Chris had to attend a conference in Orlando so we took the opportunity to make a mini-vacation out of it by tacking on a couple of days on the front and back ends of the trip. We intentionally scheduled a very early Sunday morning flight (6 AM!) so that we could be in Florida early. Before 9 AM we had our luggage and rental car and we were on our way. We decided to spend the day in St. Augustine, FL, which is on the east coast of Florida about 2 hours north of Orlando. We could have easily made the trip up without stopping but a virtual geocache about half way there seemed interesting so we made a quick detour. Our detour took us to a state park, Bulow Creek State Park, which we had almost entirely to ourselves. After changing out of our northeast clothes (long sleeves and long pants) and into our Florida clothes (shorts, T-shirt, sandals), we checked out one of the largest strands of southern live oak remaining on the east coast of Florida. The star of the park is a giant oak tree called Fairchild Oak. The tree is enormous and it is estimated to be between 500-600 years old! We especially like how some of the tree’s limbs have grown into and then out of the ground almost as a separate tree. We have seen this with other large trees but it always impresses us.
After leaving the park we made our way to St. Augustine. St. Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement in the continental United States. Each time we have visited Florida we have always managed to somehow not make it there. After stopping at the visitor’s center we ran across a pretty cool fountain. The fountain is called Fuente de los Canos de San Francisco. The fountain is a replica of a fountain that was built in the late 16th century which resides in the city of Aviles in Spain, which is the sister city to St. Augustine.
We then headed over to the Castillo de San Marcos, which is the oldest masonry fort in the continental US, dating back to 1672, when original construction began. The fort actually replaced a wooden fort that was located on the same site beginning in 1565. We were lucky enough to arrive just before a re-enactment that included firing of one of the cannons. After watching them fire the cannon we explored the fort for a couple of hours. We were surprised to see that up close the walls are made up of what looked like tiny shells. We later found out that the walls were made from a stone called coquina. Coquina is a rock that is composed almost entirely of fragments of shells. It seemed very brittle but it must be pretty good to have held together for over 400 years. We found this fort very similar to the Castillo San Felipe del Morro in San Juan, Puerto Rico. While that fort was much bigger the style was very similar.
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| Graffiti on the wall from soldiers from over 200 years ago |
After leaving the fort we headed towards downtown to the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine. The cathedral is a historic Catholic church that dates to the year 1793, although the roots date back to 1565. Visiting this church reminded us of our trip out west last year where we visited several of these older cathedrals.
We then walked through the very touristy downtown area where we were stopped by some awesome looking New York style pizza. We were starving by this time and it looked so good so we stopped in and ended up buying a few slices to eat and to have for dinner later.
We had intended to visit the Fountain of Youth which is also in St. Augustine but it was closed by the time we got there just after 5. Instead we headed to the Chapel of Nuestra Senora de la Leche (Shrine of Our Lady of Milk). The small chapel is the fourth to occupy this site (and the foundation that it sits on). While today’s chapel was built in 1914 the first chapel built on this foundation was built in 1615. We explored the tiny chapel and the grounds a little bit before heading back to the car for our trip to Orlando.
In between conference days during the week we were able to sneak away into Epcot Center once again for a day. Like the last time we were there a few years back, the International Flower and Garden festival was taking place. The character shaped shrubs and all of the flowers in bloom were quite impressive. While visiting the park we decided to pretty much stay away from the rides and only visit the International Showcase, which is by far our favorite part of this park and our favorite Orlando experience. We decided we would eat and drink around the world and we enjoyed dishes and adult beverages from just about every country in Epcot.
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| Grand Marnier and Grey Goose slush |
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| Casa beer in Morocco |
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| Epcot version of Okonomiyaki and some green tea flan |
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| Okinawa drummers |
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| Dessert flight with a glass of Italian wine |
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| Bruschetta martini...tasted amazing! |
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| Bruschetta went well with the martini |
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| Canto Loopy and Tipsy Ducks in Love |
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| Tequila flight in Mexico |
Another day we made our first trip to Animal Kingdom, a park which we had not visited in previous trips to Florida. The exotic animals of course were very impressive but a few years back we visited Bush Gardens in Tampa and went on a behind the scenes safari ride. That really impressed us at the time and Animal Kingdom didn’t seem to live up to the hype. We did get some great views of the animals on their safari at Animal Kingdom and we were lucky to get "delayed" while a giraffe decided to stop in front of the truck in front of us but other than the safari we were not super impressed.
We took another side trip on one of our other free days, this time our goal was to visit some of the amazing Cuban restaurants in Tampa but once again, as we often do, we got sidetracked. Before we even got two blocks from our hotel we visited a rather large and unusual McDonalds restaurant. This restaurant served the normal McDonalds fare but they also had a higher class menu which consisted of things like quesadillas, pizza, cakes, pasta, and just about everything else you would never find in a local McDonalds. We ended up getting quesadillas and then we explored their adult playground (an arcade upstairs). We left and almost immediately got sidetracked once again. We had read about another virtual geocache that brought us to something called the Monument of States. The monument, located in Kissimmee, FL, is a large monument containing rocks from every state. The monument was built in 1942 by a local doctor who wanted a physical symbol of American unity. He wrote letters to the governors of each of the then 48 states asking them to send him local rocks. The rocks arrived in many different forms, some small, some large blocks, etc. A year later he had a complete set which he mortared into a 50 foot tall monument of different colored concrete slabs, each slab with a rock embedded in it. He also included hundreds of rocks that he and his wife had collected from their years vacationing together. Over the years more rocks have been added to the surrounding walkways and today the monument still stands. We bet that very few of the millions of visitors to Orlando have any idea this unique monument exists.
After leaving the Monument we headed towards Tampa. When we got there we did end up getting our Cuban sandwich but instead of having it at a Cuban restaurant we ate it in the parking lot of a small deli opposite the St. Petersburg airport, which also served as the parking lot for a car wash. We were directed there by our trusty Roadfood book and the sandwiches hit the spot.
After our late lunch we headed to a very unusual attraction: the Bowling Ball House. A little north of Tampa lies a house in a normal residential neighborhood that has more than 300 carefully decorated bowling balls lining the flower beds and bordering the house. There is also a bottle wall surrounding their cactus garden, a garden of blue bottles on stakes, and lots of other strange and unusual stuff throughout their yard. This place sure brought a smile to our faces. We think we were smiling because of how unusual it was but in all likelihood we were smiling because we don’t live next to these people.
We made our trip back to Orlando after the bowling ball house. Before leaving to return home we made one more trip to Epcot, this time with some friends of ours who live in Florida and we repeated our drinking around the world experience only this time we added a few rides into the mix.
