Disney World
We are at Florida’s Walt Disney World, staying at Fort Wilderness, the campground Resort. It is Easter Weekend, so there are a lot of others folks visiting the “Happiest Place on Earth” too. We have 3 full days to see what we can see, do what we can do and make some memories. We started off our first night at Downtown Disney, not a unique idea by the huge crowds that joined us there. A parking place was finally secured after much driving around, we now know; take the shuttle bus from the resort, do not drive!! We had dinner at Planet Hollywood and enjoyed a walk around the area, very warm evening and always a lot to look at, people watching was at its prime.
Saturday, Day #1 – we hit the Animal Kingdom nice and early and were pleasantly surprised that the crowds were not too bad. We made it on to our favorite rides relatively quickly. The first was the Exploration of Everest, the Yehti Experience, we were in the front seat of this wild and crazy roller coaster ride, YIKES!!!!, fun, thrilling and almost too much for this old gal. The Kali River Rapids, (yes we got soaked, but it felt good) and the African safari Trek were great rides too. We enjoyed a bit tamer but very entertaining musical production of Finding Nemo. After returning to the MoHo and taking care of the “Boys” we spent the evening in the Magic Kingdom, we enjoyed the ever favorite Main Street Electrical Parade and watched the fireworks from our campground as we arrived back to camp on the boat launch.
Day # 2 – we headed to Epcot, where we thoroughly enjoyed the Garden Show that was underway throughout the park. There were amazing plantings, displays and topiaries everywhere. We spent about 3 hours exploring the Future World Area; fairly soon the walking, crowds and heat got to us – so we retreated back to camp and rested for awhile. We returned for the evening show, Illuminations: Reflections of Earth, we enjoyed the show and dinner at the Mexican Restaurant we had visited on our previous DW trips, something a bit different this time, our kids are grown and the 100+ band kids are not here either – this 4th visit is awfully nice, just the 2 of us.
Day #3 – this is our last day, where to go, what to see?? We decided that we would go back to Epcot and see the rest of the World Show Case Area. A much later start this morning, the long days are catching up with the old folks, I guess. We did enjoy a couple of rides the Mission Space and Space Ship Earth were both re-runs for us, but fun none the less. We did a bit of shopping and bought some souvenir Toucans for Our Safari. They have joined several of their own flock up on the dash of the MoHo. After traveling around the world, sampling some beer, bratwurst and snacks from country to country we traveled back to Fort Wilderness for some afternoon R & R. In the evening we visited the Wilderness Lodge, just around the lake from our campground, for a very nice dinner. The resort building is modeled after Timberline and Yellowstone National Park Lodges, big, beautiful, and amazingly authentic looking. You have to give it to Disney; they do know how to build things to look “REAL”. We concluded our evening with a viewing of the Magic Kingdom’s fireworks from the Contemporary Resort. Incredible show, there were firework designs that we had never seen before, and of course choreography with Disney theme music couldn’t have been better. This has been a wonderful visit and definitely another highlight of the trip so far. Good thing we only had a 3 day pass, because I think we have just about used up our fun quotient for a while, these old campers need to have a bit slower pace (bed before midnight would be a good place to start).

The East Coast of Florida – The Atlantic Ocean Side
We are now heading north, up the East Coast, we have now been in Florida 2 weeks with another week to go. We are enjoying every bit of it and “Gradually” getting used to the heat and humidity. Felt surprisingly good to hit the road, loved our week on the Keys, but there are many more things to see and a lot more to do, so onward and upward is our coarse today. Our 1st stop was in Homestead, FL. We headed out to visit the Coral Castle a very unique and odd place; is billed as America’s Stone Henge. The structures were built by one man Ed Leedskalmin, over 20 years 1920-40. Ed was a very small but determined man, who was left at the altar by his 16 year old - bride to be, this resulting heartbreak motivated Ed to construct the Coral Castle. There are rooms of oversized furniture, walls, gardens and some interesting terrestrial structures all chiseled out of coral block that was mined and shaped by Ed’s hands. It is still a mystery how he was able to mine, cut, form and move these huge, heavy blocks of coral. No one apparently ever saw him work, he was very secretive and there is some talk about his use of electro magnets to achieve some of his “magic”. The gardens and plantings that were in around the castle were beautiful, another interesting stop on our “Safari”.
Biscayne Bay National Park was our next point of interest. We took a great cruise out into the Atlantic Ocean. We spent about an hour snorkeling on a very beautiful coral reef. We saw a great variety of coral and many different tropical fish; this was best snorkeling we have had so far on our trip. The water was amazingly clear and warm, just a bit of chop, but it gave some motion to the coral and sea plants below. Part of the cruise was a great presentation by a National Park Ranger who gave us a lot of information about how this area has become so valued and how it had been saved from development and destruction. Our visits to National Parks have become more and more appreciated when we realize the beauty that they protect and promote.
Our route continues north; we traveled over 200 miles to the Cocoa area. Drove through the city of Miami, wow, that is one huge city, looked like driving through Los Angeles, luckily the traffic was light and Maggie our GPS did not miss-lead us into downtown. We made our day’s quota of miles and got into our campground at the local Elks’ Lodge. Continuing our a quest to see more of the National Parks we drove to and through the Canaveral National Sea Shore and the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge (this is the area primarily surrounding the Cape Canaveral Space Center), more amazingly beautiful landscapes, incredibly open spaces and very few people considering it is the week before Easter.
We had originally hoped to be able to include the launch of one of the last space shuttles, the Endeavor, on our trip, but as is quite often the case, there are delays and even with Mike’s incredible flexibility in trip planning it just wasn’t in the cards. So we took the day and went to see the Kennedy Space Center, even though we had been there before, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We took the KSC- up close tour, where they drove us out to within about 3 miles of launch pad 39, where the Endeavor is in place for her launch next week. While here it has also been great to have a chance to visit with one of Mike’s students, Tristin Clouse, who contracts for NASA. More to see, more to do – we will be on the road again.

The Florida Keys
PARADISE!!! Yep, think we have found it! We are spending one long glorious week at one of the prettiest places we have seen yet on this trip. We are in Marathon, midpoint on the Florida Keys Island Chain. Our site is right on the sea wall of the Gulf of Mexico. Our front window has the most beautiful view of palm trees, blue water, soaring pelicans and us sitting in our loungers just taking it all in. This is a welcome break from the sometimes frantic pace we have been setting. It is almost half-way through our safari, so the timing couldn’t be much better.
We had lunch at the No Name Pub on No Name Key—known for its friendly people, lousy service and great food. A funny, funky little place that was sort of off the beaten path; we had our first conch fritters there and enjoyed the meal and drinks. We spent the afternoon paddling around the swimming/snorkeling area only 50 steps or so from our MoHo. There wasn’t much to see, but the water was clear and warm, fun just to enjoy the water.
Key West was our next adventure. We drove the 40 miles or so to southern most part of the Keys. What a “hopping” place this is, much more touristy than where we are staying. We spent the afternoon walking along Duval Street where most of the action is. We visited the original Margaretville; Capt. Tony’s Bar, (where Jimmy Buffet sang his first paid gig), did a bit of souvenir shopping and climbed up the Key West Light House to get a view of the town below.
The “Boys” have not been totally ignored. We found a nice beach not far from the camp ground where they can run and swim. Guinness has discovered that he is not afraid of the water. He and Nigel really have enjoyed running out into the swallow water, splashing and chasing each other and other dogs that we have met there. After one such splash and play, we ended up at Salty’s a rustic little grill that sits on the sand right off of the gulf. The 4 of us had a nice lunch and enjoyed the laid-back atmosphere that pretty much describes this area of Florida. Most restaurants here are dog friendly. We have met a play-mate in camp; he is a very handsome English Retriever named Zambuca, Guinness really loves to wrestle and play tug with him.
The highlight of this trip has to be our seaplane trip out to the Dry Tortugas National Park. We flew out of the Key West Airport to the island, about 70 miles west of Key West. It was a fantastic flight, about 40 minutes flying over the most beautiful tropical waters that one can imagine. Evan, our, pilot, was very good giving us information about what we were seeing. We flew over the Marquesas Islands, a couple of ship wrecks, underwater sand dunes, and quite a bit of marine life. The landing was amazing; we pulled in, right up to sand, getting only our toes wet when we disembarked. We then took a self guided tour of Fort Jefferson. Construction was begun in 1846, to control navigation to the Gulf of Mexico and protect Atlantic bound Mississippi River Trade. This fort is the biggest structure built out of brick in the northern hemisphere. After an hour of taking in so much history and improving our minds (????), it was time for some FUN. We snorkeled right off the island, around some old dock pilings, where the water was quite shallow, very warm and clear with a lot of very interesting coral, and quite a few fish. We saw a small momma squid and her young ones, a conch, some shrimp, several schools of fish (100s of fish) from ½’’ long to some almost a foot in length. It was a great swim! All too soon it was time to fly back to Key West. This was really a great day; the fun just keeps on coming. We enjoyed another fantastic sunset right in front of our MoHo – 7 nights, 7 amazing scenes. Going to be hard to leave this place, BUT we have a lot more to do and see on Our Southern Safari.

Fort Meyers, Everglades City and Chokoloski, Florida
This is the beginning of our 7th week of this adventure. We traveled today to Fort Meyer, it was another nice drive with the Florida vegetation, blue skies, sunshine; same ‘ol, same ‘ol. We were able to get into the local Elks Lodge for a very inexpensive night fee ($5.00 donation and a couple of drinks in the lounge. There were no hook-ups, but luckily it cooled down enough that we didn’t need our air. Dinner was “old town” downtown at a very nice sidewalk café, the Morgan House. We sat on the shaded patio with the “Boys” at our side. As we walked by we saw a couple with their parrot, so figured they were animal friendly. This was an enjoyable new experience for the 4 of us travelers.
The Edison-Ford Winter Estate was the next morning’s 1st stop. We took the audio tour that led us around and through the homes and gardens that appear much as they did in the early 1900’s; a beautiful setting right on the bay. This is where Edison, Ford and Firestone worked to try and develop a domestic source for rubber. England owned 80% of the world’s rubber, during this time and was making the production of the Ford automobile and Firestone tires problematic as the British continually raised the price. The lab on the Florida property worked for several years to try and come up with a successful alternative. There were some interesting discoveries, but synthetic rubber was developed before they could ever develop a crop that would be productive enough for their needs.
It is official: It is HOT and HUMID – 90 degrees plus and humidity to match--yikes this is going to take some getting used to for the old folks! We know that we are lucky to be in the warmth, BUT this is just a bit more than we were ready for. To try and cool off a bit we took a boat tour of the Mangrove Wilderness of the Ten Thousand Islands area of the Florida Everglades. This was an interesting cruise through many small islands, out to the Gulf of Mexico. The islands are composed mainly of Mangrove Trees that grow on very shallow deposits of sandstone. We got some good close views of birds (osprey, cormorants, vulchers…) that were nesting on buoys in the estuary. Best of all; on our way back into port we saw 10-15 dolphins that were swimming and playing right off our boat. They swam around us for quite awhile, and we enjoyed watching the action. Our Captain Rick suggested that we eat dinner at Camellia Street Grill. It was a sort of funky little café’, but we enjoyed sitting outside right along the Barren River, dining on some alligator, calamari and crab – yum!
Saturday morning, March 9th our 1st stop was the Ochopee Post Office – officially the smallest post office in the US, it used to be an irrigation shed, complete with American flag and a mail drop box. We then set out to see more of the Everglades National Park. We were glad that the “Leaders” in Washington DC had been able to work out some temporary agreements, because otherwise many National Parks would have been closed starting today. Our travels took us along the Tamiami Trail, (US Hwy 41) that covers the northern most boundaries of the Everglades. We made stops at 5 different Visitor Centers and saw some amazing wild life and scenery. Alligators, alligators, alligators – there were no shortage of them today, amazing how close we got to them. We saw many little ones (less than a year old) as well as some pretty big “fellows” too. The last stop of the day was at the Shark Valley Visitor Center, where we boarded a tram that took us on a 15 mile drive through the heart of the Everglades. This 2 hour ride was through immense saw grass prairies, which is actually one of the largest and slowest rivers in the world. We had a very knowledgeable and informative guide who described what we were seeing and the ecosystems that are involved. We then climbed up a viewing tower and have a 360 degree view of the Everglades, quite a spectacular vantage point. Tomorrow we drive the Keys.

Mississippi, Alabama & Florida:
We continue our Southern Safari through the south, visiting new states with our MoHo. Today we drove through Mississippi, we skirted the town of Biloxi, looked like a very nice coastal town, several BIG casinos and a very attractive coast line. We then cruised on into Alabama; we found an exceptionally nice campground just out of Mobile. Our site was just off a huge pond, a lot of big old beautiful trees. The sort of place one could easily spend a week, just drink mojitos and enjoying the slow southern life style.
Sunday, April 3rd, we are finally into Florida – a very nice drive along the panhandle, we stopped for the night in Warrington, at the local ELKS, just outside of Pensacola. The “BOYS” got their spa afternoon. Nigel was in bad need of a trim, and Guinness also benefitted from a nice bath and pedicure. While the canines were otherwise engaged we had a great lunch at McGuire’s Irish Pub. Brother Chuck had told Mike about this place and it did not disappoint. We ate and drank until we thought we might explode. They brew their own beer, so Mike sampled that, and I of course had to over-do by drinking an Irish Wake, don’t ask, a lot of rum and fruit juice. The food was delicious, we had one of the best filet mignon steaks, boxter potatoes (fried garlic/cheese mashed potatoes rolled in bread crumbs; OMG!), finished with a piece of choclately ice cream pie and a large to go box!
The Gulf Islands area is our newest experience, beautiful part of Florida; we crossed over several long bridges and enjoyed the coastal drive. We spent an hour or so at Tou Cans, a quirky beach, bar and restaurant in Mexico Beach. We sampled their liquid refreshments and enjoyed their décor, lots of our favorite kind of birds, even bought a couple of tee shirts, jacket and a baseball hat to remind us of our visit. Our stop for the night was a boondock in a nice parking lot off of a church not far from Tou Cans.
We have officially made it EAST, we are now are on Eastern Day Light Savings Time. We drove through more beautiful coastal and green areas today. Much of the roadside was covered pine, palms and oak trees, very dense and lush vegetation. Our stop for the next 2 nights was Crystal River. We enjoyed a manatee snorkel, where we actually got a good view of 3 of the gentle giants (broke our wild life curse – if we pay to go see something we generally don’t). The water was fairly warm; 72 degrees or so and Crystal Springs were beautiful to swim around in, so clear. In the afternoon we drove to Weeki Wachi and saw the world famous Weeki Wachi Springs Mermaid show. It was a bit hokey, but very entertaining, none the less. The mermaids started performing back in 1947, quite an impressive run. There were 7 swimmers who performed an entertaining show in an underwater theater. The story was Hans Christian Anderson’s – The Little Mermaid. The youngsters in the audience really were enthralled by the performance; even these “oldsters” got a kick out of it.
We are heading south along Florida’s Gulf Coast; the weather is quite warm, the scenery beautiful, and memories for a life time.

Loving’ Louisiana!
Today was marked by DDDD: Damned Demented-Demon-Dolly: We readied ourselves to leave Texas and head into Louisiana this morning. All went as usual with our preparations to exit our campground. Mike got all the external jobs done, while I cleaned, tidied up and secured the interior. All set to go the last thing we do is hitch up the “towed”. Nothing new or unusual but this morning we struggled to get the Prius on the dolly and the dolly to square up with the MoHo and the straps to stay tight around the towed’s front tires. Let’s just say after 5 full re-hitches, a few tense moments as Mike drove the MoHo around an empty parking lot; and more expletives’ than we normally utter; we finally got the darn thing tied down and back on the road (about 2 hours of fun and games). Oh yes we really are having FUN! Luckily we had a relatively short drive, about 125 miles to Broussard, LA, just short of Avery Island.
Tuesday morning we got on the road and drove down to McIlheny Family’s Tabasco Pepper Sauce Factory on Avery Island. It was a brief tour with a short video and a quick walk along the bottling portion of the factory. We visited the store and bought some Tabasco “stuff” for the pepper guy in our family, and were off to the “BIG EASY”. We found a simple RV park just about 5 miles from the French Quarter. Dinner was at the Bourbon House – great oysters on the half shell, and the most delicious barbecued shrimp!! While we were in eating dinner the big storm that the weather forecasters’’ had predicted HIT!! RAIN, RAIN, And RAIN (and a lot of thunder and lightning too) – we took a taxi back the 4 blocks to the parking lot where we had left our car. Luckily, Maggie, the GPS was able to guide us back to our camp site through the rain, cuz we weren’t seeing much other than the road right in front of us.
Laisses les bons temps roule --- Creole for“Let the good times roll” We love New Orleans, so much fun, so much to see, and so much to do. On our itinerary was the Rum Distillery – we found the Old New Orleans Rum Company. The tour was interesting and the tastings were good. You could see 10 feet up on the wall where Katrina’s water had come into the warehouse; they were shut down for 14 months, but only lost about 15 percent of their rum. Mardi Gras World was our next stop. This was a huge warehouse that houses 80 percent of the floats and props that are used during the 18 day celebration in Crescent City. The floats are parked for the year and restored as requested by the Krewes (clubs of folks that support their floats, costumes, and throws by their membership dues and additional contributions). After the tour we were free to wonder around the floats, and props, seeing up close what the parade goers saw just a few weeks ago. Do think it might be a blast to stay downtown in a hotel and view the “party” just once.
Powdered sugar everywhere – fingers, mouth, face, and all over the table too!! That describes our beignet experience at the Café du Monde. We made our way to the very very, busy café and enjoyed a breakfast of café’ au lait and some yummy French doughnuts covered with the fluffy white stuff, good thing we split an order, I think I could have done a lot more damage. A great New Orleans landmark! The Natchez steam powered paddlewheel Riverboat was on our mid -day assignment. We enjoyed a 3 hour cruise on the might Mississippi River. It was bit chilly, but we remained outside on the deck enjoying sights along the way. This is an amazing river (3rd largest in the world, after the Amazon and Nile) and the biggest port tonnage wise anywhere. We could see where the levees had failed and how low the neighborhoods sit below the river and why Katrina did the horrible damage she did. Back in port we had lunch of a dozen oysters at the famous Acme Oyster House where we had fun to sitting at the bar, with Don our waiter, who shucked our bi-valves right in front of us. Hush Puppies, Cajun bloody mary and a local beer completed our meal. Doesn’t get much better than this.
We enjoyed our last day having an appetizer at the Musical Legends Park listening to a great jazz trio. There is so much music to be heard, one can hardly go a block without hearing a soloist or small combo playing.
This was followed by one more visit to the Bourbon House, an order of oysters and our favorite 4 Roses Bourbon. Our next experience was a Ghost and Spirit Walk, a bit disappointing, not the walk we had thought we might have; New Orleans is supposed to be one of the most haunted cities in the world, no ghosts, no spirits and really not much of anything other than a bit of history of the French Quarter. The tour guide was a bit odd; we think we were just unlucky on this one. Oh well, one has those experiences too. We finished the night up with a bit of nibble at a restaurant on Canal Street, we sat up on the second floor balcony and watched folks strolling by, the weather was pleasant and company great! New Orleans was a wonderful stop, love to come back some time in the future and maybe stay right in the French Quarter, take in more of the great food, entertainment, culture and maybe even the Mardi Gras or one of the many music/art festivals.