Tuesday 9 July
Our campfire last night was lots of fun, and Sam was hilarious. The poor little boy was desperate to like toasted marshmallows – so desperate that after he spat out the first one, he went back twice more trying to toast them a different way and make himself like them. He was devastated to have to face the fact that he just does not like marshmallows! After the kids went inside to do their diaries and go to bed, Ross and I sat and watched the fire die and reflected on the holiday and the fact we go home soon 😦 We counted our blessings and favourite experiences, and Ross mentioned how amazing it was that no one had been sick…I joked about the medicine cabinet I had brought in a suitcase unnecessarily… This is important information considering what happened over the next three days…
We left Washington DC at 8am and travelled straight to Philadelphia to see the Liberty Bell. It was quite hot there, but easy to find parking. We wandered a few blocks and joined a long queue of people waiting in line for their turn to see the bell up close, which the boys were not impressed about. After a 20 minute wait, we toured through an exhibition of information and pictures, with the last stop being the Bell itself. As we took a photo of the kids in front of it, Tim noticed and quickly pointed out the glass wall behind it meant we could have skipped the queue and taken a photo from the outside of the building. Needless to say, I was more impressed than anyone else with the exhibition…
We then looked at Independence Hall from the outside, as the next tour was not for another two hours. We decided to move on, and on the way back to the RV, saw another tour you could pay for – called “Once Upon A Nation”, it was people sitting in a park while an actor in normal street clothes acted out scenes presumably relating to the Bell or dragging of the constitution etc. it was fun to watch from the sidewalk, especially the embarrassed glances of the two teenage kids sitting through the performance with their parents. I did tell the boys I could have signed them up for that rather than line up to see the bell.
Our next stop was the Temple Baptist Church, Uni and Hospital in Philadelphia, the site of the 57 cents story. This being a true story, it is just amazing what has happened and been built there. Sadly, we were only able to drive around the area, as there were so many detours for hospital renovations and roadworks, there was nowhere to park the RV. We tried the streets on the opposite side of the main highway, but it would have been a long walk back and the people in the streets there didn’t give us confidence that the neighbourhood looked too good. We moved on, stopping at an Applebee’s just off the highway for lunch.
Parking was plentiful at Pottstown, our next stop, which was an impulse detour off the highway as we saw a sign for another Outlet Centre. The boys were not happy to be shopping again, but Ross has been in search of sunglasses, and we felt this was our last opportunity to shop.
We picked the closest KOA to where we have to return the RV at Linden, New Jersey tomorrow. It was in Allentown, PA, 90 miles from the RV rental place. We didn’t have a chance though to enjoy its facilities as we had to find a Kmart/Walmart to buy another suitcase to carry all the purchases we have made while on this RV leg. An hour and $100 later, we returned to the KOA for a late “finish off what’s in the pantry” dinner – only $20 was spent on a duffle type bag as none of the suitcases were big enough, but the kids all got involved in the purchasing…hence why I try to shop without them at home…
Ross washed the outside of the RV (if we don’t return it clean, there is a $75 cleaning fee) while I showered the kids. I didn’t get them to bed until 10.30pm! And the older three were up later than that packing their bags. After everyone called it a night, I still had to bags left to pack. I finally turned in at 1.30am, and just as I was dozing, Belle appeared in our bed at 2am with a very high temperature. We had trouble getting it down, even with cold compresses and Panadol and Nurofen, and we sat up for the next hour or so just watching her sleep between us because of her fast breathing and high temps. I finally had to open some of the medicines I have been carrying around! 😦

Monday 8 July
We returned on the shuttle bus to DC today, and joined a trolley bus tour at Union Station to take us down the mall with informative commentary. It enabled us to hop on and off at different stops, so we alighted at the Jefferson Memorial, and walked from there to the FDR and Martin Luther King Jr memorials. This country has had some impressive orators and leaders.
We then walked past the Korean War memorial towards the Lincoln Memorial to catch a bus out to Arlington Cemetery. I had hoped to show the kids the changing of the guard and JFK’s burial site, but to tour the cemetery was an extra cost, and as it was 12.30pm by then I didn’t think they would be keen!
The bus took us around to the White House stop, and as we wandered down the street towards it, it started to pour. We ducked into McDonalds for lunch, which meant I could finally access wifi to check emails and upload several days’ diary entries – yay! However, it also meant I saw the latest news, like the plane crash at San Francisco …
After that we walked down and finally showed Sam Obama’s house. Not satisfied with that, he wants to go inside! We hopped back on the trolley bus there which took us to Union Station. That had been recommended to us as a good location for food and souvenirs. Unfortunately, we had seen better souvenirs at a shop near McDonalds, and decided not to purchase there because of the recommendation about Union Station. So sadly we have come away without any mementos, but Ross is cheering at the money saved 😉
We had some time before our shuttle bus returned to explore the visitors centre at Capitol Hill although we did just miss the last tour of the day. The airconditioned KOA bus with free bottles of water was a welcome sight just before 5pm, and we returned for another swim in the pool before a “scratch around” dinner to finish off our pantry supplies before we return the RV the day after tomorrow. As I sit by the pool writing this while the kids swim (Ross is in the RV reading a novel – shock, horror, he finally gets to rest and read six weeks in!!), the weirdest thing has happened. The lifeguard blew a whistle and ordered everyone out of the pool for a ten minute break! In some states they have had a rope across the middle of their pool, and when someone has stepped on it or pushed it under water, we have all been warned the pool will have to close if the rope falls down!?!
Tonight’s plan is a campfire (our first one!) amongst the fireflies. Tomorrow is Pennsylvania and packing to say goodbye to motorhome life!… 😦 … 😉

Sunday 7 July
The shuttle bus at the KOA office left promptly at 9am and took us in to the nation’s capital. It dropped us off at the Capitol Building, which was closed as it was Sunday, so we decided to wander down the Mall. We walked all the way from there to the Lincoln Memorial, which is quite a distance and seemed even longer in the heat – the kids had not-so-good memories of being hot and tired in Central Park and were afraid we were going to repeat that!
There were no crowds along the way, just several joggers, and we were interested to see informal games on the grassy area down the middle of soccer and rugby league, not American sports. We wandered to the Washington Monument (which has been closed for repairs since an earthquake in 2011), and past it to the World War 2 memorial,and Lincoln Memorial. It was great to be able to just stand and read Lincoln’s famous speeches set out on the walls either side.
From there we headed towards the White House. Sam has been talking about seeing “Obama’s house” since we left Sydney, so was very excited to finally do this. While every other child talked about Disney, meeting princesses, and rides they wanted to go on, Sam always had two places he wanted to go – New York and the White House! I still cannot explain why…
We looked at the White House from the other side of the field a block away, and had been planning to walk up to the gates, but everyone (adults as well as kids!) were so exhausted from the walk so far, and hot and hungry, that we detoured into the Ronald Reagan building where there was a food court. At 12pm Subway was an early lunch, but meant we had several hours still to explore. As we plan to do a trolley bus tour tomorrow, we decided to spend the next few hours in a museum. We picked the Natural History museum, and enjoyed the exhibits there as well as an IMAX movie about surfing in Tahiti, and we were able to get up close to the Hope Diamond.
The bus was ready and waiting for us when we returned to the Capitol Building at 4.45pm, so we returned to the campground for a refreshing swim. Ross ordered some firewood (which they package and deliver to your camp ring on site for $6) and marshmallows for toasting, but we had to evacuate the pool when a storm arrived suddenly, so much to the kids’ disappointment, the campfire is on hold until tomorrow night!

PS. Being unwell, I got a couple of days behind in recording diary entries, and we have not had good wifi each night, so I will publish these posts as soon as I have Internet connection for long enough! It is at the top of our debrief list that our biggest mistake was not to get wifi access – the salesman in Target where we bought our American phones told us we wouldn’t need it because places like Starbucks, Maccas etc have it for free, but it would have helped us to have it on the road, especially at the pace we have been travelling! 😉

Saturday 6 July
I woke up not feeling great today. I wasn’t feeling fantastic on the 4th, and by that night was not feeling like celebrating anyway, but this morning was worse. Nothing serious, just achy and tired and in need of a day in bed. Not possible here!
We set off at 8am from the town of Dunn and our motel stop there. We had seen signs for a factory outlet selling a range of things that was called JR’s and sounded a bit like Wall Drug with its range, so we decided to stop there on our way out of North Carolina. I sat in the front with Ross and dozed…and was no help or support to him for the rest of the day!
After a few purchases of souvenirs, we returned to the RV to travel on to DC. I booked us in last night to a KOA just north of Washington DC, which offers a shuttle bus in, with drop off and pick up at the Capitol Building. I went and had a sleep and woke up to find Ross had stopped at Denny’s for lunch. (Actually, they had stopped at Waffle House at Tim’s request, but I couldn’t stomach that, so convinced them to have a main meal at Denny’s and save waffles for another day). We are finding it convenient to have a main meal during the day when travelling of meat and vegetables etc at a restaurant and then we just do a light dinner in the RV once we have found a campground and set up for the night.
After Denny’s, I felt awake and thought I should sit up front and encourage Ross again in his Herculean effort of driving. Yesterday he did 378 miles, today 335 miles. I lasted all of about half an hour, swapped with Tim who IS good at supporting Ross while driving, and went and had another sleep. The older four kids take turns in the front, chatting to Ross, bringing him water and snacks, watching the Navman to make sure we don’t miss any turns; and today Jarrod started reading aloud to Ross as he is the only one who has not been able to read any of the novels he has while away.
Anyway, I slept right through Virginia, and woke up to find Ross backing the RV into our parking spot at the Maryland KOA!
We were given the last spot available here, and are very thankful for it! The place is buzzing with activity and people – I even had to wait to use the laundry which has not happened anywhere else. As well as the shuttle bus to DC, the place has a large playground, jumping pillow, outdoor table tennis and snooker and chess, and a large pool with lifeguard on duty. And tonight they had a free icecream social at 7pm and a movie at 8.30pm. The kids started to watch ‘Finding Nemo’ but admitted to being tired so we brought them back to the RV for bed before the movie finished. It appears no one else has had as much sleep as me today – I don’t have much idea at all of what went on, it is all a blur as I slept through most of it!

Friday 5 July
I made the mistake this morning of thinking because we had passed Savannah and were ahead of schedule, we could add a few extra stops in to our itinerary. Big mistake!
While doing laundry, I always check out the brochures advertising things to do in the area. I found a booklet last night on Beaufort and Port Royal, not far from the KOA and convinced Ross this should be our first stop today. Why? Because some organisation voted Beaufort one of the best 25 small towns in America! It was very pretty, and at Port Royal we stretched our legs and climbed a four storey observation tower which was an interesting detour. We talked there about the fact we have been away for 40 days – it just doesn’t seem that long, and it is hard to believe we will be heading home in a fortnight!
From there we headed to Charleston, and specifically to Boone Hall Plantation which I had read was the inspiration for Twelve Oaks in ‘Gone With The Wind’. We got lost trying to get there, probably lost an hour of the day in the process, and when we finally arrived found it was a $20pp admission fee to even drive on the property, and we did not have the time for the tours it offered. So after all that, we politely declined, did a u-turn and drove on in search of a restaurant for lunch.
We had been travelling up the coast road instead of the main highway so we could take in more sights, but that meant we didn’t come across anything except McDonalds. We kept going until we found a Cracker Barrel restaurant, and sat down to lunch at 3.30pm.
I reviewed our schedule there. My next planned (extra) stop had been Cape Fear in North Carolina, as I had read scenes of ‘Revenge’ were filmed there. But it was too much of a detour to the edge of the coast, and Ross felt our other plan of heading to Charlotte to see the Billy Graham Library was too far inland, so we sadly dropped both plans and hightailed it along the main highway, planning to get closer to Washington DC. Along the way I was ringing KOA campgrounds and we checked out any others we came across, but the KOAs were all full, so we pulled into a motel at about 7pm. We had planned on dinner on the RV, but were still full from our main meal at our late lunch, so fed the kids at Burger King next door while we used their free wifi to plan Washington accommodation and itinerary. While we have given up other stops we wanted to make today, this does mean we will have two full days in Washington DC.
The TV in the motorhome doesn’t work, so the odd stop at a motel sees the kids glued to it. And it seems they manage to find a Star Wars movie on every time! As a result I have not seen any news or caught any episodes of shows I watch at home and was wanting to get ahead on…

Thursday 4 July
We set off from Orlando this morning prepared for a day of driving after three days of theme parks.
Morning tea was at Daytona Beach, where we discovered an event was on at the speedway. Ross considered going to it until we saw several street corners full of men holding up signs saying “I need tickets”. We figured we wouldn’t have much chance of getting 8 tickets, so moved on!
We the drove on for hours, stopping only to shop and have lunch at Applebee’s. Abi has been mentioning how small the four walls of the motorhome are feeling the last couple of days, and lost it with some of her brothers this morning, so our shopping trip was mainly about buying her some books to read so she could escape mentally if not physically from everyones’ company! Interestingly, Jarrod is raving about how much fun it is to be all together in this RV, but I guess he manages to escape as we are driving, thanks to technology. His Media teacher told him his only homework while away was to edit home movies and photos. As if he needs any encouragement to do that! So while we are on the road, Jarrod spends a lot of time on his computer with headphones on tuned out to the rest of us. We have enjoyed a couple of “movie nights” for him to show us what he has done so far, and he is putting them on YouTube. His username there is keepingupwithj0neses, and he has so far completed the first ten days of the trip.
Our goal for tonight was Savannah, Georgia. I had researched the town and they had some spectacular plans for 4th of July. We wanted to celebrate with Americans, so I made sure we all wore red, white and blue. As we arrived in Savannah though, our plans quickly changed! We headed to the park where Forrest Gump sat waiting for a bus in the movie, but there was no parking nearby (and I later read the seat Tom Hanks sat on has been removed and put into a museum!). We then headed for the river where the celebrations were to occur, but again parking the RV was impossible and we saw people walking for ages with fold up chairs and supplies. As we are not set up for that, we decided to just move on.
We ended up in a town in South Carolina called Yemassee at a KOA there. We were there in time for the kids to swim, but it was a quiet night with no fireworks and we just had dinner in the motorhome. We had to relive the fireworks from Disney World the night before and call that our marking of the occasion!

Wednesday 3 July
The shuttle bus arrived promptly again this morning to take us to Disney World. I had planned on being there for two days, thinking it would be needed to do all the rides, and to celebrate the 4th of July in style. However, everyone on the shuttle bus yesterday talked us out of doing a theme park on the 4th, saying the crowds would be enormous. Apparently when Magic Kingdom reaches capacity of 180,000 people they shut the doors and don’t let anyone else in, and on special holidays and Christmas, that sometimes happens by 10.30am!
As soon as massive crowds was mentioned, Ross was shaking his head at me and I needed no further information. As much as we have enjoyed being here, we have decided to move on. We will leave a day earlier than intended and the KOA will give us a refund for the last night.
Being our last day at a theme park on this holiday, I have finally got my act together! I sat down last night at dinner with a Disney World map, colour coded all the rides and attractions (black = will not do, green = enjoyed in LA so will do if there is time, blue = must do!), and drew a path to achieve it.
And achieve we did! We started the day (which incidentally was cheaper than Universal yesterday) with a ride on the monorail and straight to Adventureland to do the Pirates of the Caribbean ride which is a favourite of everyone. Then the kids went on to Aladdin’s Magic Carpet ride and we all went straight into the Enchanted Tiki Room because Grandma had talked about it at Disneyland but we hadn’t had time there. We now have the repetitive Tiki song to annoy each other with…
I then made everyone sit through the Country Bear Jamboree, because I remembered being really impressed with it as a small child…a trip down memory lane, but not as impressive in this day and age! We took advantage of the lack of crowds and enjoyed an early lunch, and then lined up for the Haunted Mansion, a must do as everyone had enjoyed it in Anaheim.
After that we headed over to Fantasyland. They have been doing major upgrades here, and still have under construction a Princess Hall and a Seven Dwarfs Mine ride. Belle had been desperate to go here all morning to see Princess Belle and the Beast’s castle. There is a whole village set up called Belle’s village. We went straight to see Belle but there was a 75 minute wait, and the Little Mermaid ride had a 120 minute wait, so we ducked into a Mickey 3D show instead. It was VERY well done, everyone was hugely impressed.
Tomorrowland was next. We did a Stitch (from Lilo and..) ride which was just strange, Monsters Inc comedy show, Buzz Lightyear ride, the People Mover, and Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress. Walt Disney created this for the 1964 World Fair, and I could see how impressive it would have been in that day. Today it was a chance to sit and rest while we waited for the time on our FastPass for the Buzz ride!
Having done something in all other lands, we returned to line up for “Enchanted Tales with Belle”. Our Belle of course was totally enamoured by the whole experience. It took us through her house, and then into rooms in the Beast’s castle, and ended with meeting Princess Belle herself. Both Sam and Belle loved that, and had photos taken with her. Belle did ask me on the way out though which one was the real one, so I guess it must have been a little confusing after bear-hugging another Belle on the other side of the country!
Ross valiantly agreed to sit through Its A Small World again, and we all then enjoyed Peter Pan’s Flight again on a FastPass. It suddenly poured as we were discussing what to do for dinner, so we ducked into the nearest store, Gaston’s Tavern, for a light snack. Belle was very happy to be back in HER village to eat. The Carousel was next followed by The Little Mermaid ride, Winnie the Pooh ride and we considered (well, I considered…) a show on the US Presidents, but it’s 22 minute running time meant we would have missed the fireworks.
We actually watched the fireworks from Main Street near the exit to get a jump on crowds leaving, so we wouldn’t miss our ride! The fireworks were fantastic as usual, but had a special 4th July theme, with the finale being all red, white and blue fireworks with 50 stars amongst them, to patriotic songs. I love their patriotism!
We were early for the 10pm shuttle ride home thankfully. And once back at our RV we found a note from the couple we met yesterday to say they had a successful day, so we put the kids to bed and went to make a late night visit to them. They understood exactly what Abi had wanted, and went to the trouble to wrap it secretly in several layers, so I actually think I may be able to pull off this surprise! 😉
Apologies for the event by event detail, but this helps my memory of the day, and reminds me what we loved most. It is a shame not to be doing any more theme parks now I have the FastPass system down pat and know how to plan the day in advance. We had a very productive day, missing only two other rides we would have considered but did not because of rain. And while we didn’t do any of the other Disney Orlando theme parks, we all felt quite satisfied with what we had been able to do. Especially Ross, who feels all theme parked out!!

Tuesday 2 July
Everyone liked their wake up call of “It’s time to go to Universal” better than yesterday’s accountants joke – go figure!! No one dragged their feet about getting ready, and we were at the front office by 9am waiting for our shuttle bus.
There are several KOA RV parks in this area, but I picked this one because it offered a free shuttle bus service to all the theme parks. We met a lovely older couple from South Carolina heading to Universal as well. They were very chatty and had lots of good advice for us when they heard our itinerary. And our bus driver sounded like Mrs Wallace from OBPS, so we guessed her to be from Boston, but she quite indignantly said no, New Hampshire! Same area to us!
Once through the gates at Universal, we headed straight for the Harry Potter land, to find the rides there were all 75 minute waits, and there was nothing suitable for the little kids. So I bought everyone a Butterbeer (which Harry and his friends drink a lot of in the books – don’t worry Dad, it’s not really beer!), and we headed to the Jurassic Park land. There we rode on Pteranodon Flyers and as we alighted from the ride at 11.30am realised it was all we had done so far!
Universal at Orlando is two parks next to each other, and as some of the rides were the same as the ones we had done in Hollywood, we thought we would have no trouble doing both parks in one day. When we bought the admission tickets we were offered a fast pass so that we would never have to wait in a queue for a single ride, but as this added approx $100 to EACH ticket price (!) we politely declined. It did mean though that we missed out on doing two rides of interest to us – The Amazing Spider-Man (which had an 80 minute wait) and a Despicable Me minion ride, which varied between 75 minute and 110 minute waits!! If we hadn’t had to be back in place to catch the shuttle bus at 6pm, we probably would have waited in line for the Despicable Me ride, but couldn’t change the pick up time, and figured the day was long enough by then.
We had an early lunch to beat the crowds, during which time it poured. Ross went to buy ponchos for everyone, but refused when he found they were $8 each! We did the Carousel in the Dr Seuss land as it was undercover and then split up so that Ross could take the older three back to Harry Potter World, while I did the rest of Dr Seuss land with the little three. While the older kids lined up for the one major ride for 75 minutes, we did The Cat in the Hat ride, a playground area called If I Ran The Zoo, and a trolley train ride on a track up above Dr Seuss Land.
Once we met up again, we headed over to the other theme park, but soon found there wasn’t a lot there to do that was suitable for everyone. Both parks are so expansive too, that it takes a fair amount of time to move between them and from ride to ride. At 110 minutes we weren’t prepared to line up for Despicable Me, but we did do there a ride that was my favourite, the ET adventure. We checked out a couple of other rides, shows and stores, but then decided with the time we had left to return to the Islands of a adventure park and do some water rides.
On the river rapids ride, Belle and I happened to sit in the seats that were smashed and we were both SOAKED! Belle cried and asked me was she melting, but once the bigger kids told her she had “won” by being the wettest, she was very happy! We decided to do some souvenir shopping on the way out, were caught up in the Harry Potter souvenirs without even looking elsewhere, but the lines to the counter were so long Ross made me leave my purchases there so we wouldn’t miss the bus. We arrived at the meeting spot at 6.05pm to see the bus driving away! Thankfully, the couple we had met that morning saw us and made the driver return for us!
We returned to the RV park to shower and change out of our wet clothes, and I put some laundry on while we went to dinner. We went just to the top of our street to a restaurant Ross wanted to try called Bob Evans, another chain we saw a lot of around New York State. We enjoyed good meals with salad and vegetables, and everyone had a free cookie for dessert, and luckily Tuesday night was their kids eat free night!
The man from the bus was also doing laundry when we returned, and told me a lot of their background story and about his wife’s health battles. They have a two day pass to Universal, so are returning tomorrow. I shared with him that one souvenir item I nearly bought was a Harry Potter souvenir surprise for Abi for her birthday. (Aside here: while everyone has been good, mostly always well-behaved and fun to travel with, Abi has been excellent at mothering the little kids and helping us with anything and organising everyone…even if I do cringe at some of her words because they could have come straight from my mouth…).
Anyway, the kind man took money I gave him and is going to pick it up for me tomorrow, which is awesome as I had told her at dinner how I had nearly bought it but had to leave to catch the bus. I have to tell SOMEone the secret, so write it here knowing Abi will not read this and will now have a lovely surprise for her birthday when we get home…IF I can keep it a secret for that long…

Monday 1 July
I woke everyone with the words “Happy New Year!”, but they weren’t really impressed with an accountant’s joke to start a Monday morning…;)
From our location at Fort Pierce we headed towards the ocean. Morning tea was at Cocoa Beach, where we found a surf shop and bought some goggles and beach towels. There we were given directions to the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, so headed north planning to see a spaceship up close if possible before we headed to Orlando.
I cannot emphasise how much I underestimated the Space Centre. We drove a fair way into the area to park, arriving at 11.30am, and at the ticket office found the prices were $50 per adult and $40 per child. Part of me thought it was just too expensive and we should leave, but the kids were excited and we had travelled all that way…so much for the new financial year budget I had been constructing in the RV! 😉
Anyway, there were two IMAX movies to see (about the International Space Station and the Hubble Telescope); exhibits on the Hubble, and Mars Rovers, and space exploration then and now, and others; an Angry Birds Space Encounter play area (and gift shop!); a two hour bus tour out to the launch site; a memorial to astronauts that have died on duty (such as the Columbia and Challenger missions); and several jets and rockets to see. One exhibit included meeting an astronaut, but we skipped that because we didn’t know who he was. There was also a new exhibit called ‘Space Shuttle Atlantis’ which only opened on 29 June this year, and it was excellent. It provided background and history to Atlantis’ 26 years and 33 missions, information about the last mission of the space shuttle program in 2011, and we were then able to get up close to the actual shuttle. The bus tour was also excellent, and at one stop took us to the actual command room from which Apollo 11 was organised, and dramatised and replayed parts of that event.
What surprised me more than anything was how much today captured my attention. While I know where I was at the exact time the Challenger disaster occurred in 1986, I have never really followed the space program closely. I was expecting today to do a quick museum stop to see a rocket or two. Instead we were there eight hours and still didn’t get to see everything (we missed a couple of exhibits near the front gate, and only saw them as we were leaving after the 7pm closing time at 7.30pm). It was like another theme park, and we regretted underestimating it and not making an early morning start there to fit everything in. It was very impressive.
And of course the kids were impressed. Not surprisingly, Zac has a new “best day ever”, and spent a lot of the day videoing and narrating on the ipod, Abi told me three different times during the day she wants to go home and research space programs, and Jarrod wants to learn more about the Apollo missions. Sam said the day was “epic”, Tim wants to be an astronaut, and Belle announced loudly during the second IMAX movie that she wants to be a “princess AND a space astronaut”. So I guess they too were impressed and inspired by the day!
I feel it was money well spent and would certainly recommend it, but did find there was a lot of information to take in as I didn’t have a lot of prior knowledge.
Leaving there much later than we had anticipated, it was still another two hours to our accommodation at Orlando (which thankfully I had pre-booked last night). We arrived just before 10pm, set up quickly in the rain, and everyone was in bed promptly knowing tomorrow is going to be full-on. The plan is to go to Universal Studios, to ‘The Wizarding World of Harry Potter’!

Sunday 30 June
We left the Florida Keys this morning only once we had sourced key lime pie. I bought one slice “to go” for $3.95, and we all sat in the RV and taste tested. The result: Tim, Abi and Ross divided the remainder by three and polished it off! The others didn’t like it at all, and I thought it was ok, like lemon meringue (without the meringue, and lime instead of lemon!).
We drove through to Miami, planning to stop for lunch there. We headed for Miami Beach, intending to walk the boardwalk, but parking was impossible to find, so we redirected the motorhome straight to Fort Lauderdale.
Lunch was at a Denny’s on the way, so we could use their wifi. Ross found a review that suggested parking your RV at Harbor Shops, and catching a trolley bus from there to Fort Lauderdale’s beaches and Galleria mall, for 50 cents each. We found that a really good way to see the sights of the area. We had planned to get off at the beach on the way back, spend some time there and then re-board another bus as they toured every 15 minutes, but as we drove past and saw how choppy the water was and how windy the beach was, we decided to skip that and continue the sightseeing.
When the trolley bus returned us to our RV, we then drove another 107 miles to a KOA campground for the night.
Unfortunately we had some bad weather on the way and it has been raining all night, so no swim in the pool or time at the playground. The kids were stuck inside for the evening. We turned on the TV for the first time in this motorhome! Ross cannot get cable tv to work, so the kids watched a DVD I bought for $5 at Walmart. It is a Curious George movie, set in NYC, and it is fun to listen to them watch it and call out sights they have been to when they appear on the screen like the Empire State Building and Central Park! 😉