Day 8 Florida Vacation Xmas 2007

Today we got up and had breakfast, then headed out for an Air Boat ride with Boggy Creek Air Boats into the Florida Everglades. This was a lot of fun, neither of us had been on an airboat before. It was noisy, but they provide ear protection. We got to see an aligator up close and there were lots of birds to see.








After Boggy Creek, we headed to Disney World. I have yet to see the iconic castle, so today we are going to "The Magic Kingdom"

Here is my first view of the castle.

The crowds are large as you can see in the photos. If you are ever going to go to Disney World, do not go at Christmas / New Years. That is the busiest time of the year. Karen wanted to see Disney at Christmas Time so we are glad that we went, but never again. We will be back to Disney, but at a much less crowded time.

We went on a few rides, but the lineup's were about 2 hours long. We stayed long enough to see the castle lit up at night and to see the fireworks over the castle. Tonight is New Years Eve.

As usual, you can see the rest of todays photos on my Flickr site by clicking and following this link.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21055823@N07/sets/72157614727098977/

Day 7 Florida Vacation Xmas 2007

Today we are off to NASA. It was a beautiful day and we got up early, had breakfast and headed off for a day at NASA. We wandered around the complex, went on the Launch Simulator ride and took the coach tour out to the launch pad. I would like to come back and witness a space shuttle launch sometime.

Here are a few pictures that I took today.










As usual, I took a lot of photos today, so if you are interested in viewing the complete set, clik on the link to my Flickr site and you can see all of todays photos.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21055823@N07/sets/72157614581851742/

Day 5 & 6 Florida Vacation Xmas 2007

Day 5 of our 10 day vacation in Florida was mostly spent driving. We left Naples around 10am and decided that rather than drive straight back to Orlando, that we would cross the state via Aligator Alley and go up the Atlantic Coast towards Orlando. It was a chance to see more of Florida. It was a very slow picture day, we did stop along Aligator Alley and I took a few shots.



Day 6 was a down day, we did laundry, I got my haircut and just mostly relaxed around the hotel. Tomorrow we are off to Cape Kennedy and NASA for the day.



Here is a photo that I took along Aligator Alley









To see the rest of the photos that I took for Dec 28, you can check them out on my Flickr Site by clicking on this link at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21055823@N07/sets/72157603826080180/

Day 4 Florida Vacation Xmas 2007

Today Karen and I got up early, got in our car and headed for Naples Florida. We wanted to spend a couple of days visiting with our friend Louis. It was about a 3 hour drive from Orlando to his home in Naples.

Here is a picture of the beach at the pier in Naples Florida.






If you would like to see the rest of my photos of the Naples Beach, you can clik the link below and go into my Flickr site and view them there.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21055823@N07/sets/72157603826050788/

Day 3 Florida Vacation Xmas 2007

Well today we woke up bright and early and had breakfast in our room. Then we got organized to head back to Disney World. Today we are going to go to Animal Kingdom. Since I didn't want to try and figure out a new driving route, I suggested that we go to The Epcot Center because I already knew how to get there, and we could park the car there and then take the Disney Monorail to Animal Kingdom. We were planning on staying late and seeing the Epcot Fireworks anyway, so this would work out good and the car would be at Epcot for when the Fireworks were over.



This is the entrance to Animal Kingdom. If you are ever going to go to Disney, try to avoid the Christmas / New Years time period, the crowds are large and the wait times are long.



Here are a few pictures of the animals that we saw up close.





Of course we saw Minnie & Mickey Mouse.




Goofy and Donald





After a long day at Animal Kingdom we took the Monorail back to Epcot and found a good spot to watch the fireworks from. The Epcot Ball looks great all lit up at night.







I am not going to fill this blog with hundreds of photos from each day, so if you are interested in seeing all my photos that I took today at Animal Kingdom and Epcot Center, you can go to my flickr site at this url and see them all.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21055823@N07/sets/72157603822775358/

Day 2 Florida Vacation Xmas 2007

Well here it is, my second of many blog enteries. Today I will tell you more about our Dec 2007 trip to Orlando Florida and Disney World.



On Dec 25, we awoke and opened our Christmas presents. We then got ready to head to Disney World. Here we are opening our presents.

After we opened our presents, we headed off for a day at Disney World. Karen has been to Disney several times, I have never been, in fact, I have never been to Florida, so this is all new to me. The one thing that I first observed was that to get anywhere from our hotel, we had to get on an Expressway or a Toll Road. It is not easy getting around Orlando. My Blackberry GPS took us straight to the parking lot at Disney Epcot and we got the car parked and ourselves organized. These are my first photos of Disney World, the iconic Epcot Center Ball.

I think it was around 5pm by the time we had walked all through the Epcot Center area and it was time to head back to our hotel for dinner.


I am not going to fill this blog with hundreds of photos from each day, so if you are interested in seeing all my photos that I took at the Epcot Center today, you can go to my flickr site at this url and see them. http://www.flickr.com/photos/21055823@N07/sets/72157603820858842/

Day 1 Florida Vacation Xmas 2007

This will be my attempt at creating a blog. The purpose is for friends and family to be able to keep up to date with what we are doing and where we are travelling to. I hope you enjoy. Well the first thing I must do is make the font larger so that you can read it. Ok, I think it needs to be even larger because I can barely read it. My eyes must be getting bad.



So, where should I start with this blog. How about with my first road trip.


Back in December 2007, Karen and I drove to Florida for our first winter vacation. We left Ontario on Dec 21 and arrived at the Georgia-Florida border on Dec 24. It was quite a drive from Ontario, considering that I have not driven south of Perkinsfield for 20 some years, this was a whole new experience. The US interstate system is a little nerve wracking when you are used to driving on rural country roads. It took a while, but I finally got used to the highway speeds in excess of 80 MPH just to keep up with the flow of traffic.

Here we are entering Florida and the photo was taken at the I-75 Florida Rest Area.

We arrived at our hotel in Orlando later in the afternoon. We stayed at a Hilton Garden Inn.

I will add more photos and descriptions to this tomorrow, it is late now.

Bill