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Published: August 7th 2007
May 5th to 12th 2007 Warning: This was a long one week road trip and will be quite a descriptive blog ... so don’t start it if you don’t have time or will be able to read it in parts, but hopefully you will all enjoy sharing our experiences.
As with any long trip, the planning and anticipation was really fun for this one too. Our parents and in-laws were going to be in town and we wanted to go somewhere as a family that not only would be something we enjoy but would also be someplace they hadn’t been to before. Added to that we had Anitha- who wanted to go someplace exciting. So we picked Florida. And once that was done, we had to have an itinerary that would enable us to sight-see quite a few places that did not include just beaches but also not burn a bottomless hole into our student stipends …..
We planned our trip for a week starting May 5th 2007- Saturday and then returning May 12th 2007-Saturday. Our itinerary was as follows
- With a long drive from Nashville to Orlando on the 5th,
- Sea world on the 6th
- Siesta Key and Lido Key Beaches on the 7th
- Drive to Everglades and the national park on the 8th
- Drive to Key West and Water activities on the 9th and 10th
- Drive back to Atlanta on the 11th and finally
- Sight-see Atlanta on the 12th and then return back to home sweet home in Nashville
A few things we hoped to achieve through the trip were to be able to show our parents the beauty of the beaches on the Pacific and Atlantic coast, get them to parasail and jet ski for the first time and also get them to experience the joy of road trips in the US.
We had a great start by spending a lot of time in making hotel reservations and getting hotels in all the places expect one that gave us free wireless internet and a complimentary continental breakfast. Let me emphasize that with a family of 7, that was vital to the success of our trip!! Also we got a brand new 8 seater Toyota Sienna 2007 model with barely 1000 miles on it for our reservation of a minivan at Hertz. That was enough to put
us in a good mood.
We started early (~ 8 am) on Saturday the 5th to drive to Orlando. We had packed lunch (tomato pulav and curd rice) and taken a whole bunch of snacks. Also we had a portable DVD player to keep everyone occupied during the long drive. It ended up not being very long actually with everyone excited and a lot of talking and eating. Karthik and I split up driving pretty equally and we made it just about 11 hours.
Sea World The 6th we left to Sea World again quite early so we would get to see everything at the park as I was expecting it to be crowded. However we entered to an almost empty parking lot, which was encouraging. We already had our tickets so we went straight ahead. We headed first to the show
“Seymour and Clyde take over Pirate Island” which had sea lions, seals, an otter and a huge walrus as the stars. It was a good show only was better when I visited in Dec ’05. From there we went next to
“Pets Ahoy”- a very cute show with dogs, cats, birds, rabbits and even a pig.
One in the Toyota Sienna
you will be seeing pics of Sea World in this blog..don't worry!The specialty about this show is the fact that all the animals have been rescued from some shelter and trained. We all really enjoyed this show. From there we went to the
“Blue horizons” show with dolphins and birds. Did you know that dolphins are actually whales? The color, fluidity and precision of the various performers -mainly the dolphins was the highlight of the show! From there we went to the ride
“Journey to Atlantis”, all except Karthik’s mother came for the ride. The interiors of the ride don’t even compare to Disneyland, but there were two falls from a good height to provide us with thrills. The Balasubbus are ride crazy and we went one more time as it was not crowded. From there we decided to do lunch. There aren’t too many options for vegetarians but it is not bad also. We ended up eating Pizza and fries. After that we went to
“Odyssea” - a show with Asian acrobatics, which was pretty cool. After that it was time for
“Shamu’s Believe”, which we truly enjoyed. It truly amazes me how the trainers share this relationship with the world’s most feared predator-the killer whale. A trip to sea
world is special to me for just that one reason- I love to be able to watch these fascinating creatures and see how special the relationship they share with their trainer is. We also did other miscellaneous things like the Artic zone (where we saw penguins and polar bears and took a simulated ride to the Artic), the dolphin nesting area, manatees, and the roller coaster
“Kraken”. My parents did not want to come the first time but the excitement took over and the balasubbus went for the ride. Anitha & I went twice 😊 That is about all we did at Seaworld. If you are someone who loves animals and if you can afford it, I suggest Discovery Cove where you can actually swim, feed, touch and experience these animals. The fee is quite high about $350 per head.
Siesta & Lido Key Beaches The next day we had a slightly relaxed schedule where we drove about 2 hrs to the Tampa/ Clearwater beach area to go to the Siesta Key Beach. We were all really geared up to enjoy the sun, sand and water. It was really fun to watch our parents in beachwear…especially the mothers! We
Empty Parking Lots
So you see..sometimes it helps to be early :) took plenty of pictures and then went to the water. The beach was truly beautiful with sand as white as snow, and water as green as emeralds. It was very picturesque. We spent a good 2 hrs floating and just waddling in the water. After that we built some sand castles, played some beach Frisbee…that our team lost and Karthik’s team won by the way. I think truly all of us had a great time. Anitha missed her special someone and wrote letters for him on the sand. From there we just drove by lido beach and the downtown area with shops we could not even afford to window-shop at! We spent the night at Brandenton, Fl.
Everglades National Park The next day the 8th- we drove to the Everglades National Park. It was a 4-hour drive and we reached only at about 11: 30 am. We had our activity booked through an
alligator farm . We recommend this if you are planning to visit this area. Also you get a $2 coupon if you look online, so for $17 per head it was worth it. The trip included an everglades airboat ride, alligator and snake shows and feeding. We
started our journey with a sumptuous lunch of puliyodarai and curd rice hoping we wouldn’t become the alligator’s meal. Our first stop was to view the alligator feeding which was not very different from that at the snake park in Chennai. The only thing was that the alligators here were much healthier and probably better fed. From that we went for the airboat ride. This was a hovercraft kind of a ride through the marsh of everglades into the actual habitat of these alligators. With a warning that the alligators were perfectly capable of climbing into the boat and the only option was to swim/run in the opposite direction, we started out. Initially it was a slow ride where we got some pictures of the alligators really up close. Then the driver sped up and it was kind of a motorboat ride but really through the swamp. With some excellent maneuvering and some exciting twist and turns we almost felt like we had traveled through the Amazon Jungles! After that we went for the Snake shows with some live audience-trainer demonstrations. A volunteer was needed to hold a 3-year-old approx. 200-pound python and before Karthik could stop me, I was
being garlanded by Mr.Slimy! Well, I was hoping the trainer would protect me but he casually began wrapping the snake around my neck only to mention that it had all its few hundreds of teeth intact and was perfectly capable of biting or crushing me to death! So much for my bravery 😊 But I did feel okay holding the snake. After that all the people who wanted to, could get pics with the poor snake around their neck. I truly thought it was going to bite someone the way everyone was taking turns holding it. From there we went to see some random animals in the farm- a cougar, an eagle, some ugly looking donkey-sheep cross breed and then fed some geese too. The last thing was an alligator show where the same trainer showed us how to capture an alligator by its tail and sit on it, opening its mouth wide, like we were every going to try that .He also held the alligator’s mouth open and shut with just his chin …that was truly amazing. To finish the show we could hold some cold-blooded baby alligators, which I hated, compared to the snake. They sure wanted to
bite us but their teeth were taped so we could touch them. After again getting a zillion pics, we left to our hotel in Florida City, FL.
Key West On the 9th we drove to Key West. We truly enjoyed the drive though the speed limit was quite low. The colors we saw in the ocean were amazing. We stopped at two viewpoints along the way to get some pics. If you want to visit the Key West here a few things you need to know, which we found before, during and after our trip -(i) drive during the day so you can experience the beauty of the drive as that’s half the fun, (ii) contrary to popular belief key west does not have beaches, it is actually a reef and is more famous for its water activities like snorkeling, parasailing, jet skis, banana boat rides etc., (iii) no matter what people might say- being able to swim at least partially and being comfortable in the water are totally essential to be able to enjoy the water sports. We actually stopped at the visitor center to decide on the company to do our water activities. Not only did we
get a cool deal for Karthik’s mom (she was just going to ride on the boat), we also got a Sunset Cruise for free. The evening of the 9th we drove upto the southern most part of Key West and saw all the boats and yatches docked there and went for the sunset cruise. It was a nice 2 -2 ½ hour ride with complementary drinks. We spent some time relaxing on the boat and enjoyed the sunset. We took too many pictures trying to capture sunset frame by frame, and still kept taking some more! Anitha wanted to know who was more radiant- she or the setting sun…so we took some pictures to satisfy her curiosity 😊 That night we tried to retire early as we were going to spend the whole of the next day with water activities with Sebago Watersports. The activities included snorkeling, parasailing, jet skis, banana boat rides and a water trampoline. We all enjoyed a lot though we did not try all the activities. All of us parasailed except Karthik’s mother, and Karthik got to do it twice. I went on the banana boat three times and had a lot of fun. Just got
to be on the water trampoline and did not get to jet ski. Anitha was the only one among all of us who got to do all the activities. The Jet Ski guide took my mother and mother in law on a ride, as they did not know to swim and wanted to experience it anyway. So our father’s helplessly watched their wives happily get on the bike with the guide to Jet Ski. Snorkeling was not as easy as expected as the current was very strong and it took a while to get used to breathing with the snorkel. Only Karthik, Anitha and I snorkeled. A piece of advice, if you do these water activities, make sure you time yourself and get on each of the things and do it, otherwise you might miss out as these are not very well organized and works on a first come first serve basis. We all had a great time nevertheless and it was a experience of a lifetime. In retrospect though, this was not the best fun that our parents could have had but we were glad we took them now because if not they never might be able to do
Endrum Ilamai
My father in law. it. We drove up to Plantation, FL some 4 hrs from Key West and spent the night there so we would not have to drive as much to Atlanta the next day.
Atlanta The 11th was the long drive back to Atlanta. It took us about the same time but we just felt tired from all the water activities the previous day. We got a great room at Best Western for the night in Morrow, GA. The next day we planned to visit the Hindu Temple and also the Global Mall. Initially we had planned to do CNN center but everyone was tired that we did not carry it out. We would have loved to do the Coke Museum but it was closed down as they are opening out a new one this memorial weekend. We got to see the full abhishegam for Lord Venkatajalapathy at the temple and also went to the Siva sanidhi. After that we went to Norcoss, GA to show our parents the largest Indian mall in the US- the Global mall. The mall really does not have any great Indian clothes or accessories but it surely is the only one I have seen in
the US, that has under the same roof - many garment stores, restaurants, banquet halls, dance studios, grocery mart etc. all Indian! So it is surely worth a visit. We ate lunch there combining South Indian and Indo-Chinese food and then left for Nashville. We reached safe and sound at about 6 pm CT due to the amazing driving and navigation by the super duo Karthik & Anitha!!
After the weeklong trip we were glad to be home. We had a really enjoyable time and made many happy memories and got to spend some time with our family, relaxing our bodies and minds. If you read until here…thanks for sharing our travels! Now back to the grind ...Ciao!
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Karthik
non-member comment
Great job in documenting things we did...even, I had to read thro' to know some specifics!