As per the normal commencement...weather was good today, warm, some scattered cloud, no wind and no rain. After late night last night junior troops were slow to rise and even slower to stir into action...but not a problem as both completely happy and a pleasure to have around - even though both a little tired. Plan was to go to some other outlet mall that had been recommended to Sandy and then have dinner around Universal Studios and then spend late afternoon and early evening in the park for our final day on those passes. Had a quick glance at the map and headed off with route sorted and off ramps identified. Twenty minutes later we approached the outlet mall and watched it magnify in the windscreen in accord with the levels of excitement displayed by ... read more

Started out as another chilly one but then the sun gained some strength and became a brilliant day. Standard blue cloudless skies but just a lot warmer...not tropical but very pleasant. For what we ended up doing - the weather was perfect!! Reubs has got a bit of a cold so has been hacking like a 40 a day man for the last two days...been told to harden up and he has...he's a good lad. So late morning, as we waited to see whether to don the arctic wardrobe or just one for winter in Otago, packed a lunch (cos we're cheap!) and then headed off for the Blue Springs National Park. Nope, never heard of it either but from one of Sandy's gazillion (that is actually a word she uses) guide books and bookmarked web ... read more

When visiting a foreign domain it is important to partake in some of the local customs so as to learn more about our international neighbours and gain a greater appreciation of their way of life...so today we embraced a time honoured annual tradition started by this very nation and now copied to a lesser degree by even we in the antipodes...the great Boxing Day Sale!!! And if you are going to enter into such an event, and only have one opportunity to do so, then of course you must select the venue or location that will best expose this national custom...our old friend the Florida Mall!! We have been twice now, the Saturday before Christmas and now Boxing Day...going on an ordinary trading day will be a terrible anti climax. We did not head there for ... read more

There is no punchline in the title...that is the name of the hotel / small city / convention centre we went to this afternoon to view an ice carving display! The Gaylord Palms it is called... The display of seasonal ice sculptures is cleverly titled 'Ice'! This normally would have completely different connotations if at work but here it relates solely to an impressive ice sculpting display. In short it goes through the night before Christmas story with each page or so depicted in a different scene appropriate to that portion of the story. Very cleverly done and the kids really thought it was pretty cool...at minus 9, that it is something of an understatement! They issue you with polar jackets as you enter and you need them. One of the scenes has a set of ... read more

This is a vacation...so today we did nothing. Casual day reading, hour or so in the pool and then just for something completely different...Walmart!!! Admittedly it was for groceries in the main, but even so...new part of the experience was that we went to a different Walmart...cos they don't all look the same! Concerned that we are actually getting directions to 'other' Walmarts from 'helpful' connoisseiurs of the Walmart brand corresponding with us. The management here has clearly heard from the outlet malls that we're high rollers and as a result they are trying to sell me time shares everywhere from Cancun to the South Carolinas. They started out with offering me $75 off admission tickets to Disneyworld to attend a 90 minute presentation, only proviso being that Sandy is in attendance also. (they have worked ... read more