Bonjour!!! We have encountered a huge contingent of French Canadians here in Tampa. We arrived at our new resting spot yesterday. We noticed that everyone in the pool was speaking French. When we had checked in, they told us there was a live band at night, so we were so excited to have some entertainment. We dressed up and reported to the Show Pavillion at 7 PM to find an accordian based band singing French songs. Yeehah!!! It was a real hootenany. NOT. We had a great time anyway. They were all doing line-dancing to all the songs, while we went in a corner and did our little 3-person routine. Yvonne got into it and had some fun. She got to draw the lucky numbers for the 50/50 draw. Unfortunately, she hasn't learned how to cheat yet and pull her dad's numbers. This was our biggest French Canadian experience this entire trip. Even while in Quebec, we didn't get to go to a dance night. Who would have thought we'd get such Canadian culture so far from home!!! On the other hand, can we ever outrun these guys? They're everywhere!

Today was our last day at Disney World. Yvonne had lots of fun, myself I could have done without it. Disney has become very adept at relieving people of there cash they haven't earned yet. Disney is very slick at everything they do. While I enjoyed the shows and features I would have enjoyed a National Park a lot better. We have a couple of days at Busch Gardens in Tampa and then the rest of the trip is going to be visiting friends and seeing some of the great beauty this country has to offer. It was still very busy there yesterday. I guess people didn't know the holiday was over and their kids were supposed to be in school.

Yvonne finally got to to go to Belle's story time and took part in the story telling and it pleased her very much. She was a little shy at first but got right into the story and followed her directions well. Sure wish she could do that at home. On our way back on the monorail we got to ride in the front of the train with the operator. We all got co-pilot's licenses and a great view from the front, of the grounds. Disneyland has 30,000 acres here that they can expand on. We are joining up with the Taekema's tomorrow and we will take in a day or so at Busch Gardens before we head back to Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Centre, and the launch of the space shuttle. We are really looking forward to that. Take care all. Jim

Cars were the theme at Disney/MGM Studio's. We took in some production television shows in the am and then we got onto the back lot, where they produced Herbie the Love Bug, Honey I Shrunk the Kids and Indiana Jones. On our way to see the Indy Stunt show we ran in to Lightning McQueen and Mater. It is hard to believe they made real working cars out of these characters.

The Indiana Stunt show was pretty neat and amazing when you see how they did it. All that fire and explosions. Amazing somebody didn't get hurt filming it. The sound stage they produced it on was pretty well done. It is all fake of course and yet when you see the movie it looks real. One more day tomorrow and that is it for Disney. Take care all. Jim

The nine of us headed for Sea World Wednesday. It is different than the one in San Diego which is good. We never get tired of seeing the whale show. They are so magnificent. The kids had a great time together playing in the huge park and seeing all the other shows, feeding and petting the dolphins. The Dolphin feeding is a huge favorite and it was a good thing Richard and I got in line to get the fish early. All the kids got to pet and feed. Me and the two oldest girls went on Kraken which is about the wildest ride I have ever been on. It was great fun. Then we went over to pet the Sting Rays which was neat and the kids enjoyed that. You cannot see everything in one day so we are going back on Friday. Thursday we went and had Thanksgiving dinner with the Taekema's at the local Baptist church and it was a great meal and the parishoners there made us feel very welcome. Anhauser Bush parks for value are better the going to Disneyland. The rides are better. A 4 day pass for 3 is over $600, plus parking. The Busch Parks are about $400 for 3 for a year at all the parks ,parking included plus front of the line service. Disney is great though but you cannot afford to go very often.

Well off to Sea World today. Take care all. Jim

MGM at Disney Studio's is where Yvonne wanted to spend the day. She got to meet her friends The little Eienstien's , JO JO and got to sing and dance in the studio with Bear, Pooh and friends, Stanley and many other Disney characters. She also got to se a live show of Beauty and the Beast as well The Little Mermaid. We saw some of these shows twice ut it was her day and she filled it up well.

The Disney shows are well done and you get to see lots of things in a short time as they move from show to show very smoothly. There is a lot of ground to cover and by the end of the day we have one tired little girl. Mom and Dad to not stay much later after a day walking around.

Tomorrow we are off to Sea World with the Taekema's and will have a wonderful day with Shamu. Take care all Jim

DisneyWorld - YAY!! We had a great day, but at the same time, we only had a good day because we got there really early. We realized a couple days ago that we had mistakenly booked ourselves into Orlando during American Thanksgiving week. Dumn, dumn. Oh well, we got a few of the cool things done early. By about 1:30 today, you couldn't get on the popular rides for 4 hours. Yikes. Yvonne got to meet Mickey and Belle. Tomorrow we will go to Disney MGM studios, then we will get away from the really busy few days and wait until next Monday and Tuesday to finish up our 4 day pass.
We have met back up with the Taekema family, so we will all be going to Sea World together and enjoying a relaxing Thanksgiving together on Thursday. Any excuse to have turkey.

Shark's teeth we have found on the beach here. We are slowly getting better at finding them, but it's like looking for a needle in a haystack. Our new friends, the Boyce's have found over 900 while they've been here for a few months. It was stormy last night, so there were a few more on the beach today.

Exciting news of today is we managed to get a booking into overflow camping at Jetty Park at Cape Canaveral to see the shuttle launch scheduled on December 7th. We're pretty excited and hope it goes on schedule so we don't miss it. All the campgrounds and hotels are full, but overflow has water and we've got a solar panel, so we'll be good.

I used to listen to Led Zepplin on this. We have come along way since I was a kid. lol
I haven't seen an old phonograph since I was a kid. My Uncle had one in his camp just outside of Sudbury. We wrecked a lot of records on it.

We have been laying on the beach for the last couple of days and picking up shells and sharks teeth. I found that neat star fish. One can spend the whole day on the beach and not get tired of doing that. I hope we don't have to declare shells when we come home. Yvonne has been getting in a lot of kid time with Elisabeth and has been pooped out everyday. We have to get rested up for DISNEY. Yvonne is pretty excited.

Take care all. Jim

St. Augustine Original City Gates

Rain Tree

We spent our third day in the historic area of St. Augustine. We spent a few hours strolling through the pedestrian mall on St. George Street. We actually spent some time to buy ourselves a souvenier of our stay here. We celebrated our 12th anniversary of meeting each other this week, so we decided to commemorate it with a special gift to ourselves. We looked at art work and such and settled on a utilitarian ceramic serving dish that has shells all around it. Very beautiful. We will store it away under our bed until we have a home again.

We got a great shot of the original city gates (above). Over 400 years ago, the city was under Spanish rule and was constantly under attack as it is a desireable location. So, they had a strict curfew and if you were not inside the city gate by nightfall, you got to spend it outside which was extremely dangerous in those days. There was a mote around the gate that was not filled with water, but with cactus to keep intruders out.

The second picture of a rain tree is neat. We found out today that these trees have their leaves turn red after it rains. Guess what it did last night???

We had a lovely day poking around in stores, listening to music, and sharing a break with a cappuccinos and root beer.

We had a funny thing happen today. At least I thought it was poetic justice. We have been getting up really early to take turns getting our exercise done first thing in the morning. I was up at 6:30 and a truck started up and took off next to us right when I was getting up. It woke up Yvonne and started her day way too early. We ended up having a rough enough start that we forced her to have a nap at 10 AM to try and get her back on track. So, we got to the tour train station at about noon and there was another couple from the trailer park there. We got talking and we mentioned our slow start and I said "Well, someone revved up their truck at 6:30 this morning and woke Yvonne up.....". The guy got an extremely guilty look on his face and said "that was probably me - I was up before 7 and went to get a newspaper". Silence on our side - then we were saved by the train arriving and we all got on the train at opposite ends. Jim says "smooth move". I just couldn't help but be a bit smug that the guy deserved it if he couldn't stop himself from waking everyone up on a Sunday morning. I bet that guy'll think about it next time he thinks he's got to go somewhere that early.

We have toured St. Augustine for the last 2 days so it is time to post. Dan Pedro founded this place in the 1500's and Ponce de Leon searched for the fountain of youth but never found it. The place he thought it was at is still here though. The archictecture here is predominately Spanish but there is some English influence also, as St. Augustine was governed by both countries back and forth before the United States bought it in the 1800's for $5 million dollars.

Henry Flagler one of the owners of Standard Oil Co. and a man with very deep pockets settled here and built the Flagler Hotel which is now Flagler College. (bottom pic) The cafateria where the students eat lunch and study, used to be the formal dining room at the hotel. It has beautiful stained glass windows and at today's cost, that room with all the immenities would cost about $300 million to build. Great place to get an education. The other pictures are from the Lightner Museum across the street from the College. Mr. Lightner was a collector and most of the things in the museum are pricless and hand done. I will post pictures of some of the other antiquities on the other picture blog later. It really is a beautiful collection.

We have one more day on the tour and then it will be beach time and rest up before our ten days at Disney World and Sea World. We will be meeting our friends the Taekema's there so we should have a good time with them. The park we are in has the inter coastal waterway on one side and the ocean on the other. The beach here has millions of shells on it and the sand on the beach is ground up shells. After every swim in the ocean you need to shower as the shells stick to you. It is a beautiful beach and the water is so warm. I did not know that the Atlantic is warmer than the Pacific. Live and learn. The inter coastal waterway was made during the second world war so the US ships deployed here were safe from german U boats. Big job. Take care. Jim

On the East Coast, if you want a picture of the sun on the water, you've got to reverse you're thinking and get a sunrise picture. I was out a walking this morning and captured this beautiful one at about 7 AM. Unfortunately, when the sun was lower on the horizon, it was behind a distant belt of clouds. That would have been pretty.
So far we haven't seen any of the sights in St. Augustine. Yvonne has met a friend, Elizabeth who is only a few weeks younger than her. They are having a blast and of course, like all the same things. They've got dress-up time planned tomorrow.
Tonight we went with Elizabeth and her two brothers, Matt and Nick to the beach after dark, in the hopes of seeing ghost crabs that only come out at night. They weren't out yet, but the kids had a blast chasing eachother along the beach with flashlights. We spent a bit of time searching for shark's teeth, but they're hard to find with a flashlight.
The weather's still been a bit on the cool side, but it's due to get solid sunny and nice and warm for the rest of the week. YAY.
Yvonne and Daddy are going out on a date tomorrow for lunch. Yvonne has decided on McDonald's, much to Daddy's chagrin. Oh well, can't beat that toy lure.

St. Augustine, Florida is our home now for the next two weeks. Here's a picture of the surf today. It is a full moon and windy, so the surf is quite high. Last week this was a flat beech and now the hight tides are gouging out 4 foot dunes. It's very pretty here. Our campsite is right across the road from this beach and we can hear the waves as we sit outside. It was warm enough this evening to be outside and the bugs are gone. This is site of the oldest settlement in the USA, so there is a lot of history here. As we come across interesting things, we will post to our blog, but we'll have a few quiet days at home to rest up for DisneyWorld in 2 weeks.

Take care everyone.

Bowling was the major activity today. That cold front is following us down the coast. While it is not getting into the freezing temperatures a 20f drop from one day to the next makes for a cool day. So we took the little one bowling and she even won the first game. Yesterday when we were going to Jekyll Island we went by this bridge and it looks just like the Alex Fraser Bridge. Must have been the same engineering firm. We hope everyone is fine and doing well. Take care all. Jim

Jeckyll Island Club Hotel

The Crane "Cottage"

Jeykll Island was the destination today. We are in Brunswick, Georgia and it is pretty country here. The Jekll Island Club was founded in 1886, with such names as Rockerfeller, Astor, Pulitzer,Vanderbilt, Crane and JP Morgan. They owned the Island, built the golf and tennis courts, as well the cottages. (Botton Picture) It was a rough life. The original owners at that time were the 6 richest men in the word and needed a place to unwind. In 1947 thr State of Georgia bought the Island and kept the historic area and allowed some housing development. The beaches are beautiful and there is 20 miles of bike trails that we took to today. The Great Dunes Golf Club is a gorgeous course and one of the oldest courses in the south.

We gathered up some beautiful shells and enjoyed the sun and sand and the biking in this pretty spot. There are lots of intercoastal water ways and it looks like very green delta land. Jim