Theme Park Madness

So moving right along to Orlando. Where is the time going?! Anyway, this stop was all about theme parks, although apparently Orlando itself is quite a nice place too, but I'm sure not that many people actually care enough to find out. I mean there's theme parks to visit! haha

Question: How many theme parks can you do in 2 days?
Answer: 4

As we were driving to the first one we noticed this interesting power pole:)

So the first park we stopped at was Universal Studios. It was a Monday so it was pretty quiet at the park and we weren't waiting more than 5 minutes for rides which was great. Here's a pic of Christian and Casie outside.

They'd just finished a Simpson's ride which was basically a small simulator for about 8 people. It was pretty fun, but I was rather queasy afterwards. Anyway, here's me at the Kwik-E-Mart.

The other fairly amusing thing we saw was these seat testers outside each ride. If you can't read it this one says "This attraction's seat restraints may not accommodate guests with certain body dimensions". Here's Christian ensuring he has the appropriate 'body dimensions' required.

Then we saw Doc from Back to the Future (one of my fave movies). Here's a pic of me with him. He told me 'thumbs up for science' and who was I to argue. He was actually quite a good likeness.

After we'd run around and done all the rides we wanted to at Universal we went nextdoor to their other park called Islands of Adventure. Now this park was wicked. Heaps more rides!! My camera battery had died by then so i don't have pics but it was so much fun.

The next day we went to Seaworld. We went to see the stingrays and you could buy food to feed them with. You had to put the little fish between your fingers so it stood up straight and then put your hand flat on the bottom of the tank. The stingray would then come past and suck it out of your fingers. It was so gross! That thing was slimey and sucking my arm!! I screamed and ran as soon as it grabbed the fish. I believe Christian may have caught it on video.

Then we went to see the Shamu show. I was horrified to find out that they call the whales at each SeaWorld Shamu. What a scam!! I'm not sure where the original Shamu is or if he's even still alive, but here is some killer whale we saw. Nate and Christian sat in the soak zone and needless to say, they got soaked.

Then we went nextdoor to Seaworld's water park, Aquatica. It just opened and it's really cool. They have a waterslide that goes through an aquarium with dolphins. Although that would have been the worst slide ever. The split second that I went through that part of the slide I didn't see a single dolphin. Although there was a viewing thing where you could see them and watch people coming through the slides.

The highlight of the day was this ride though. It was basically a giant whirlpool like river that went around the park. You wear a life jacket and basically get pushed around by the current. There's a couple of exits and you can also get onto some of the slides via this river thing. It was so much fun, i could float around in there all day. All we needed were some margaritas.

Louisiana Swamp Tour

The other thing we did whilst in New Orleans was one of their air boat swamp tours. Here's some pictures from our tour. We went on the larger air boat like this one. It was a 14 seater but they did have a smaller 6 seater too.

Here's Christian pointing out an alligator.

And this is how he attracted them to the boat...with marshmallows!!! Oh yeah and they only understand French too. The guide was calling out to them in French to come over.

Our guide was like the American version of the Crocodile Hunter. At the end of the trip he just pulled out this baby gator that belonged to his 6 year old daughter. It's name was Marshmallow and he let us all have a hold of it.

Here's Casie with Marshmallow...

And here's me trying to stop the alligator from attacking Neil...

New Orleans & Jazz Fest

So after Memphis we jumped in the bus and embarked on a 6 hour trek to New Orleans. It was quite a change in scenery and all of a sudden we were driving over the longest bridge I've ever been on. Well it was more of a raised road over the swamp land but it was really long.

After a brief mishap with the sat nav telling us that this was our hostel....

...we dumped our stuff and headed out to Bourbon Street to drink some Hurricanes (some deadly kind of frozen cocktail with several types of rum) and grab some dinner. We had a relatively quiet one as we were heading to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival the next day. The festival actually runs over two weekends and some people buy tickets for both weekends. We didn't have that much time but we figured in one day we could stuff our faces with as much food as possible and be quite happy. The festival is known for its food just as much as it is for the music.

First stop, alligator pies. Delish!

Here's me drinking my iced tea and margarita simultaneously. Surprisingly tasty.

Here's Christian with some fried chicken and Jambalaya.

The boys also saw a little girl doing fortune telling for a quarter. By the time I got there she had disappeared but here's her sign and abandoned chair.

And just for a little snack, here's Neil and Christian with a deep fried pork chop sandwich...

On the way home after the festival we decided to pick up some of the local specialty which is Crawfish. It's kinda like a yabbi. We picked these ones up from some dude on the side of the road. They were small but super tasty.

Here's us sitting on the side of the road eating our crawfish.

Oh yeah and the music was good too. My favourite was actually the gospel. I was loving all the choirs and this one woman on the tambourine was absolutely rocking it!!!

Memphis & Graceland

OK, next stop Memphis. Obviously the main attraction here was Elvis so we went straight over to Graceland as soon as we got to town. The weather had suddenly got pretty warm. Well warmer than I have been in for a long time.

We grabbed a ticket to check out Graceland and then we got on the mini bus that took you across the road to the house. I'm pretty sure they employ some special people at Graceland because the greeter we got was not quite right. He spoke really slowly and paused between words and at one stage he looked at me and winked. But the whole thing was in super slow motion with a few twitches in between and although its hard for me to explain to you now, I'm sure no one that was there will ever forget it. Christian is still winking at me like that at least twice a day.

Anyway, it was an audio tour of the house. The rooms have all been kept as they were when Elvis was living there. He purchased the house in 1957 when he was 22 years old. It cost him $100,000.

This is the TV room. It had three TVs because Elvis had heard that one of the presidents used to watch all three news channels at once so he didn't miss anything, so he wanted to do the same.

This is one of the games rooms. And yes, that's fabric on the roof.

They also have a section dedicated to Elvis' cars. Here's his famous pink Cadillac.

He was also into toys like all boys are and he loved racing round the property is his golf carts. Here's some of them...

And, what self respecting superstar wouldn't have their own private plane. Here's a pic of the Lisa Marie. He had a smaller plane too, but this one had a bedroom, dining room and several smaller rooms.

And at some point Elvis' body was moved to Graceland and he is now buried there with his mother, father and grandmother. There is also a memorial there to his stillborn twin brother Jesse. And all the flowers you see were sent my Elvis fan clubs etc. Apparently they arrive almost everyday.

That night after Graceland we went off to Beale Street which is the main street in Memphis. There was a bit of a bikie gathering and the atmosphere was awesome. Not like angry bikies, but more like bike enthusiasts.

Also, we saw the cops riding around on these things. haha. How embarassing!

After wandering up up down Beale Street we went to check out the local speciality, bar-b-q pork. Here's a platter we got with pulled pork, pork ribs, some chicken and sides. Yes, it was tasty.

Honky Tonk City

Well it's about time I got around to posting something I suppose so here goes.

We stopped over in Nashville for a night and took the opportunity to do some sightseeing and visit some of the Honky-Tonks.

Oh but before I start on that, did you know that Nashville has a full sized replica of the Parthenon? Seriously. They use it as an art gallery. It was built for some Tennessee Centennial Exhibition in 1897. The locals liked it so it stayed, cool huh?

This is a local specialty called Honky-Tonk Lemonade. It's basically a Long Island Iced teas, minus the tequila but with blue curcao and maybe some vodka or something.

Anyways, the reason I've put up a photo of a cocktail is that it was they way we started off our night in Nashville. We decided a tour was the way to go. A bus and driver picked us up from the hotel, drove us past a few historic sites and down the main drag, bought us a drink, gave us a dinner voucher and let us loose until pick-up time. Fun, fun, fun!!

The next place we stopped in was the Wild Horse Saloon. it just so happpened that the night we were there was the night a reaity TV show called 'Can you Duet' was being filmed. Think of it as Australian Idol, but with two country singers. It was pretty cool to watch an act or two and see behind the scenes of a show taping.

We also got dinner at the saloon. I went for some Southern soul food: Catfish with coleslaw, fries and hush-puppies. Hush-puppies are like deep fried dumpling: delicious!!

Well, that's enough of the photos. After dinner we went to a bar across the street with some terrible karaoke, and then Coyote Ugly which was a cheesy movie cash in, but somewhat amusing.

The night ticks on and I must away.

N

The Great Smoky Mountains

Eek, been super busy. Here's a quick update.

The next stop after Virginia was Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I'd organised another awesome cabin. This time we had a spa in each room as well as a big one on the deck. Here's a pic from the outside of the cabin.

And here's one of inside.

The first day we were there it absolutely poured with rain so we couldn't head out into the park. That wasn't a problem though because the area that we stayed was the most touristy place in the world. So off we went to mini golf which we had the choice of about 10 just on one street. We chose one and the woman working there said it was really hard. I got a hole in one on the first hole which probably tells you how hard it was. Not very!!!

The next day we knew we had a clear morning so we got up early and went out into the park. I'd been chatting to a guy in a hiking shop the day before and he'd recommended a 'fun' hike for us to do. So off we went to the Chimney Tops Trail and I laughed as I saw the sign for 2-3 hours of hiking. The first half was really quick and easy but it suddenly got quite steep and the next thing you know we're all struggling a bit. Neil who put away several beers the night before nearly had a spew. And Nate went to urinate in the bushes and fell over on the way back and ended up with a muddy bum. All fairly amusing.

Anyway, here's a pic of me at the start of the hike...

And here's Calli at the top. Apparently you need to climb to the top of those rocks to see the view but it had been raining and it wasn't safe so that was as far as we went.

After that we were going to go for another hike but it started raining and we were fairly unprepared so we went for the scenic drive instead. Here's a few pics from the Roaring Forks Scenic Drive. These are some old houses from when people used to live in the mountains. Here's a picture of one of the houses and also some storage shed they had.

Virginia

So once the sun had come out we jumped in the van and started the journey to Virginia. It's only a couple of hours from DC but it seems a complete world away.

First things first. Wine! The reason I added Virginia to the itinerary is because it's wine country. They haven't been making wine for long (since about the seventies) but there is quite a lot of it now. We saw Prince Michel winery before we got to our accommodation but decided to stop as we were thirsty.

They had quite a few wines on the tasting list but as I was driving the bus I only sampled a couple. They also had this delicious frozen peach Bellini mix which was amazing! But we just bought a few bottles of riesling and we were on our way.

We went to check in to the accommodation at the Lydia Mountain General Store. We were all fairly amused when I asked the guy working there what time they closed and he replied..."we usually close at 7 but I might stay open later coz it's pretty". Ok, so you have to imagine that in a Virginian accent but it was fairly humourous, as were all the people asking "where are y'all from" and commenting "y'all aren't from around here are you?".

Ok so this is a pic of the gang (minus Calli) at the cabin... (please note the rocking chairs on the porch)

And here's a picture of the view...

Calli had done camp America before so she introduced us to S'mores. Basically they are a roasted marshmallow and some chocolate sandwich between two Graham Crackers (which taste like granita biscuits). Here's a pic of our attempt.


The next day I had organised a wine tour so we went around to 4 of the local wineries to sample their wines. The first one we went to was Barboursville and it turned out to be the best of the four, but as usual we didn't buy anything at the first winery. haha. Here's a picture of Christian and I sampling some of their wine.

As I was planning the trip I'd found a website listing crazy things to see in America. Anyway, only a few were on our route but this one was worth the detour. It's in Natural Bridge Virginia and it's called Foam Henge (yes, Foam). And just for comparison I've included one of the real thing. I'm sure you can tell which is which just based on the colour of the sky. haha

The Nation's Capital

Ok, next stop, Washington DC...

I had got myself a cold in New York and was fairly miserable on the 5 hour bus journey down to DC. Once we got to DC the first stop was to pick up the van. It's a Ford E-350, a 12 seater passenger van more commonly known as a mini bus!

Here's a picture of the beast.

It was wet and cold for the 2 days we were in DC and if you look at the photos on Flickr you can see how bad the visibility was. We still managed to check out all the main tourist spots and also had a look at a couple of the Smithsonian museums. Here's a picture on Nathanael with Abe. It was actually quite an impressive statue.

We went to a quiz night on our last night there at the Varsity Grill. It was quite funny as ALL the questions were about America and my knowledge of all the states and every president to ever serve was slightly lacking. That said, we didn't lose. haha.

Anyway, the next day the sun came out!

Nate and the boys had been eyeing up the local frisbee golf course so we jumped in the bus and head down there for an early morning game. Here's a pre-game shot.

We also saw a ground hog which was pretty exciting. We tried to get some photos but he wasn't really that keen. He was cute though:)