Whirlwind Tour of the South

Steve:

I haven't posted anything in a month.  Sorry.  Been running around too much.  So here is a quick summary of what has happened in the last month.

We finished our time in Samara with very little pomp and circumstance.  A last visit to that favorite restaurant, a last surf, a last sunset walk.  We hopped the bus to San Jose (long ride starting at 4:00 a.m.) and waved good-bye to the only home our children have ever known other than San Rafael.  A day and a half worth of schoolwork in the hotel later, we were on the plane to Miami, Florida.  We got in super late after being delayed 4 or 5 hours.  We checked into a terribly run-down hotel, ate a midnight dinner that we shared with a cockroach and a spider and then went to bed.  Up the next morning in time for laundry and breakfast.  Josh and I did do a little walk along the boardwalk in Miami Beach.  We wished we had time to jump in the ocean so as to compare to Samara, but alas, it was not meant to be.  All we could find for breakfast was a Dunkin' Doughnuts.  We ran into more Hassidic Jews in that half an hour than I have in the rest of my life combined (not including my two weeks in Israel).  We then met with Carol's extended family and boarded the Norwegian Cruise Lines ship bound for the Bahamas.  That was it for Miami sightseeing for us (cockroaches, doughnuts, and a spooky dungeon laundry room).

It really was cool getting the whole family together for the first time ever on Thanksgiving.

The cruise was a perfect way to catch up with relatives.  We had a very nice time every meal chatting it up with cousins and aunts and grandmas and such.  Sadly, the cruise itself was a bit of a bust for us, other than the family reunion part.  Having been on a few other cruise lines, we found Norwegian to be a bit lacking in entertainment options and service and such.  It wasn't bad, it just wasn't up to the high standards that we had become accustomed to.  And saddest of all, though nobody's fault, we did not get to do the one day ashore that we were all looking forward to.  The cruise line owns a small Bahamian island called Great Stirrup Cay.  We were going to snorkel and swim and possibly even scuba dive, but due to high winds, the ship never docked.  Oh well, the turkey dinner was good.

The Queen's steps near Fort Fincastle in Nassau were the only highlight of visiting the Bahamas.

We said our good-byes to the relatives and rented a car to start our 1200 mile road-trip up the southeastern coastline of the good 'ole U.S. of A.  We were given a Fiat at first.  It was supposedly "similar" to the compact car we ordered, but the little detail about not having a trunk for our nine pieces of luggage was hard to reconcile.  They offered a minivan, but that wasn't going over well either given the 1200 miles of road ahead.  So we stood our ground until they came out with a luxury sedan that has been nothing short of SWEET!  Driving has been a breeze.

We went to Orlando first (Josh's blog post will speak to that).  Harry Potter World was awesome.  You really felt like you were part of the wizarding world in much of it.  The kids each bought a wand and have been dueling ever since.  Next we went to the Magic Kingdom and were treated to a nifty new laser show on the side of Cinderella's castle, followed by the requisite fireworks.  Fantasyland is being rebuilt to be about the Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast and other more recent Disney Blockbuster's.  We managed to spend about ten hours without going on a single ride that we'd been to before in our multiple visits to Disneyland.  At the end we caught Space Mountain and the Haunted Mansion just for old time sake, but it was nice to spend the majority of our time in new territory.  The last day in Orlando we spent at the Animal Kingdom.  It was far cooler than I expected.  I figured Mickey Mouse meets the San Diego Wild Animal Park was all I was in for.  But they did a great job of making it more than a glorified zoo.  The Lion King show was as good as the Broadway musical (though much shorter).

Chloe got to drive the "real" speed boat in the huge lake outside of the Magic Kingdom resort!

Our Disney hotel was hoops themed.  Look closely, I got the rebound!

Hogwarts castle in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter was quite convincing in the distance.

The enchanted castle in Fantasyland was lit up for the Holidays.

Its all the green M&Ms that made him this horny.

You get up real close to the wildlife in the Animal Kingdom.

Chloe is sporting a new Bahamian 'do while attacking her first breakfast in Disneyworld.

We left Orlando to head back to reality with our first stop being St. Augustine, Florida (the oldest city in the country, circa 1565).  We spent an hour or so at Fort Castillo de San Marcos.  Super cool!  It was built in the 1670's by the Spanish to keep out the British and successfully withstood half a dozen major assaults over a hundred year period. Then it was held by the British (after the Treaty of Paris which ceded Florida to the Brits) to keep out the upstart colonists during the 1770s.  Americans used it as a prison in the early 1800s and the confederate army used it during the Civil War.  It never fell.  Mostly due to the crazy shell filled "soft" sedimentary rock that its walls were made of which was capable of catching cannon balls with out cracking.

Josh is standing sentry in the Fort.  Judging by the window behind him, the Spanish were pretty short!

After St. Augustine, we went to Savannah Georgia to check out Southern architecture.  The highlight was Forsyth park in the middle of town which was lined with beautiful trees and stunning mansions.  We checked out the synagogue of the oldest Jewish congregation in America (dating back to the mid 1600's).  It looked more like a Catholic church than a temple if you ask me, but the Hebrew all over the place gave it away.

Details like this carving are everywhere in Savannah.  They just don't build 'em like they used to.

Next we hit Charleston, South Carolina.  We went to an old slave market to learn some American history that was less "God Bless America"-ish than the kids usually get exposed to.  But the highlight here was definitely the Boone Hall plantation that we visited outside of town that is the oldest continuously running plantation in the States.  We toured the thousand of acres of what were once cotton-fields tended by hundreds of slaves who lived on the plantation.  We also toured the mansion on the estate and the few slave cottages that were still standing.  The plantation was turned into pecan groves after the emancipation of the slaves (who simply became share-croppers and were not much better off) and then converted again to a multi-crop conventional modern farm after Hurricane Hugo wiped out the pecan trees.  Lots of history for our home-schoolers!

Slave quarters.  Josh is in the tree.

Avenue of the Oaks is the most photographed bit of any plantation in America.

650 year old oak tree and 21 years worth of kid.

Next up was Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where we have crashed at Gail and Paul's house for the past couple of days.  For those that don't know, Gail and I went to high school and college together.    Their home is gorgeous (not to mention huge).  Nothing like North Carolina property prices to actually allow one to live in her dream home!  They have been perfect hosts.  They took us to a holiday party within minutes of our arrival. We almost felt as if it were in our honor!  We went to a movie theater for the first time in three months.  We saw "The Life of Pi" and waited to the bitter end of the credits to see my little brother's name fly by for his piano work on the movie.  We also toured the Wake Forest campus.  That school is far too small to have all of the NCAA championships that they have.   I suspect foul play.  Perhaps hormone-laden hushpuppies?  Steroids in the grits?

Gail, Lauren, Hannah and Paul - best hotel south of the Mason-Dixon line!

Tomorrow we fly to Mexico.  Hopefully the next post will come while we are there.  We will miss how easy it is to find our way and to buy food and to rent a car and everything else that makes the U.S. great.  But we are ready to spice up the adventure.  Studying the 1500's is cool, but we want older!  Mayan ruins here we come.