Disney Rocks!

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Need to catch up as we 'owe' around 11 days of travel blog

So, going back to Wednesday 30 August, we left our revisit to Memphis to make our journey across to Florida. We took the journey as a chance to get back to Kill A Mockingbird country, Monroeville, as we didn't actually get to the courthouse there. The old courthouse is effectively now a visitor center with exhibitions about Monroeville, Truman Capote and of course Harper Lee. But the main highlight is get into the courtroom that was the inspiration and centrepiece for the novel and used, almost exactly, as the set for the courtroom in the TKAM film. You can get to see the exact equivalent spot where Jem, Scout and Dill watched Tom Robinson's trial. Pip was so made up about this.

We overnighted in a place called Enterprise (Monroeville still being a dump to stay in). It turns out that Enterprise has the world's only monument to an agricultural pest, the Boll Weevil. It is celebrated with a town centre statue of a figure holding aloft said Boll Weevil. It was dedicated in 1919 after the BW devastated the local cotton crop and so the farmers switched to farming peanuts instead, which they continue to do so to this day. The BW memorial is 'a symbol of man's ability to overcome adversity'.

The real funny thing was that in publicity photos the memorial looked as if it was quite large, 10 foot or so. In reality it is 5 foot high at most. We chatted with a lady who came to open her clothing shop as we were sheltering from a rain deluge. Whilst we were still sheltering she came out to us and said she had something for us. In her shop she presented us, free, with two Enterprise Boll Weevil tee shirts. Beautifully soft, made in the US of US cotton. She only had large so Pip will have to wear hers as nightwear, but so nice of the lady!

We pressed on to Jacksonville, on the NE coast of Florida for 3 nights, temperature 99°F when we arrived!

Just south of Jacksonville, on the Friday, we went to St Augustine. If you think modern America started with the Pilgrim Fathers in New England then think again. In September 1565, fully 55 years before The Mayflower, and 42 years before Jamestown, the Spanish founded a settlement here with the 700 soldiers and colonists. They had a stone fort built soon after, after our Sir Francis Drake burnt the original to the ground.

The first known birth of an African-American child was recorded in St Augustine in 1595, in 1598 the first known marriage between two A-As.

It also has 'the oldest wooden school house in the USA', amongst many lovely , old, colonial style buildings from the late 1700s.

The next day we just chilled out on Jacksonville beach. The sky was bright with the worst of the sun behind hazy cloud, the water was warm and we had fun just sitting, watching pelicans and ospreys fishing in the shallows. Later that afternoon we found Safe Harbour Seafood Restaurant in Mayport where we joined the 60 minute queue for service. It was perched on the coast and the fish, as you might expect, was delicious.

On Sunday we travelled to Orlando for a 5 night stay, but via Daytona Beach where we had another morning's beach time. We were even able to identify a ribs restaurant there where, on our previous visit 25 years ago, Simon, then aged only 8, ordered and ate a full rack of 12 ribs to the amazement of the waiting staff.

We hadn't planned for Disney time in Florida but given that our timings were continuously changing we decided we would do 2 days in the parks.

But first day's visit was to Kennedy Space Center. We were there by 9 am and didn't leave until 6 pm close, and still missed bits. It still has the wow! factor we experienced 25 years ago but is somewhat more theme-parky than we remember it. But something it does have now is the Space Shuttle Atlantis. It is displayed in a purpose built building. In fact the building was built around it and the shuttle could not now be removed without demolishing the building.

The lead in to the shuttle viewing is brilliantly done. 2 separate lead-in videos on very large screens, and at the end of the 2nd one, as the film shows the shuttle flying directly towards you the screen lighting changes, the film dims, the screen becomes transparent and behind it appears the actual Atlantis fully lit hanging in the same orientation as in the film. The reveal is just jaw dropping. Atlantis is in exactly the same condition as it was after it's final, of 33, trip from space. It is larger than you probably expect, and angled at 45 degrees so that you can see into the cargo bay.

As absolute space buffs of the moon landing generation we were also excited by many of the exhibits, including Jim Lovell's space suit, the Apollo 14 Command Module, US flag that went to the moon and back on Apollo 11, an unused Saturn 5 rocket, and very moving memorials to the Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters. We were also educated about the SLS - Space Launch System - the next generation of NASA heavy lift vehicles which will be bigger and more powerful than Saturn 5. Designed to be capable of launching Mars viable craft its first launch is possibly next year, for a around-the-moon trip which might also be manned.

That evening was when we started to decide to probably bale from Florida because of Hurricane Irma. We cancelled our bookings in Miami and Key West and decided to watch Irma for the next couple of days before deciding where to move on to. By the time we awoke in the morning a mandatory evacuation order for Key West had been issued so our own withdrawal decision was well vindicated.

For two days we regressed, and had 2 days at Disney - Epcot on Tuesday, and Magic Kingdom on Wednesday. Epcot, again, has more 'rides' than we remember. Soarin' was particularly good, giving the effect of doing a hang glider trip over a dozen or more world highlights - The Matterhorn, Taj Mahal, Sydney, .... So good we did it twice. Mission To Mars, done in a claustrophobic 4 person capsule, Paul believes that based on the movements and g-forces this must have used centifugal technology. Quite stomach churning, we both felt a bit icky after this for some hours!

Half of Epcot is given over to World Showcase, sections showing representations of various countries - Mexico, Norway, France, China, Great Britain... each very stereotypical. They each seemed to have at least some focus on 'dance' and food / drink. GB had a 'pub', fish and chips and a band playing GB pop music hits. We dread to think what visitors from the countries make of their home area?

Wednesday was to the Magic Kingdom, the beating heart of Disney. Still as wonderfully over the top as it always was, though at times we felt a bit odd in not having a child in tow. At one stage, when we had been q'ing for ten minutes for what we thought was a 'ride', by noticing that we were THE ONLY ONES in the q without children we established that it was a q for a 'meet and greet' with some Disney Princesses! We backed out of that q with as much composure as we could muster. ?

Seven Dwarves Mine Train, Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain, Country Bears Jamboree, ..... and of course Pirates Of The Caribbean, the ride that became a film franchise. They have changed it a little in the 25 years, one figure is now totally modelled on Jack Sparrow/Johnny Depp. ?

The double closing finale, 2 different shows at 8.30 and 9 pm, both make full use of modern video projection technology using Cinderella's Castle as their projection screen. They were astounding.

What was worrying to see at Disney, however, was large numbers of morbidly obese people, whole families. We have seen large numbers on our travels but they seem to be particularly concentrated here. The US population is just a ticking time bomb of diabetes, heart disease, early death, .... So sad to see, especially when you see toddlers and teenagers who have followed their parents the same way.

Thursday was rocket launch day. On our way out from our motel we were stuck in traffic for a little while - it was due to a q of traffic getting into a sand-bag depot! This Irma is looking very serious indeed and we need to decide our next move sooner rather than later.

We got to our closest spot to the 39A launch pad, about 7 miles away. The launch was at 10am and the noise was earth rumbling and ear shattering even at that distance. After about 30 seconds of this it subsided and we though the launch had been aborted. But, on speaking to some of the 20 or so people who had gone to the same spot it turned out that the rocket had only taken a second or two to get from ground, hidden behind some trees, and the clouds. Most of us had failed to actually see it. We only got absolute confirmation because one person had been accurate enough to get a couple of photos of the rocket heading skyward. But, this was a SpaceX launch and they have perfected reusable boosters and so, around 10 minutes later, we saw the launch vehicle return to earth for a soft landing, allbeit 10 miles further away, & heard the associated sonic bom.

Oh well, we did see a bobcat whilst we were waiting.

When we got back to Orlando Paul booked us 3 nights in Savannah, S Carolina - we were getting out of Florida. Within the hour a mandatory evacuation order had been issued for Savannah. Back to the drawing board.

It took Paul 3 hours to find somewhere else for us to stay, ending up with a booking in Chattanooga, NW of Atlanta. Everywhere else closer to the coast had anything reasonably priced, say under $120pn, fully booked. That done it was apparent that more and more places were being issued with evacuation warnings. It was mid/late afternoon on Thursday. We took the decision to get out and head for Chattanooga, leaving around 5.30 pm. We blogged about that trip a couple of days ago.

So we are now in Chattanooga and it is delightful. More on this when we move on in a couple of days.

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