May 2005 was a month of travels without any photos and photos without any travel.
First the travel, then the photos. My 64th birthday was in May, so Joyce decided to take me over to Orlando Disney World to see Cirque du Soleil. How else does one go to an evening show in Orlando, other than to go a day earlier and camp in the RV? Didn't even consider driving over (about 30 minutes), seeing the show, then driving back in the dark. I don't know about you, but I've gotten to where I don't drive at night unless there's no alternative.
There were some RV resorts up the road that I'd been wanting to talk to about WiFi, plus I'd heard about a Hold'Em tournament on the Sun Cruz casino ship on Tuesday nights, so-o-o-o ... I went up on Monday, got a campsite, talked WiFi Tuesday with a couple of parks, went gambling Tuesday night, talked more WiFi Wednesday, drove back down and picked up Joyce and the doggies Wednesday afternoon, drove to Orlando, visited Downtown Disney Thursday, saw the show Thursday night, and came back home Friday -- and never took a single photo!
Let me tell you about live Hold'Em tournaments -- don't like them! At Sun Cruz, they crowd 11 players to a table. I drew number 6, so was in the exact center of the table -- about the worst possible seat. They have no breaks, so us old guys have to slip in our poddy breaks wherever we can -- thankfully, the men's room was closeby to the card room. Most of the smoking players got up when they wanted a smoke, so that wasn't too much of a problem, but still "clouded" the room up a little. I did okay, got to the final two tables, but finished out of the money. All-in-all, I found it to be too crowded, almost impossible to "read" players from my center seat, and just generally a whole lot less friendly than the online games. After that, I've decided that all my gaming will be online. More choice in games, easier to keep up with players' stack size, where the button is, how much the bet is, how big the pot is, more convenient ways to make notes on players, and on and on. I may visit a real casino again someday, but it will probably be to play Pai-Gow and enjoy myself, not to try to win money.
Let me tell you about camping around Disney World -- expensive! I don't know about you, but I'm accustomed to spending less than $20 per night for camping. In campgrounds around East central Florida, I've bumped into several that are in the $25-30 range, but most drop their prices significantly during the Summer off -season. Not so around Disney World. Just for grins, I checked the Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground at Disney World - prices range from $54 to 69, depending on if you want sewage, cable, etc. I checked with a KOA, so I could use the HotSpotzz WiFi service that I'd signed up for, and got a price of $52 from the one in Kissimmee. I knew of a really cheap one over on U.S. 27 at the end of U.S. 192 called Florida Camp Inn and got a rate of $18.70 (plus tax), so decided we'd stay there. They supposedly have a WiFi system, so at least I'd be "connected." As we were driving over, I remembered that Encore SuperPark Orlando was a Passport America resort , so gave them a call (thanks to the convenience of our cell phone). They offered full hook-up and cable TV at $15 a night with Passport America! Whoopee! So we stayed there. After I parked, I decided to try my WiFi just for fun -- I picked up a signal! Free! Still don't know where it came from, because the park supposedly isn't WiFi-enabled, but happily used it the whole time we stayed there. If you camp there, try to get up around site 325 and maybe you'll enjoy the same surprise.
Let me tell you about Cirque du Soleil -- amazing! Just as entertaining as you've heard all these years. The whole show was like watching a five-ring circus. I'd be watching something on one side and Joyce would poke me and point to something on the other side ... or above us. Just a fantastic array of talent and unusual and seemingly impossible tricks, stunts, acts, and skits. Dancers, clowns, acrobats, contortionists, gymnasts, and some people that just sort of walked or marched around all during the show. Well worth your time and money, if you get an opportunity to visit them sometime! All-in-all, a great birthday trip! Camping was great, entertainment was great, weather was great, WiFi was great, everything just great! .... enough, already, eh?
On the trip back from Orlando, I finally got some photos of the new "split" Ron Jon billboard(s) on Florida State Road 528 between Orlando and I-95. As you may or may not know, I've got an entire page dedicated to Ron Jon billboards. Click Here to go find out why and see all the interesting photos. You'll see my latest split billboards there. I don't explain it there, but part of my fascination with the Ron Jon signs is that, coincidentally, the mileage shown on each sign is approximately the mileage from that point to our house! If you've ever travelled around Florida, you've seen one or more Ron Jon Surf Shop billboards, saying "Ron Jon Surf Shop - XX miles". Well, in the future, you'll know that when you see one, you're XX miles from my house! Exciting, eh?
Now for the photos without travel. After we got back, several interesting little things happened that I decided to photograph, so I'm going to stick the photos here. I'm also going to try something new, using thumbnails and Homestead's (the software I build these websites with) thumbnail viewing option. As you hopefully have noticed, when you click a photo in the Travel Log, I open a new page with the enlarged photo and instructions to close the window to go back to the Travel Log. Well, this Homestead option opens a new window automatically, it's much easier to implement, but you don't get the "close the window" instructions. I'm assuming you can figure that out for yourself after being told hundreds of times in previous chapters. So let's see how it works out ...
The first few are "animals around our house." On the left is a photo of our youngest or at least smallest. I noticed how small Tinker looked, sleeping on her favorite pillow, so put my sandals next to it to provide a size contrast and took a photo. As I did, she woke up, so I took another. I then made that entertaining wakeup-and-back-to-sleep animation you see below. Hopefully entertaining -- or maybe it just seems that way to us because she's one of ours. In the center is a one of two turtles that Joyce found in the neighbor's yard and "helped" across the road to the holding pond. Did you know that when you pick up a turtle, they get scared and pee all over? Luckily, I did, so held the turtle way out while carrying -- turned out to be a good idea. Finally, on the right, a photo of the bird nest in a topiary just outside our screened-in patio. If you enlarge the photo and look real close at about the center, you might see the Yellow beak of one of the baby birds. That was amazing. One day, the two birds are building a nest. About 2 days later, there are three little birds cheeping for food. Not more that 2-3 days later, the babies are big and fat and covered in feathers and flying clumsily to the back fence. Seems like the whole operation didn't take much more than a week! Now that's amazing!
Tinker waking up - no enlargement available
Birds in the Topiary - you'll really need to click to enlarge if you expect to see the bird(s)
And here is something that may be unusual, if you haven't spent much time in Florida. A couple of years ago, I noticed the familiar Black and Yellow Florida Highway Patrol markings on a sporty-looking Camaro. I thought it must be some local guy who was using his own car or something. I know that some of the small-community Sheriffs in the South can use whatever vehicle they prefer, and they often end up with some sporty, speedy hotrod, but I'd never seen an FHP vehicle like that! Since then, I've seen several, but never thought it appropriate to stop and photograph while the officer was busy giving some poor guy a ticket. This month, I was at the park where I store my RV on the beach, and noticed that the park owner, who's also an FHP officer, had his Camaro sitting in the yard, so I took some photos ... see below. I thought this might be entertaining to someone who hasn't seen one before. To me, a very unusual-looking police vehicle!
And how's this for a sporty police vehicle?
Finally, there was the Harley-Davidson show I stopped to visit one day, up the road from where I live. I partially stopped because I figured they'd have free hot dogs and hamburgers (which they didn't), but also to see the bikes. I don't know about other RVers, but I seem to have an attraction to RV shows, Classic Car shows, and Harley-Davidson shows. I'm not sure what the connection is, other than that I grew up in the 1950s and 60s, when most of the classic cars were produced, and when the Harley was just becoming popular - Marlon Brando in The Wild One, Peter Fonda in Easy Rider, James Dean, etc. Whatever, I like motorcycle shows, as you may have noted in previous chapters. Below, I've included all of the photos, with no captions except on the first and last. In between, it's just alot of bikes, so not much to say. Click any one to see it larger.
Space Coast Harley Davidson on U.S. 1, where the show was held.
So there's my first adventure into using the "thumbnail" options. Any comments? Email me and let me know what you think - or if you even notice a difference. If not, that's fine -- saved me an hour or two of saving a separate page for each of those photos. And, did you notice? The enlargements are set to fit whatever the window size - make it full-screen to see the largest possible view.
View across the highway -- how fortunate we are to live where we do ...
Turtle crossing the road, with Joyce's left foot in the background
Just a bunch of really neat (and probably expensive) Harley-Davidson motorcycles
And more - a variety of colors, styles, and features - and they really enjoy showing them off!
My Travel Log
Nothing in this site is copyrighted -- I'd be honored if you'd reuse anything you find here for your website
Click any photo for a larger view
66. Travels Without Photos
