Road Trip to Florida

Ok so I have been here for nearly 2 weeks. I have been a huge slacker and not updated this thing. I'll try to do as much as I can remember and get into the groove of updating more often. Mum, Sarah, David and I left home on Thursday July 23. We drove for a few hours then stayed the night in a hotel. On Friday we didn't really have anything planned but as we were driving decided to stop at the Louisville Slugger museum. They have been making baseball bats for professional players for years. It was fun to see and we all got a mini bat as a souvenir. My favourite part was that they had some signed bats inside the museum. One was of Geena Davis who was in my favourite movie, A League of Their Own. And the other was from Julie Andrews, who needs no description.

<-- Julie Andrews <-- Geena Davis

After we left the museum we drove for a bit and David wanted to see some Bourbon distillery or something so we got off the highway to go towards the Jim Beam distillery. It was closed so he just took some pictures of the Jim Beam statue.

The next day (Saturday) we got up bright and early to drive to Lynchburg, Tennessee to go to the Jack Daniels distillery. It was a really neat tour. One thing they showed us was the big vats that the whiskey is actually distilled in to make it more pure. Our tour guide told us to put our faces near the top of the vat and then he moved the lid up and down to let us smell it. I thought it was really gross, but David enjoyed it. I can't even describe how strong the smell was. I wouldn't be surprised if you could get drunk off of it. After the tour we walked to downtown Lynchburg where we went to lunch a Miss Mary Bobo's Boarding House. It was a family style meal with 8 or so people at each table in separate dining rooms. We ate in the basement which was neat to see. The food was good but definitely NOT vegetarian friendly. I thought I would be safe with the veggies but apparently they like to put some kind of bacon fat in everything. The mac and cheese was really good though (and hopefully without hidden ingredients) Even the dessert had lard in it. I feel sorry for people in the south who was to be vegetarian. It is not easy! We then got back in the car and headed towards Chattanooga.

We were going to go see some waterfall thing in Chattanooga but at our lunch the people at our table said not to. So we looked in the CAA book and decided to go to the aquarium. I'm glad we did because it was the nicest aquarium I have ever seen. It was separated into 2 buildings. One for the rivers and one for the seas. It wasn't just fish. They had other animals found in and near the water. So, the rivers also had otters and the seas had penguins and butterflies. Also the set up of the whole aquarium was really neat. You would go all the way to the top floor then slowly go down while seeing all of the exhibits. If anyone is ever near Chattanooga then I think you should go to the aquarium.

The next day (Sunday) we went to Atlanta to see the home of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his neighbourhood. It wasn't overly exciting, but it was still good to see. After we finished in Atlanta we drove about an hour away to go on a zip line tour!!! This was the thing I was most looking forward to. But as the time got closer I got more and more nervous. It was a little different from what I had thought it was going to be. There were about 20 people going at a time so there was a lot of sitting and waiting. But it was really fun to do and I would do it again.

Here are videos of Sarah, Mum and David on their last zip line.

<-- Sarah<--Mum<-- David

After we finished the zip line we went to Plains Georgia where Jimmy Carter is from. Mum wanted to go there because they have the second largest peanut there. It took ages to go there (thanks to the wonderful GPS) and it wasn't nearly as impressive as I thought it was going to be. But we drove past where Jimmy Carter lives and I got a picture of the secret service hut. woot woot!!! While driving to our hotel that night we found some fresh Georgia peaches. Yum! and some boiled peanuts that I thought tasted like peas.

Monday all we had planned was to drive to Florida. But I think the best part of our trip (note the sarcasm) was that as we pulled out of the hotel Mum saw a sign about some peanut something or other. (I can't think of the word). So of course we went down the road that this was supposed to be on. We drove for a little but didn't see anything so decided to turn around. Ironically when we turned onto a road we saw a big peanut on a tall base. That was the largest peanut, I feel so lucky to have seen both the largest and second largest peanuts. I know that everyone is jealous. We then drove for a little bit longer. When we got to Florida we stopped at the welcome station and I had my first cup of fresh Florida orange juice.

We then drove to our hotel in Disney World checked in and did some random things like swimming and walking around Downtown Disney. We were up bright and early Tuesday morning to go do an airboat tour! Mum and I searched long and hard to decide on what company to go with. I'm happy with the decision we made. Most of the tours fit around 15-20 people on a boat but the one with went with had a max of 6 and it was only us on the boat. It was a really good tour. We saw tons of birds and quite a few gators. Even a gator nest!!

Our first gator that our captain thinks must have been between 10

and 11 feet!

A cute baby! On a little break

Mama guarding her nest.

Our captain also had a little bit of fun out on the water. It was going really fast so I missed the first part of his little trick.

Then after our air boat tour (which was longer than the 2 hours we were told about!) we went back to the hotel where I got my things organized and checked into Vista Way! I have more pictures of our trip on facebook, but I don't want to upload them all. If you are interested go ahead and have a look at them. I promise I will update about Disney soon.