A VERY Fun Day

Our friend Leslie is a Disney addict. She came by it honestly, having grown up in Florida and making many trips as a child to Disney World. Since their marriage, she has created another addict in her husband Bill. So we had two premier guides today for a visit to check out the Christmas decorations at the Disney hotels. We started out at the main parking lot, then took a tram to the monorail. We took the monorail to the Floridian, perhaps the classiest of the hotels. They have this incredible gingerbread house in the lobby.

Note the size of the house -- compared to those people that walked in front of me! The chimney of the house actually smoked --

Outside of the hotel, they were roasting -- and giving away -- chestnuts. None of us had ever eaten one before.

You had to peel away the outside husk... They are fairly soft and mealy. We all decided they were definitely an acquired taste --

The grounds of the hotel have some beautiful topiaries -- I loved this one of Mary Poppins --

In the middle of the lobby was this several stories tall, exquisite Christmas tree --

From the Floridian, we took the monorail to the Contemporary Hotel to see another gingerbread creation --

and gingerbread tree --

Then we took a boat ride over to Fort Wilderness, the Disney campground. We took a "sleigh" buggy horse ride around the RV Park to see all of the incredible and elaborate decorations done by the people staying in the park. We really lucked out as Leslie had tried to make reservations for the ride, but they were sold out. Talking to the concierge, Bill discovered that one of the four carriages did not take reservations, so we got to ride after all.

After eating the chicken salad picnic that Leslie had fixed for us, we took another boat ride over to the Polynesian Resort where we planned to watch the evening fireworks. We could see the castle of the Magic Kingdom across the way --

While we were sitting on the beach at the Polynesian, we watched the Fantasmic Water Light Show out on the lagoon. King Trident with his seahorse steeds --

The octopus waving his arms --

And a dinosaur having a little snack -- 

We were in a great spot to watch the fireworks. I didn't get any pictures, but Leslie did, and maybe I can show some of them on tomorrow's blog.

After the fireworks, we walked back from the Polynesian to take the tram back to the parking lot. By the time we got back to their place and from there to Auntie Violet, it was midnight. But it was a VERY fun day!

Making Reservations

Forry and I usually fly pretty much by the seat of our pants. We're not real in to making reservations, partially because we don't like to plan that far ahead. But, we realize we are in unfamiliar territory at a very busy time of year. So the last week or so, we've been looking through the various directories looking for where we might want to stay during December.

We have some friends in Tallahassee that we'd like to visit, so we were looking for a place near there. Through our home resort, Neskowin Creek in Oregon, we have memberships in both Resorts of Distinction and (ROD) Resort Parks International (RPI). ROD only has a couple of parks in Florida, but RPI has quite a few. We finally decided to try Pine Lake RV Park near Fountain. Unfortunately, while it is an RPI park, it is not an RPI Preferred park.  Which means we could only stay there one week using the $10 per night rate (plus their $5 per night electricity charge!) instead of the usual two weeks.

But, that will work. If we leave Styx River on December 6th, we would be at Pine Lake until the 13th. Then we want to be somewhere fairly close to our friends Bill and Leslie who are settled in at Mouse Mountain RV Park near Disney World. I spent some time on the Internet checking reviews on RV Parks in the Orlando area. A couple of the ones we looked at in the RPI directory had some very poor reviews. It seems that many of the membership RV Parks are old and in need of renovation! (We've run into that several times!)

We finally made reservations for two weeks at Bee's RV Park near Clermont. It had some pretty good reviews and the pictures on the Internet looked nice. We'll stay there until the 27th and then most likely start heading down the towards the Keys.

11-11-11

It's been interesting today to listen to all of the comments about it being the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year of the two thousands.  Lots of people got married and lots of elective c-sections were done so that the baby would have 11-11-11 as a birthday. And it wasn't just in the US, but all over the world. I guess a lot of people perceive it to be an auspicious day.

It didn't get near as cold last night as they were predicting, our thermometer only show a low of forty degrees. There was a cold wind today and you definitely needed a jacket outside.

We saw this HUGE contraption making its way down the Mississippi River this afternoon when we were leaving the RV park to pick up some groceries --

It was so long, it took me three pictures to show any detail of it. This is the front end.  There was some sort of floating canoe-like boat that held up the boom or pole in the front...

There were at least two more small tugs alongside.  Not sure if they were helping to move it or if they were part of the equipment being taken downstream --

And then there was this very big tug at the back pushing it all along.  It looks there may have been another boat tied up alongside.

One thing about watching traffic on the river -- it sure makes you curious! It would be fun to know what is in some of the barges? And what was the purpose of this huge contraption?