Epic East Coast - Day 35

We started off the day walking through the extremely busy streets of New York and ended the day with an idyllic rural drive through the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, where we were the only car on the road at times.  Quite the contrast.

Speaking of walking in New York, I figured I should mention something I discovered yesterday on our long walk south.  Manhattan is laid out in a grid with streets going east/west and avenues north/south (-ish.  Manhattan is angled).  The streets are really close together and the avenues are really far apart.  When walking north/south, the lights are timed such that a normal walking speed will get you to the next street right as the light turns red, forcing you to stop, wait 30 seconds and then walk the next short block to another red light.  You can tell the native New Yorkers from the tourists, as they will start crossing as soon as the other light turns yellow (dodging traffic) or run across as the light turns red, as that allows them to walk two (or more) blocks without stopping.  That's also why New York seems to be full of people standing on street corners.

Anyway, today was one of those days where everything seemed to go right.  We left our apartment and took the 40 minute walk to Penn Station, where we knew the location of the elevators, as well as where to go to wait for the train.  On the way to the Amtrak area, we passed a very long line of passengers and I was curious what train they were waiting for, as in our previous trip, that was where they had lined up everyone headed to Canada, but there were no trains to Canada on the board.  It turns out that line was for our train, a local that ran through the main cities in New York.  Once the track number went up on the board, I was dismayed to realize that that line was for our train and we were going to be way at the end of it, but as we walked towards the line, an Amtrak attendant took one look at our luggage and told us to take the elevator, which conveniently goes down to the correct track.  By doing so we managed to skip the line and get onto the car with people going to Syracuse and Rochester when there were still six seats together.

It was then a medium length train ride of five hours to Syracuse, though we ended up being just over an hour late due to freight traffic just outside the city.  Once we arrived, I left our luggage, Sandra and the boys at the train station while I took a cab to the airport to pick up our rental.  I was concerned about this rental, as it was for a mid-sized SUV, since we were unable to find a single minivan in this area, and the mid-sized SUV we had in Charlotte was way too small to fit all of us and our luggage.  However, we were given a full-sized SUV (a Ford Expedition), which feels like driving a tank.  It doesn't have enough room for the luggage in the back, but it has enough cabin room that I was able to put the luggage in the cabin around the kids without them feeling squished.  This rental also came with a correctly sized and harnessed car seat!

We stopped for some supplies at a Wal*Mart, ate at a nearby Wendy's and then took our nice drive through the rural area of the Finger Lakes.  It was a nice quiet drive, with some very nice scenery.  Our suite in Penn Yan is very nice and we arrived in time to get everyone in bed and watch the Rider game on ESPN 2.

Epic East Coast - Day 34

We had run out of the big things we wanted to do in New York and everyone was pretty tired of running around, so it was a very slow morning.  We finally got everyone out into the streets for a very long walk to the bottom end of Manhattan.  Our first destination was the NYC Fire Department Museum, but the walk down took so long that we ended up needing lunch before we got there.  However, our walk south had taken us out of midtown and all of its restaurants and into the NYU campus / Greenwich Village, where all we could find were trendy restaurants (aka "my kids won't eat there").  Stymied, we ended up eating a meagre lunch of hot dogs from a stand in a park, and these hot dogs were a pale comparison to the hot dogs we ate in Central Park.

"Fortified" by lunch, we went through the museum, which had a lot of old artifacts and a few really old fire fighting vehicles.  It also had a 9/11 memorial, which contained pictures of all the FDNY personnel that lost their lives in the attack, as well as a bunch of recovered FDNY equipment still covered in dust.  The museum ended up not taking very long to visit, so we headed farther south to see the actual 9/11 memorial.  Along the way we passed Ladder Company No. 8, which is famous for being the building used in the original Ghostbusters movie.  I was excited to see it, but unfortunately the building is currently undergoing renovations and is covered in scaffolding and nets.  They have painted Ghostbuster-esque pictures on the sidewalk in front of the building, but it was a bit of a letdown.

The 9/11 memorial is two large waterfalls that occupy the footprint of the two buildings, with all the names of everyone who died engraved in the wall surrounding the waterfalls.  There were quite a lot of people there and the lineup for the museum was very long, so we skipped that and just looked at the waterfalls and tried to explain to the kids the significance of what had happened.

Everyone was quite tired from walking at this point, so I decided that we would take the subway back to Times Square in order to reduce the amount of walking we had to do.  I also wanted to ride the subway once while I was here.  However, New York's subway is ancient and not setup for anything other than people, so getting the stroller in and out was an adventure.  Washington's setup is much nicer - each entrance has a wheelchair gate that is wider than the others and you can take your stroller through that gate.  Where we entered here, you had to catch the attention of the booth worker, scan your ticket and then have them open a side door for you.  The exit had no easy way out, though as I was folding up the stroller, a worker arrived and pushed open an emergency exit and told me that I should always use that.  (Honestly, it had big red letters on it that said an alarm would sound if it was opened.)  Colour me unimpressed with the NYC subway, at least with children.

At Times Square we headed to a pizza shop we had passed yesterday which I had learned was one of the better pizzerias in the area.  It was extremely good.  It was also extremely small, designed for walkup traffic that left with their food and not a family of six that required 3 or 4 seats for the younger kids to eat.  We managed to eat in waves in order to maximize our use of the 2 counter seats we obtained (out of the 4 in the restaurant) and Jonathan ate in the stroller out front.  The pizza was really good and all the kids liked it.  To finish off the day, we went to the McDonald's in Times Square for milkshakes.  It was a zoo in there, but we managed to find some seats and enjoy our dessert.  Then it was our final walk back to our apartment, where we got everything ready to go for tomorrow.  We head out on a train to Syracuse, where we rent a car and drive to Penn Yan, which is just slightly north of Watkins Glen.

Epic East Coast - Day 33

Our first task of the day was a short boat tour around Manhattan, which required a walk across the island.  We headed straight west from our apartment and walked through Times Square (again), through the theatre district and through Hell's Kitchen to get to the piers.  The boat tour was nice and relaxing, with a very interesting tour guide.  We got to see the Statue of Liberty, go under the Brooklyn Bridge and see the classic view of Manhattan from the water.

Next door to the pier where we got on the tour is the pier where the Intrepid Air & Space Museum is docked.  The Intrepid is an old WWII aircraft carrier that was turned into a museum after it was decommissioned in the 70s.  It is practically permanently docked - around 10 years ago they moved it to do some restoration work and had to dredge out 30,000 cubic feet of mud that it was stuck in.  As our tour ended right at lunch time, we wanted to get into the museum quickly and hit the cafe before viewing the exhibits.  That did not work out so well, as after security, you are separated into two lines - one for people buying tickets and one for people with tickets.  Except the line for people with tickets included everyone with a coupon and they were pulling people out of that line twice as fast as our line, which really is not good customer service.  After we finally paid, we found the cafe and waited what seemed like an extraordinarily long time for our food.  Then it was on to the museum.

We walked through the displays on the hangar deck, which included a massive LEGO model of the carrier before heading up to the flight deck, where there are a number of aircraft parked and on display.  I took the boys through some of the restored living quarters and the bridge.  It was surprising (though it probably shouldn't have been) how similar they were to the USS Missouri.  Honestly, I'm not certain the bridge looked any different on both ships.

At the back of the ship is a large building that houses the Enterprise, the third shuttle we've been able to view on this trip.  Unlike Atlantis and Discovery, Enterprise was never flown into space.  It was the first shuttle built and it was used for all the testing, including glide landing after being taken up into the air on a 747.  The Enterprise looks quite a bit different from the later shuttles, as they did not use the same materials.  It was built similarly, but with cheaper materials that had the same characteristics and weight as the actual materials.  The result was that this shuttle looked fake compared to the other two.

After we were done at the museum, we walked back to the apartment and had supper.  It was then time to find a doctor for Bradley, as his brother poked him in the eye twice yesterday and he developed an infection in his eye (which happens to him with alarming regularity).  That meant we got to experience the US health care system by visiting a nurse practitioner at the Walgreens around the corner.  No line, $132 and we had a prescription for eye antibiotics.  Hopefully the antibiotics work quickly so that he can start enjoying the trip again.

Epic East Coast - Day 29 Addendum

Just a note that I have added pictures to all the previous blog entries, as I was finally not tired in the evening.  Also, Alex wanted to type up his experience at LEGOLAND, but there wasn't time to do that until today.

Alex

Today we went to LEGOLAND. First we went to the driving school. Bradley went to the junior driving school. We drove little cars on a small driving area. It had every thing that you would find on the street. After we went to the flying school. Dad had to go with Jonathan because Evan had to go with an adult. But I almost touched the tree! After we went to the Coastersaurus. It went up then down. It was really good! After we went to the LEGO Chima ride but it closed because thunder storms moved close. But we got in for lunch before the crowds came for lunch. After we did Duplo land there was a tractor train that went around the Duplo farm. After we did Chima we shot at targets and like 24 people who were shooting at the boat. But I hit like 28 people because there were lots of people standing by the guns. After we went to Miniland. We saw the Daytona 500 and a drag race.

After we saw Kennedy space centre and a space shuttle launch out of LEGO. After we saw some pirates attacking the first British camps. But the royal navy was fighting the pirates. After we saw Las Vegas. It had lots of the stuff in the all other parts of the United States and a person who died about 2 feet from water stand. After we did the boating school it was hard we went with Mom and Dad. After we went for super at 7:00 pm.

Now I will tell how long the train ride was. It took 24:00h about it was also over night. We got on at 12:56 pm and got in at 12:57 pm it was long.

I think I will not write again but thats not 100% sure.

Epic East Coast - Day 32

We spent the day wandering around New York and Central Park.  I discovered there was a Midtown Comics right across the street from our apartment, so we started our day there. Midtown Comics is a huge comic book store with three stores in New York and the primary sponsor of New York Comic Con.  I bought everyone a comic book and then we headed over to the Nintendo store.  It was full of video games for the kids to play and the second floor had a small museum area showing examples of all the Nintendo gaming machines.  A short walk through Rockefeller Center and past 30 Rock took us to a LEGO store, where I got stuck with a grumpy kid while Sandra took the other kids around the store.

A short walk up Fifth Avenue brought us to the corner of Central Park, where we stopped for a hot dog lunch.  Then it was into the park, which is huge.  We spent the entire afternoon there and only explored the bottom third of the park.  We did some walking, stopped at a playground for awhile, rode a carousel, watched some street performers and let the kids run around in the grass.  There was a bit of a mishap at the playground when Jonathan ran full speed into a pole - he had a massive lump on his forehead that scared me a bit until the swelling finally went down.

After leaving Central Park we walked over to a giant candy store and spent a little too much money on chocolate.  For supper, we took the kids to Johnny Rockets for burgers and milkshakes (and chicken strips and one float).  Overstuffed with food, we found a snow globe for Evan and took Sandra to a Christmas store.  Then it was back to the apartment and time for bed.

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.