Epic Vacation, Day 14, Into AL

I like the state of Alabama.  They have trees, it doesn't seem to get to humid, and the folks are really nice.   We woke up on Friday, in Valdosta, Georgia.  The boys learned the word "Suites".  They really like sleeping in their own space, and not sharing with Daddy.  So we had crashed at the Comfort Inn AND SUITES in Valdosta.  And it was nice, Chris and Sam had  a half wall and fold out couch to share.  They liked it.  And they've decided that staying in hotels with suites is pretty sweet.  Ha Ha! 

It was a nice morning to be goofy.  We'd had a long day the day before, and we slept in!  

Rather refreshing to do so.   

All we had to do on this day was get to Alabama.  

Initially we weren't sure, if we were going to go for it, but we decided to turn left in Atlanta, and head into Alabama.  We wanted to go to Hunstville, to the Space Center there.  We thought the kids might get a kick out of one last fun stop before heading home.   

Turns out we like Alabama.   

They have pretty flowers blooming along the roadside.  

And lots and lots of pine trees.  Pine forests are Eric's happy place.  

Sometime I'd like to just go down there and Stay.  

We also discovered Whataburger!  

We thought it was a Texas thing.  But apparently, they have Whataburger in Alabama too!  

That was a great stop for supper.  Olaf approves too! 

Jacob likes a good shake, and this root beer milkshake made him very happy!  

It was like a root beer float.  This kid loves his carbs!  And when he sees a milkshake, he doesn't want to share with me any more.  He had been content to take turns.  But he got to the point now, he doesn't want to share anymore.  He just says "My!"  Even when it's not.

It's a bit hard to see in the distance, but there are rockets hidden in the trees, as we exit the highway to go to our hotel for the night.  The kids didn't see much we went by so fast.  We knew they'd have a great time the next day!  We got settled before dark, that left the boys enough time for an evening swim and some trashy Disney channel tv with shows like Jessie and Dog with a Blog, which I can't stand, but it's what they like.  I'm just happy they're happy.  Just the way we like it.  

Epic Vacation, Day 13 - Beach Day

We left Walt Disney World and went to the beach.  Every year since I've known her, my sister in law comes down to New Smyra, FL with her family.  And they have continued the tradition.  I've always wanted to see this haven, their retreat, that charges them all up for the rest of the year.  So we crashed at a fairly cheap hotel we found online, that was supposed to be about 25 minutes from them.  It seemed close enough.  It said Rodeway Inn by the Beach in Daytona.  It was 60$ a night, 70 with the rollaway.  And turns out, it was ON the Beach.  Literally.  On the Beach!   We were a hundred yards from the beach.  I could see staying here for a while, we had a little kitchen, full size fridge, and it was great.  We could hear it, and smell it when we checked in, but it was dark.  All I'd been able to say to the kids was "See that darkness?  That's the ocean."  As we drifted off, I decided I wanted to get up early, and try to go out and see the sunrise.  The last time I slept on the East Coast, wherein it was theoretically possible to watch the sunrise, I was 10, and our family was having a vacation in Sea Isle City, NJ.  At the ripe age of 10, I did not care if I got up to watch the sun rise, or at least I don't think I did.  I don't remember doing it.   I was young and stupid.  Well, I cared now!

So I set the alarm clock for 6 am, and got up and padded out to the beach.  There was no one around, our hotel was literally on the beach, we had our own beach access.  I only saw the occasional jogger and a truck labeled Turtle Patrol.

I know there are a lot of photos here, and though I did crop them, the colors that nature provided need no other enhancement.  So they are just cropped and watermarked, that's all I did to them.   This was the best day for photography.
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It was so early, at just before 6 am, I could still see the moon out, as the sky was getting lighter. 

 I was up so early, that I didn't even get my coffee.

Then the sun peeped up in the distance behind as the birds flying around.  

Even though the sky was half covered in clouds, I still saw a Beautiful sunrise.  

I couldn't resist dipping my tootsies in the water.  

It was just the right level of refreshing.  I did get my happy pajama pants wet when I wasn't paying enough attention and got splashed by a wave.  

The waves were starting to pick up a little bit here and there. 

And it got Really Gorgeous out.  

This was a flower opening up as I went back inside.   It was making me wish I'd brought out my sunglasses.   Like I said, Really Gorgeous.  

I was content to go get my cup of coffee, and wake a couple sweetboys.  

After we got up, and dressed, I made the boys come out to the beach. The big ones didn't want to.  I said, We are 100 feet from the beach, you have to come dip your toes in.  They griped and griped, until I Actually got them out there.  Then they started to smile, run, laugh, and then it occurred to them, they hadn't put their suits on.  We'd done that on purpose, as we were packing up, then going down to Amy's, to swim.  But once I got them to the beach, they realized how fun it was, and that was just with dipping our toes.    

Some birds taking off as the boys came invading.   

Now, this is my new happy place.  

All my sweetboys on the beach in Daytona.  

Jacob was not a fan of the beach.  

Fair enough, it was his first visit.  

Chris likes to take pictures of me taking pictures of him. 

Selfie with my Sams.  He was probably having the most fun dipping in his tootsies.  

  

After our morning adventure at the beach, we packed up and drove to Ryan and Amy's condo in New Smyrna.  The whole time we were asking, where's old Symrna?  Ha Ha.  It was about 20 minutes from our hotel, and the kids bugged us the whole way, alternating between wanting to swim, and wanting to eat.  

As soon as we got there, they were amazed by the beautiful ocean views.  

And they insisted that we go swimming.  It had also gotten cloudy, so I didn't worry as much about sunburns as we would have when we'd gone to the beach earlier.  

When I was conceiving this idea, stopping at the beach, I just wanted to get pictures of the kids swimming together.   But they all took off, so excited to play.  And I wanted to join them.  So I didn't take as many pictures as I'd have liked.  And really, being at the beach with 3 iffy swimmers required both of us parents to actually be present with them.   I did get to go out and swim with the girls, we did some wave jumping, which was fun.  The water temperature was just right.   

The littles had fun playing in the sand.   Jeremiah demanded a hole be dug in the wet sand.  Jacob didn't want to be in the sand, but was pretty content with Daddy building castles. Chris and Sam had fun just splish splashing.  

Remember how I mentioned that I saw a truck in the morning that said Turtle Patrol.  According to Amy, we are in prime Green Turtle nesting season, and since all sea turtles are endangered, the turtle patrol block off the obvious nest sites, and then cruises around in the early hours trying to check and make sure no baby turtles get lost and miss their chance to get to the ocean.   Or they want to be there to block off the nests to protect them.   They make everyone turn off the lights that could be seen by the beach so as to not confuse them and have them head the wrong way.   Apparently they do it from April to October.   I loved seeing this.  It gives me hope for the future of sea turtles.  

Meanwhile, after we swam for an hour or two, we went upstairs for lunch.  It was almost 2, and we were all hungry.  Italian leftovers from a couple restaurants we drove by on our way in.  Yum-o!  If their leftovers were that good, the originals have to be Awesome.  

So after lunch, I stepped out on the penthouse lanai, and took a few pictures.  

Can you see the turtle nest way down below?  It's in the lower left hand corner.  

But the rest of the view is pretty awesome too. 

As we stood up there, the sun broke out the colors in the water.  

It was really gorgeous.  

One of the other things I really enjoyed getting a great view of from up there was the pelicans. 

There's just something primal about them, maybe I watched Jurassic Park too many times, but I see pelicans and think of pteradactyls.  Apparently, they love to just circle the same areas of the beach, around and around, diving down to get snacks.  While Eric was in the water with Jacob, earlier, a pelican dove down not 50 feet away from him.   It looked really close, but we were up on shore.  Very brave.   But I felt pretty brave getting out there and taking their picture.    What I hadn't considered was that I did not put on sunscreen when I went outside again, and this time the sun was out.  

These two went up the beach and circled back around right for us.  

I snapped picture after picture as they came back towards me.  

They buzzed right over me, right into the sun shining bright over my head. 

This was the most awesome moment.  

There was another that circled around down below our level.  The penthouse was on the 13th floor, so they were lower than us.  Amy's Mom and I watched them go by.  She thought birdwatching was as neat as I did.   I got some really amazing pictures.  But if I posted all of them here, you'd be looking until next year! 

This fella came back around a little higher than we were.   

Suddenly, as I was snapping pictures of his gliding, he shifted his head and shook, like something disagreed with him.  As quickly as he'd stopped, he moved on.  But it ended up being the oddest pelican picture I got all day.  How could he still be in the air like that?!

Anyway, after our pelican picture fest, it became clear that Jacob, and a couple other kids, were getting tired.  So we packed up, and headed out.  Our goal was to get out of Florida.  

That doesn't sound hard.  Well, they were all exhausted, but the only one that slept was Jacob.  The other two were content to watch their screens.  It gave Eric and I some time to think, to Think about seafood. We wondered if we were near any really good seafood.  There must be some somewhere since we are so close to the beach.  So since we were about 2 hours from Jacksonville, we started considering it for a place to stop.  Here's one good reason to have a fancy smart phone.  Eric looked up where we could eat that might have some goodies.  He found a place recommended, called Singleton's Seafood Shack from Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives.  One of the comments said, if you like your seafood coming from a shack, this is the place!  Another comment said the place looked like it was going to fall into the water, but isn't that where you want your fish?   It's right on the river, and it's so fresh, you can see the fish boats parked right out back.  

So as we were driving towards our destination, we spotted a giant cruise ship.  The kids got a kick out of it, and suddenly, it was a race, would we catch the ship, would we see it by the ocean?  What in the world is a cruise ship doing this far inland?   Turns out we weren't that far inland.  But we enjoyed chasing the cruise ship to our destination.  

The view as we parked the car.  The Shack is on the left with all the cars parked, it was 5 pm on a Thursday, and it was crowded.  We took it as a good sign. 

All three boys explore the odd old pier area as the ship passes.  This place was old, in need of refurbishment.   But they wanted to get as close as they could.  We had to stop them from straying to far.  But they were confident and curious, and so much different from when we'd started this adventure.  

Then we went in.  There was a huge seafood counter, it all looked good and fresh.   All the seating was huge tables.  We decided to order some fairly local fair. So we started with an appetizer of gator tail, fried.   They brought it out, and we made the boys all try some.  Turns out they lovd it!  (Tastes like chicken!)   But they loved gator.  Sam had three helpings!  I got a fried sampler, but subbed out grilled scallops.  I could have slurped up the scallops.  I got some fresh fried clams, they just are no good, all rubbery and frozen in Indiana.  They were Awesome, with a nice fresh snap.  So good.  And the batter was not too heavy.  The seafood was great.  The place was a mess,  plywood fixes on top of plywood fixes.  Our waitress said, "The Captain said, if it ain't broke don't fix it."    They were clearly more concerned about serving good food.  And it was good.  It was a pile of stuff, with hush puppies, and all kinds of yumminess.   It wasn't cheap, just because it looks like a hole in the wall, I thought it might be, but it wasn't, but myohmy, it was Good.  

This was Singleton's as we were leaving, with the sun going down on the St. John's River. And as the sun went down, it became clear that I had another monster sunburn.   Turns out Jacksonville is a nifty town.  Maybe next time we'll check it out for more than 2 hours.   That was the Perfect stop for seafood for us, just what we needed.  And as we drove off, Eric made us reservations for a hotel in Valdosta.  It took us almost 3 hours to get there.  The kids were toast, and so were we.  We were so tired, we didn't even get on the internet that night! 

Epic Vacation, Day 12 - The Leaving

It's a late blogging evening, and I hesitate to even get this started.   It makes me sad to remember it.  I love how they say Welcome Home when we would enter the Grand Flo, it is like our home, like one I've always dreamed of... but we must live in reality for a while in order to make our dreams come true.  And our Disney Dream was coming to an end.  Wednesday was our last day.

As Daddy was packing us up in the morning, the boys and I got out of his hair, by going to the pool.

For the Last Time.  

I had wanted the boys to play one more time at the Mad Hatter Sprinkler pool before we hit the road. 

I loved the location of this.  But it was not Sam's favorite. Sam doesn't like getting his head wet, so he's hiding behind the sprinklers on the other side, out of wetness range.   It was 10 am, so not too hot, but very sunny.  We picked a gorgeous time to swim. 

I mean, come on, check out this view.   This is the lagoon, looking out on this view, all is right with the world.  I found out, as we're leaving today, that they show movies right next to this beach at night.  Man, how'd I miss that! 

From one pool, to the other. 

The boys love the 'quiet pool' better than the noisy deep one by the sprinkler.  

So, once last visit to their favorite pool before we head out.  Honestly, it's my favorite too. 

We swam for about a half an hour before heading back upstairs to put the finishing touches on packing.   And we realized, that instead of going straight into the park, we needed to eat.  

We just happened to still  have a set of Table Service meals left.  So we took care of that at the Grand Floridian Cafe.  We visited this restaurant like 3 or 4 times on our honeymoon.  We went there for dinner the night we'd arrived on our honeymoon, and the waitress had made a big show about me signing my new name for the first time. .. and I screwed it up, and she had to bring me a new check to sign.  It was much easier this time, with just bracelets to scan.  And the food was so good.  I don't know why we didn't go here more often!  

For dessert, they offered a number of items or a sampler for two.  

Get this, the sampler could be used by Dining Plan.  So we were all over that.  

Happy Anniversary to us!  

So much yumminess, so little time!   

After lunch, we headed out to the park again.  

The boys were bummed we lost out on Winnie the Pooh, and the Mine Train, as well as they were requesting one last trip to Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin.  

Mommy had hoped to bump into our friends Dan and Nancy and their kids, but somehow while we were on Main St.(probably getting these pics taken) they walked right past us and didn't come back.   So we all move on.  

All my superhero sweetboys.  

I'm glad we kept this last day in our pockets.  The difference between a 5 day pass and a 6 day pass is like 10$.  And it was worth it to have a 'quick pop in' to do things that we'd missed out on.   

I'm also very Thankful for the DAS Pass.  In cases like ours, that kind of flexibility was a great gift.  

We checked in at Buzz Lightyear, then popped over to Seven Dwarves Mine Train.  

Luckily, the line was moving pretty quickly.  It looked like it might rain soon.  We hoped the ride wouldn't get shut down again before we got to ride. The boys loved seeing the dwarves house while we were in line.  

This was our photo from the shot.  It had started raining during the ride.  This picture was when it was just starting to rain.   Pretty sure, we were the last ones to go before it got shut down for a while.   And we got stuck in it.  Apparently, the train before us had a disabled person who took a significant amount of time and work to offload, so they stopped our train.  Outside.  In the rain.  In the Pouring Down Rain!  Locked in a tiny car.  Puddling.  Puddling in my shoes, in my hair, in my lap.  Words cannot describe the discomfort involved in buckets of rain coming down when you are trapped, seated, in a rain car.  With my autistic son locked in the car behind me.  It was not good!  Chris loves roller coasters now, so he volunteered to ride by himself.  He got place with an older lady, who happened to already have her poncho on.  When the train stopped, and he started to lose it, she tried to cover him with part of her poncho.  Initially, he fought her.  I couldn't reach him, I just yelled, It's OK, it's only Rain.  I tried to talk him down from where I was.  I tried to wave my hand so he could see me.  I don't think it helped.  Sam shrank, "I don't like rain. And I don't like roller coaster."  He shut down.  Yeah, pretty sure Sam was scarred for life by the experience.  Chris did calm down eventually. It was probably only 5 minutes, but it felt like 30.  It's gonna be a long time before Sam gets on a roller coaster.   Finally we moved, got off.  Chris said that he liked the coaster, but he didn't want to do it again. The damage had been done, we three were soaked.  There was puddling in our shoes.  We'd had nothing to save us.  And where were all our clothes?  That's right, in the car.  

It was Not a good experience.  

But they gave us a video. ;) 

That didn't really make it better.  

We got off the ride, but my pockets were soaked, and I thought it better to leave my phone where it was until I found shelter. I glanced across the 'street' from the Mine Train exit, and saw the Pooh gift shop, as we were running toward it in the buckets of rain, I saw Eric wave at us from straight ahead.  But everyone was waiting in there.  I stood there a second and saw the entry line for Winnie the Pooh right next to us.  I thought, we should go there, and ask if we can get the boys on it, since we lost our Fastpasses due to the "honey spill" the night before.  It was at least ride one of the rides we wanted to do, instead of just dripping there in the doorway to the gift shop.   What's a little more water to get there?  So I ran to ask.  They said yes.  So I returned, grabbed kids and ran.  Eric pointed out later, that it had not been worth it to him to move, he rather wished I'd taken some time to discuss it, rather than just run.  He and Jake weren't wet, our stuff had not been wet.   I didn't think, I just ran.  And we all got wet, and our stuff got wet.  And the ride shut down after we got in the line.  What's a little more rain?  We didn't have all night, we wanted to get moving.  So I moved.  But then once we all got in the Pooh line, the line shut down because no one was leaving the exit through the gift shop.  As long as no one could exit the ride, the ride could not go.  So we stood in line, dripping, waiting for the rain to lighten up, for the crowds to move.  We were soaked, and Eric was not happy with me.  It ended up not being a good choice.  

The big boys didn't care, they weren't too mad at me.  They were a little mad that the ride wasn't working.  I was mad at the rain, and the world, and myself for choosing unwisely.  And I hate having soggy wet feet! I took my shoes and socks off and stood there barefoot.  I hate floors when crowds of people have been standing, dropping god knows what kind of goo, but I learned that more than that,  I hate swamp feet.  Next time I go to WDW, remind me to pack shoes that drain water, I've heard Keen's are nice.  My poor boys.  Sam was shivering and Chris had found his box camera while we were packing earlier in the day, so he'd brought it to the park, and wanted to take his own pictures.  He liked to take pictures of me taking pictures of him.  We'll see how it turns out.   It was wet, it was dark.  Did I mention how much I don't like having wet feet?  I'm getting fuddy duddy in my old age.   Guess where the ponchos were?  Packed.  We had 2 and Jake's shower curtain packed.   The kids may have been a little mad at me for that.  Ironically, the one who dried off fastest was Jacob.  He's pooped in his pants at the hotel after lunch, and we had packed all backup clothing in the car.  I decided it was easier to buy new shorts than to go to the car.  I thought they gave emergency discounts.  Apparently, not at the Grand Flo.  But he got himself a very cute new pair of plaid swimshorts.  You know what happens to swim shorts when they get wet?  They dry.  Fairly quickly.  Not so with jean shorts which is what I was wearing.  

Finally, probably 20 minutes, the rain lightened up a bit, and Pooh started moving.  So we were able to get on.  Jacob actually didn't mind this ride.  The wind and storm part of the ride was a little uncool.  We were already cold and wet, we didn't need to fake it too.  I still like the ride.  Though I think Peter Pan is better.   Jake enjoyed it.  It wasn't scary to him. I think he'd gotten over his fear of dark rides.   I feel bad for whoever rode after us.  We left puddles in the seats.  

But our adventures had long killed the hour we needed to wait for our DAS time for Buzz.  

The evening redeemed with one last 'pew pew' game! 

Pretty sure we left puddles in the seats there too. 

On our way out of the park, we thought we'd get attacked by the same parade we've seen.  But this time it was something new, a special Rainy Day parade, it's abbreviated, shorter than the rest, and the characters are covered, but I was impressed they just didn't cancel it outright.  Made the leaving not so bad at all.  

In other awesome news, we had other friends that had arrived in WDW just the day before.  

Our friends the Gornto's had reservations at Hollywood Studios while we were adventuring in the rain.  So after Buzz, we left Magic Kingdom and hopped the bus there.  I was too wet, and frustrated to be sad to leave Magic Kingdom.  We had a little hiccup at the entrance.  We thought we'd had Park Hopper.  We hadn't used it though, and the one time we try, the very last day, we find out, that in fact, we didn't.  Blessedly, Customer Service let us in.  Only because it was after 4 pm by that time, and the park was only going to be open 5 more hours and it was our very last day.  

And frankly, our friends were in there!   

But they would've come out, I'm sure.  We stood there chatting for about an hour.  And that was cool.  

Then we went over to see Baymax, and hopefully see the last Disney Jr. show.  We DAS'd the last Disney Jr. show of the day having about half an hour to kill.   And in the mean time we popped next door to the Animation studio, and meet the characters.  

Jacob was less than inclined to meet Mickey.  He had wanted to meet Baymax, but the line was so long for him, we were going to have to come back.  The line for Mickey was significantly shorter, we had time to do that.  But Mickey wasn't the one Jacob wanted.  He had a flop down tantrum.  It may Also have been because he hadn't had a proper nap that day.   

But Mickey worked his Magic.  

He got him to get up, he wasn't quite smiling yet, but once we got close, he started bonking noses, and giving 5/4s with fireworks, and Jake liked that.  Yeah, Mickey worked his Magic on him.  

Enchanted.  

So this was our last Mickey meet.  

The line for Baymax had been an hour long.  And I explained that a. we had DAS pass, and that we FPs for Disney Jr.  She said, come back immediately thereafter and they would get us in.  So we did.

So we went next door and the boys sat on the floor for the Disney Jr. show. 

Now, I'm sure the  9 year old would tell you, he didn't NEED to go see the Disney Jr. show, that they were too big for that.  But that he'd put up with it, because you know, for the kid.  The baby would need it.  Sure.  But surprisingly, they all enjoyed it.  Actually Chris had more fun than any of the kids, he was picking up all the treasure papers, and popping bubbles all over. I had to even pull him over a bit and say, hey, it's for the little kids, let them have some fun too.  Still, everyone had a great time doing that, and I'm glad I made the point in getting back into that one.   Jake was mesmorized, completely amazed.  He loved the "Meow" puppets.  He has fallen for Mickey.  

But Mitmat was his favorite.  

When we returned, they had shut the line down.  The gals told us we could get in, to just wait by the end, we'd be second to last family.  There was another last family of the day (I think they Knew Hiro) but we waited out the line.  Probably a half hour, the kids just played with the animation stuff, while I hung out at the end of the line.  Finally, the gal gave me a look, I whistled for the boys, and blammo we got to meet Baymax.  

Jacob calls him Mitmat, and he ran right up to him to give him a hug.  He feels like a latex balloon.  He has no elbows or wrists, so his hugs are kind of funny.  But Jacob didn't care.  

All of us had fun meeting Hiro and Baymax.  

Christopher told us all he wants to go to Nerd School.  Yeah Baby! 

It was a Perfect note to end on.  So we didn't tempt fate by trying to do anymore, we started to leave.  

OK, we were hungry, so before we really left Hollywood studios, we cashed in a few more snacks.  

Mickey the soft pretzel, with the tub of processed cheese product.  Oh yeah.  

Eric got nachos, and it was a bag of tostitos, a tub of processed cheese product heated, and a container.  They didn't even open them.  Well, Eric said they tasted fresh that way, which was good.

Then it was time to take the bus back to the Grand Flo for the last time.  But I was too tired to get sad.

I had to pee and change Jake while E ran for the car.  Jake's poor bottom had gotten raw from burny poos in the last few days.  And being wet, with a raw bottom, every time he tooted I took him to change, I didn't want him to be uncomfortable.   So I went in with him alone.   

The music was playing, the lights were dimmed.  

This was what brought tears to my eyes.   

The orchestra was playing Nat King Cole's, Smile.  

And amazingly, it was perfectly appropriate for the last thing, my last thought, as we left  our Disney 'Home'. 

"Smile, though your heart is aching.  Smile, even though it's breaking.  .... You'll find it's all worthwhile, if you Just Smile."  

So I did.  I smiled through my tears as we said goodbye to the Grand Floridian, and commenced driving to the beach.  We'd hoped to have an evening with Amy.  But we opted to just find our hotel in Daytona and go to bed.  We crashed at the Rodeway Inn on the beach in Daytona.  We couldn't see much when we arrived, it was 10, dark, and the lights were all off.  We were just grateful for clean, dry pajamas and beds!