FIFTY STATES AWAYAs I am sure you’ve noticed I have been a bit behind in updating the blog! We are really enjoying ourselves and this is the trip of a lifetime. I have been having some trouble with the wrist (carpal tunnel) and have been trying to avoid repetitive movements such as typing.
I thank you for sharing this journey with us and reading along and thank you for all the encouragement! I’ve had a great response to the blog so far, it’s really appreciated and I hope it’s been entertaining!
In order to catch up with myself I have decided to write about Florida in two or three looong posts (sorry!). We have done a lot here and stayed way longer than intended! So it feels right to group the memories of the state as a whole, here we go:
Heading onwards from Hinesville, Georgia we were both feeling positive and after the chilly weather in need of some sun! We felt in a race to get to Florida but didn’t have any idea of our first stop or where we’d stay for the night at this point. We’d been driving through pretty tree lined roads, that had been very quiet, there was the odd house but other than that sparse. So it was quite something to arrive at the tourist central, neon Florida.
Filled with excitement, it’s warm! There are palm trees! It really makes you feel on holiday! Ben had really been looking forward to reliving cherished childhood memories and sharing with me the joy that can be found here. We drove through Jacksonville and onto Daytona, Ben had really been looking forward to seeing the Daytona Speedway and hoped to catch a race if we were lucky enough! We decided that our first stop should be to pop to the beach!
We arrived at Daytona beach just after the sun had gone down and thought we’d stretch our legs and go for a little stroll. It was pretty quiet here we stood for a while taking it all in. It struck us both how the sky was a lovely blueish colour and the sound of the waves, very soothing. I love these little quiet moments where you get to take stock of how far you’ve come and feel the rush of excitement for how far there is left to go!
Feeling refreshed and salty we headed to a dunkin donuts (naughty person who invented drive through donuts) for a cup of tea and… Donuts! We found a nice little what they call ‘suite’ here, which is like a little apartment, within a motel. We tucked up in a town called Kissimee (Kiss-see-me) where we could stay at for a few nights, a break from lugging suitcases yay!
Unfortunately we had an experience with this hotel that would go on to put a bit of a cloud over our visit to this state for a few days. We arrived very late and wasn’t prepared for the tourist environment, having been alone and off doing local things in the other states. Upon check in, we realised the only Internet was in a small business centre crowed with bored teenagers, which also did not work that well either!
We had wanted to look up information on the park tickets and see what the deal was. Having no luck we went back over to reception where they had a ticket desk. We had to wait for ages and then the lady on the desk came at us on full sales mode trying to get us to buy a whole bunch of stuff. She really tried to pressure us into paying on the spot telling us that the deal would not be available the next day. She kept saying we had to go to this resort within Disney to pick up the tickets, Ben asked her repeatedly what this entailed and each time she said you just pop in and pick the tickets up. It was only when we took a look at the paper work it was evident that she had neglecting to mention that what you actually have to do is sit through a 90 minute one on one timeshare sales presentation (according to the very small print). Unimpressed with our arrival so far we left it and went to get some sleep.
The next day still slightly troubled by our brash encounter we headed off to Universal Studios after deciding to get tickets at the gate rather than be drawn into goodness knows what with shady ticket sales people. Putting this behind us we had a positive experience at universal, we spent two days here and managed to get around the park quite quickly and participated in most of the rides (I didn’t want to go on anything that went upside down). We had a lot of adventures including lunch that consisted of a ginormous turkey leg! This thing was just silly sized! I’ve never even seen a turkey big enough to have a leg that size! We also took the time to try on and buy some silly hats!
During the trip here we went for food at a place called Bubba Gump Shrimp, which is dedicated to the Forest Gump film. Our food was delicious, I got to try the Mahi Mahi fish alongside a very alcoholic cocktail (something like vodka, gin, peach, and more alcohol) in the coolest glass ever, which I also got to keep! Whilst waiting for a our food the waitress came over and gave us a short quiz on the film! Ben got top marks! Correct on ever answer as his film buff self should be!
So this should probably be the section where I go on about the weather 😛 It’s hot and there a perfect blue sky, the sun’s shining, the moons out (yup you can see the moon during the day and well… It’s boiling! Whilst it’s only It’s 25c (78f), and although I have experienced hotter places (Italy when it went to 40c (104f) once) the humidity here is quite astonishing. It feels like there is no air, not even a tiny bit of wind, making it feel much hotter than it is (Yup am going to moan about the heat as well as the cold)! In addition to the slightly uncomfortable heat we both have a number of large blotchy and very itchy mosquito bites, fun times!
Onto the other plentiful fun things that we did whilst travelling down eastern side of florida! Our next stop was the mighty Cape Canaveral, and the Kennedy Space Centre! As you can imagine I was hugely excited.
We had only planned to spend a day here but had such a blast that after our first day we upgraded our tickets and came back again the next day! Entry to universal was hugely expensive and largely unjustifiable compared to the entry for the space centre, with all it has to offer. Included in our entry fee was a bus tour that took us right out around the ground to the NASA buildings including the rocket assembly building and the launch pads of the all the American shuttles that have been to the moon! I have to say that I am a very lucky girl as, whilst we were here Ben decided to treat me to one of the VIP behind the scene tours. Out of the three I got to choose from I choose the Mission Control tour!
I didn’t realise at the time but this tour actually lets you go inside the building where everything happens, we even got to stand at the flight directors desk! It was incredible! We also got to peer through at the scientist who were hard at work, it was rather funny as we caught them working through an equation on the board!
The space centre houses a simulator, which you can be strapped into and feel what it would be like to be launched into space! An opportunity I couldn’t miss! Whilst preparing ourselves to go on the ride a very polite young lady came up to me and asked if we would mind accompanying her and her friends on the ride. They had been told that they were not allowed on unless they had an adult to supervise. The girls were from a local school and played a ball sport (I forget which). I would have been gutted if I was in their shoes, so we agreed to be their ‘adults’. It was quite funny heading up to the ride… All 14 of us!
Waiting to be loaded into our seats we watched videos from several astronauts who claimed that this was the most realistic simulator, which induced slight worry, but I had to know what it felt like! Strapped in we were immediately tilted backwards in the seat to simulate the position the astronauts would be in. I did not like this bit to much, but then the rattling started, which was the rockets firing up, after the count down off we went! They managed to somehow induce the heavy feeling of gravity as we ‘left’ and would have been under pressure within the cabin with all that rocket power behind us. It was amazing but it got even better as you could feel it each time a part of the rocket was ejected and the feeling of weightless floating once you had made orbit.
Gosh it was such an intense experience, I couldn’t believe it! When you got off it was hard to believe that you hadn’t actually left the ground! It was an immense day with incredible exhibits and experiences!
