Apr 2008

We spend the weekend at Disney World's EPCOT park. They have special floral and topiary displays since they are celebrating their International Flower and Garden Festival.

Unfortunately we have heavy rain Saturday and Sunday afternoons (at least 4 inches to add to the one inch we had yesterday at Magic Kingdom). We spend Saturday inside the Future World exhibits and then Sunday morning we walk around the World Showcase so we can see all of the wonderful topiaries before the skies open up again.

Besides the many topiaries the show also has some special gardens, including a butterfly garden and a perfume garden:

The rain is so heavy in the afternoon that it's impossible to stay dry:

We get back to our campsite to find it surrounded in by a small lake. Most of the campsites look the same way. Oh well; at least it's warm.

When we asked Joe what he wanted for his 13th birthday, he said he wanted to go to Disney World. We arrived at Fort Wilderness Campground yesterday, bought our park passes, went over to Magic Kingdom to see the fireworks and now today we are going into the Magic Kingdom for Joe's birthday.

We hop on a boat to ride over to MK and our first stop is City Hall to pick up Joe's Happy Birthday button! Joe celebrated his 12th birthday at Disneyland last year and he also got a button there. It's a fun Disney perk--all the Disney employees wish you happy birthday throughout the day.

We ride several rides including Joe's favorite, Space Mountain. One of the highlights was the new show, Laugh Factory, where Jere is picked out of the audience and teased by the cartoon characters.

We have lunch over at the Wilderness Lodge where they always have a great time singing Happy Birthday, BUT Joe is adamant in not wanting the server to know it's his birthday, so no funny birthday songs :-(

We do a few more rides before the skies open up and buckets and buckets of rain come down sideways. Our umbrellas are useless and our shoes are drenched so we head back to the campground for a break and a change of clothes. Then head over to EPCOT to eat dinner at Germany's Oktoberfest for Joe's birthday.

We eat a lot; the food is really good. We're Pennsylvania Germans and enjoy the German food.

I am very much behind in updating my travel blog. We have been putting many long days in at our "fish camp" (the mobile home on Plantation Island near Everglades City that we bought last year to settle my brother's estate). The mobile home was in need of lots of repair. We repaired the dock last January and did some work on the inside. This trip we're putting in a new kitchen and repairing the walls and floors in the kitchen, living room and hallway. Everything is taking longer than we planned. So we leave the campground every morning around 9:30 and then return to the campground around 6 or 7pm, after painting, hammering, etc.

We really enjoy being at Monument Lake Campground in Big Cypress National Preserve. It's dry camping (no electricity or water hook-ups), but they have rest rooms and we really enjoy watching the wildlife around the lake. Our campsite is at the edge of the lake. We often see alligators and tropical birds outside our RV. Here are several photos of the campground that I took one morning while I walked around the lake:

We take a day off from 'work' and go on a ranger-led canoe trip at Big Cypress National Preserve. It's a 5-hour canoe trip that is free but requires reservations. The park provides the canoes (large enough so all 3 of us can fit in one canoe) and a ranger to explain everything that we're seeing and tell us about the history of the area. The highlight of the trip is going through a series of mangrove tunnels. The 'tunnels' are so low and narrow at places that we put our paddles away and use our hands to get us through the mangroves. The ranger is excellent, the weather is great and the tunnels are fun -- excellent activity!

Our last full day here at Monument Lake, my niece and her 4 children come to visit us in the afternoon. We're been trying to get together for the last week or two, but between her work schedule and her kids' schedules it's been challenging.

We have a great visit with her the kids, including some extra excitement when the one large alligator from the lake decides he wants to join us for our picnic. He comes out of the water several times and tries to cross the road to my parents' campsite.

My father chases him back into the lake with his pick-up truck both times. Needless to say we keep a close eye on the kids and they are not allowed near the edge of the lake.

I gave my camera to my niece's 10-year-old daughter, Britney, and she took this great picture of my dad (her great grandfather). Grandfathers love to act wacky around their grandchildren and great-grandchildren!

Hopefully I will get better at updating our travel blog after we leave Florida and head out West.