Why on Earth would a family of five choose to drive all the way to Florida, in a year where hurricanes became an epidemic, and gas prices tripled? We found the one good week in the fall of 2005 to visit Orlando and Fort Walton Beach, spent 5 days driving during our 10-day vacation, and managed to have a great time in the process....
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Saturday, November 05, 2005
Day 10 - Nashville to Home
Estimated Travel Time: 5 hours 8 minutes for 336.8 miles
We had a light day of driving today, so I didn't push the girls for an early start. We checked out of the room, and headed down to breakfast. The full breakfast buffet at the Springhill Suites really makes this an economical way for a family of five to spend the night on the road. We only pay for one room, since the room is big enough to support five people, we have a fridge to store our cooler food overnight, and we save $20 - $30 by not having to buy breakfast at a restaurant. This morning, there were lots of folks wearing Bengals jerseys in the dining room. After a full breakfast of eggs, sausage, belgian waffles, juice and oatmeal, the girls walked out of there with an apple, a banana, and 3 donuts among them. They eat at a buffet like a bunch of homeless people.
We hit the road, and blew through the rest of Tennessee fairly quickly. Nashville marks the point where our return route rejoins the route we took on the way down to Orlando - so it was all looking sort of familiar by now.
Kaybee had her heart set on eating at a KFC in Kentucky for lunch. The irony of it is, once we decided to stop, we couldn't find a KFC anywhere on I-24. We finally found one just across the border into Illinois, at Metropolis (self declared home of Superman). The girls enjoyed the buffet. I was wondering how many months of Weight Watchers I was going to have to endure to make up for these last two weeks.
We stopped at a rest area near Rend Lake in Illinois that had a playground. The girls got out and played for 30 minutes or so, while Elzie stocked up on information for our next vacation from the "Take One" information stand.
We remembered the NL Championship game as we hit I-64, and tuned in to KMOX to see how the Cardinals were doing. Not well, as I recall. We stopped for fuel in O'Fallon ($2.66/gallon - it was finally starting to approach a sane price). Then once across the bridge, with a nice view of the Gateway Arch, we waved goodbye to old Busch Stadium, and before we knew it, we were home.
We hope you've enjoyed reading about our trip as much as we've enjoyed reliving the memories. Wish us luck on our next adventure.
We had a light day of driving today, so I didn't push the girls for an early start. We checked out of the room, and headed down to breakfast. The full breakfast buffet at the Springhill Suites really makes this an economical way for a family of five to spend the night on the road. We only pay for one room, since the room is big enough to support five people, we have a fridge to store our cooler food overnight, and we save $20 - $30 by not having to buy breakfast at a restaurant. This morning, there were lots of folks wearing Bengals jerseys in the dining room. After a full breakfast of eggs, sausage, belgian waffles, juice and oatmeal, the girls walked out of there with an apple, a banana, and 3 donuts among them. They eat at a buffet like a bunch of homeless people.
We hit the road, and blew through the rest of Tennessee fairly quickly. Nashville marks the point where our return route rejoins the route we took on the way down to Orlando - so it was all looking sort of familiar by now.
Kaybee had her heart set on eating at a KFC in Kentucky for lunch. The irony of it is, once we decided to stop, we couldn't find a KFC anywhere on I-24. We finally found one just across the border into Illinois, at Metropolis (self declared home of Superman). The girls enjoyed the buffet. I was wondering how many months of Weight Watchers I was going to have to endure to make up for these last two weeks.
We stopped at a rest area near Rend Lake in Illinois that had a playground. The girls got out and played for 30 minutes or so, while Elzie stocked up on information for our next vacation from the "Take One" information stand.
We remembered the NL Championship game as we hit I-64, and tuned in to KMOX to see how the Cardinals were doing. Not well, as I recall. We stopped for fuel in O'Fallon ($2.66/gallon - it was finally starting to approach a sane price). Then once across the bridge, with a nice view of the Gateway Arch, we waved goodbye to old Busch Stadium, and before we knew it, we were home.
We hope you've enjoyed reading about our trip as much as we've enjoyed reliving the memories. Wish us luck on our next adventure.
Day 9 - Fort Walton Beach to Nashville, TN
Estimated Travel Time: 8 hours 19 minutes for 489.2 miles
Checking out of the condo instead of claiming our beach chairs this morning was a hard thing to do. Three nights is just not enough. Next time we will have to stay at least a week.
I decided to attempt a more scenic drive than the TripTik suggested. We headed west on Highway 98, through the town of Fort Walton, then through Navarre Beach and Pensacola. Navarre suffered a lot of damage both from Dennis and Ivan, and it didn't look like it was coming back any too quickly. We saw several buildings that were missing entire walls and/or roofs. The further west that we drove, the worse the damage appeared.
Pensacola was not much better. We stopped at a gas station in Pensacola that had no gas to sell. Several sections of the fishing pier across the bay had fallen into the water. The visitor's center was closed. Highway 10 and 110 were both under heavy construction.
Believe it or not, I thought I remembered this sign as we drove past, from my trip to Pensacola when I was 5 or 6 years old. Could this sign actually have been there in the '60s?
Anyway, the whole town had kind of a creepy, ghost-town vibe to it, and we were all sort of glad to put it behind us.
Soon we were in Alabama. The directions to get to I-65 were a bit challenging, but we finally made it. There was a lot of damage in southern Alabama as well. This was mitigated by the fact that there's not a heck of a lot in Alabama to damage. It is a big, long, boring state with a lot of tall pine trees and not much else in it. We stopped at a Cracker Barrel for lunch in Prattville (just outside of Montgomery, and in case you're still keeping score, gas was $2.72/gallon).
The Hamtaro DVD had mysteriously been misplaced, but the two little ones made due by watching Teacher's Pet (with Nathan Lane) several times. After lunch, having grown weary of Nathan's Jerry Lewis imitation, I was miraculously able to relocate Hamtaro and gave it back to them.
The scenery improved noticeably once we crossed the border into Tennessee (again, this surprised us). We got into Nashville after dark, and checked into our room at the Springhill Suites. It's good that we made reservations ahead of time. As I was checking in, another man was asking the desk clerk if there were any rooms available anywhere in town. There were not. Apparently, this weekend there was a UT game, the Titans were hosting the Bengals, there was some kind of big NASCAR event, and the Grand Ole Opry was celebrating it's 80th anniversary. None of these things had any significance to us, but it did make for a crowded parking lot at the hotel.
We grabbed a quick dinner at the McDonalds at the corner, then returned to the hotel. I thought it was sort of funny that an employee of the nearby KFC was in McDonalds ordering a McChicken for dinner. It was even stranger when she came back and announced that her manager had asked her to order one for him as well. As we were leaving, we noticed an ambulance with its lights flashing in front of the KFC. We don't know if the McChickens were the cause, or if the staff had known something about the KFC cuisine that their hapless customers had not.
After dinner, Mom took the kids down to the indoor pool to swim for an hour or so, in an effort to burn off some of their untapped potential energy for the day. It seemed to work. It was the first time we did not have to beg them to go to sleep.
On to Day 10...
Checking out of the condo instead of claiming our beach chairs this morning was a hard thing to do. Three nights is just not enough. Next time we will have to stay at least a week.
I decided to attempt a more scenic drive than the TripTik suggested. We headed west on Highway 98, through the town of Fort Walton, then through Navarre Beach and Pensacola. Navarre suffered a lot of damage both from Dennis and Ivan, and it didn't look like it was coming back any too quickly. We saw several buildings that were missing entire walls and/or roofs. The further west that we drove, the worse the damage appeared.
Pensacola was not much better. We stopped at a gas station in Pensacola that had no gas to sell. Several sections of the fishing pier across the bay had fallen into the water. The visitor's center was closed. Highway 10 and 110 were both under heavy construction.
Believe it or not, I thought I remembered this sign as we drove past, from my trip to Pensacola when I was 5 or 6 years old. Could this sign actually have been there in the '60s?Anyway, the whole town had kind of a creepy, ghost-town vibe to it, and we were all sort of glad to put it behind us.
Soon we were in Alabama. The directions to get to I-65 were a bit challenging, but we finally made it. There was a lot of damage in southern Alabama as well. This was mitigated by the fact that there's not a heck of a lot in Alabama to damage. It is a big, long, boring state with a lot of tall pine trees and not much else in it. We stopped at a Cracker Barrel for lunch in Prattville (just outside of Montgomery, and in case you're still keeping score, gas was $2.72/gallon).
The Hamtaro DVD had mysteriously been misplaced, but the two little ones made due by watching Teacher's Pet (with Nathan Lane) several times. After lunch, having grown weary of Nathan's Jerry Lewis imitation, I was miraculously able to relocate Hamtaro and gave it back to them.
The scenery improved noticeably once we crossed the border into Tennessee (again, this surprised us). We got into Nashville after dark, and checked into our room at the Springhill Suites. It's good that we made reservations ahead of time. As I was checking in, another man was asking the desk clerk if there were any rooms available anywhere in town. There were not. Apparently, this weekend there was a UT game, the Titans were hosting the Bengals, there was some kind of big NASCAR event, and the Grand Ole Opry was celebrating it's 80th anniversary. None of these things had any significance to us, but it did make for a crowded parking lot at the hotel.
We grabbed a quick dinner at the McDonalds at the corner, then returned to the hotel. I thought it was sort of funny that an employee of the nearby KFC was in McDonalds ordering a McChicken for dinner. It was even stranger when she came back and announced that her manager had asked her to order one for him as well. As we were leaving, we noticed an ambulance with its lights flashing in front of the KFC. We don't know if the McChickens were the cause, or if the staff had known something about the KFC cuisine that their hapless customers had not.
After dinner, Mom took the kids down to the indoor pool to swim for an hour or so, in an effort to burn off some of their untapped potential energy for the day. It seemed to work. It was the first time we did not have to beg them to go to sleep.
On to Day 10...
Friday, November 04, 2005
Day 8 - More Beaching
Our original plan was to take a "dolphin viewing" cruise on a glass-bottom boat today. But I talked to the girls about it, and we all agreed that we wanted to spend the last day of our vacation at the beach. The boat trip sounded fun, but nobody wanted to give up our beach time for it. So we'll save the Southern Star Dolphin Cruise for our next vacation. We had a light breakfast, put our suits back on, and headed down to the ocean.
We claimed our same spot, and settled in. The weather was even more beautiful today than yesterday, and the ocean was so calm, it looked like a sheet of glass. We were able to wade way out into the gulf, and the water was still only waist high. It was so clear, you could easily see the bottom. At one point, I saw a pretty good size blue crab on the ocean floor, and he saw me too, because he quickly scooted away sideways before I could get any closer. Darn, there goes dinner! The girls were able to see lots of shells, and unfortunately, lots of screws, bolts, pieces of corroded metal, broken glass, etc. We did our best to clean up the beach of this junk.
The girls and their mom spent a lot of time building a sand castle. I just can't describe how serene it was, watching my family enjoy the beautiful weather and warm, clear water from my lounge chair. I never wanted it to end.Next to us, was a couple from Louisville, Ky. Coincidentally, the family next to them was also from Louisville. We had chatted briefly with both groups, and when they discovered that they shared a home town they became very friendly with each other. At one point, the lady from Louisville Group 2 told the couple from Louisville Group 1 that she was going up to the condo to make Beer Margaritas. Elzie overheard them (unavoidable really, as she was eavesdropping!) and exclaimed "BEER MARGARITAS!?!" Louisville Lady said she would bring one down for her. It was really good - I had my doubts, but it turned out to be very refreshing. It was different, and somehow familiar tasting at the same time. She gave us the very complex recipe, which I shall now share with you:
| Beer Margaritas 1 12oz Can Limeade Concentrate 1 12oz Bottle Corona 1 12oz Can 7-Up 12oz Tequila Mix it all together, serve over ice. |
Our plan was to visit a place called McGuire's in Destin for lunch, then stop at the Destin Fish Market for some fresh, locally caught fish to grill for dinner. Elzie's good friend had told us that their family enjoyed McGuire's on their excursions to the Panhandle. She told us that they brew their own beer and root beer, have great steaks,
great sandwiches, and U.S. Senate Bean Soup for 18 cents. However, we were having such a nice time on the beach, and we didn't want to interrupt little-bit's nap, so we continued to play until at least 3:00. At that point, we finally gathered up the family, sprayed them down at the outdoor shower, removed the rest of the sand in the showers at the condo, got dressed, and headed across the bridge to the city of Destin.We found McGuire's without too much trouble. We got there right as they were switching menus from Lunch to Dinner. They had us wait in the gift shop for about 15 minutes (maybe they do this to all obvious tourists, in the hopes that they'll buy some Irish Pub junk or a T-shirt or something).
There were lots of "Shoe" cartoons on the wall - apparently the author of that strip is a frequent guest. Hanging from the ceiling are about $300,000 worth of single dollar bills. It's actually sort of an amazing site to see. The kids' menu servings were generous, and contained the "best chicken nuggets" the girls had ever tasted. The bean soup was very good too. I had a huge hamburger with mushrooms and monterey jack cheese. It was so good. I chose home-made baked beans instead of fries, and they were great too. (Lots of beans at this meal - this could be trouble!) Elzie had a humungous Reuben sandwich with fries. I swapped half of my burger for half of her Reuben. Man, they were both great. Other folks around us were getting steaks (they were eating dinner, but we were stuck in a lunch frame of mind). The steaks looked and smelled heavenly.
By the time we got out of there, it was far too late and we were all too stuffed to even contemplate dinner. So we skipped the fish market and went to the pier. We paid $1 a piece to walk out to the end. Along the way were hilarious signs that advised patrons not to engage in "jumping or diving from the pier". We must have been 100 feet above the water! I can't imagine the suicidal idiot that would choose to jump off. There were lots of rather large birds on the pier, which we were informed by another tourist were Great Blue Herons. I guess they are used to stealing bait or other tidbits from the fisherman. There were a couple of folks fishing at the end of the pier, but nobody was catching anything significant. One man had what appeared to be a dolphin on his line for just a few seconds. Whatever it was managed to unhook itself and swim away. We were all somewhat relieved, including the fisherman, who wanted nothing to do with dolphins on his line. We watched the sunset from the pier. The "Blue Heron" guy offered to take our picture, and it turned out pretty good, except for the fact that little-bit refused to look at the camera. But we were glad to have a shot with all of us in it (the only other one we have from this trip is the SeaWorld photo).
Later, we stopped at "Alvin's", the tourist trap souvenir stand. We spent probably an hour trying to find something, anything, to bring home to our friends and family. We couldn't even find a decent T-shirt. Everything in the place was absolute junk. We really felt like we needed to look at another place, but we just weren't up to it. We hoped to find something more suitable the next day, on the trip home (but we didn't). We fueled up in anticipation of our drive the next morning ($2.64/gallon - a comparitive bargain!), and headed back to Water's Edge.When we got back, the girls watched a show on cable, while my wife and I started packing up to get ready to leave our condo at the beach. We could not get over our good luck with the weather, finding such a nice place to stay, and avoiding the red tide (OH! I forgot to mention that they had been experiencing red tide for the weeks prior to our stay - but the water was crystal clear while we were there). We must have found the three most perfect days of the year to visit Fort Walton Beach.
We slept with the windows open again tonight, but the sea was so calm, it barely made a sound.
Read about Day 9...
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Day 7 - Life's a Beach
Elzie woke everyone up this morning by tossing them thier bathing suits and saying "I'm going to the beach. Who's coming with me?" The kids were pretty quick to get up, for a change. We had breakfast in the condo, inflated our new beach toys, and went down to the office to check in officially. The condo came with a complimentary beach "set-up" - an umbrella and two chairs. We claimed ours, and put our feet in the Gulf of Mexico for the first time. The water was wonderful, and the weather was perfect.
In front of us was an elaborate sand castle left over from the previous evening. Someone had spent a long time working on it. JB couldn't stay away from it. She kept climbing over it, sitting in the "moat", gradually destroying it. She dug a huge shard of broken glass out of the "moat" (remnant from Dennis?), and I finally had to put a stop to her fun.Kaybee found a small sand crab - it was about the size of a quarter, and all white. It looked more like a spider than a crab. She put it in our beach pail with some sand, and they got a kick out of watching it bury itself in the sand, all except the eyes, which stuck out like periscopes.
The sand was fine, and white, and nice. The sun was just hot enough, and the umbrella cast a welcome shadow onto our lounge chairs. The kids played in the sand and waded in the gulf. I was able to sit and read and relax, which was a real treat. Elzie watched the kids having fun, and mingled with the other beach goers. She met a couple from Mobile, Alabama who were forced out of their home by hurricane Katrina. A huge oak tree fell and vented their ceiling. Their son works for ResortQuest (but we won't hold that against him), and he was able to get them a condo at Water's Edge while their house was being repaired. They were able to return once a week to Mobile to check on their house, and in the meantime got to stay at the beach. Not something I would wish on anyone, but it sounded like they were making the most of a bad situation.At one point, Kaybee came out of the water crying, saying that a "big brown blob" had scratched her leg. She rinsed off at the outdoor shower, but it didn't help much. Her leg looked scratched, and she said it was really stinging. She was ready to write off the ocean and head for the pool, but Elzie convinced her to give it another shot. Before long she was back in the water and having a good time, her injury forgotten.
(Later, from the balcony, Elzie and I saw something brown in the water, and everyone on the beach was very curious about it, but nobody went too close to it. Finally, I said "I'm going down to see what it is." It turned out to be a rather large, brownish-red jellyfish, a sea nettle I think, as big as a human head. We assume that's what got Kaybee).
Eventually, we got hungry, so we went up to the condo for some sandwiches. Elzie, the sudoku addict, ate lunch on the balcony with her puzzle book. She loves to listen to the ocean (Sometimes at home, she'll sit out on the deck and imagine that the traffic noise from the new 10-lane superslab is the ocean). JB went down for a nap, and after my investigation of the jellyfish, I went for a nice, long walk up the beach.When I got back from my walk, I took the two older girls down to the pool for a swim. Little bit was exhausted, and still sleeping. Elzie sat on the balcony, and was thrilled to see dolphins
swimming in the gulf on several occasions. We swam at the pool for quite a while, as Mom watched and sudokued from the balcony, and the four-year-old slept off the active morning. Eventually Elzie went in to make dinner for us. It was nice to have a home-cooked meal. Libby was especially tired of "eating in restaurants every night."We declared a "TV-free" evening, and passed the time playing cards. JB was thrilled to discover kid books and puzzles along with the board games under the coffee table. Kaybee was very tired, and pushed two chairs together on the balcony and laid on them while listening to the ocean. She reports that this was one of her favorite things that she did while on vacation. It was as peaceful an evening as you can expect to have with three kids in the house.
After the monsters were in bed, I made Pina Coladas, and my wife and I enjoyed a drink from our "fancy" Grande Vista glasses on the balcony. It was cool enough in the evening that we could turn off the air conditioning, open the bedroom windows, and listen to the waves as we slept.
Find out about Day 8...
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