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Our summer vacation has been booked, we are heading to Walt Disney World. We are driving down to Florida and spending a week at Disney. Stops along the way will include Mammoth Cave National Park. There is a scheduled launch of the space shuttle Atlantis around the time we are there, other plans include a couple of days at Daytona Beach afterwards to unwind. Still planning the before and after details.
It was an early start this morning as we started on our adventure to the South. Here are the girls first thing in the morning. We left at 5:45 am and then we left again at 6:45 am. Let's just say one of us forgot something.
We crossed over the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit around 10:15 am, no wait, no questions, other than how many people and where we were going. Other than the contruction on the I-75 right after we crossed the bridge (we detoured through Mexicantown), the other construction wasn't too bad. I drove the first leg and Susan drove the rest. Here we are passing Cincinnati.
Paul Brown Stadium, home of the Cincinnati Bengals.
The Brent Spence Bridge, opened in November 1963, with a main span 830.5 ft.
One side is Cincinnati, Ohio, the other side is Kentucky.
A plane coming in for a landing at the Cincinnati Airport.
Can you tell we're in the south, on the water tower in Florence, it has "Florence, Y'all".
After a brief stop at the Kentucky Welcome Centre.
Kentucky is the birth place of Abraham Lincoln.
Claudia playing Guitar Hero.
Angela and Gillian enjoying the ride.
After three states and one time zone change we finished our day in Cave City, Kentucky. The girls wanted to have some genuine KFC in Kentucky for dinner. After dinner the girls had a swim in the outdoor pool. Tomorrow we have a full day at Mammoth Caves National Park. Looking forward to it and will update tomorrow night.
Today we are going from Cave City, Kentucky to Marietta, Georgia. We'll be going through Nashville, Tennessee and the girls want to go shopping, so we'll be finding a mall along the way. We will be keeping an eye on the weather over the next couple of days. Tropical Storm Fay is making its way towards Florida, it may make Tuesday and Wednesday a little wet and windy.
We left Cave City behind and headed for our next stop in Marietta, Georgia via Nashville, Tennessee.
Before we got back on the I-65 we had to stop and take a picture of a dinosaur for Angela.
This one was in the parking lot.
We entered into Tennessee and stopped at the Welcome Centre.
Here are the girls blending in with some statues at the Welcome Centre.
We found a mall in Nashville called Opry Mills, as you might have guessed it is in Opryland.
The mall had its own aquarium and its own Stingray Bay.
Some sharks chasing the stingrays.
I noticed this sign when we were waiting for Susan.
A closer look at the sign.
After we had a picnic lunch we walked over to the Grand Ole Opry House.
Our new blog photo for now.
Angela and Claudia in front of the Grand Ole Opry House.
The line up for August, last night was Vince Gill.
We walked around the gift store called Opry shop.
Our hotel tonight is the Drury Inn in Marietta, Georgia. We checked in around 6:55pm, we lost an hour just past Chattanooga as we crossed back into the Eastern Time Zone. I was told we had only a few minutes to get our free drinks. At this hotel one of the extras is Free Evening drinks and snacks. the girls had soft drinks and I had two draft beers. the snacks included popcorn, chips, and nachos. Other extras that aren't extra are free long distance calling and free hot breakfast.
The pool was cool, half of it was indoors and the other half outdoors. You could swim under the glass partition. Gillian jumping in.
Angela cannon-balling.
The girls performing their pool routine.
Tomorrow were touring the Georgia Aquarium and then it's on to Gainesville Florida.
Today we visited the world's largest Aquarium, both in square feet and litres of water, in Atlanta, Georgia. The Georgia Aquarium is located right downtown across from the Olympic Centennial Park.
We also had tickets to the Deepo's Undersea 3-D Wondershow. They throw in a few surprises to make it a 4-D show. It was short but very good.
Claudia waiting to go in.
The first stop was the Coldwater Quest.
This was one of the touch pools, we were allowed to touch the starfish and sea anemone.
Angela and Claudia checking out the sea creatures.
We were at the aquarium for the opening and we were one of the first visitors to view the beluga whales.
The girls with Deepo, if you saw it from the side you would see the actual fish body.
An African Black-footed penguin.
Here are the girls popping up in the penguin exhibit.
The California Sea Lions waiting for some food.
Another beluga photo.
The girls with the aquarium founders.
The next area was the Geogia Explorer area of the Aquarium.
Another touch pool was the shrimp pool.
A sea turtle.
They also had a stingray and shark touch pool.
There were two types of stingrays. This was a Southern Stingray.
They had Bonnethead sharks, these were full grown.
Here is a Cownose Ray.
The girls touching the Stingrays.
The next stop was Ocean Voyager.
You can stand on a moving walkway as you go through the tunnel. The big attraction are the Whale Sharks. There were four of them in the tank the size of a football field.
One of the Whale Sharks swimming over us.
A Largetooth Sawfish.
The girls posing with some creature.
Claudia filming a big Grouper.
Angela and Claudia with the Whale Shark.
The next area was Tropical Diver. These were Spotted Garden Eels.
This thing was like a Jelly fish.
A Moon Jelly.
The girls in front of the main tank in Tropical Diver.
Claudia with an alligator in the River Scout area.
A River Otter.
The girls in front of a sign.
Back to the sea anemone touch pool.
We all enjoyed the Georgia Aquarium and we're glad to have stopped and visited.
We headed from Atlanta to Gainesville, but we changed our plans and due to the Tropical Storm Fay we decided to drive straight to Orlando and get a room there.
Here we are at the Florida Welcome Centre. It wasn't so sunny when we got there.
We started for home today. We figure we'll be about two days. Here are the girls in the hotel lobby with an astronaut.
A fire truck outside the hotel, not sure why it was there.
A palm tree in the middle of the parking lot.
We stopped at the Cocoa Beach pier but only made it half way, i.e. we didn't pay to go to the end.
The next state on our journey was Georgia again.
Lunch break at the Georgia Welcome Centre.
Another break at the South Carolina Welcome Centre.
We lost a little time just outside of Columbia, South Carolina on the I-77. There was a truck that took a corner to fast and combine that with the first game of the USC Gamecocks football season against the NC State Wolfpack. At the start of the 4th quarter the Gamecocks were leading.
Some of the fans on their way to the game.
Finally our last state of the day was North Carolina. We pulled into another Drury Inn in Charlotte, we missed the free beverages due to the traffic jam, but we still enjoyed the free sodas and popcorn.
Our drive today from Cocoa Beach, FL to Charlotte, NC.
It was a long day of driving, we left Charlotte at 8:00 am on Friday morning and headed for home. Our first stop was the Virginia Welcome Centre.
The girls with Thomas Jefferson, born in Virginia in 1743.
After a short drive through Virginia, we crossed into West Virginia.
Some of the West Virginia countryside.
Dad had lent us their GPS, we used it off and on, it was good for finding hotels.
The first time we had to pull out the laptop for movies was our last day of travel. Here are the girls looking pretty happy.
Our second last state, Pennsylvania. Only a couple of hours from the outlet mall.
We stopped in Grove City to visit the Prime Outlets mall. One last shopping binge.
We crossed over into New York state, but there was no Welcome Centre on the I-90, not that we would have stopped at that point, it was more like "just keep swimming, just keep swimming" until we got home. We crossed the border at Fort Erie with no trouble. Five questions, How many of you? What is everyone's citizenship? Where were you? how long have you been gone? Are you all one family? and that was it, have a good night. There was no wait and we crossed over at 10:52 pm. We pulled into our driveway at 12:16 am, tired, but happy to be home. We started and ended with a picture of the girls in the van, so I have put both here, see if you can guess which is which.
Hope you enjoyed our adventure to Walt Disney World. I'll post our trip summary and some words from the girls soon.
