Well, Hello there! It has been several days since I posted last. But, we have been busy! :) The boys had their fall break from school, 6 whole school days, so we decided to take a family vacation. We typically don't go anywhere in the fall, but this year, I decided we were going to do something new. This summer I read about the
Bowl of Barrys trip to the Kennedy Space Center, and I decided that it was something our family would enjoy. So, I researched it further, and therein lines the beginning of our Fall Break family vacation. I had been planning a trip to Atlanta to visit the World of Coca-Cola for sometime this summer, but we never made it. So, we combined the two trips.
We left on Friday two weeks ago and headed for Atlanta, GA. It was a nice ride and the Atlanta traffic wasn't too bad. Before visiting the WOCC, we walked a few blocks to the underground mall to have lunch. It just happened that it was during lunch time on a work day, so it was quite fun finding a place to sit and standing in line to order our food. After lunch, we walked back to the WOCC to get our tickets and start our tour. It was very interesting to hear about the history of Coca-Cola, and to see how the brand has evolved over the years. I think our favorite part was the tasting room. It was a large room with drink stations that represented each continent and the Coca-Cola brand drinks that are distributed there. Other fun parts of the WOCC were the 4D Movie with moving seats and the walk through the bottling operations room.
After our trip to WOCC, we decided to try to get out of Atlanta before rush hour. We almost succeeded; the traffic wasn't too bad. We drove from Atlanta to Valdosta, GA and had planned to stay there the night. But, for some reason, all the hotels in Valdosta were booked, and we ended up driving another few miles to Lake Park, GA.
On Saturday morning, when we got up we drove the rest of the way to Cocoa Beach, FL. It didn't take long to arrive in FL after leaving Lake Park. It was a nice surprise to see how close we were to the state line. It took us just a couple of hours, and several dollars in toll fees, to arrive in sunny Cocoa Beach, FL. The highway we took to North Atlantic Avenue took us by Port Canaveral. It was so neat to see the large cruise ships that were docked waiting for their next voyage. Once we arrived at our hotel and discovered that our rooms were not ready yet, we went down to the beach. After a short walk through a parking lot and down the 200 yard walkway, we made it to the beach. The weather was warm and there weren't a lot of people out, so it was perfect.
SUNDAY and MONDAY
On Sunday and Monday we spent our mornings at the beach and our afternoons at the pool. It was so relaxing and fun. Isaac had so much fun riding the waves with his boogy board, and Alex had fun building sand castles and running in the water. On Sunday night we went to Walmart to get some things and then we came back to the hotel. We decided to have dinner at the Bistro, the hotel restaurant. The food was great, reasonably priced, and it was the first restaurant I had been to that has flat screen TVs in the booths. That's a great idea if you ask me! On Monday night we went to the World Famous Ron Jon Surf Shop and then we tried a restaurant that we don't have in our town, Boston Beef and Seafood. I'm not a seafood eater, but everyone else said the food was good.
On Tuesday the weather turned crummy so we spent the day at the Merritt Island Mall. We ate lunch at the Mall and then went to see Footloose at the theatre. C and Daddy didn't really want to see the movie at first, but I think everyone ended up enjoying it.
WEDNESDAY
On Wednesday we decided to go to the Kennedy Space Center. The day started out cloudy and dreary, but after a couple of hours, the weather cleared up and it was a nice day to be outside. Which is a good thing since there was so much to see at the KSC. We saw Hubble 3D and another movie about the mission to the Moon. But, I think our favorite experience was the one in the Apollo mission control room at the Apollo/Saturn V Center. Since the room had not been changed since all those many years ago, it was so neat to see what the room looked like and to hear the correspondence that happened that day as the shuttle blasted to the Moon. Our trip to the KSC ended with a trip to the Space Store. When we left the KSC, we drove over to Port Canaveral and had dinner at Fishlips Waterfront Bar and Grill. It was nice to have dinner by the water, and the big cruise ships!
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| at Hubble 3D |
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| Alex wouldn't stand by the Space person |
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| the control room |
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| it was actually on the Moon |
On Thursday, though the weather had cooled off significantly, we spent all day outside. I'm sure we looked like crazy people on the beach at 9:00 in the morning in 60 degree weather, but we still had fun! It was nice and warm by lunch time anyway. :) We went to the pool in the afternoon too, although Alex spent most of the time in the hot tub. :)
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| splash! |
Bright and early on Friday morning, we packed it up and headed back to Nashville. We made it 700 and something miles in 13 hours, and that was with 3 stops along the way. Not too bad! I drove the whole way, and it didn't seem bad at all. I was concerned with how the boys would do riding so far in one stretch since the ride down was broken down into 3 to 4 hour increments. But, they both took naps, and it wasn't too bad. Although, I'm not sure Granny and Granddaddy will travel that far with us again! :)
We ended our Fall break with a trip to Sears and the zoo. More on that later. It deserves a post all of its own!
