Florida

Yes we are still doing ok! We lived through our Disney World experience, just barely! Also since we were without the Internet for the whole time (Disney is so cheap that they do not have Internet service available but they charge you like they do), I was sure that Kevin was going to die but he made it. We are now in a park outside of Orlando and Kevin is still up getting his Internet fix, as am I!

Tuesday we left Texas and headed to Orlando as planned. We stopped in Galveston to see Ryan (Heidi’s Cousin) and Stacey. They are in the process of building a cabin on the place they have there. It was great to see them. We stayed for about 5 hours and went to dinner with them. I ate Crawfish for the first time! All I can say is they were great and I can’t wait to eat them again. Tristan even liked them although he was not to hip on sucking the juice out of the heads.

We left at about 8:00pm and then headed back down the road. We made it to the east side of New Orleans that night. As we went through New Orleans we got the weirdest feeling. The neighborhoods right off of I-10 are all dark and abandoned. No lights are on for miles, street lights have been turned off and intersection stop lights have also been turn off. Houses and buildings have been destroyed and abandoned. Trash is still piled in the streets and the whole area for a 40-mile stretch sinks of mildew and mold. Off in the distance you can see some of the lights of New Orleans but along I-10 it is dead. How they will ever get back to normal is beyond me. What a mess! We were glad to be leaving that city in the dust as we cruised on down the road.

The next day we got up and drove about 3 hours into Pensacola. We then took the day and went to the beach. The kids needed to have some fun and Heidi and I needed to relax a little. The next morning we headed off to Orlando and arrived about 5:00pm. Craig Skinn and Lou were in town for some meetings so I was able to see them. On Friday I went golfing with Craig (note to everyone at Slayden P&H, the golf clubs are great, Thanks again!) at a nice course right by his hotel. After golfing he took us all out to dinner and then to the Cirque Du Soleil. What a cool show!

On Sunday our Disney World experience got under way and for the next 7 days we went non-stop starting at the Magic Kingdom, although I’m not sure where the magic was. Next was Typhoon Lagoon (an ok water park), then Animal Kingdom (Everest is a real cool roller coaster), Blizzard Beach (this was the best day we had in Disney World, awesome water park), EPCOT (we ate our way around the world and the fire works show was very cool) and then the last day we did MGM Orlando (three words, “Tower of Terror”, it was a great ride). By the end we were fried though and ready to get the heck out of Disney World. It was exhausting and I was really getting sick of giving all my money to a Mouse that each day was feeling more like a conniving rat! That place has a way of sucking money out of you. We did have a lot of fun though so all is good. One thing is for sure though; Florida is not on the list of places to live. They can have that state!

That brings us to the here and now. We are on the way up to Tennessee to see Heidi’s sister and her family right now. As I write this it is 2:30am in the morning and it is time to call it quits for the night. I hope all is going well for everyone one up in Alaska and we hope to see you all soon. We are all missing our friends and family up there. Take care…..