Epic East Coast - Day 30 & 31

Our marathon trip back to New York started with a bit of a busy morning as we went for breakfast at the hotel, packed up the van, checked out and then drove to the Kissimmee Amtrak station.  I dropped off Sandra, the kids and all the luggage and then drove the van back to the rental agency, which was just a short trip across town.  Once the rental was taken care of, I decided to walk back to the train station, as it was only a 30 minute walk and the last cab we had here did not have a meter and charged us $20 for a less than a 10 minute drive.  My decision to walk neglected to take into account the heat and I was covered in sweat by the time I arrived at the very small train station.

We sat there for a bit over an hour until our train arrived, where we had to walk all the way down to the far end of the station in order to get into the coach cars.  The Amtrak personnel did a good job of finding all the groups and getting them on the train first, so that we (and a couple of large groups going to Philadelphia) had seats together.  We then settled in for the long train trip.  It was exactly like the others, though the air conditioning in our car was initially not working very well, but that got fixed before long.

When I went to sleep, Amtrak was predicting that we would get into New York an hour early.  When I woke up, we were two hours late, which didn't surprise me, because I did not sleep very well and every time I woke up the train was not moving.  By the time we left Washington, where you leave freight traffic behind and minimize the delays, we were almost three hours late into New York.  Practically all of our trains have been late, so we weren't surprised or worried, but this is the first train where Amtrak tried to make everyone feel better - much like when a plane is substantially delayed, they gave everyone a snack and water as we left Washington.

Once we were in New York, the plan was to grab a bit to eat at Penn Station and then head out for a bit of a walk to the apartment we rented.  Penn Station was a crush of people and the food court had four restaurants and eight tables, so lunch was a bit of a crazy time.  We should have just left the train station - Manhattan has a restaurant every three buildings, so it is quite easy to find one that isn't super busy.  The walk to the apartment wasn't too bad, except that we had to carry all of our luggage, so I was quite tired by the time we arrived.  It is a very New York apartment - an older building with very small apartments, though it is bigger than most of our hotel rooms and has a kitchen.

After settling in, we walked to a nearby grocery store for supplies.  New Yorkers don't seem to shop for groceries in Manhattan because there aren't many of them and they are poorly stocked and expensive.  I wonder if everyone just eats at all the restaurants and food carts.  We kind of plan to do the same, as I want to eat pizza and hot dogs while we are here.  This is our longer visit in New York.  We are here until Thursday when we head up to Syracuse for the Watkins Glen NASCAR race.  Tomorrow we plan to do a bit of exploring and visit Central Park.

Epic East Coast - Day 29

LEGOLAND was the most fun I've had at a park here in Florida, primarily because it was not even the slightest bit busy.  I would have thought the park was empty even before I went to Magic Kingdom and Universal.  Though after being at those two, you can tell that it is definitely a second rate park.  It's missing all the spit and polish, as well as the ruthless efficiency and psychotic happiness of Disney parks.

We started off the day by taking the kids to the driving school attraction, where they could drive actual cars around a track and receive a license if they managed to obey the correct traffic laws.  (At least, that's what they told the kids - the true requirement for the license was $15.99, but Evan was so overjoyed at receiving one that I willing paid.)  We then ran through all the main roller coasters in the park - there were three of them and they all appeared to be fairly mild.  The park is aimed at 5-12 year olds, which fits our kids perfectly, unlike Universal, which is definitely designed for an older crowd.

Right before lunch we got in line for the Chima water ride, which guaranteed that you would get wet and we were about two boats away from the front of the line when a passing thunderstorm shut all the outdoor rides down.  The kids were quite upset that we had to walk away from the front of the line, but honestly, the line was barely 10 minutes long.  It gave us time to eat lunch and check out Miniland, USA, which was just as impressive as the one in California.

We spent the rest of the afternoon going on all the rides and dealing with overtired, overheated and hungry kids.  We did get on the Chima ride later in the day and we got completely soaked, which would have been great early in the day when it was 33+, but it wasn't as much fun after the rain, with the temperatures lower.

We had to drag the kids away from the rides, including a bouncy one that just went straight up and down - Bradley went on it five or six times - and found a nearby McDonald's for supper.  Then it was time to hit a grocery store for train supplies and about an hour drive home on the Interstate in the dark.  I really won't miss the traffic in Orlando.

By the time we got back to the hotel and got everyone in bed, I was so exhausted I could barely stand, so I wasn't able to deal with the blog.  I'm currently writing this on the train back to New York, but I won't be able to post any pictures until I get decent wireless.  My next post will be another two day one on Sunday night, as we don't arrive in New York until 11:00am Sunday morning, 22 hours after we left Kissimmee (which y'all pronounce incorrectly).

Epic East Coast - Day 28

The traffic along US-1 was lighter today, and driving out of the Keys was easy, with just scattered thunderstorms to drive through.  Once on the mainland, we stopped for lunch, which is where a bit of an adventure began.  Jonathan refused to eat lunch, which he does every so often, usually just to push us to see how long we will argue with him until he finally relents.  This time, because it was a long trip, I didn't give him any time and we got on the freeway with him screaming as loud as he could in the back of the van, which went on for about an hour.

That was when the road signs started indicating that all the lanes of the freeway were blocked due to an accident 45 miles ahead, and that we should consider finding an alternate route.  Luckily for us, Google Maps automatically found an alternate route and took us around the accident, allowing us to continue on to Orlando without losing a substantial amount of time.  It was still a six hour trip, and we were all pretty tired of the van by the time we arrived at our hotel, which is a fancy resort hotel just outside Disney.  Unfortunately for me it resembles Disney in that there is a very slow queue line for registration.  I left my phone in the car, so I don't know how long I was actually in line, but it seemed that it took 10+ minutes to register each person.  I was pretty upset by the time I finally got our room.

We checked out the room and then headed to the resort's mall area for supper, where the guy working the till struggled with English and got most of our order wrong.  It didn't help that Bradley kept changing his mind regarding what he wanted to eat as I was ordering.  After supper we went to the pool area, which was very busy, as this resort seems extremely popular with families.  The kids had a blast in the water, which felt cold after the water in the Keys.  Once the sun set, it was time for bed.  We're headed out to LEGOLAND tomorrow - our last theme park before we board the train back to New York.  I'm hoping it will be a bit emptier than Disney and Universal were, though that is probably a pipe dream.

Epic East Coast - Day 27

Evan
Today we went to a store named glazed donuts. After that we went home. Then we ate lunch which was leftovers. Then after supper, we went to the beach. THE END. Bye bye 'til day 30!

Alex
Today we went to Glazed Donuts. All the people that wrote a review on it said that they were the best donuts ever. They were really good donuts. We got two chocolate lovers that were all chocolate donuts with a timbit on top. Last donut (I do not have time to tell the last 4 donuts) which only I got it was a cinnamon donut it was great!

After supper we went to the beach. At first I built a big sand castle with big walls to stop the water from destroying it. Then I sat in the water till it was 8:30ish.

Jason

Today was our last day in Key West, as tomorrow we head back to Orlando.  Hopefully the traffic along US-1 will be lighter.  We didn't really do anything special today.  After sleeping in, I took my coffee out on the deck.  After a bit of time I noticed there was a rather large iguana hanging on the wall between our deck and the one beside us.  I took some pictures and showed the boys, after which we headed back to the tourist part of town and drove around for quite some time in order to find a parking spot.

We then went to a donut store that Sandra heard was really good, as in the busy season they are open from 9am until they run out of donuts.  It isn't busy season right now, so we were able to buy some donuts and return to the condo for lunch.  Some of the donuts were quite good, though one of them was more like a croissant (flaky layers of pastry) rather than a donut.  The kids seemed to like the chocolate ones (and Alex liked his cinnamon sugar donut).

The afternoon was spent relaxing in the condo.  After supper we took the boys to the beach for the final time.  It was windy, but the beach was quiet, and the kids had a lot of fun playing in the sand and water.  They were pretty unhappy when the sun set and it was time to leave.  Tomorrow we start our slow trip back north.

Epic East Coast - Day 26

Alex
Today we went to the turtle hospital. So we drove to the hospital. It took about 1h to get there. When we got there we went into the gift shop to talk with the person there. At 10:00am we started our tour. We first saw some green turtles. After we saw some baby turtles. They were less than one foot long!

After we went to a sea food place and got lunch. Then we went to the beach. I built a big sand castle but it got destroyed by the high tide. Which was just big waves that knock you off your feet!

Later we got some ice cream. Mom got some chocolate covered lime pie and Dad got lime pie at Key West lime pie place.

Evan
Well, I'm back with day 26. First we drove to The Turtle Hospital in Marathon. Then we went to a brutus seafood restaurant for lunch. Then we went back to Key West and went to the beach.

Bradley
ice cream turtle hospital beach

(those are the things Bradley liked today - and he typed them himself)

Jonathan
I liked the Turtle Hospital because I got to feed sea turtles.  Also, I got to see baby sea turtles.  We got to go in the water at the beach.  Next I had ice cream!

Jason

We started off the day a bit early, as we had an hour long drive to Marathon for a 10:00am reservation for a tour of the sea turtle rescue hospital.  It is a former motel that had a tide pool that the owner filled with fish for his guests.  Around the time of TMNT, little kids started asking him where the turtles were, so he did some research and discovered that you couldn't own turtles, as they were endangered, but the area did need a turtle rescue hospital, so he turned the motel into a motel / turtle hospital.  In 2005, hurricane Wilma flooded out the area, the motel was shut down and the entire place was turned into a hospital for turtles.

The tour started with a presentation on the hospital and sea turtles, before moving on to the tanks where the turtles live while they are rehabilitated.  The first two big tanks were full of green turtles, and they were very cool to see, as they swam around and ate food pellets right in front of you.  Jonathan especially loved one called Leonardo that kept surfacing right in front of him.  The second tank was full of "bubble-butts".  Various things can damage sea turtle shells, causing the shell to actually grow around an air pocket.  This makes the turtle too buoyant to dive and in some cases makes it difficult for them to get their heads out of the water.  They try to help the turtles out by attaching lead weights to them, but for the most part these turtles end up permanently out of the ocean.  (I believe that all the permanent residents of the hospital - housed in the original tide pool - are turtles with this condition.)

The final area was turtles that were in isolation, the hatchings and the permanent residents, which we all got to feed.  Jonathan really loved the hatchlings and feeding the turtles, though he did not like the one recent isolation turtle, which had a broken shell due to a propeller strike.  After the tour was over, we headed to a local sea food restaurant for lunch.  Sandra and I shared a conch platter and a fried fresh mahi.  The fish was really good, but the conch was a bit on the chewy side.

Before returning to Key West, we stopped at a state park on the way, so that the kids could play in the water.  According to the entrance sign, the water was 30C, which is crazy hot.  This beach featured waves, and the kids loved it.  They spent the entire afternoon splashing in the water and, as we later found out, getting sunburnt.  With the wind coming in off the ocean it was cool, and we didn't realize until we left how red everyone was.

After supper we took a quick drive out to the tourist part of town so that Sandra could go shopping at a shell store before we took the kids for ice cream.  The two of us then tried key lime pie - I had a regular piece, while Sandra ate a piece that was chocolate covered and stuck on a stick.  It was then back to the condo to get everyone calmed down, covered in aloe, and put to bed.

Epic East Coast - Day 25

Our first task of the day was a very hot walk to the southern most point of the continental United States, which proudly proclaims that it is only 90 miles to Cuba.  It was a bit over a 30 minute walk along some beaches and nature areas, and it was very hot and muggy.  There was a small line in order to take a picture at the monument and I noticed that the kids were pretty red, despite the bottles of water we brought with us and the shade we tried to walk in, so I took everyone to a nearby sno-cone truck for some flavoured ice.  That cooled us all off and allowed us to walk back to the condo.  We had discussed walking to the more tourist section of Key West, but it would have been another 30 minutes in the heat, and then over an hour back, so we skipped it for now.  We'll drive down some other day.

I forgot to mention it yesterday, but there are a lot of chickens that just wander around Key West.  It is very odd to see them as you walk around - we saw the first one in the parking lot of the grocery store we went to yesterday.  We did learn that they do provide a valuable service - they eat the scorpions.

After lunch at the condo, we ended up spending the afternoon resting while the kids watched TV.  We had an early supper and then we all headed down to the beach for the evening.  The beach beside the condo is very nice with soft white sand to sit in and the water was extremely warm - almost to the point where you do not want to swim.  It also gets deep very slowly, so you can walk out quite far before you need to swim, which doesn't help when you are trying to keep four boys near you in case there is an issue.  The only problem with the beach was the seaweed, but it wasn't any worse than any lake in Saskatchewan.

The boys spent some time building in the sand beside the water and then some more time trying to give Sandra an early heart attack.  Once the sun got close to setting, we headed back to the condo for the night.  Tomorrow we are going to a sea turtle rescue hospital, where Jonathan can see (and feed) some rescued turtles.

Epic East Coast - Day 24

Today was finally a slow and relaxing day.  I woke up and realized that you could see the ocean from our deck, so I made a pot of coffee and sat outside for a little while.  Later in the morning, we drove out to a grocery store so that we would have food for the next couple of days.  Then Sandra gave the younger kids naps while I took the older two kids to the pool at the condo.  It is a regular pool that is too deep for the small kids, so it made sense to only take the bigger kids.  They played for almost two hours while I sat and relaxed in the sun.

The weather in Key West is somewhat milder than our vacation so far, as it is supposed to be 31 each day, with scattered rainshowers.  After supper at the condo, Sandra took Bradley and Evan to the beach, as Alex wanted to watch TV and Jonathan wasn't feeling 100%.  The beach is just around the corner from the condo and she had to drag them away from it when the sun set.  The kids then enjoyed a warm shower before we put them to bed.

Epic East Coast - Day 23

I am tired of Florida.  I'm not having any fun here because everything we want to do, there are 50,000 other people trying to do the exact same thing.  Today was supposed to be a simple day of driving out to Key West that ended up being 11 hours of travel, with almost 2 hours of that spent in a practically unmoving traffic jam.  Instead of arriving at a nice 7:00pm time, with light and time to find supper, we arrived at 9:20pm, in the pitch black of night with a rain shower making it difficult to see anything.

The day started off good, as Kristen made us breakfast and the three younger boys discovered the joy of a dog.  The drive out to Miami was fine as well, except for the American gas stations and their perverse joy in requiring a zip code in order to use your credit card for gas (and their inability to just put an $80 hold on my card so I can fill the van with gas without guessing how much fuel it will take).  Traffic was busy, but moving and we arrived at the point where the expressway stops and the small highway through the Keys begins.

This is where the first traffic jam began, and we were stuck in traffic for over 45 minutes before we finally got into Key Largo and could stop for gas.  Traffic moved OK through Key Largo, but we knew we would need to stop for supper, which we did.  After that, it was a massive traffic jam for over an hour, which at times was not even moving at all.  The reason?  When you exit the area, the highway goes from two lanes to one.  I'm not certain why they even bother with passing lanes - everywhere that the highway is one lane moved at the speed limit or higher.  Everywhere there were two lanes was a traffic jam as traffic fought to get back into one lane.

So that was our day.  We found our condo, put the kids to bed very late and I'm trying to relax.  Hopefully tomorrow I'll have time to go through the last few days of pictures.  At least the Internet is scalable enough to allow 50,000 people to do the same thing without causing problems.

Epic East Coast - Day 22

Jonathan

The first ride we went on was Transformers, and we got to ride in a Transformer car, but it wasn't actually a Transformer.  The Woody Woodpecker rollercoaster was very short and we got to go on it lots of times.  The Curious George area was fun as you got to spray water at targets with cannons and cause buckets of water to fall on people!

Evan

Well, it's me again and today we went to Universal Studios. We started by looking at how long the line was for Minion Mayhem. But that line was 80 minutes of wait time. So we went to the Transformers ride which was awesome! Then we went to the Curious George play area. Then we went to The Woody Woodpecker rollercoaster.

Jason

I survived and even managed to spend more money on stuff than I needed to.  We weren't very quick out of the gate this morning, and Orlando traffic was miserable, which meant it was 9:30am before we arrived in the park.  Sandra wanted the older boys to go on the Minions ride right away, but the wait time was already too long, so I took them to the Transformers ride while Sandra took Bradley to a kids area.  The Transformers ride had a longer line than the number outside showed, and it was kind of fun, but not really that interesting - basically the car moves around while large screens show Transformers in front of you.  Evan and Alex loved it, but Jonathan got terrified halfway through and covered his eyes for the rest of the ride.

We then joined Sandra and Bradley and ran through a Woody Woodpecker rollercoaster five times (no lines!).  For lunch, we ate at Krusty Burger, which allowed me to have a ribwich, which was good, but decidedly not canon.  We then went over to the Harry Potter themed part of the park, which was very, very busy.  I did manage to try Butterbeer (not a fan) before we took the Hogwarts Express to the other park, where the crowds and heat got even worse.  You couldn't see anything but people, which meant that it was not fun or interesting.  We rode a bit of bigger roller coaster and then headed to the Dr. Seuss area, where it rained.  That shut things down outside, but allowed us to go through the Cat in the Hat ride three times.

The rest of the rides in the second park were on the extreme side and we ended up with some upset kids, as Sandra and I were unwilling to go on the rides, especially with the kids barely big enough to ride them.  We did get to meet Spiderman, which impressed Bradley.  It was then getting late, so we headed back to the first park, ran through the Woody Woodpecker rollercoaster a few times and then headed out.

We fed the kids a phenomenal supper of chips and crackers before getting everyone into bed.  Tomorrow we head out to Key West for the actual vacation part of our vacation.

Epic East Coast - Day 21

I started the day completely exhausted.  The unrelenting heat, bickering children and non-stop pace of the trip has really drained me (don't tell Sandra, though).  Luckily, our plan today was to visit Kennedy Space Center, home of one of the last remaining Saturn V rockets.  It took some time to get everyone up this morning, so it was past 9:30am before we were packed up and checked out.  It takes about an hour to drive to Kennedy, and we arrived and found a parking place.  Happily for me, I figured out how to use my phone as a GPS, which made traveling less scary.

Unhappily for all of us, we immediately entered an outdoor line that stretched for a very long way, with the sun beating down on us.  After the last two days of sun, everyone immediately started complaining.  The long line was for security, and while it was unbearably hot, it actually moved fairly quickly and then we were in.  I sent everyone who was complaining inside to the air conditioning while I went off to look at the Rocket Garden.  Alex was interested enough to join me, even though the heat was bothering him the most.  We got to see some older rockets, as well as the actual walkway that the Apollo 11 astronauts used to enter their spaceship.  We also sat in examples of the spaceships, just to see how small they were.

The next part of the tour was a bus trip around the Vehicle Assembly Building, launch pads 39A and 39B and ending at the Saturn V center, where we watched a couple of videos pertaining to the Apollo program before entering to look at the rocket.  It was well past lunch at this time, so after grabbing a quick look, we sat down for lunch.  After lunch we took a longer look, watched another video and I was able to shake the hand of one of the NASA engineers that worked on the Apollo program.  Done there, we boarded another bus for the trip back to the main visitor center.  Another section contained another few videos and then the Space Shuttle Atlantis, our second shuttle that we have seen this trip.  (Theoretically we could see one more, as Enterprise is on display in New York.  We can't get all four in one trip, though, as Endeavour is out in LA.)

Atlantis is displayed tilted sideways with its cargo bays open, so it is a lot cooler to look at than Discovery is.  We spent some time looking around at the displays, chasing children and running to the bathroom far too many times before Evan demanded that we go on the Space Launch Experience.  For some reason I had it in my head that it was a kids thing, so I took them over to it and was going to send them alone before things clicked into place and I joined the three older boys, as it is a "ride" much like Star Tours, where you are in an enclosed room that moves up and down and sideways.  This one simulates a launch, so it moves you to a 65 degree angle and then vibrates a LOT.  I didn't think it was that great, but the kids liked it, except for Jonathan, who got very scared when they simulated a master alarm during the launch.

It was then time to leave.  We drove to a nearby town for supper, as Kristen warned us that Orlando traffic was nasty until later and then drove into Orlando and found her condo, where we are staying for a couple of nights.  However, there is absolutely no rest right now, as tomorrow we are supposed to head out to Universal Studios.

Epic East Coast - Day 20

Jason

Well, today sucked, and I can't write anything without ranting so I'm not going to.  Apparently, Sandra did convince the kids yesterday to write about their experiences, so that's what we have for everyone today.

Sandra

Since Jason wrote the blog yesterday and doesn't want to today, I figured I'd get some happier memories of the parks on this blog.  First off, here is Evan with what he liked in the Magic Kingdom & Hollywood Studios.

Evan

Well, at Hollywood Studios today, we went to Toy Story Mania which was amazing! Then, I did the Padawan experience. After that I got a stuffy BB-8. Then the rest of the park was horrible. Yesterday, at Magic Kingdom, I loved Splash Mountain. I also liked the Winnie the Pooh ride. I didn't really like the rollercoasters because the safety pole didn't go down all the way to my legs. 

Jonathan (as told to Sandra)

At Magic Kingdom, I liked Splash Mountain.  It was so fun. I also liked Thunder Mountain Railroad.  It was a train.  At Hollywood Studios, I liked the Star Tours because it was Star Wars.  Toy Story Mania was fun because you got to shoot different things on different screens!

Bradley (written by Sandra)

Bradley loved the roller coaster at Magic Kingdom but was sad that he was too short for most rides.  He liked Winnie the Pooh, too.  At Hollywood Studios, he loved Toy Story Mania and wanted to go a second time every time we finished.  He also love watching Darth Vader and Kylo Ren at the Padawan experience!

Epic East Coast - Day 19

Magic Kingdom.  Well, the kids liked it.  I did not.  It seriously needed about 1/3 as many people as were there in order to be enjoyable.  The rides are fun and cute, but none of them are worth longer than a 15 minute wait, and all morning and afternoon, every ride (even the tiny stupid ones) had a 30 - 45 minute wait.  If you can only do one little five minute ride every hour, how much fun can you have?

Anyway, Sandra said I wasn't allowed to write this blog post, but none of the kids seemed interested in writing anything, so here I am.  We tried to get there before the park opened at 9:00am but it took too long to get the kids up and far too long to get into the park.  We actually parked the van at 8:50am, but the frustrating tram (too small and unorganized) and extremely full monorail and security meant that it was 9:30am before we got into the park.  We headed straight for Splash Mountain and some railroad roller coaster, as they are big draws and Sandra was hoping we could get rides in before the got busy (i.e. 90+ minute wait times).  She was right, and we were able to ride both with only short waits, though Bradley wasn't tall enough so he couldn't go on either ride.  The older kids really, really liked both rides, so I scheduled one of our FastPasses (where you get to skip the line to a ride - each ticket gets three) for a late night return to Splash Mountain.

Hogsmeade @ Universal was busier than this.

We then got everyone on a simple spin ride in the Aladdin area, and then stood in line for 50 minutes for Pirates of the Caribbean (totally not worth it) and 45 minutes for a jungle boat ride, that was OK, except that a thunderstorm hit the park right as we got out.  We all got completely drenched before we found some shelter.  We then headed towards the Fantasyland part of the park, but it was now afternoon and all the outdoor rides were shut down until the storm passed, so the park was literally full - you could not move without running into someone else.  It was positively insane.  Sandra and everyone but Jonathan stood in an extremely long line for the carousel, since Jonathan was tired and cranky.  Then it was a long line for the Winnie the Pooh ride (which everyone liked), a long line for It's a Small World, a long line for the teacups and so on.

Our first FastPass use was a visit to Mickey in the late afternoon, as there is a pretty constant 60-90 minute wait to meet characters, and Jonathan wanted to give him a hug, so we had scheduled this one yesterday.  It was very nice to walk in and go directly to the front of the line, and the little kids had massive smiles on their faces when they met Mickey.

After Mickey, we had an hour and a half before our next FastPass (a small roller coaster than Evan wanted to go on), so we did the Dumbo ride, which features a play area in the queue line and a buzzer they give you when it is your time for the ride.  However, finding all of your kids once the buzzer has gone off is a bit of an exercise in frustration.  The next ride was some race cars that you could drive, which is where things fell off the tracks a bit - we had been at the park for 12 hours, hadn't had supper yet, and Alex wanted to drive by himself (well, with Evan), but soon after starting became scared of driving and wanted out, which was then upsetting Evan.  I was trying to encourage him as best I could by shouting at him from behind, but around the halfway mark an employee called out to find out what was wrong and she ended up getting in the car and driving it back to the start.  Despite talking to him, Alex was pretty shook up and he lost it in line for the roller coaster, once he found out that he would have to ride with Evan and not an adult.  We eventually got him to go through the line and wait for the rest of us, but we could not calm him down after we were finished.

At this point it was 8:45pm, and with 15 minutes before the fireworks we ran to a nearby cafe that Kristen told us was a good point to watch the fireworks from.  Unfortunately, the burger restaurant had run out of burgers, so I missed all the fireworks while I waited in line for supper.  We convinced Alex to eat, which helped his attitude and then ran through a bunch of rides a second time - between 9:30 and 10:30 we went on five rides, with no lines, because the park was much emptier and everyone was out watching the parade.

We made our way back to Splash Mountain and I took Alex on the train roller coaster before Sandra, Evan and Jonathan used their last FastPass on Splash Mountain.  Once they were done, Alex and I went and then we headed out of the park.  It was already late, and it just got later as we waited for two monorails before getting to the parking lot and four trams before getting to our van, where I had to somehow navigate Florida in the dark to get back to our hotel.  It was, by that point, 1:00am and everyone was exhausted, so the kids went straight to bed.  Tomorrow we are supposed to get up early and get to Hollywood Studios early enough to sign the kids up for the Jedi adventure, but I don't see it happening.  In fact, pictures will have to wait, because I need to get some sleep as well.

Epic East Coast - Day 17 & 18

We started the day by checking out of our condo and hauling all of our luggage to the metro station, since it is an easy way to get to Union Station, now that we have the metro figured out.  A couple of short subway rides later and we had arrived.  There is a baggage storage location at Union Station, which we wanted to use, as it was just past 11:00am and our train did not leave until 3:05pm, since this train is an overnight train from New York to Miami.

We dropped off most of our bags, but not all of them, as the prices resembled usury, and then headed to the food court to eat lunch.  There was a Taco Bell that most everyone ate at, including Jonathan, who devoured three Doritos tacos and a large chocolate brownie.  After dawdling for a bit, we picked up our luggage and headed to the gate where we would get on our train.

It was a still a long wait, so we sat around while Bradley played with a little girl who was also waiting for the train.  Eventually we boarded.  I had been concerned about finding six seats together on a train that was already full, but they board you into cars based on your destination.  That meant the car full of people going to Washington was pretty much empty, and the Amtrak employee at the door was assigning seats to people as they went on board.  We found our seats, got settled in and somehow got ready for the 18 hour overnight train ride.

Tired of train food, we purchased crackers, cheese, fruit, meat and bread at Safeway yesterday and Sandra packed them in a mini-cooler with frozen water bottles, so that meant we had a decent supper on the train.  Also, as this is a train to Florida (and passes by Disney World), there were a lot of kids on the car with us.

We ate, played video games and then put the kids to sleep.  It took some of them a long time, but eventually they all fell asleep.  I slept fitfully, as it really was not a comfortable seat.  In the morning, we had breakfast and then watched some more shows as we waited to arrive in Kissimmee.  We were an hour late, which isn't really that bad on such a long trip, so we got in around 11:40am.  There was a minivan taxi waiting at the train station, but we continue to have bad luck with cabs.  While it had seven seats, it only had six seat belts and he put one of the seats down to fit in our stroller.  The cab drivers really don't seem to care about anything, as long as they can get the people in their car.  Luckily it was a short trip to the Avis rental store and he drove quite well.

We had booked a 3:00pm rental, so our van was not ready.  We drug all of our stuff across the street to a Waffle House and sat down for a long lunch.  Once that was done, we ran back across the street, trying to beat a thunderstorm, which was a close call.  The rental place didn't really impress me much, as they did not have any car seats, just booster seats, and Bradley isn't big enough for that yet, so we decided to cancel the car seat and head to Wal*Mart to buy a cheap car seat, since we are driving everywhere else in Florida.

At Wal*Mart, Sandra found a car seat for $45, which was $20 less than the car seat rental.  We also bought a little bit of food and our tickets to Disney ($1200 US for two days! - but we saved 50 cents per ticket by buying them at Wal*Mart).  Back at the van, Sandra installed the car seat, while a steady line of cars sat behind us waited for our spot before giving up and driving away.  We then drove the short way to the resort near Disney where we have a very spacious room for the next couple of days.  (Sorry Jen, but our room here is bigger than your house - 1440 square feet.)

After a simple supper in the room, we headed out to the resort's pool and let the kids spend the evening swimming.  Of course the kids thought that was the greatest part of the trip, as many of them are ready to spend two days at the pool rather than at Disney.  Tomorrow we head out for a very long day at Magic Kingdom.

Epic East Coast - Day 16

This was our last full day in Washington DC.  Tomorrow afternoon we board an overnight train to Kissimmee, Florida.  I expect that I will do a single two day post Monday night, since it will be just one long day for us.

We took the metro out to Chinatown this morning, which is in walking distance, but we had extra money on our cards, so we decided to cut out some walking.  Our destination was the International Spy Museum.  It was a very interesting museum, though it was also very busy.  It is more or less separated into three areas.  The first area deals with spy gear and how spies operate.  The second area deals with historical spies, from the Trojan Horse and ninjas all the way to the French Resistance in WWII and what is known about any modern spy operations.  The third area deals with James Bond, so it takes a bit of a move away from reality.

The first part was probably the most interesting, though it was also the most busy and the most difficult to see things.  There were toys, purses and other items with cameras or radios hidden in them, examples of bugs and other listening devices, and a overhead air duct you could crawl through while trying to be as quiet as possible.  The kids went through that three times and I followed them the first two times, after which I got tired and sent Alex to keep track of them.

Once we finished with the museum, we walked around the corner to Ford's Theatre, where President Lincoln was shot.  You have to arrive early to get a free ticket if you want to go in, but it really didn't fit into our plans today, especially as the line up to get into the house across the street (where the president died) was over a block long.  We then found lunch at small commercial area attached to the Verizon Center (where the Washington Capitals play).  The McDonald's had about 6 tables, so we took the kids' food to go and ate beside a small outdoor creperie where Sandra and I ordered our lunch.

The reason we were there was because there was a movie theatre and we wanted to take the kids to see the Secret Life of Pets, as a simple family fun thing to do after all the museums.  The movie was pretty good, and the kids loved it - they have amassed a large number of stuffed animals as Happy Meal toys.  Our final stop was a place called Rita's for some Italian ice, which was something that my wife was looking forward to.  It was a good cool thing to eat during the hot walk back home - we walked instead of taking the metro since Alex wanted to buy something at the Air and Space Museum gift shop that he had seen on Monday, but which had not been out at the hangar.

Back at the condo, we had supper and baths and then packed everything up for our long train trip tomorrow.  Our next stop is Florida!