Brief Summary of Our Vacation Trip

Florida was cold! Other than that, it was a good trip, and I had good travel companions (M, A, and X). We spent Sunday through Thursday doing Disney World: Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Epcot, and Magic Kingdom. Friday we drove to Coco Beach, which was nice, but too cold for playing in the water. M, S, X, and A. S hosted our visit -- thank you, S!!

Somewhat surprisingly, I enjoyed the activities at Animal Kingdom the best. It had the best ride (Everest), the Kali River rafting was simple fun, and the birds and wild animals were nicely displayed. Its restaurant choices were horrible, though.

The best selection of restaurants are at Epcot (Rose and Crown is still my favorite, and we saw the fireworks on the lake), with MK a close second. Crystal Palace (in MK) is a huge, madhouse zoo of a restaurant with great food.

We made the FastPass system work for us, except we never saw the Epcot ride called Soarin'. The line was always too long and the FastPass was always shut down, and we tried several times.

Also surprising was X’s interest in physics. She is a junior in high school, and thinking about her college major. So she pestered me with questions about how do airplanes fly, how was electricity discovered, etc., and I had a lot of fun trying to explain the basic concepts of physics to her as we waited in line for the rides.

I-95 from Florida to North Carolina is a boring drive. Charleston is a very nice place to visit. Those South Carolinians are a feisty bunch (or were in 1861). The downtown Charleston peninsula is a lovely place for long walks. I was surprised at the lack of tall commercial buildings and the plethora of palatial old homes. I concluded that the soil was too soft to support the tall buildings we see in other downtown areas. Ft. Sumter is a pretty boat ride and interesting tour.

We stopped at Darlington Raceway and snapped a few pictures. I can’t imagine driving into those sharp raceway corners at 100 mph with 40 other cars around me.

And Raleigh-Durham is building up fast, with new freeways with 3-5 lanes each direction, and new shopping malls.