April 2017 – The Road and The Nestless

Old Friends, Giant Steaks and an Orange Bird…..

Kirk has been working in Ohio for a while now and it seems that whenever we try to fly out of there to go somewhere else, it snows…..a lot! So this time, when we woke up at the crack of dawn on Friday morning to head to Orlando we were happy to see that the skies were clear. We got in the truck and headed to the airport….we were almost there when the snow started coming down, and coming down hard. 20170303_074717 By the time we reached the airplane, it was almost a blizzard. We ended up sitting on the plane for quite a while waiting for it to get deiced. This caused us to have to miss our connecting flight.

We, at least had sense enough to call the airline while we were waiting to take off and get booked on a later flight, but because everyone was trying to do the same thing we couldn’t get one out until late in the afternoon.

The plan originally was to get in early in the morning, pick up the bike from the Orlando dealership and ride to Sanford to enjoy some pre-Daytona bike week festivities at the Harley dealership there.

We made it to Orlando with barely enough time to run and get the bike before the dealership closed…or at least we thought…we called as soon as we landed and found that the service center actually closed an hour earlier. After much begging and pleading we got someone to agree to wait for Kirk to get there to pick up the bike. It was so late by the time we got to Sanford that we missed all of the festivities we were going there to enjoy, but at least we had the bike.

The next morning we headed over and had some fun listening to the band and looking at the vendors. I’m glad that we got to at least spend a little bit of time there.

About lunch time we left Sanford and headed to Lakeland to visit an old friend, Tammy, and her new husband, Steve. We spent the day relaxing by the pool and catching up. Steve grilled us the biggest steaks I have ever seen. They were like steaks from the Flintstones…lol…..They were good though and we enjoyed them.

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Did I mention that the area that they live in is near a place called Itchepackesassa Creek? We couldn’t pronounce it so we just called it Itchy-poopy-scratchy…haha.

After a good night’s visit and rest, we headed to Sarasota to see the Baltimore Orioles play in a spring training game. Kirk was in heaven. The weather was amazing and the game was lots of fun.

After the game, we headed to Fort Myers to spend the night, drop the bike at the dealership there (to get some work done) and then head back to cold Ohio. We stopped along the way at a waterfront restaurant for some dinner and live music. It was a good day.

Harry Potter, Mickey, and a Burning Bus…

What do these things have in common? Not much except that we encountered them all when we went back to Orlando to get the bike.

We decided to spend the next 4 days in Orlando and see the sights there before moving on. We got in late on Thursday so we just picked up the bike and went straight to bed to rest up for the fun of the next few days. In the morning we got up and decided to ride to the coast before heading to our hotel at Universal Studios. It was a nice ride and we found a very out of the way little dive restaurant in Titusville to sit and eat at. It had a great view of Kennedy Space Center. The food was good too. It was a relaxing afternoon.

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On the way back to Orlando, we encountered an incredibly huge traffic jam. The traffic was stopped…and by stopped traffic I mean literally people out of their cars and sitting around…with no place to turn around. Apparently they had been there more than an hour.

We made our way towards the front of the pack and settled in for a wait. We ended up only having to wait about 30 minutes before traffic was able to slowly start moving. Turns out a tour bus caught on fire. No one was on it except the driver and no one got hurt, thank goodness.

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We finally made it to the Polynesian Hotel at Universal Studios. IMG_20170211_102256047_HDR I love this place.

We bought a 2 day pass to Universal Studios so we could really enjoy the parks. The cool thing about staying at this hotel is that you get a fast pass for each person. They cost about 80 bucks each per day…so that is an amazing perk that most people don’t know about.

Brandi and Tom (my niece and her husband) met us at the hotel the next morning to head out to the park.

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We had a great time riding all the rides and spending time in The world of Harry Potter. The Hogwarts Express is a great way to travel between parks. It is really cool.

After a long day at the park, we headed over to the Contemporary hotel at Disney World to have dinner with Chef Mickey. (My niece is crazy about Disney so we had to go of course.) I had never been to a character dinner before. It was so much fun. If you have kids and want to meet the characters and get good pictures with them all, this is the way to do it for sure. I do think that Goofy is my favorite though. We had a great night.

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The next day, Kirk and I headed back into the park and just rode the water rides. We were soaked but had a blast. At the end of a super fun weekend, we took the bike back to Brandi’s place, parked it, headed to the airport and back to Ohio for a few more weeks of work. Can’t wait to get back and on the road again.

Back on the Bike….Florida

After the holidays, we made our way back to Savannah to pick up the motorcycle and head on our way. We were heading to St. Augustine, Florida (State #31 for us so far) to meet up with my niece, Brandi, and her husband, Tom, for a fun weekend. We rented an apartment on AirBnB. It was a very old house transformed into apartments. It was nice but quirky to say the least.

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We took a day to tour the city. There is so much to see in St. Augustine…so much history. It is one of my favorite places.

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One of the highlights of this trip was touring the St. Augustine Distillery.

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We had a good dinner and then went on a ghost tour. What would a trip to such a historic city be without a ghost tour. It was fun scaring Brandi once we were back in the house after the tour too…haha

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On Sunday, Brandi and Tom had to head back to Orlando. Kirk and I were left alone…..with a storm rolling in….tornado warnings and blaring wind and rain all around. We needed dinner, so we cautiously walked a few blocks to the ocean side to see if anything was open. Almost everything was…

We settled in at an open air restaurant/bar and enjoyed the evening. The storms blew over with no significant issues and we had a nice evening.

Monday morning we headed out along the coast towards Orlando. We stopped at a nice little restaurant on the water for lunch and a break.

We finally made it to Orlando and dropped off the bike at Brandi’s place until we returned in a few weeks. It was such a fun time, I forgot to take a lot of pictures..sorry.

Holidays

Thanksgiving, next to Christmas is my favorite holiday. This year we spent it at my parents house in one of my favorite places…Fredericksburg, Texas. All of us went… all three kids, Ariel’s boyfriend, my grandson, my niece, her husband, and Kirk & I. My Aunt Janie and Uncle Ronnie live in another cabin on the same property. It was a full house, but oh so nice. I love to be surrounded by my family.

On Friday after Thanksgiving, we headed into town to do some shopping and attend the town tree lighting ceremony. Leon was so fascinated by the lights when they came on.

A bonus this year is that my parents 50th Anniversary was coming up on December 30th. Since everyone was there already, we decided that we would have their anniversary party over the Thanksgiving weekend. I planned a small but fun party at a local small airport. They have a unique hotel there with a bar and restaurant.

I was having a hard time thinking about Christmas coming….not having a home for the kids to come together, my decorations in storage and not being able to put them out….. I think of all the things I miss about having a home these are the type of things that I miss the most. I love Christmas. I mean I really really love Christmas! My kids will say that I am a crazy Christmas person, so I was really feeling sad about it all. Kirk and I talked about it a lot and after much deliberation, we decided to take the family on a cruise. All the kids are adults and don’t really need a bunch of presents and stuff, so it was the perfect thing. What better way to get to see all of the Christmas decorations that I love and spend quality time with the family?

We went out of Galveston, Texas, on Royal Caribbean to Honduras, Belize and Cozumel. It was a great time for all of us.

We took the cruise a week before Christmas because one of the girls was going to Spain for Christmas and the other to Mexico. So Kirk and I went to Arizona to spend actual Christmas with our son, grandson, and friends.