The two-day drive (for me) between Asheville, NC and the Orlando area (actually Kissimmee/Lake Buena Vista for Walt Disney World) went fairl uneventfully -- no highway blockages or major construction. Not thrilled about DGS singing along to his i-pod -- afraid he's inherited my nonmusical gene, poor kid, fortunately he has lots of other stuff going for him. Stopped about halfway in Richmond Hill, GA -- dinner at a marginal "Mexican" restaurant and stayed in an okay Days Inn ($39.95 with coupon). Included breakfast was also fine. DGS kind of melted down when I thought we were going to end u [View Full Entry]

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Well, hopefully I've learned not to make promises about maintaining my Blog -- no luck with "Trips" feature, and obviously I didn't do any entries while actually on the trip. In hindsight it was a pretty good trip, but often seemed less than magical while we were there (the heat and crowds were worse than I had expected), and I'm looking foward to my next trip to Florida this Fall. Several highlights and no major problems -- some "learning experiences." If we hadn't been mostly staying in timeshare units, it probably would have been a much worse trip. Started out in [View Full Entry]

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Anxious to be on the road for Florida. Tried to do the new "Trips" feature to separate this out, but wasn't successful -- so if there are any new readers -- you can just wander on into my past year as well. I pick up DGS tomorrow to begin the drive to Lake Buena Vista (aka Orlando). It's a two-day trip for me, altho most people just take one day from here. Disney Parks are nostalgic for me -- starting from my "tween" years getting to go to Disneyland with my Aunt and Uncle in the mid/late 1970's. I love the [View Full Entry]

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1/2/09 - Friday - our last day, sigh. (And getting home). Have kind of fizzled out today. Kind of stiff and sore from jet ski ride yesterday, so just relaxing around the resort and thinking about packing. DD and DGS have been out and about running errands and doing some last minute shopping. I got in some hammock time and sun time by the pool. DGS had a little football and pool time. It’s a little cloudy and the effort of packing up and going to the beach, then hauling everything back and cleaning up is almost sounding like work at [View Full Entry]

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Looks like I'm behind in finishing up the report about this trip. We got home fine, on schedule Saturday evening. Will fill in some final details and add some more photos in the next few days. [View Full Entry]

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1/1/09 - My New Year’s Resolution is to never ride a jet ski again! Well, maybe not “never again” but certainly only if I am in control of it, and am not on any kind of a schedule to get somewhere and back. We had thought about doing the waverunner trip to the Stingray Sandbar because it sounded fun, and something we haven’t done before, but had second thoughts and put our name on the list for the early morning boat (we thought). Turned out with it being New Year’s Day, the boat wasn’t going out til later, so we opted [View Full Entry]

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12/31/08 - Another Beautiful day in Grand Cayman - Happy New Year’s Eve. Pretty much the typical “eat, go to the pool, eat, go to the beach, eat, go to the hammock” day today (one of those that doesn’t involve spending much money at all). While the young’uns were at the pool, I wandered around and took some more resort photos and video, found a couple of starfish out by the dock. DGS played “football” with another boy out on the rough sand for quite awhile. We tried to work up to snorkeling out toward the dock, but decided against it. [View Full Entry]

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12/30/08 - A slow day checking out more sites and beaches in Grand Cayman. Some hard rain in the early morning, and a cloudy start to the day, so we got off to a slow start this morning. Balcony too wet for sitting out for breakfast. Eventually gathered up and headed out on another exploration day in late morning, with packed lunch (more turkey sandwiches, and PBJ for DGS). We headed east again on the bypass, to avoid busy cruise ship day in town. Just went to look for the small golf course that is mentioned in one of the guide [View Full Entry]

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Monday, 12/29/08 -- Shopping on non-cruise ship day on Grand Cayman. Typical day on Grand Cayman: Eat, go to pool; eat, go to beach; eat, go to hammock! That was yesterday; a little variety today - we went shopping, which is another very popular activity here. We don’t do the high end duty-free shopping however. Last night I forgot to include hammock time, which is one of my favorite times at this resort, even when it’s rather windy and chilly. Something about it is very enjoyable for me. Today we had our usual pool and ray time in the morning after [View Full Entry]

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12/28/08, Sunday - At leisure in Grand Cayman. The resort has an intro program on Sunday morning at 9:30, with refreshments and activity vendors visiting. No cereal or muffins this year, just juice and coffee. There is more staff here than at the first place we stayed. There’s a lobby with a desk that is staffed until 11 p.m., some groundskeepers working throughout the day, an activities director, a restaurant and bar. The host this morning said he is the new manager, named Mike. Vendors included the on-site dive shop/tour arrangers, Pampered Ponies (horse rides), waverunner/ka [View Full Entry]

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