Sunday, March 18, 2007

A beautiful, sunny day—but chilly again. Went to Sea World today. What a beautiful place! It costs $63 each to get in there--$53 for kids. We were in line with some guy who lives in Manhattan. He’s traveling with a group of 13 family members. Said yesterday he spent $800 just in tickets. He must have a lot of money, though, because when he and his wife retired they bought an apartment right in the middle of Manhattan. It’s been 7 years now and says they love it. I would love to live in Manhattan for a while. Mike would hate it.

The ticket price here is worth it when you consider the amount of exhibits and shows available to you. The main show I wanted to see was Shamu. No show because she just had a baby Shamu a week ago. They were both swimming around the big pool. Really cute. She comes up for air and always stops to make sure the baby is doing the same thing. This is an Anheuser Bush park and they always do such a fantastic job. They have a manatee rescue area and a turtle rescue area. We had dinner at the shark grill where you’re surrounded by a tank filled with sharks. Good meal. Back home. Tired. We leave for Juniper Springs in Ocala National Forest tomorrow.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Left for the Kennedy Space Center this morning at about 9:30. Very chilly today. Stopped at Denny’s for breakfast. Took the Florida Turnpike again. Should have bought a Sun Pass for all the tolls we’ve paid the past week or so. The Space Center is pretty impressive. It sits on a barrier island about 4 times the size of Manhattan. The Center utilizes about 10% of that area. The rest is an animal preserve. They have bob cats, wild pigs, manatees, lots of gators, gopher turtles, and many birds, including a large population of eagles. There are three different tours available—ranging in price from $38 each to $52 each. We went on the $38 tour. We saw two launch pads, the vehicle assembly building. This building is huge. It has the area of 3 ¾ Empire State buildings. They build the booster rockets in this building and then bring over the shuttle and attach to the booster and raise to a vertical position. Then they haul the whole thing on a “crawler transport” to the launch pad. It takes about 8 hours to get it there. The crawl travels at about one mile an hour. We also toured the International Space Station center where they’re working on the next module to be sent up to the Space Station. We also saw the Saturn V rocket that was used for all the Apollo missions. A huge rocket. And there was a great IMAX movie created by Lockheed Martin in 3D. It was a great day. We came back via Route 50. Went through the town of Christmas, FL, right through Orlando. The older part of town is very Asian… a lot of Vietnamese restaurants. Stopped for burgers on the way back. Finally made it back a little after 8:00.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Rained off and on all last night. This morning is grey and drizzly. Had a knock on our door at around 9:30. It was the outfit that’s going to wash and wax our fifth wheel. They wanted to know if it would be all right with us if they did it today instead of Saturday. Worked out really great. They finished around 2:00 and did a wonderful job. Then we headed to Wal Mart and I got my prescriptions refilled and bought groceries. So, we’re set for a while. Walked over and checked out the laundry facility. Very nice. This is a huge park. We’re in site 1200. Plus they have a lot of these cute, little park models. They’re small modular homes with little car ports and little screen rooms out back. Most of them back up to the golf course. Really cute. Put a roast pork in the oven for dinner tonight.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Well, today was a fun day. We left Jupiter about 10:30 with the reservation confirmation for Tropical Palms RV Resort in Kissimmee. Got there about 1:30 and they told us a big group wanted to extend their stay, so we had no reservation. They basically gave our reservation away. Sent us to Clarebrook RV and Golf Resort—just a few miles away they said.. Said they got a reservation for us up there. Got to Clarebrook (about 50 miles later) and, of course, there was no reservation. Fortunately, they had plenty of room and it was a lot cheaper. The sites surround an 18-hole golf course. Pretty park. So we didn’t get settled until about 5:00. Called and got the appointment to have our RV washed and waxed. They’ll be here on Saturday morning at 9:00 a.m. Didn’t even feel like going out to eat. Had sandwiches for dinner.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Went to the Cardinal’s game today. They played the Washington Nationals. Ended up a 2-2 tie. Was a nice day. The stadium is really nice. And I didn’t get hit by a fly ball so everything was good. Were going to stop at the lighthouse here in Jupiter, but we didn’t get out of the game until 4:30 so we decided not to. Back home. Vacuumed so I wouldn’t have to do it tomorrow before we leave. Left-overs for dinner tonight.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

This morning we headed over to the stadium to buy tickets for tomorrow’s Cardinals game. Put the address in the GPS and it worked like a charm. Got the tickets and then drove over to Jupiter Island. Quite an impressive place. Lots of beautiful estates. Plus the beach in some places has a lot of rocky outcroppings where at high tide the waves come crashing in and blow water up through the holes in the rocks—sometimes up to 50 feet. That area is now a preserve. After that we headed back to the park and took a boat tour of the Loxahatchee River. This is the first river in Florida to be designated a wild waterway. It’s just the same as it was hundreds of years ago. A beautiful cruise. And at the end of it we visited Trapper Nelson’s jungle camp. He lived there in this wild place for over 38 years. This guy was a Polish immigrant. He was 6’4”, had movie star good looks, was a trapper, a snake charmer and also charmed the ladies. He died very mysteriously—they found him in his camp shot in the chest with a shot gun. I’m reading a book about it now—“Life and Death on the Loxahatchee, The Story of Trapper Nelson”. Pretty interesting. After our cruise we drove to Hobe Sound and did the laundry and then went to dinner at Schooners.

Monday, March 12, 2007

Left the Everglades this morning at 10:30. My turn to drive and decided to take the Florida Turnpike, which was an easy drive--$21 in tolls though. We arrived at Johnathan Dickson State Park at around 1:30, got set up and then headed out to pick up some steaks for dinner tonight. The river loop here is really pretty—lots of foliage between sites. Had steaks, sweet corn, and mashed potatoes for dinner tonight. Plan to check out Jupiter Island (Tiger Woods has a home there) and see about going to a Cardinals game. They have their spring training down here.