Florida Trip Part Three

There I was.............standing in front of Cinderella's Castle at Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom. I have been here before.....a few times......when the kids were small. This time.....I am with the grandkids. Life is good.

This place is so impressive that if you cannot enjoy yourself here, then you must be a miserable snot of a person that never has a good time. As it just so happened, there was a large contingent of contestants for a beauty pageant in attendance and we would see them everywhere we went.


As I approached the castle, there was a group of them standing together......maybe they were going over some instructions from their chaperone............so I did what Ole Signtopia always seems to do..............it meant that this was a perfect opportunity for one of my infamous "action photos".......hehehe. So I walked up to them and told them to raise their hands..........and voila!

Looking up at the castle.......there is so much detail to this building. If you look closely, you can see what appears to be netting. Initially, I thought maybe it was there to keep birds off......but we later found out the real reason.

You can't take your eyes off of the castle.............except when some beauty contestants pose for an action photo.....hehehe.

My grandson, the Mayor Of Simpleton, thought he could get the sword out of its place.

It ain't gonna happen, buddy......hehehe.

Everytime I looked at the castle, it seemed to have changed.............throughout the day.

From how it looks in daylight......to how it looks in twilight..............

.........and how it looked during the fireworks...........

........and then ultimately how it looked after the Fairy Godmother lit it up so that it looked like ice crystals covering the castle. It was when this occurred that we knew the real reason for that netting. There must have been thousands of lights on that building. The photo does not do it any justice.....you would have to see this for yourself with your own eyes. I am glad I got to see this......amazing and magical.

A must see at the Magic Kingdom is the nightly Spectra Magic parade. This parade is stunning and Disney pulls out all of the stops for this one. Everybody lines up the streets......crammed like sardines.....waiting for it to begin. Oh, and by the way.........nice Christmas decorations everywhere, too.

The parade began and it was stunning. I don't know how many lights they use....but I can tell you that there are lights everywhere....on the floats......on the people........everything in the parade.

Here's Chip & Dale at the piano.

You should see the faces of people as they looked at each float approaching.

Of course, this is Ariel, the Mermaid Princess. She also happens to be one of Princess Fartknocker's favorite Disney characters. Yep........she was in the parade.

This is Ariel's parade float................amazing stuff.

.........And you gotta have Minnie Mouse in the parade.........who doesn't like this?

At the end of the day......and it was an entire day.........we got on the tram to take us back to our cars. If you have ever been here, you know what this is like.

I have some more to share with you about my day at the Magic Kingdom and I will write about that in the next few days.

Stay tuned!

Florida Trip Part Two

When we left Baltimore, there were snow flurries............when we got to Florida, Florida was rather chilly. I have a newfound perspective of the term "chillin'" at this point. I ain't complaining, this is all good...........I am glad it isn't 100 degrees.........but let's just say that there are certain appendages on the male species that are not built for shockingly cold water. The pool heater apparently had not been turned on until we arrived and it needed some time to reach a nice comfort level.

Meanwhile......out in the yard.......well.......and just about everywhere else in Florida, I am reminded of one of the not so finer points of living or visiting Florida.................the infamous fire ants. Here you can see a few of their luxury homes.

While the fire ants are crawling up your legs and biting the daylights out of you, you would be doing what I was doing...............looking up instead of down...........always remember to watch where you walk in Florida...............but how could I not look upward at God's artwork? It is just so awesome.

Everyday, we can see another one of the finer things about Central Florida........its wildlife. In particular, the vultures........uh.........turkey buzzards. For some reason they seemed to want to congregate on the roof and in the yard of one of the homes nearby. I couldn't figure out why, exactly, that they choose that particular spot every day...........hmmmm.......vultures........vultures usually swarm over dead stuff in the road, don't they?........hmmmm.......I hope there ain't a dead person in that house.

Speaking of birds...........here is one of the towel sculptures that are in each bathroom of the "villa". I mention these because I saw none of this at the Occidental Grand Hotel in Aruba. It is a nice touch and is nice to see when you spend an enormous amount of money on vacation. On this one point alone, this "villa" beats out the Occidental Grand.

A bathroom for every bedroom.......and that is a necessity for a large family.

How hard would it have been for the maids at the Occidental Grand in Aruba to have done at least this?

The "villa" is a privately owned home that is rented out to vacationers who want to stay within ten minutes of Disney World. If you asked me, this sure beats staying at a hotel.

Fully furnished. Fully equipped........and very comfortable.

Big screen television..........computer for you to use...........perfect for a family.

Have a look around the place........

This area is on the second floor..............why fight over the tv?......there is one in every bedroom too.

The garage is converted to a play center with a couch, a pool table, a foosball table, and an air hockey table.

Here is the small breakfast table in the area that opens out to the pool.

Nice kitchen too.
Yep.......my son-in-law brought his margarita maker with him.........of course ......hehehe.

Would you spend Thanksgiving here at this place?.............that is what we are doing.

Have a look at the bedrooms.......if you can't fit a decent sized family in this house, you might want to go on a family diet for five years before taking a vacation.

What is not to like about this?

Six bedrooms.
The kids liked having their own rooms.

And my kids liked having their own rooms as well.

You can see what a value this place is.

Even the toilet has its own room in the master bathroom.

Here is where we will spend Thanksgiving 2008.

So far, so good :)

Stay Tuned..........Signtopia Goes To Disney!

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody!

Florida Trip Part 1

We made it to Florida safe and sound.............we even arrived a bit too early and had to kill off some time. The villa would not be available to us until 4 pm on Saturday. Originally, we figured we would stop in Daytona Beach but I figured that we could head to the Kennedy Space Center and that would be perfect for a time killer. We had taken the kids to the Space Center when the kids were small and I thought it would be great to take the grandkids there.

After parking the cars, we walked to the entrance of the Kennedy Space Center and I was stunned at the site of the ticket booths...............it costs alot of money to visit the space center now. When we had been here before, it was always free of charge except for the bus tour that takes you out to the launch pads. I was disgusted...........well.......I was pretty pissed off about this. We all decided that this wasn't gonna flush...............

Number Two Son posed next to the price sign. As you can see, what was once free is no longer free. I always thought of the Space Center being our tax dollars at work. This property belongs to every citizen of the United States. We all paid our tax dollars for this. We already paid.......and we ain't gonna pay no more. This is just yet another form of raising tax dollars even higher. Since they have done this.........they will soon charge (if they haven't already begun to do so) for everything you want to visit in Washington DC........such as the Smithsonian, the Air & Space Museum, etc. Don't get me wrong here, I believe that the Space Center is a worthwhile place to visit. Obviously, many people think so as well. The Space Center always attracted a huge amount of visitors.............when it was free. I would bet that those numbers have dropped in a huge way now that they charge a fee.

So this is all that my grandkids got to see. These taxpayer funded museum pieces of history sit within view of all who approached the entrance. As it turned out, I really needed to visit the men's room and fortunately for me there were facilities near the entrance. I looked inside the front doors of the attraction and saw what you would see at every airport...........scanners and checkpoint charlie.........people had to remove their shoes and empty their belongings into bins for "security purposes". Now I was furious about this whole situation. I told Supernurse...."This men's room had better be clean or I am gonna dump a huge load right on the floor of this place!." Supernurse started to laugh but she knows I was serious and would actually have done such a thing.............I did this once at a gas station/convenience store halfway between Nashville and Baltimore. Fortunately for everyone involved, the restroom was very clean this time......hehehe.

Because we had lived in Merritt Island for some time awhile back, I pretty much knew my way around and decided that Cocoa Beach was a very short drive away.........so we got into the cars and headed to the beach to kill off some time.

When we lived here, Cocoa Beach was never a place that we spent time......we had other thing to do.........but I do remember it as being a place that surfers enjoyed. We headed for the pier area and yes......there were surfers there. Unfortunately, the weather was not ideal.......it was very breezy and cold. Yes, it gets cold in Florida sometimes.

I am surprised that the pier is still here. After spending the majority of vacations lately in the Caribbean, this beach almost hurt to look at it.

Apparently nobody bothers to remove the seaweed that washes up onto the beach........and I got the impression that not many folks bother to use trash cans. Oh well...........this was gonna have to do for now......so we walked around and picked up alot of shells.

Number Two Son and his friend Dave were analyzing the situation.

They watched the surfers in the water..........and the few brave souls that dared go for a swim. The water was rather rough.

My grandson, Mayor Of Simpleton, roamed the beach for shells.

It looks to me that underneath the pier, you can see that things ain't very straight. You can rest assured that this might not be here too much longer...........if a hurricane has its way with it.

As you can see, not very many people were out on the beach......way too cold.


Princess Fartknocker was busy getting shells........she seemed to enjoy herself except when one of the seagulls came near her.

I love the beach........but I was not loving this one. This was dissappointing.............the USA could do better than this.

One last look before we headed west to Kissimmee.

We arrived in Kissimmee.......and we immediately found a Krystal burger place. My daughter just had to have some Krystal burgers. After we feasted on Krystals, we finally arrived at our destination.

Whoa..............this is the "villa"..............nice.............this beats staying at a hotel.

Here is a look beyond the rear wall behind the house. Nicely landscaped.

And there is a really nice built-in pool and it is screened in to keep all of those notorious Florida bugs away.
But it is too cold for a dip right now......we will have to wait for the pool to heat up in a day or two.

There is a small kiddie pool and a jacuzzi!...........exactly what we needed.

I will put up the pictures of the interior of the "villa" in the next installment..............you know you want to see inside.

We all settled in and got plenty of rest after the long road trip. Sunday came and it was Game Time!..............all of the boys and men must see the Ravens game and we went to a place called Beef O'Brady's to watch the game and eat. Of course the Ravens won!.........it was a nice treat to start off my birthday.

Later that day, we all loaded up the cars and headed to a place called Angel's for dinner. Lobster........all you can eat!

The place was pretty interesting.............lots of neon and memorabilia.

Imagine that..........Number Two Son had essentially the same coat.

My grandson, Signtopia Expansion Pack 2.1, was ready to gobble up some food.

Princess Fartknocker, is obviously in a state of bliss in anticipation of seeing all of her favorite characters at Disney............uh........maybe she was in heaven because they had macaroni and cheese here...............oh well...........

This dinner was very special for me. My daughters wanted to take me somewhere special for dinner on my birthday and anytime you can have seafood, including lobster.......all you can eat.......well........that is pretty special......................but for me, what is more special than that is,........that they were with me. I could have been just as happy sitting on a curb eating a hot dog as long as they were with me on my birthday.

So we continued the celebration of my birthday by heading back to the "villa" for some cake..........yes.........chocolate cake.......mmmmmmmmm.

And there I was................it was a darned good thing there was only one candle. With all the hair on my face, it isn't a good idea to be anywhere near 53 flaming pieces of wax.

The adventure begins...............

Happy Birthday to ME!