Since arriving in Orlando we had been considering renting a car. It would give Ray a wee break and I haven't driven for over 6 weeks. As the days wore on, it was looking less likely, but this morning we sorted it out. We have a Chrysler Cruise, which is not bad. Automatic, and designed for minimum effort. Ray has been most upset that it costs as much to park the bike, as it does a car, and no, we didn't go to the car parks, looking like an SUV, we were unloaded and skinny. So our first journey was to Busch Gardens.
It has one of the oldest rides in existence and it is a very scary wooden boneshaker. But more of that later.
Prior to that though, we had a walk around the park, it was lovely. The peace was only shattered by the screams from various directions from the huge rides.
They have many animals on display and these were the first
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| The picture does not scale it but this bad boy is big enough to derail a train. he is about 5 feet long. |
We enjoyed a couple of the rides and then went on the Safari. (bit of practice for next year). We were all loaded onto a truck and stood in the back. It was quite good, we had an informative guide and saw some more animals, some of which are nearly extinct in the wild.
It is part of the tour that they stop the truck and feed lettuce leaves to the giraffe's. A bit commercial, but lovely, they are very gentle and with the three that were around us, they all had different personalities.
After the heat of the Safari, we stopped for a water top up and in amongst all the people, this Ibis was running around scooping up whatever morsels had dropped. It is presumably quite a common sight over here, but us Brits are still taken by it all.
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| A chip (french fries) stealing Ibis |
We got soaked again on the water rides, but it is a lovely relief from the heat, but ours was by choice, not like this poor girl who stood in the wrong place from one of the rides. We didn't do this one, we basically wimped out.
The roller coaster, the wooden roller coaster, well, back in 2007 when Ray and I came here , we loved it and went on it several times in a row. What a difference 6 years make. We jumped on all enthusiastically and off we went. I noticed that on the way up the incline, Ray had gone very quiet, and as we reached the top, all I heard was "Oh my god", then silence. I had to look around and make sure he was still there, he did eventually laugh, but you could hear the hysteria in his voice. The ride finished and poor Ray had virtually lost he use of his legs. I think this is one park too far.
Friday 17th May 2013 Miles Today 146 Total 3658
We were originally going to go back to Daytona today, so that I could do the drive around the track with one of the drivers, however, both of us had bad nights and we also had a lot of admin stuff to do. We are going to do it at a later stage hopefully at one of the many race tracks in the country. We have gone through all our stuff on Wallace and divided it into piles. Needed, not needed, post home, throw away.
When we planned this trip, we didn't really know exactly what we would need, but now we are far more informed, it has been quite easy to deal with.
Grumpy came back to the fore when he was told the cost of "Fedex"ing it back, and I became Mrs Angry Bird when the post office demanded an address for us over here so we could post presents, our pleas that we were nomads, cut no ice and we eventually gave the address of the hotel that we would no longer be staying at, no check on our I.D. either, even though we had been told that the address was needed to contact us if necessary. I wouldn't mind but we never leave a forwarding address as we never know where we are going, but we haven't been asked for one either. Anyway all 's well that ends well, and our day did, down at Cocoa Beach. We enjoyed a splash about in the sea, watching the pelicans flying in for the evening, a beer later and we watched the sun go down, all the red tape of the day forgotten.
We have to return the car tomorrow and then we are "on the road again", probably to the west coast, via a nature park, but Hey, all that could change on waking.
Classic! "...I think this is one park too far..."
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