My favourite tourist stop in Georgia was our visits to Savannah. I have always wanted to visit this area, ever since watching and reading the Prince of Tides. This was an amazing place. The scenery was fantastic.

Besides being the location of many films, including where they filmed Forest Gump, 

it was also the a spot for famous painters (Norman Rockwell's market scene) location.

Savannah was the location of one of the original 13 colonies and believe or not has the second largest St Patrick's day celebration in the USA (after NYC). We did our tour of the city the day after, and you could tell the city was well decorated. Even when I ordered a lemonade at Chick Fil-A it was green.

We both thought we might of left Florida a little too early. Even though where we were was really close to the state line, the weather was very cool and often wet.  Took advantage of the cool days and did some RV reorganization. When you live in a 30 by 10 foot home, everything must be kept organized.   Next stop ...the Carolina's. 

She said...Georgia was a lovely place to spend some time.  It was green, clean and the place we stayed was very nice.  There is so much history in this area, as a history buff I really enjoyed the tours that we took.  I loved St. Simons Island.  We went on a trolley tour around this island, which was presented very well.  Our guide was well versed in history and local customs.  We learned a lot about some of the freed slave culture as he tended to discuss this as we drove around the island.  His point about a church with blue stained glass windows being a predominantly black congregation was something I had never heard of.  As well, painting the roof of a porch sky blue will help keep bugs away.  After that I notice a lot of sky blue porch roofs - I do wonder if it works.  

Georgia was also very cool and wet during our visit.  On the days it did warm up the noseeums were a nightmare.  I am glad John was with me during walks, as they prefer his taste to mine and he diverted their attention from me.  John ended up with red itchy marks that looked very trashy, as well as being very itchy...poor guy, but it is better than the illnesses that he had last year during our trip.

We went on a number of walks on off leash dog parks with Libby and Kiri.  They enjoyed it...rubbing their beards in the coarse sand, having their skirts drag along the coarse sand...you're getting the drift, I know.  They liked to get their feet and belly wet, then absorb as much sand as they could to bring back into the car and finally to the motorhome.  Ick!  I swear we are still finding sand in corners from the Georgia beaches.

We met a few interesting people here - when we were at the Kissing Oak - picture above - a fellow actually pulled over to take our picture.  His family has lived in the area for about 150 years.  I think he may have circled block a couple of times to watch our selfie attempts and finally felt sorry for us.  In the park I chatted quite a bit with an older gentleman from the Ottawa area.  He had a beautiful German Shepard, who the girls got along with very well and we had long talks about dog health in an RV and internet reception.  We bumped into a couple from Edmonton who had a Westie and a Scottish Terrier - they could empathize about skirted dogs and the beach.  On an evening walk we started talking with a couple from Quebec who steered us to an RV Park that was in Jersey City, with a view of the Statue of Liberty, for our adventures in New York coming at the end of April.  It was a bonus for me as I was trying to figure out where to park the giant vehicle in the giant city.  Time went quickly and it was time to move on...which we will post about soon :)

Wandering Florida...again! Yippee!

HE SAID:  We were happy to be back in our favourite US State. Florida has a fantastic winter climate. The moist sea air always feels so good. I know that I always breath so much better here. 

After dropping off Dusty and Ted in Miami for their trip to the Dominican Republic, we drove north to Florida where we spent a couple of nights getting for our four weeks away from the dogs and motor home. We found a fantastic dog sitter in Orlando which we used last year. She loves the two girls and we knew they were being left at a great home. After dropping the dogs off we drove further north just past Daytona Beach and put the motorhome in storage. Pat found a great storage site that was in a secured paved fenced property. The worst part of leaving the RV is always emptying the fridge and freezer- although it is a great time to defrost the fridge and do a major clean.  

Next we headed to Daytona beach where we had booked an RCI condo on the beach. 

 This was 

a "replacement" condo from last year week in Miami Beach. I had complained so much, RCI gave me the week back so we didn't have to use any RCI points. (As I write this I am watching extreme Cheapskate on TLC..lol).  While this condo was not all that great, it was clean, had a picturesque view of the ocean and had awesome internet. 

I enjoyed the week in Daytona. It was a hoot driving on the beach. It took us a about a half hour of driving on the beach (way longer then we planned). We decided to go back for pictures later in the week but we couldn't get back on as the weather had deteriorated and the waves were too big.  

Daytona of course is home of the Daytona Speedway.  Fortunately the first Nascar race wasn't for a few weeks, so the area wasn't very busy. 

We actually didn't spend the whole week that we booked here, as we made plans to meet Pat's family in Miami.  After we booked into a hotel in Miami, we met up with Norm and Pat's mom at the airport, awaiting arrival of Ted and Dusty from the DR and Tricia from SLC. We had time to have a snack before the planes arrived then we all headed out for a regular dinner. It was nice to be all together. We met again the next day and toured a really cool church that had been moved (brick by brick) from Europe to Miami...go figure. Got some great family photos in the garden. 

After a few days in Miami, we all boarded the NCL Getaway and took a week cruise to the Carrebean.  Pat and I had been to all the Islands on the iternary but we looked forward to spending time with everyone.  We had a really nice cabin, right at the front of the ship, so we could see where we were going. The first two days at sea were rough, and being at the front of the ship, we really felt it. Again, the rougher the sea the better I sleep.  Our first port was St. Maartin.  Everyone but Norm and Tricia took a guided tour of the Island.  We actually did this the last time we were there, but this tour was much better.  I got to see the beach where the planes land almost on your head and they take off so close to you, they warn you of a bad burn watching them take off.  Even with all the warning signs there were a lot of people standing right beside the fence.  Couldn't figure out though if they had this warning why did they post a sign nearby with the flight times???

Our next stop was St Thomas. We have been to this island numerous times. Usually we just shop, but decided to take another island tour. Norm and Tricia left the cruise ship here as Norm had a speaking engagement in Indonesia? . We booked an excursion here to do some snorkelling. They took us out on a boat and we were able to swim with the sea Turtles. It was amazing.

Bahamas

After another day at sea we arrived in the Bahamas. This was our third time there. We took another private tour and which was great. Got to Atlantis which we have only seen from a distance before.  Very posh!!!

We were smart on this cruise by brining on board our own soda. I really fought it but it was way cheaper, besides NCL only serves Pepsi and I was able to stick with Coke. As well we prepaid our room charges, so our final bill was really affordable. It was a nice ship, but there was no nightly show. You had to book various venues in advance. 

After the cruise Pat and I, Ted, Dusty and Pat's mom all packed into our little Scion XB (along with all the luggage...we were quite the sight) and drove north to Orlando where we had a three bedroom condo. This RCI condo in Davenport was about 30 minutes from Orlando, but we had our own two story townhouse where everyone had a room and their own tv.  My favourite part was we had our own high speed modem and you should have seen the download speed. Woot Woot!. I worked on downloading the top 85 best oscar pictures for my library.  Dusty finally joined the wonderful world of Apple buying a Macbook Air and she too was downloading like crazy.  We had a nice week with everyone. We decided to only do one major park..Universal and for those of you who know the price will know why. I have wanted to do the Harry Potter theme park for years and insisted we do it this year. We bought the Park hopper which was the best as the Harry Potter train goes between the two parks. This was my favourite part.

Pat going through the wall....really cool

Harry Potter Train

I was the only one who would go on the Dragon Challenge roller coaster ride. It was quite the ride ...got pretty dizzy. We all went on the Forbidden Journey ride (line up wasn't that bad). This is the ride everyone has talked about. Wasn't fond of the 3D affect though. We all felt sick after. It was once in a lifetime ride...although I'm sure the grandkids will love it.

The other park we went to was Gatorland. It was our second time, but thanks to Groupon we got in without too much damage to the pocketbook. Got some great photos. Dusty was the only brave one to sit on the Gator.

And to add to my sign collection, I saw this at Gatorland.

We said goodbye to Ted and Dusty( we have been together since boxing day - except one week ) and Pat's mom. Pat took them to the airport while I packed. We then moved to the Sheraton Vistana Resort for our last week in Florida. We love this resort, but had to listen to another ownership timeshare pitch. We were given to the big guns who told us we didn't have the right timeshare, and we needed to upgrade. We just laughed. Pat came up with an excuse of the falling CDN dollar and our stocks going down in value. They bought it and sent us on our way.  We just relaxed and toured some more of Orlando. Pat upgraded her IPad so she was busy selling her old one on Ebay. Got really tired of all the traffic in Orlando. So many traffic jams. 

We were happy to be reunited with our two dogs and made our way back to pick up our motorhome. We left Florida and entered Georgia. It was a good to be back in the RV!

SHE SAID:

Just reading John's post brought back memories of the four weeks in florida.  It was a lot of fun and we did lots!

I won't go on too much...just fill in some of my memories of the month.  First, the dogs...yes we dropped them off, and yes, we had an amazing sitter (thank goodness).  On day one we got an email that dear Kiri had developed the runs.  Now, this is a dog that is normally house trained...evidently she wasn't in her new location.  I am a dog person and I love my dogs dearly, but they are dogs.  Having said that, this entire month away was like worrying about the kids when they were younger.  Kiri was very difficult for most of the stay.  A portion of my days were spent in email discussion about how to solve the 'problem'.  Thank goodness I had read about pumpkin in a site we follow about Scotties.  My dogs should have been named Peter for the month, but it did work to stem the flow.  Evidently they also developed a bad smell.  As an OCD person, who owns guilt very well, this became a real worry and source of a way to kill time for me for the entire month.  As a by the way, after getting them back, I put them on a grain free diet, no more chicken, and I'm giving probiotics...it seems problem is fully solved.  

In Daytona, John became obsessed with solving the problem of moving luggage for 5 from Miami to Orlando in a Scion XB.  We went from store to store.  We actually purchased a rooftop carrier, and thought the issue was dealt with.  Evidently, not...we took the purchase out of the box, and the attachments provided were pathetic!  First time a gust of wind came up, or a truck passed us, I could imagine luggage strewed across the freeway.  We then spent a couple of days trying to problem solve how to get this rack to stay on.  It was basically impossible.  After a lot of time committed, we returned all purchased related to the rooftop carrier, and decided to wing it when the time came.  Daytona Beach was quite amazing...we drove the car right on the beach.  It is done there - I've never seen that before.  The beach is very hard, almost concrete, just had to be aware of drifts, so that we didn't get stuck.  We also had supper on the end of a pier, with the ocean right under us.  Good food and lots of fun!  

A couple of days in Miami, meeting up with Dusty, Ted, Mom, Norm and Tricia was fun.  We were not located close to each other, but we did hook up for a few activities, John mentioned.  On the Saturday we started the cruise.  It was on the Norwegian Getaway, which is a huge ship.  So much to do on it, and I don't think I managed to find every nook and cranny on board.  The ports were great, and my favourite was the snorkelling with the turtles.  This was the first snorkelling I have been on that had a large number of children.  It was different, as I did get feet in my face a number of times, especially when something of interest was sighted.  Not sure how we have avoided that in the past.  

After the cruise, 5 of us loaded into the Scion, luggage and all to go to Orlando.  I swear we must have looked like a clown car.  We were so packed!  When we got to the resort, Mom and I went to the  pool, with a lazy river.

Regal Palms resort

 Very nice!  Good thing we went, as the weather cooled down and there wasn't another good pool day in the week.  The Harry Potter part of Universal was very entertaining.

At the end of this week, I took Mom, Dusty and Ted to the airport, and we moved on to the Sheraton Vistana Resort.  This was really a low key week, we hung out, did some shopping, went to the pool, and saw a couple of  movies.  My iPad replacement was unexpected.  We thought that the Apple Store would trade in my old one.  I thought it was in great condition - when they looked at it (obviously I hadn't) there was a dent in the case and the top corners of the glass were crushed underneath the outer layer.  Not worth anything with that much damage - to them.  I reverted to eBay and got to the dollar what the Apple Store would have given me for a 'perfect' condition iPad.  At the end of the week, we picked up our stinky, recovering dogs and headed for Georgia.

Our 'vacation' from our vacation was very relaxing and it was nice to have access to a bathtub for a few weeks :).