Michèle et Denis

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1 to 15 March 2011 16 to 31 March 2011

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Another lazy day.
The highlight is the Bingo game...hihihihi!

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

For the past few days we have small little yellow/green worms coming down the trees on a silk like tread.
Even walking on the road you have to be careful not to walk into one. If you brush them of you they kind of smears on you and they stain your clothes.
There are lots of them!
Michèle does not go out much for now!

Tonight we are invited at Keith and Isabelle's place for a nice dinner, Bill and Chrissy are also there.
We spend some time out side, but under the awning because of the little worms...
Here are some photos of the evening.

When it was time to eat, we went outside because it is too warm and small inside, so here we are outside.
No! Michèle is not in time out, she is under the awning away from the monsters (the little worms).

A big thank you for Isabelle and Keith for this "farewell" dinner.
We will miss you all, Isabelle, Keith Chrissy and Bill.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Moving day today!
Out of Lee's Traveler Park in Largo, Florida, to Highbanks Marina & resort in Debary, Florida.

The week before we left Largo we had lots of pollen coming off the trees.
I had to wash the windshield before we hit the road.

On our way out of the campground.

Let me share some of my opinions regarding Lee's campground and the Tampa area.
First the campground. At $600.00 + electricity, it is the cheapest around.
But with that, I have to say, it is looking a little run down. As an example, the power post should have been replaced a while back if not years ago. This is just an accident waiting to happen, but hey, I am not an electrician!
Lots of trees, lots of shade (great) but with that comes lots and lots of leaves falling all the time and I mean all the time.
On the positive side, lots of activities organized by the campers association.
The people in the campground were great, we made some great friends here.
I think if we were coming back to the Tampa area, we would try another campground, even if we have to pay more, but get more for our money.
Now for the Tampa/Largo area. Well they are cities like any other one.
Lots to do and see for the visitors.
Weather wise, we would go further south to be warmer in December and January (Miami comes to mind).
Having said that, we had a great time at Lee's campground and the Largo area, but we would try somewhere else next.
Again, this is only my personal opinion.

Lets keep on going...

Guess where we are driving by now? Answer below

Orlando, next to Walt Disney World.
Utilities poles as a... Mickey Mouse?

Here we are at our new home, the Highbanks Marina & Resort.

Pretty campground, nice marina.
Mostly seasonal campers here.

After all that pollen we got at the last campground, time to wash the motorhome.
There was so much pollen before we left, and with the morning dew it stained the side walls of the motorhome yellow.
It was really hard to get off.
I had to use a hard brush to clean the roof.
Not fun, but the beer was good after!

A little visit around the campground. A view from the river looking at the marina and restaurant.
The restaurant is always full.

Some of the residents, they are about 2 feet long.

Another resident, a blue heron I believe.

Working hard at the next web page update.

We are here for a week. During that week we will be visiting Universal Studio, Bike Week at Daytona Beach and the Kennedy Space Center.

Friday, March 4, 2011

The weather forecast is calling for a grey day with a little rain.
So we decide to go and visit the Kennedy Space Center.

In the distance you can see the Vehicle Assembly Building.
This is where they join the space shuttle and the fuel tanks/engines.

Here we come...

The Apollo Command Module before and after.

The Apollo commend center at Cap Canaveral, the way it looked back in 1969.

The Saturn V Rocket with its 5 F-1 engines.
All five engines provide a combined 7.5 millions pound of thrust. This is equal to 213 F-18 jets.
In only 2.5 minutes, you are at 65 km from the launch pad using 2,021,1990 liters liquid fuel.
This rocket is some BIG!

A view of the whole Saturn V rocket and a small scale of the same rocket.

Some more photos of the center...

We even had a show about going to the moon and the landing.
We even had the chance to touch a piece rock from the moon.

They had a mock up of a space shuttle, the "Explorer"
For some reason I was expecting something bigger, but still impressive!

Inside the cargo area of the shuttle with the "Canadarm"...

They had a piece of granite weighing about 9 tons with all the constellation engraved on it and it was "floating" on water!
We could actually move it around.
WOW!

We went to two IMAX 3D shows.
The first one was about the Hubble telescope and the other was about the International Space Station.
Double wow!
Here we are with our 3D glasses!
Pretty aren't we?

The "Rocket Garden", everything that went into space...

We really enjoyed this visit, but I think you need more than a day to see it all.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

This week is Bike Week in Daytona Beach.
Here we go to Daytona Beach...
Some photos of the day.

First stop, the beach.

The little pointy roof on the hotel is where we stayed in the early 90s.

And now.... THE BIKES!

If you want to see more bikes, click here.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Today we are going to Universal Studio in Orlando, Florida.
Universal Studio is actually two attraction parks. One is Universal Studio and the other one is Universal's Island of Adventure.
After we saw the price of tickets, with our military discount we bought a pass for two days for the price of one.

So here is our first day, Monday, at Universal Studio.

Me and my peers, race car drivers...

Revenge of the Mummy, an indoor roller coaster, very good!

The New York city area of Universal Studio. So life like!

I have never seen turkey Legs as fast food.
Kind of funny to see people walking around with a turkey leg in there hand.

Rip Ride Rocket roller coaster, you chose your music for the ride. Nice ride.

4-D just mean that on top of the 3-D, you get "real" stuff, like when a dragon sneeze, you get wet...
Very good ride, loved it.

Lots of lights and we got a nice sunset on the way home.

A small note, we should have listened to our friends Dave and Shelly when they said to buy the "Express Pass". The Express Pass let's you go to the front of the line up so you don't wait as long. We must have waited over 3 hours inline as we saw people going strait to the front of the line with the Express Pass.
We still had a great day.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

On our way to Universal's Island of Adventure.
This time we purchased the Express Pass.
Remember Forrest Gump sitting on a bench telling his story?
Here we are in his shoes...

Into the world of cartoon Super Heroes.
The Spider-Man ride was the best for us.

With our taught!

I did the ride in Jurassic Park. Can you see me in the boat?
And here I am after the ride...

On our way to "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter"

We did a few rides using the Express Pass but some are not allowing you to use the pass. Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey is not one of them. When we walk by at 10 am the waiting time was over 3 hours. At the end of the day, it was only 45 minutes.

Looking so real!

In the Lost Continent part of the park.

And to finish this say, a pretty tree blooming!

A little story here...
I have no problems with roller coasters, but no photos to prove it, we went on a Merry-Go-Round ride.
No problems, but when I got on my "ride", I swang my leg over (hard) and struck the animal I was riding, right on my shin!
The pain, almost to the point of fainting. Hot dam that hurts. I started to sweat, turned white as a ghost, my stomach was in my throat and then, the Merry-go-Round started to go...round!
I did not like this ride at all!
Michèle had a good laugh at my expense...

With out our Express Pass, we would have not had time to do all the rides we did.
It is worth the extra money!!!

Thursday, March 10, 2011

One of the nice things about our life right now is that we change "neibourhood" without changing house.
This means we are "moving" to our new neibourhood.

With only 160 km to go today, we decided to take the secondairy roads vice Intersates.
We see a lot more of Florida, even if the road is narrower at times.

Here is our new home for almost a week, Pacetti Marina & RV Park.
Very average as far as campground is concerned. Lots of seasonal with a very low standard on maintaining there sites.
But hey! At $16.50 per night and full hookups with our CampClubUSA card, we can not complain...

Here we are arriving at our camp site. Notice the branch hanging a little low.
Well, the back ladder lost the battle!
Regardless of this little accident, we like our site.

The owner mentioned that in the 70s this was the 3rd largest Evenrude dealer in north-esatern Florida.
Nice area but no investment made in the last 5 to 10 years.
This was not the only chair like this one!!!

A view of the campground's marina.

We can not complain since we will be spending most of our days in St-Augustine
A local fisherman feeding a blue heron.

After setting up, it is only 3 pm, why not go and visit St-Augustine.
After talking with a lady at the information center/Red Train Tour, we take the tour in the train.
We also have a military discount (Half price for $22.00) and the ticket is valid for 3 days.

Here is what Wikipedia says about St-Augustine :
"Founded in 1565 by Spanish explorer and admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, it is the oldest continuously occupied European-established city and port in the continental United States. "

A very cute little historique city.

Here they used a lot of shells as one of the many ingredient for construction material.
A wall/fence with lots of shells showing...

Of course we had to visit the St-Augustine Lighthouse.

214 steps to reach the top of the lighthouse.

What a view!

With our military ID, we got in free!
Too bad Canada does not recognise military personel like they do in the States...

Friday and Saturday, March 11 and 12, 2011

Over the next 3 days we visite St-Augustine.
With our ticket for the Red Train, we can park at the Ripley's museum for free.
Here is house carved in a tree trunk. It took 4 months to carve out and a year to finish it up.
There is enough wood on this piece of tree to build a 5 bedroom house.

Friday is St-Paddy's Day Parade. Even the horse got green nail polish!

Some more photos of St-Augustine...

A palm tree growing in the center of another tree!

WOW, I could not beleive my eyes.
Are they from the back mountains?
Need I say more?

As the sign says, the oldest wood school in the USA.
Notice the anchor and the chain going around the school?
This was to prevent the school house from flying off during an hurricane.
Serious!

Being St-Paddy's day, a Irish bar was offering a special tasting of 3 whisky for only $10.00.
Why not! Let me tell you that is was more then one ounce in each glasses!
Very good and no, I did not drive home that evening...

Back at Ripley's parking lot, there was this lady with over 20,000 firecrackers wrap around herself.
She lit them up!
Some thing to see.

Two very busy days.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Two visits today, the "Castillo De San Marcos" and the "Ripley Beleive It or Not" museum.

We started with the Castillo.
Some photos of the fort.

The Fort was constructed with some local "stones" called "coquina". Coquina is harvested for the ocean's bottom and once exposed to abiant air, it hardens.
One of the advantage of coquina is that when a canon ball hits it, the canon ball "goes" in the wall a little but does not shatter the wall. You can then re-use the canon ball and fire it back at your enemies.

Some more photos of the Fort.

Now we go to the Ripley's museum.

A very good day in St-Augustine.

Monday and Tuesday, March 14 and 15, 2011

Days to relax and enjoy.
Bicycle ride, doing laudry, washing the motorhome and a good breakfast in there...

We really enjoyed St-Augustine, if you ever drive by, stop and enjoy a trip back in time...
It is worth it!

Until next time.

Life is good...