Florida
Vacation 2003 |
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| Back in January, Dan and I decided to start planning for a vacation, and we found an awesome deal on a cruise to the East Caribbean the last week in May. We left for Florida on Friday morning, May 23rd and got to Sarasota late that night, to stay at our friends Ryan and Hannah's. On Saturday we went out on our friend Bob's boat. Then Sunday it was off to Miami for our cruise. As you may know by now, we didn't get to go on our cruise, due to an explosion in the ship's boiler room, which killed seven people. Here's the full story of the ship. As for Dan and I, here's our full story... | |
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So we headed back to Sarasota, not sure what we were going to do for the week. Fortunately, we were in Florida, where there is PLENTY to do. On Monday, Ryan, Hannah, Dan and I went to Myacca, a state park, which is home to lots of alligators and a beautiful view. Here's Hannah, Ryan and Dan atop a 70 ft. tower overlooking Myacca. |
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At Myacca, there were lots of alligators hanging out in the water. They'd even come close to the edge, but not too close, thankfully. |
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On Tuesday Dan and I went to Busch Gardens in Tampa Bay. I guess this albino peacock likes to show off. |
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There were plenty of birds of all types at Busch Gardens. Dan pointed out two birds having sex. I know it's juvenile, but come on, have you ever seen two birds having sex? I thought it was quite educational. |
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Every amusement park has that one lame water ride that has one drop, and gets the onlookers wetter than the riders. Click on this image to see everyone on the bridge get soaked. |
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On Wednesday Dan and I had planned on going to Sea World. However, when we left, we noticed my brand new car which only had about 6,000 miles on it was acting funny. We took it to the nearest Nissan dealership, where they fixed the problem and even cleaned it for us—all except this little dead frog I found in the lower grill below my license plate. It must have gotten sucked up when we were crossing the Everglades when we went to Miami. |
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Due to the car delays, we decided to go to MGM Studios, because we knew it was open until 10, and we wanted a FULL day at Sea World. I finally got my picture with Mickey. The last two times I went to Disney World, Mickey was nowhere to be found, except of course for on stage. |
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MGM has a light show every night at 9pm called Fantasmic, where Mickey battles the great Disney villans. Images of the villans are projected onto a fan of water, which looks really cool. We got great seats right in front, and ended up sitting next to a couple from Idaho (Dan's homestate). It's a small world after all. |
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When MGM closed, Dan and I didn't want to drive all the way back to Sarasota (about 90 minutes away) only to drive back the next day. We decided to get a hotel room in Orlando, and go play some putt putt. On our way we saw this, quite possibly one of the coolest buildings ever. Wonderworks is apparently the coolest Chuck E. Cheese around. |
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Thursday we went to Sea World for the very first time. Amazing considering that I've been to Disney World five times before this vacation, and never been to Sea World. Boy was I missing out. First stop was the Sting Ray Lagoon. |
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For $4 you could buy four (dead) fish to feed to the sting rays. What a bizarre feeling. You have to hold the fish like a cigarette between your fingers under the water and the rays glide over you and suck up the fish. |
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Next stop was the dolphins' cove. My favorite animal, hands down. I got to feed them too. They are so sweet. What am I doing working at AOL? I should be a dolphin trainer. I'm planning another trip to Orlando to swim with the dolphins at Discovery Cove. Assuming that goes well, then I'll change professions. |
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Proof that I am a nerd: As I was taking these underwater shots of the dolphins, I said, "Man, these'll make great wallpapers!" But don't you think so? (I'm also a fan of the Wonderworks picutre as a wallpaper.) If you want to use any of these as a wallpaper, email me and I'll send you the original file. |
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Of course we had to catch all of the shows, because let's face it, intelligent animals are really cool to watch. That's why you don't see me raving about the safari rides at Busch Gardens: it's nothing but a bunch of lazy animals hanging around. But the dolphins did all sorts of tricks, including jumping over this cable, which was at least 20 feet above water. |
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Aw, aren't the penguins and puffin cute? We also went to the shark and manatee houses, but there weren't any cool pictures. Besides we were starting to run out of space on our Compact Flash card, and had to be more selective about what we were taking pictures of. |
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You can also feed the sea lions. What an obnoxious lot. It's really funny that the sea lion that barks the loudest gets the most fish. And if you aren't quick about tossing the fish to the sea lion, a wild bird will snatch it out of your hand, so beware. This is a dangerous and really loud area. |
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Shamu is synonomus with Sea World, even though the original Shamu died in 1965. This is Tillikum, the largest orca in captivity in the world. He's a whopping 12 tons and 23 feet long (most orcas are between 5 and 6 tons and 16 feet long. |
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Okay, so in addition to wanting to be a dolphin trainer, I think I'd like to be an orca trainer. How cool would it be to be able to do this? I'm blown away by this kind of stuff. And these orcas can splash 14+ rows in Shamu Stadium easily. Golly, these guys are huge. |
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Dan and I had dinner with Shamu, or to be technical, we had dinner with Tillikum (mentioned above), and Takara. It seems that Tillikum can be a bit of a trouble maker. While the trainers were wrapping up the dinner show, Tillikum snuck up on the diners, and soaked them with one swish of his tale. Definitely the highlight of the show. |
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Here's Takara up close. I was probably 10 feet away when I took this picture. You can see how much smaller she is than Tillikum. |
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On Friday and Saturday we hung out at the pool and beach, and Dan and I had dinner with my grandparents. On our way back from dinner, we stopped at a Nissan dealership so that Dan could drool all over this 350Z. Dream on Dan. |