Florida highlights

If we don't leave Florida later today then we'll be leaving early in the morning. I have a job interview in Chattanooga Tuesday afternoon. It's for a HR/Payroll Manager for a natural foods grocery store.

Before we go, I'd like to share a couple things. First, unique to Florida alone (for us) is the unusual wildlife. There are several of these cranes making themselves at home in the RV park. They walk around like they own the place. It may be difficult to tell in the photo but they're about 4 feet tall.

On Friday we went to Disney's Animal Kingdom and Epcot Center. The safari ride is one of my favorite things because every ride is different. Five years ago a Rhino walked in front of our truck. This time, giraffes did the same thing. However, the ostriches made even more of a scene. They held up our truck for about 15 minutes while they pecked at it's trimmings. They were probably within touching distance of the people on the first row. We were on about the fourth row. Seeing an ostrich up close like this was pretty neat.

Then, in Epcot I saw a new egg art. Well, the art itself is about 2000 years old, but it was new to me. It originates in Germany. For those of you who know about the Ukrainian Egg Art that I've done, it's similar in that the design starts with a pencil drawing. The artist then paints on the egg using water colors. The end result is just as amazing with as much, or as little, detail as Pysanky (Ukrainian).

Saturday we went to one of Disney's water parks called Typhoon Lagoon. We had a ball! My camera stayed home so I can't share any photos but I'll try to share some highlights. First, there is the wave pool which is a lot of fun. Secondly we snorkeled (briefly) in a tank with lots of colorful fish, small sharks and some stingray. So, this is the second time I have swum with sharks! I was exiting a very large stingray was on the platform in front of me. Not to worry though, their barbs were removed.

Then, of course, there were water slides. I declined to do the really steep fast one but the others were all great. Finally, there was the creek filled with inner tubes. When our feet would start to get sore from walking we'd float on the creek for a while. Sometimes we just relaxed but most of the time we'd play bumper tubes or try to push each other into the different streams of water designed to get you good and wet.

The temperature was just right for playing all day. It started getting cool about closing time so it was perfect.

It may have to wait until we get to Chattanooga but I'll post more photos in our online photo album. Feel free to check it out. http://travelingturtles.myphotoalbum.com/