Life is a Beach 2009

We hit the beach this week (Sunday-Thursday). Per our normal routine, we went to the Destin/Fort Walton area of Florida. We stayed at the Island Princess on Santa Rosa Blvd again.

We had nice weather for the week - one rain shower and temperatures in the 80's. It couldn't get much better.

Our diet consisted almost entirely of seafood the entire week. Sunday upon arriving in Destin we went straight to the Back Porch for a late lunch/early dinner. Monday we dined at Pompano Joe's, Tuesday we visited Louisiana Lagniappe, and the Wednesday was Graffiti's. Ginger's favorite was definitely Graffiti's.

Jordan was pleased to visit the water park and The Track (go carts) while in town. Brianna got to drive a go cart on the family track all by herself. She did very well and even passed a few carts. Go Bri!

It would have been nice to have stayed a few more days, but I had to return to HSV. The Summer of Rick is officially over. I started back to work today.

One of my favorite things about going on vacation is losing track of the day of the week. The kids are on Spring break this week and so am I.

Today J' asked me "What day of the week is it?" All I knew for sure was that it was not Sunday. At least two of us are really enjoying Spring break.

MLK

School was out today so I had no place to be. Gotta love the extra holidays. I spent some time preparing for the school week but mostly I spent the day hooking up a new dual tuner Tivo and doing more cleanup work in the garage.

Our old Tivo was purchased in February of 2003 I believe. Yesterday it started making a horrible screeching sound. I believe one of the hard drives was ready to go. I unplugged it last night (to silence it) and today when I plugged it back in, it just didn't work. Unfortunately I had just recorded about 35 hours of Barrett-Jackson. I guess I missed it this year.

In the garage, I plugged a few holes in the ceiling with insulation and got the heater back online. The drip pan in the HVAC unit was full of water. There is a float switch in the pan which disables the unit when water is present. I vacuumed the water out of the pan and then turned the thermostat up to 50 and set the fan to on. Hopefully the constant flow of air will help dry the walls and stairs. Someone needs to change the air filter!

I also spent some time drying the grade-8 bolts that managed to get completely submerged in water this weekend. After drying them with a heat gun I packaged them in sandwich bags and labeled the bags. They are ready to go when I get another chance to work on the GMC. Drying washers/nuts/bolts with a heat gun is a zen-like experience.

And speaking of weather (someone did mention weather didn't they?), shortly after lunch some white stuff started falling from the sky. At first it looked like snow, then ice, and finally snow again. I made the little people come outside for a few minutes so they could look at a crystal-like shape of a few snowflakes. They were not impressed.

It is almost tax time. Yippee.

Happy New Year and Other un-related Superflous Foo-Foo

On Tuesday December 30, we boarded a plane headed for Disney World. This time we stayed at Riverside in Port Orleans. I returned home on Sunday January January 4. The rest of the family stayed until Monday. (I had a school obligation on Monday.)

We managed to shut down almost park every night. Most nights at least one of the parks stayed open until midnight. That generally got us back to the room by 1 AM. The first night we were there, the Magic Kingdom was open until 3 AM. We split the scene around 2 AM.

If you can handle it, late night at the parks is a good idea. We generally managed to ride more rides in the last two hours than we had all day long due to the decreased crowds. A good plan is to head out early, return the room for an afternoon rest and then back at the park for the evening and late night hours.

While there I rode the Tower of Terror 5 times (in one night), Expedition Everest 13 times (over two days). Thunder Mountain seven times (over two days) , Spash Mountain twice, and Space Mountain twice. I also rode the train in two parks (yippee!), Pirates of the Caribbean (no wait), and many many more. We only rode Spaceship Earth once this trip. My favorite show was again Mickey's Philharmagic in the Magic Kingdom.

I got to see three complete fireworks shows (Epcot/Magic Kingdom/Epcot), the other nights we missed them while queued up for roller coasters.

My favorite Dining experiences this trip were Le Cellar (Canadian section of Epcot), Coral Reef (Epcot), and the BoatWright (Riverside at Port Orleans). I missed the trip to Ohonua (in the Polynesian Resort) because I returned home early, but it was fantastic the last time we were there. We also dined at the Mexican restaurant whose name I can't recall (Mexican section of Epcot) and The Wave (Contemporary Resort). The last two were good, but I would be willing to try something else next time.

January at Disney World provides primo weather. Sunny and 70 for the entire trip. Excellente!

Just like our last trip to Disney World (January 2007), I managed to lose track of what day of the week it was on this trip. That is the true sign of a great vacation.

Be Sure to Drink Your Ovaltine

I will be offline for a few days. Better things to do than hang around here writing mundane blog entries. We are heading down to see Mickey and Donald for a few days.

When we made the trip a few years ago, I took my laptop with me. The only time I took it out of the bag was at the airport. This year I will leave it at home rather than lug it all over the southeast. Surely I can last a few days without internet access.

See you in the funny papers.

We are home from the beach and I resolved the problem with my IP address.

The trip home took about six hours and twenty minutes which included three stops.

Before leaving the beach this morning, I went out on the balcony early enough the see the sun rise. Again, I missed it, not because of clouds this time, but because the sun rose to far to the north. Instead of being above the gulf, it rose behind the condo next door.

Last night we dined at the Crab Shack. The crab dip was excellent.

Some folks staying in the same condos, had their wedding ceremony on the beach Saturday evening. Seems risky to me, what with the possibility of sunburn, seaweed, jelly fish, sharks, thunderstorms, and sand in your shorts.

It is good to be home.

Assuming you count the day we arrived, today is day three at the beach. The Ada guys would all count that as Day One; the C guys count it as Day Zero. Big Bird would simply increase the array size by one and not worry about what he doesn't understand.

Day two went very smoothly, no jumper cables were required. The kids (and Seester) all awoke before me. I think she was actually a victim. G' prepared pancakes and bacon for breakfast and then we all headed for the beach.

After a brief interaction with the omnipotent god of the beach umbrellas, we set up shop and began to make a sea wall of sand to hold back the waves. (I thought I was going to let it go with just that single statement, but it appears I was wrong. As I can imagine iMike saying "Hey buddy, there is a reason there is only one dollar in your tip jar." ) The sea walls eventually collapsed.

We have watched two movies so far. Juno and Thankyou for Smoking. Juno was definitely the better of the two.

The dinner hour last night consisted of a trip to The Light House restaurant. The place was huge though practically empty. The food was good, the prices reasonable, and absolutely no wait at all. I decided the reason the place was empty was simply its location; it was not on the beach, and not directly on the main road.

Time to head back inside. The thunder and lightening are getting closer and the sunrise will be obscured by the clouds.

We have enjoyed having Seester here with us.

I woke up early this morning. Good thing I didn't take a nap yesterday or would have probably been up all night. I am sitting on the balcony in a fairly comfortable chair with my laptop waiting for the sunrise. I am equipped with a camera in case I decide the moment needs to be captured along with a small Starbucks coffee Frappuccino.

A small Ford tractor just passed by on the beach below with its headlights on. It was heading west dragging some sort of beach grooming device behind it. The clouds to the south above the water appear dark and occasionally I feel the rumble of thunder coming from the west, obviously further down the beach than the current location of the tractor. The waves are large this morning keeping the scavenger birds along the beach on their toes. The flags will definitely be red today.

As the sun approaches the horizon, a few adventurous souls head toward the waters edge. From the east a woman approaches carrying a coffee cup, probably almost empty. Directly below me, a family of three emerges. The son appears intent on crab hunting, the mother on seeing the sunrise, and the father on ruining the moment because he would rather still be in bed. Lightening appears to the southwest followed several seconds later by a mild clap of thunder. Or two. The small family turns around and heads for the boardwalk.

Life's a Beach (again)

I went to sleep Wednesday evening at home and woke up this morning in Florida. Yeah, I know today is Friday and I failed to mention Thursday.

Thursday consisted of a quick 6 hour trip from HSV to FL. We arrived about 2:30 pm, 30 minutes early for check-in. I shall not elaborate about the next hour and a half other than to say I need to buy a set of jumper cables for G's 4x4.

Seester also drove down from ATL, GA so we have a whole condo full of fun here.

We went to the Back Porch for an early dinner consisting for fried seafood goodness.

Due to my bouncing Internet back at home, my IP address has changed and this entry shan't be seen by you until after I return home. Probably.

I brought a wireless router with me so that we could all share the network connection here. As I look around me, there are 4 laptops being used for various purposes. What a bunch of nerds. It's good to be king.

Home Again
Yesterday we visited Ruby Falls. This turned out to be pretty cool. You ride an elevator down a couple hundred feet in the ground and then fallow a twisting path thru the rock almost a quarter of a mile before you walk into a large cavern containing the Falls. According to the story, this cavern was discovered by accident while trying to gain access to another cave.

Afterwards we didn't stop for lunch at Krystal's. The Krystal's corporate head quarters is in Chattanooga. I figured that lunch here would be an experience of some sort. The kids protested (a lot) so we ended up at a local Mexican establishment down the street.

Just for the record, it really does it exist: The Tow Truck Museum.

Afterwards we caught an afternoon movie across the street from the hotel. National Treasure: Book of Secrets. The movie gets a rating of good enough.

After the movie, Terry pointed her pony towards Atlanta. From the 4th floor of the hotel, we could hear the ponies snorting when she cranked it up.

The rest of us returned to Big River Grill and Brewery for dinner.

We woke today to another frosty morning. After breakfast in the hotel, we loaded up the Tahoe and headed towards home.

Once in Alabama, we took a 5 mile detour to visit Russel Cave National Monument. This is the 3rd longest mapped cave in Alabama measuring over 7 miles long. We only got to go in about 30 feet.

This afternoon, after arriving back home, I took the '25 out for a short drive clocking in about 8 miles. The temperature was in the high 40's but was plenty warm with my fleece jacket, gloves, and a warm hat.

Vacation Time!

NYD we reached escape velocity and exited HSV. We travelled via Tahoe to Chattanooga where once again we are busy chatting about noogas.

We arrived yesterday in plenty of time to get a nap in and let the kids hit the indoor pool. We dined last night at "Big River Grill and Brewery". I tried the IPA and the Vienna Lager. I believe this place is owned by Gordon Biersch.

After dinner we made a trip to the local Wal-Mart to pick up some snacks and supplies. We got to see some pretty serious snowfall during our evening outing.

This morning we visited the 'Nooga Aquarium. Actually both of them. It was cold out and very few tourist were visiting with the fish. The afternoon consisted of more napping and swimming.

Terry arrived today in time for dinner. We went to "Sticky Fingers" for some ribs. We intended to catch a movie to bug dinner went long. Maybe tomorrow.

Also on the agenda tomorrow is a visit to Ruby Falls. Google it.