Hello from the Orlando Airport

Hello from the Orlando Airport

Saturday morning  June 5, 2010   (fifth travelogue of this trip).

Tuesday we had a “down” day.  We were pretty wiped out from the two previous days.  Dan caught a nice bass (perhaps 4 pounds) in the lake that our condo adjoins.  We barbecued the fish along with hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner.  During the week, Dan and the kids did quite a bit of fishing.  They all  caught some nice bass, but they returned them to the lake. 

Wednesday we went to Kennedy Space Center and had a ball.  Two of the grandsons are pretty technically oriented and we had a great time looking backwards into the space program that put man on the moon.  They have a Saturn V rocket on display and we were blown away by how large it is.  We also took in an IMAX on the moon landing.  After that, we had Adam (our taxi driver) take us to Cocoa Beach.  There we had a great lunch at a restaurant on the beach and then went down and spent some time in the sand an surf.  On the way home we stopped at the famous Ron Jon surf shop to get some T-shirts.

Thursday was Josh's (our grandson) birthday.  We spent quiet morning in the condo.  In the afternoon, we arranged for Dan and the two boy to take a helicopter tour (Josh's suggestion).  It looked so fun that I scheduled a second flight with Josh and Brandon.  Attached is a photo of us in the helicopter.  For dinner Dan cooked a special shrimp pasta dinner (Josh's favorite).

Josh and PaPa

Yesterday, we again took it easy in the morning and then went shopping for souvenirs in the afternoon.  We again barbecued for dinner (partly to empty the fridge).

This morning we cooked a breakfast using most of the rest of the food in the fridge.

Without question, this was a great trip!!  We had a nice mixture of hectic touring and relaxing.

Our flight will take us back to KCKA where we will pick up the truck and head back to Prescott, IA


Thats all for now.

Hello Again from Orlando Florida

Hello Again from Orlando Florida

Tuesday afternoon  June 1, 2010   (fourth travelogue of this trip).

We had two great days at the the parks in Orlando.  Before we get to that, lets talk about our transportation.  When the Bergmans (another daughter and her family) were here a few weeks ago they found a wonderful taxi driver that has a 15 passenger van.  Lisa negotiated a contract with him to drive us around this week.  That includes 5 trips to the airport, a few trips to mouseland and then a day at Cape Kennedy and Cocoa Beach.  This is a very convenient and and cost effective system.  Our driver is great and is always willing to work with us.  At the Parks, he drops us off close to the ticket booths and we get picked up in the same place.

Sunday we went to EPCOT.  Pat and I go there whenever we are in the area (perhaps every three to four years).  We love this park as it is pretty low key and has great rides and theme buildings.  It also has a large lagoon surrounded by several “countries”.  Each country has a structure representative of the architecture of that country.  Some are displays from that country (e.g. Canada has a great surround movie that displays the wonderful beauty of Canada).  Others have great restaurants  with menus representing they typical food from that country.  We always go to the German restaurant.  It has great food, wonderful beer and fun music.  Irina (our “German Shepherd” exchange student from '81/'82) often reads our blog.  I can picture her reaction to our going there {grin}.  Obviously, it is heavily slanted towards Bavaria and her very strong belief is Bavaria does not represent all of Germany {another big grin}.  However, we always think of Irina and her family when we are there.  This time it really brought back memories of her mother singing with a Bavarian entertainer when we visited Vail, CO.  We had so much fun and her mother was such a wonderful person.

Our German Lunch at EPCOT

We were very fortunate at EPCOT.  In spite of the holiday weekend, the lines were fairly short and we were able to go on all of our planned rides and a few extra.  We stayed for the 9:00 PM fabulous fireworks and laser show.  We arrived at the park at 8:30 and left at 9:45!!  One of the group had a pedometer and we walked 9 miles!  The weather was almost perfect, in spite of the predictions of rain.  It did get a bit hot and muggy in the middle of the day, but cloud cover quickly took care of that.

Monday we went to Magic Kingdom.  Again, the lines were not terrible.  With the FastPass option, we were able to ride all the rides on our list and quite a few more.  We were tired and decided to head home about 6:30 as opposed to staying for the fireworks at that park.  Again, the weather defied predictions and was favorable.  We only walked 5 miles there.  The crowds were larger at Magic Kingdom, but not what we expected for a holiday.

The group at Magic Kingdom

When we got home, we ordered in Pizza and just relaxed.  Today we are also relaxing.  Dan's brother Andrew and his friend Brian are flying home today.  We have had a ton of fun with them.

That is all for now.

Hello from Orlando Florida

Hello from Orlando Florida

Saturday afternoon May 29, 2010 (third travelogue of this trip).

I debated on how to number this travelogue. If you read our previous posts, we made a somewhat quick trip to Prescott, IA for a funeral. We made this trip in our PT Cruiser, as the bus transmission issues were not yet resolved. However, we had planned a trip to the East (including Prescott) to attend a couple of rallies. So, when we returned to Evergreen, I finished up the bus and we headed back out on Thursday (5/20). This time in the bus!

We made our “normal” stop in North Platte, NE at the Wal-mart. Friday we drove to Prescott and parked at our relatives farm (our “Iowa Home”). Saturday we attended a wonderful wedding of Pat's second cousin. We were able to get to see almost all of the relatives in the Corning/Prescott area.

As a bit of background, Pat was born and spent the first 15 years in the Corning, IA area. She even attended a one room school house close to where her mom and dad farmed. We have visited the school a couple of times and it is still in good condition. Unfortunately, the farm house where she was raised is gone, as is her Grandparent's house. She still has a ton of relatives in the area and it is really fun to come an visit!

The next few days in Iowa were quite hectic. Pat and her cousin spent some time decorating graves and visiting relatives. I helped Bill plant beans and did some work on the bus. Pat and I also visited some relatives of her dad. This was fun and really contributed to her genealogy database. We also got to have a fun evening on her cousin's new-to-them pontoon boat on Lake Icaria (map). . This is a beautiful lake that is very close to the Corning/Prescott area.

On Thursday (5/27) we drove to the Kansas City area and stayed at the Travelodge (exit 18 on I 29). They offer a very inexpensive package for a night's lodging/parking/transportation to the airport. Indeed, the cost of a night's stay was about what it would cost to park at the airport. We had stayed there many years ago for the same arrangement. We were concerned that the facilities might have become run-down. However, it was neat and clean and that is all we could ask.

We got up at 4:00 AM on Friday to catch a flight to Orlando. This is a trip our daughter Lisa and her family had planned and they “twisted our arm” to come along. We arrived in Orlando a bit before noon and went to the local Wal-mart to get groceries for the week (staying in condos). The Kassels arrived about 5:00 PM and we have been relaxing. Our condo is a part of the Grand Beach facility (map).

We will probably start the “park adventures” tomorrow. The whole week has predicted afternoon showers, but we can work around that.

That is all for now.