Florida Trip - Day 3

Big rain moving through the whole southern part of the nation tried to slow us down, but we scoffed at the weather and pressed forward. It was sloppy going for sure, but being Sunday morning there wasn't as much traffic as there could have been and that helped move us along.

Of course, when we finally arrived, the first thing we had to do was get into the pool. Your own personal heated pool is a wonderful thing. It was very relaxing after a long day of driving.

After the pool the kids got in their Jammie's and posed, I know...impossible, right?, for a picture. I think Brianna likes her cousins. She also likes me! Can you believe it, she actually gave me a hug.

 

Florida Trip - Day 2

What would a road trip be without McDonald's breakfast?

Well, we got on the road around 6:30am, sort of. We promptly annoyed the GPS lady by ignoring her constant promptings to follow her chosen route. Instead we chose our own route. After a hundred miles or so she got with the program.

We made it to Atlanta around 10:30 our time, just in front of the major rain storms that are coming through. As I write this I'm watching the Weather Channel, and just as the guy mentioned that folks in Atlanta should begin to hear thunder, by golly I did! At that exact moment! How did he know?

There are two, perhaps three, hundred thousand Waffle Houses between Chicago and Florida, but we have never been to one...until today. I found it expensive for what we got. $35 for cheap breakfast items, go figure. But the food wasn't so bad. But I don't have a great hankering to go back. Waffle House is now officially off my bucket list.

We're glad that we made it to the hotel in one piece. We're all exhausted. We can't wait for another 10 hour drive tomorrow!

 

Florida Trip - Day 1

The first day of our trip landed us only as far as Aurora, IL, or more precisely...Nanna's house. She and Auntie are going down to Florida with us. It's going to be pretty dang crowded in our van.

Sitting here contemplating how crowded it will be I just realized that we forgot to bring Flat Ginny along. Now I'm irritated with myself. Well, I can't do anything about it now.

Mommy thinks we're all getting up at 5:00am. Ha! That's only four short hours away and she just fell asleep five minutes ago. I had better go to sleep myself, but to be honest I don't think I'm going to be able to.

 

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The Storm Before the Storm

The problem with vacations is the tremendous effort to clean the house (and the car) and to pack everything up. Stuffing the luggage and the family into the car isn't easy either. But, we do it for the opportunity to make some (hopefully) fond memories, and to do some bird watching!

For Spring break we're heading to Florida (not Disney World) to visit family and to hit the beaches. Maybe we'll have some Cuban food while we're there. I hope this new iPad Mini will help me post a lot more blog posts. Time will tell...

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Flat Ginny Goes to Florida

This year one of the Neumann family vacations was to Lutz, Florida to visit some family members who live there. And Flat Ginny went along of course. The drive down to Florida was a long one and Flat Ginny seemed to do the best of all of us. She never got hungry and never needed a bathroom break.

On the way down to Florida we passed a place called Dinosaur World. It looked like a really cool place, but we were in a hurry so we didn't go in. We did get a picture of the kids outside the place with a promise that we would try to stop on our way back to Chicago.

We made it to safely to Florida! One of the first days we were there we went to the beach. The one we picked was on Caladesi Island. Here is a picture of the kids posing with Flat Ginny near where we boarded the ferry. On the ferry ride over to the island we saw some dolphins enjoying themselves. This is the first time any of us have seen dolphins in the wild. We were all very excited.

Here is Mommy posing with Flat Ginny with, I think, St. Petersburg in the distance. Flat Ginny really seemed to enjoy the beach. Speaking of the beach, it was much sunnier there than we Northerners are used to. The kids got slight sunburns right through their "swimmy" shirts. It's a good thing that Mommy lathered them up with SPF 50 sunblock.

The day after the beach Daddy and Flat Ginny went bird watching. Here they are posing in front of the Weekiwachee Preserve sign. The Weekiwachee Preserve is a very large nature area that I'm told used to be a strip mining operation that was left to go natural when it was shut down.

We walked a LONG way around this preserve but we saw quite a few birds, with the highlight being an Osprey nest. Below is a photo I took of an Eastern Bluebird that was nesting in the preserve.

The last day we were in Florida we went to the Tampa Zoo. It's is a nice little zoo that has some animals that zoos in Chicago do not have, specifically Manatees. The kids thought they were cool, but I think they liked feeding the birds the most.

At one point we rode the roller coaster there and the kids got a little freaked out. The roller coaster was not especially scarey but neither of them have ever been on a roller coaster before. But, it was great fun.

Flat Ginny had a great time, too. But she didn't want to feed the birds. She was worried that she would wind up being part of a nest somewhere. We didn't blame her.

It was a very hot day so we all sort of pooped out before we saw the whole zoo. Oh well, we saw those things we decided we wanted to see there.

The next day we left Florida, even though we got a late start. I think we left something like 3:00 in the afternoon. We drove all day and eventually stopped somewhere near Chattanooga. We slept like big dogs, got back in the car the next morning and headed toward Dinosaur World.

Dinosaur World is a really cool place. They have scattered throughout the surrounding woods life-sized replicas of various dinosaurs. There is a self-guided tour that is very fun because around each corner is a new and sometimes even larger set of animals to gauk at.

Some of the replicas are struly huge, as can be seen in the picture above.

And some of the replicas are not limited to the dinosaur ear of history. There was a wooly mammoth "garden" with about 10 or so very large replicas and one smaller one that the kids could climb on.

Unfortunately, the trip ended tragically with Flat Ginny being eaten by a dinosaur. Just kidding!

She, and the rest of us, had a great time on our journey. We're looking forward to some more trips this summer. Mt. Rushmore anyone?