Theme parks and shopping around Orlando (4.-7.4.09)

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We drove to the North of Florida to have glances on the famous space center in cap Canaveral and to fulfill the wish of Yuki of a day in Disney world in Orlando. We started after some relaxed packing and coffee sipping from the Everglades camp ground and followed the main highway straight North. Florida identifies itself as the Sunshine State on the license plates. It is well known as retirement place and many Americans have a holiday apartment here. We read in the newspaper that Florida was one of the most hardest affected states for real estate prices which came significantly came down. Florida did not impress us very much from the landscape. It is plain flat with bushes and not much of space to hike around or do anything other activity than water sports. The interlinking villages and cities also did not keep to the expectation of a holiday paradise. Despite we learned it is baking hot over summer – seems most was in the reputation and the name. We branched of 100 miles ahead of Canaveral to follow along the coast road and do a beach walk. We checked after a relaxed day into a nice motel and spend the late afternoon at the swimming pool.
The space center sparked a lot of imagination in my head. You had to take a tour and we care drove around the huge compound. The space shuttle was just moved to the starting site for take of in few weeks. We admired from a watch tower the site and got an idea of the place. The visit ended with a tour through the space lab building and ended in the museum with a real last Saturn V rocket. It was nice to get some ideas about what was going on, but explanations were kept very shallow.
The last tow days ended with a shopping venture to our favorite ??? Outlet Shopping mall known already from Las Vegas and a day spent at Disney world with never ending queues and parades. I let the pictures speak for itself.

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