Hey Guys! From Florida we made our way back to Texas. We could have just jumped our way back like we did to get to Florida. But, where’s the fun in that…and besides, that makes for a long three days of constant driving. So, we decided to take our time and do a couple of weekly stays on the way back to Texas.
Our first stop was in Alabama at some friend’s house. We spent the week mooch-docking in their yard so we could visit more. I’m not going to include any pics of them or their kids…I didn’t ask and not too many people are hip to having their pics up on the web.
Jerl was thrilled to have access to a smoker again. He spent the week smoking meat and giving our friend tips. We’ve missed having a smoker. The road up to Alaska chewed up the smoker we had and we haven’t found one that would work with our space requirements since then…so…no smoked meat.
Our friends knew we were into forts so they took us to Fort Morgan State Historic Site one afternoon. Fort Morgan’s military history starts with the War of 1812 and stretches all the way to World War II. That’s over 100 years of service during varying war campaigns.
The construction of Fort Morgan began in 1819 and took a total of fifteen years to complete. The total cost in 1834 was $1,026,777.41. The fort stayed active and manned until 1944 and then in 1947 the military deeded Fort Morgan to the state of Alabama where it became one of Alabama’s state parks.
We had such a good time exploring this fort with our friends! I think it was even better than most forts for the boys because they had Cam and Brie to explore with them.
We also made it to the 5Rivers Alabama Delta Resource Center where the Apalachee, Spanish, Mobile, Blakeley, and Tensaw rivers all flow into Mobile Bay. It was a really cool place! We did a short walk (it started raining on us) and spent time going through the learning center and the exhibit hall where we got to see some of Alabama’s native animals up close. If you’re ever in the Mobile area…you should stop and check it out!
We met our friends back in 2016 while we were exploring New York. We were staying in the same campground. Our kids and their kids hit it off quite well. We’ve kept in touch since then and any time we’re near Mobile, we spend time catching up. We’ve made some of the coolest friendships during our crazy nomadic adventures!
Thanks for putting up with us for an entire week L Family!! We loved visiting with y’all and meeting more of your family!
To my fellow pizza lovers! I bring to you a post from Jacksonville, FL.
V pizza is a really good pizza place. You can really tell they only use the best ingredients in their food. For example, they get one of their mozzarellas imported straight from Italy!
They have some really good wings too. You order up front then go pick your table. It wasn’t busy when we were there so we got in really quickly.
They have a nice crunchy crust, it holds up when you pick it up! No soggy crust here!
You can even watch them make the pizzas! The staff was super nice and they let me take a picture with the ovens. How cool are these ovens?!
I think V pizza gets a 4.5 star review! I would definitely recommend V pizza if you are in the area.
Hey Guys! After almost four months of hiding from winter in Florida, we’re down to our last two weeks in the Sunshine State. We spent two weeks in Jacksonville, FL. I’m not going to lie…we weren’t super impressed with the area we stayed in. The RV park had recently been purchased and was converting from a mobile home community to an RV park…so…it was kind of a dump. There were still mobile homes that looked like they should have been demolished twenty years ago, the roads around the park were filled with some of the biggest potholes we’ve seen, and the neighborhood was sketchy at best. But, we stayed anyway. We could tell the new owners were making strides to clean the park up and make it something less…scary. We saw them working hard every day we were there. And, we will probably give them another chance the next time we’re in the area.
We have quite a few adventures on our list for the Jacksonville area. We made it to several places, but couldn’t get to all of them.
Y’all know we love old Forts. We stopped by Fort Caroline National Memorial. Fort Caroline preserves the story of a sixteenth century French colonial settlement. The actual location of Fort Caroline has never been determined. The NPS has made a near full scale replica near the location they believe the original fort was. Honestly, there’s not much there. We did enjoy learning about the old French fort, but kind of expected more from a NPS unit.
Kingsley Plantation is part of the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Perserve. When Zephaniah Kingsley first settled on Fort George Island, the plantation was only accessible by boat. The once one-thousand acre plantation had a cash crop of Sea Island cotton. This NPS unit shares the story of Zephaniah Kingsley, his wife Anna, and their children. Anna was once a slave of his. She and Zephaniah ended up having three children together and in 1811 he freed Anna and their three children. They all moved to the Kingsley Plantation together and Anna managed not only that plantation but several others they owned in the area. When Anna was freed in 1811 she acquired more land and slaves.
Today at the Kingsley Plantation you can walk around the now sixty acre NPS unit and learn about the stories of the people who used to live and work at the plantation. There are several buildings still standing and you can explore most of them.
Our favorite Jacksonville adventure was Fort Clinch State Park. The very first fortifications to sit on this site were started in 1736 and like most forts of that time, there were several different stages of fortifications before the construction of Fort Clinch was started in 1847. At the start of the Civil War the fort was only about 2/3 complete and didn’t have a single canon mounted yet. There was minimal work on the fort during the Civil War so it still wasn’t finished by the end of the war. Because of this, in 1869 the fort was abandoned and left empty. The US Army maintained the fort until the Spanish-American War when Fort Clinch was used as not only barracks for the soldiers, but also as an ammunition depot as well. Less than a year later the hostilities were over and the fort was abandoned once again. By 1926 the location was no longer thought to be of strategic value and the US Army sold the fort and its land to private buyers. In 1935 Fort Clinch became one of Florida’s first State Parks. At this point the CCC stepped in and started renovations. CCC Company 1420 built the campground, roads, and museum as well as the restoration of the fort itself. We’re fans of the CCC. We’ve come across their work all across our country and the stories they tell are always some of the most fascinating. It’s amazing that the work they did back then is still being utilized even today. Personally, I think our country could benefit from another program like the CCC.
Guys, this fort was so awesome. There were sooo many tunnels, and buildings, and walkways to explore! We had the best time learning the story of Fort Clinch!
We found another beach…well, there were tons of beaches, but we were specifically looking for a shelling beach. I can’t remember the name of the beach we ended up at, but there were quite a few shells. We didn’t find a huge variety…we might have been there too late for that…but we found enough to fill up a big ziplock! We now have quite the collection of Florida shells. If I have time, I’ll put together a post on how we clean and preserve our shells.
I know this is going to come as a shock, but we found some foodies. Just a few. Ha! The best/worst one was Toby’s BBQ. It was the best because the food was stellar…it was the worst because it was literally right across the street from where we were staying. So…we ate there a few times. Oh! And Toby’s gives you a free dessert with every meal. I mean…it was free…we had to eat it, right?
Alfred B. Maclay Gardens State Park isn’t in Jacksonville…it’s in Tallahassee. We stopped for a visit while we were on the way to Alabama, but I thought I’d stick it in with this post. Guys, this place… So. Many. Pretties! And, the best part about this SP…there are pretties that bloom all year! This SP was once the winter home of Alfred Maclay and his wife who were, like us, hiding from the winter in Florida. The Maclay’s bought the property in 1923 and set out to create the beautiful gardens you can walk through today. The SP is used as a setting for weddings and events throughout the year, but the most popular season is around February/March when the camellias are in full bloom. In fact, the day we went, there were two weddings taking place later that day.
And that, Guys, is the end of our Florida winter! It’ll be two years before we head toward the east coast again. I’m not sure when we’ll winter in Florida again…it’s difficult to find places…but, really, it’s hard to find places that will take us in Arizona (which is another great place to hide from the cold) for the winter too…so, we’ll see!
Hey Guys!! We spent two weeks in the Orlando area but we didn’t really do much. We only went to two places…
Thanks to some friends of ours who are totally awesome for giving us tickets (waves at David, Sarah, and Virginia) we spent four days at Universal Studios…being wizards. Universal is one of our favorite amusement parks. Every time we walk into the Wizarding World of Harry Potter it’s like the first time all over again. Universal really does an amazing job of transporting you into the books/movies of the Harry Potter world. Universal has more 3D/4D rides than roller coasters and while that’s all good…we do really enjoy them…we’d like to see more actual coasters. This year one of the roller coasters was being redone into a new HP coaster experience. It’s supposed to open up sometime this summer…we will definitely have to go back for it. We did get to hit the new rides that were being built last time we were there…The Fast & Furious ride and the Jimmy Fallon ride…they were both…ok. I feel like they could have been so much better.
I’m not going to lie…I could totally be a regular at Universal. I could go weekly and never get tired of it.
Universal has some great foodies! Not only within the individual parks but also out on the City Walk. You can totally find anything you’re craving. You’ll pay amusement park prices…but hey…at least the food is good! We like to take picnic type foods for lunch and then splurge for dinners. It’s nice because it’s so easy to walk out to your car and have a meal then walk back in to the parks. If you have park hopper tickets, it only takes maybe 10 to 15 minutes to walk from park to park. We love how easy it is to get around the Universal campus.
We spent four straight days at Universal. I don’t know about you, but when we do the amusement park thing…We’re going to get in every second we can from the time we have there. We show up when the park opens and we leave when they kick us out. It’s like an all day marathon. At the end of our four days there…our feet were feeling the miles.
We took four days off…well…not really off. We spent those four days catching up on real life stuff. You know…work, school, chores, laundry. Our feet totally appreciated the time off.
The second week we headed to Disney World. This was our first visit to Disney. I got us tickets through some special Disney was running at that time. Four day park tickets for like $89 per day per person. The tickets were only only good for certain dates (which worked because that’s when we were in the area) and we could only use one ticket per park. No park hopping. No using two tickets for the same park. And that was perfect for us. We wanted to experience the four different parks.
We started with Hollywood Studios. This is the park the boys had been looking forward to the most because of the Star Wars stuff. Nicholas dressed as Darth Vader…Chewie was not amused. In fact, Chewie put Nicholas in the corner. It’s definitely a moment we will always remember! We met all of the characters we wanted to, rode the rides…and only had to stand in one long (90 min) line. The longest line was for Slinky Dog Dash. We stayed for the Disney Fantasmic show at the end of the evening and it was so good!
Here’s the thing about roller coasters…four of us love them. Nicholas…not so much. So, usually, one of us has to sit and wait with him and then we either swap or one of us misses out. Disney’s coasters are a bit tamer than what we’ve seen before. I actually talked Nicholas into riding Slinky Dog Dash and guess what Guys…he liked it! Every time we talked him into trying another ride he got more comfortable with riding. The Aerosmith ride is the only coaster he didn’t’ ride and it’s probably a good thing. It was mainly in the dark and it was fast with loops…he wouldn’t have liked it at all. The three of us that rode it loved it!
Disney day two was spent at The Magic Kingdom. This seems to be the biggest of the four parks and was definitely the most crowded. We had a great day of exploring all of the different magical lands and riding all of the rides. Our longest line was for The Seven Dwarves Mine coaster and it was less than an hour. Our favorite ride was probably the Seven Dwarves.
We don’t really care for the way you have to ride either the mono-rail or the ferry in order to get to Magic Kingdom. Plus, the parking is so far away you have to ride a tram just to get to the ticketing area where you catch a ride to the actual park. It would have taken two or more hours to go out to our car for lunch so we ended up eating all of our meals in the park…which can add up when you’re feeding five people and three of them are teenage boys who can totally put some food away.
We stayed for the light/fireworks show at the end of the evening. Wow…just wow! It was so worth staying for. We really enjoyed it! I wonder how much Disney spends on fireworks a day? The ocean of people trying to get to the mono-rail and ferry so they could grab a tram to get back to their cars was…well, we’ll never stay for the ending show again. We saw it once and that was enough.
Disney day three was Epcot. This is the park Jerl and I had been looking forward to…and yes…it was for the foodies. Ha! The Test Track Experience totally took us off guard. We went there first and Guys, we were there for two hours. Playing. You get to design and test your own cars. It’s so cool! We were going to ride it again but the day got away from us. We really enjoyed Epcot. We feel like a few of the rides could use some updating…but we thoroughly enjoyed exploring the different countries and sampling the foodies. The longest line for us at Epcot was maybe half an hour and that was for the Soarin’ ride. I have to say thanks to a friend (Mark) for letting us know how good this ride is! I’m not sure we would have ridden it if he hadn’t clued us in on it.
I found this cute little passport in one of the stores and even though it’s technically meant for kids…I had the best time collecting all of the stamps! So fun! And each one of the countries had their own special way to sign it. My favorite is Norway.
We stayed for the end of the night light show at Epcot, but after Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios…it was a little lack luster. Still very cool, but not huge like we’d come to expect after the two previous nights.
Epcot foodies did not disappoint. Between the five of us, I think we got something in almost every area. Some areas we visited more than once. We were disappointed in the Italy section. We’d been looking forward to grabbing a slice of pizza in Italy and there was no fast service pizza places. None. The only option for pizza was the sit down…take a long time place. And Guys, we didn’t want to take the time for that. We wanted quick and easy…grab and go. We basically ate the entire day. That was our plan…walk and eat. We didn’t even plan to go out to our car for lunch because we knew we were going to want to try everything.
Disney day four was Animal Kingdom. I had high hopes for this park since it was originally designed to be a zoo. We started in the Pandora section because I’d heard the rides there have super long lines throughout the day. We got there when the park opened (actually, we somehow got in before actual opening time) and went straight to the Pandora Flight of Passage ride and the line was already at a 120 min wait. This was the longest line we stood in the entire day. The ride was great! The other Pandora ride was not worth the 90 min line we stood in at all. But, now we know. Animal Kingdom felt the most crowded of all of the parks. Our favorite ride at Animal Kingdom was Expedition Everest. This was a great coaster that we somehow talked Nicholas into riding! I got worried when it went backwards in the dark…but he did great and…even wanted to ride it again. Which, surprised us all. We snagged him a Yeti shirt from the gift shop after the ride. We rode all of the rides we wanted to, saw the very few animals they have there (we felt like there should have been more animals for a park that was supposed to be a zoo), and left around five that evening. We didn’t wait to see the light show at the end of the evening. We were done. We were at the end of two very long weeks and we were just really over the crowds. Crowds aren’t our thing.
When we left Animal Kingdom we headed over to Disney Springs to do some shopping and grab dinner. We managed to get there before the evening rush. We strolled through a few shops found the souvenirs we wanted and we were done. Our feet were screaming at us and we were feeling a little under the weather. Somewhere at some point over the last two weeks we’d come into contact with some germs…imagine that…and four out of five of us had colds and some really hellacious allergies.
The next day Jerl and I ended up heading back to Disney Springs to exchange a shirt that didn’t fit quite the way we wanted. We snuck in a date night and ended our Disney World days with some Ghirardelli treats as we chatted about our first Disney experience as a family. I had been to Disneyland before and he had been to Disney World before, but we’d never been as a family.
We didn’t really end up with many souvenirs. Some pins and smashed coins…a post card and the passport…we each got a shirt. Compared to what we buy at Universal that’s not a whole lot. We kind of go crazy at Universal…I mean…Harry Potter. I did get rice crispy treats at three of the parks and then at Disney Springs. I some how missed getting one at Epcot. I guess I was too busy eating everything else in sight. ;-p
We’ve had some people asking us to compare Universal and Disney. It’s hard to do that. They’re such different parks. It really is like trying to compare apples and oranges. The rides, the foodies, the entire feel of the two different amusement park companies is different. They’re each shooting for a different demographic group. For us…we’ll choose Universal every time. Not just because of Harry Potter…we like that the two Universal parks are so easy to park hop between. We like that our car is so easily accessible. We love the rides at Universal. We’re not terribly into the whole princess thing. Disney is geared more for a younger group of kids. When we go to an amusement park, I want thrilling rides and good foodies.
And Guys, even if we had little kids who were totally into Disney, I wouldn’t take them to Disney until they were at least ten. By noon, I’d say 89% of parents we saw at Disney looked haggard and the kids looked totally miserable. We saw parents with printed out itinerary talking about their reservations and fast pass times while the kids were screaming to go on a specific ride right then. They were stressed and the kids totally felt it too. We didn’t do reservations. We didn’t have fast pass times. We just walked around and jumped in lines as we saw them. And guess what…we had a great time! We were able to ride every single ride we wanted to, see everything we wanted to see, and grab food when we passed something that looked good. My point? Don’t forget to have fun. And please, for the love of all that is good in this world…stop entertaining your kids with screens 24/7. Let them get bored and learn how to deal with it. We saw soooo many kids walking around Disney with screens of some kind in their faces with headphones on. Usually watching some Disney show…while they’re at Disney.
Overall, I’d call our two weeks of amusement parks a success! We learned that eight full days in two weeks of amusement parks is too much. We were worn out for a week. But man oh man…we sure had some fun and made some amazing memories!
See y’all down the road!
#hidingfromwinter
Pizza Roundup: Tony & Nello’s Southern Italian Cuisine
To my fellow pizza lovers! I bring to you a post from Tierra Verde, Florida.
Tony & Nello’s is more of a Italian place (with really, REALLY good pizza) rather than just a pizza place.
The décor makes the place feel a bit fancy. We only went for lunch and jeans were fine. There was cloth table cloths, but they had paper on top…at least for lunch. I liked that the walls were painted to look like marble.
We had to get the garlic knots, and boy were we surprised when they came out with a pile of fresh garlic instead of garlic powder! These garlic rolls were smothered in olive oil, garlic and herb goodness! They were swimming in it! So good!!
The pizza was no joke either. It said large, but what we got was more like an extra large! Can anyone say leftovers?! I was surprised by how good the pizza was. The crust didn’t droop when you picked it up, it had a nice chewy crunch. And there was enough garlic olive oil left over from the garlic knots that we were able to dip our crust in it as we ate… it was awesome.
Everyone we met that worked there was nice and the restaurant was clean. Man between the garlic knots and pizza this place gets a 5 star review in my book!
