Easy Friday...

After another big day at the Park yesterday, you can imagine life was a bit slower around here today...

This morning I spent cleaning up the Jeep, giving it a good wash, and even waxed it after being egged on by neighbour Wayne from Nova Scotia, who said "hey, it would look a lot better if you waxed it too!" OK, so I had to wax it! He did his truck the other day, so we are trying to out do each.

So you probably figured out by now that I didn't win the Power Ball on Wednesday night... a lucky couple from Mo. did win, and it appears the other ticket was sold in Az. I am not sure what I would have done with a couple hundred million dollars anyways! Probably buy a great big RV!

This afternoon Judy and I did get out and about and do a bit of shopping... one of the big retailers down here in Florida is Bealls.

 

One thing, you don't have to be a Millionaire to shop at this Outlet Store... their prices are very reasonable. I bought a new pair of "Dockers" mens pants, that sell in Ontario for over $50.00, for the low price of $12.00 here! Hard to believe.

We spent 1/2 an hour later this afternoon in our Resort Pool. This is the first time I have made it to the pool, and I was really impressed. It is heated to about 85 deg. F. which is just about perfect, and is quite large.

Till tomorrow...

 

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Universal Studio's Part Deux...

Just another great day in Florida, about 80 deg. F and nothing but sun today. We were out the door by 8:15 this morning, making the 35 minute drive up to Universal Studio's in Orlando.

 

We entered the "New Park" today, known as the "Island of Adventure". It is all about Harry Potter, Dr. Seuss, The Lost Continent, all of Marvel's Super Heros, and of course, a big one, Jurassic Park! Below is the entrance to the Island of Adventure... yes, nice blue skies!

 

One of the Big Attractions as you enter the Park is Spiderman. We just recently saw the new Spiderman Movie with Shawn and Jenn back in Ottawa before we left for Florida. This is one of the BEST 4D adventures you can take! I was so amazed, I ended up going on the adventure twice! You jump from building to building with Spiderman after all the villians of course! What an adventure!

As we left the ride, of course we ran into Spiderman out on the road!

And how do you think he gets around the Park... on a Can Am "Spider" of course! We decided after Spiderman, to go to the far end of the Park and enter the World of Harry Potter! What an amazing display for Harry Potter. I hate to tell you, I have never read one of the books, or seen one of the movies, but I got right into the Harry Potter Ride!

• Give Universal Studios credit, they built an incredible Castle up on a mountain of rock! Incredible to visit!

It is hard to describe the Castle inside, however there is a lot of neat art work, and half of it comes to life in front of you and starts to talk! Magic!

 

The Harry Potter ride is as good as Spiderman, or maybe better! You fly along with Harry on his broom watching out for the Dragons! Incredible! There is also a whole villiage they built for the kids to wander through, spending tourist dollars on everything Harry Potter!

Of course the train was there... and apparently, next year the train will connect the two parks and you can ride on it!

We went to a stunt show called "The Eighth Voyage of Sindbad". This show was excellent, about 1/2 hour long. Even though the set looks a little 'busy' below, it was a great show, with lots of fire, magic, romance, and fun!

Dr. Seuss had a very large display in the Park, and one of Judy's favourites! They had a nice ride we were able to take that took you above all...

It is getting close to Christmas, so the Grinch was there... scaring all the kids! Not really...

This building below is a restaurant... part of the Lost Continent.

Below, you are looking at the Hulk Roller Coaster... we decided to ride it, but maybe it was a bit of a mistake!

This is one crazy roller coaster! I have never been on one that accelerated uphill faster than it goes down the hill! You have to ride this to believe it! We were both a bit oooozzzzzyyyyyy after this one... maybe we are getting too old for this?

It is one crazy ride!

Next we went into the water park area of Jurassic Park. OK, now we did not go on this rocket ride in the short video below... I could not believe how fast it went!

We did go on this ride below, and did not get as wet as it looks like you would... it was a blast!

I did watch the Jurassic Park Movies, and know what a Dino looks like!

Overall all, just another great fun day. Back to our normal life now! Phew.... need another day off!

Till tomorrow...

 

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Day off...

When we received a 3 day pass from Universal Studios up in Orlando, right away we decided that we would take today off, and go back to the 2nd park tomorrow... As we get older, you slow down a bit you know... and it is a long day in these parks.

So, today we took life easy... the most important thing (maybe...) that I did this morning, was to walk over to the gas station at our local Walmart, which is right beside us, and purchase a Power Ball Ticket!

Yes, I got caught up in all the "Hype" down here, as the prize tonight if you have not heard is $500,000,000.00! Can you dig it???? That is a lot of Diesel Fuel to put in the RV, that is for sure!

With Power Ball though, you have to know, that the prize is paid to you in 30 Annual Installment... so you have to wait for your money. However, you can take a one time payout of about $250,000,000.00! Not too shabby! However if you are a Non-Resident Alien, like Judy and I are, we will be deducted 30% of our winnings right off the top by the IRS. If we were Florida Residents, it would only be 25%...sigh...

One nice thing though... the money raised in Florida on the Power Ball Tickets, is spent on Education! That is why there are so many smart people down here!

Oh ya, in case you are wondering, it cost $2.00 to buy a Power Ball Ticket, and $1.00 to also play the Power Play Portion of the Ticket! My fingers are crossed!

This afternoon I did an oil change on Judy's Burgman, and had to tighen up some loose bolts! She had noticed a small wobble in the steering lately, and turns out the handle bars and become a bit loose, so fixed that for Her in a hurry! All is good again!

 

Judy found this little Geco this morning, enjoying all the Florida sun on the edge of my lawn chair! He sat there apparently for quite a while this morning enjoying life! These guys are really friendly and apparently eat ants, so that is good around here!

On a sad not tonight, we note that there was a major fire up just north of Barrie, Ontario, at the Hitch House. This is probably one of the largest RV Dealers in Ontario. Judy and I have visited this dealership many times, and had our RV serviced there. Apparently a fire started inside an RV that was inside the Showroom of the Dealership. The Showroom is huge, and can hold up to 8 RV's. The whole building, including the Service Department was lost! They had many RV's here, valued at well over $500,000.00 each!

 

The good news, was that the Company had a fire escape plan, and all 35 employees got out with no injuries. No one tried to play hero either and try to save any RV's, which is probably good! As you can see, it was quite a fire.

So, we are off to Day 2 at Universal Studios tomorrow! Should be fun!

Till tomorrow...

 

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Universal Studios, Orlando!

 

Today we decided it was time to go up to Orlando, which is only about a 30 minute drive, and check out Universal Studios.

Check this out... we made a trip to Orlando about 26 years ago, and Judy received 2 promotional tickets to enter the Park at that time. We did go to Universal Studios back then, but I guess we never used the 2nd. day of the pass. Judy kept the two promotional tickets in her wallet for 26 years! Today we handed them into the Guest Services Office, and presto, right away they gave us two new tickets! Better yet, they made them 3 day passes for both of the Parks! 26 years ago, there was only one park. So you ask, "What is the ticket worth today?" A one day pass to one of the parks is about $90.00 today! (Each!) We are going to come out ahead on this one! Love it! The Passes we received would have cost $305.98 for 2 adults!

This Park is an incredible place to visit, and we had a ball there today. The weather was perfect all day... mid 70's and lots of sun! There were not all that many people at the Park today, all turkeyed out after last week I guess! We got to hit all the big attractions in the park today including Shrek 4D, Terminator 2 in 3D, Twister, Revenge of the Mummy, Disaster, Fear Factor Live, Men in Black, The Simpson's Ride, The Animal Actors on Location, and ET Adventure! Phew...

Judy is getting ready for the Revenge of the Mummy, which was a wild ride!

 

Above is the set of Fear Factor Live... they had 4 Contestants from the Crowd that wanted to show they had NO FEAR!

Justin above, had no fear and won! It was a good show!

This Lady from the Audience, had no fear, letting them put 5 of these Scorpions on her head!

They had a terrific animal actor show... with lots of birds, dogs, cats, and you name it!

At the end of the day they have a big Parade down the Main Street...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turned out to be a terrific day, and we stopped on site at one of their Italian Restaurants for a great Dinner out!

Hey, we get to go back on Thursday, and do the 2nd. Park with all the Harry Potter Stuff! (Tomorrow is a day off...)

Till tomorrow...

 

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Toronto Wins!

Yes, the crowd down here in Winter Haven, Fla. was just a cheering on the Argo's last night as they were the big winners of the 100th Grey Cup!

Toronto did have a big advantage, as 53,000 fans were in the Dome last night, and most were cheering them on. It makes it almost impossible for the Visitor's when they are on the line of scrimmage, as you just cannot hear, and Calgary got caught on time viloations many times! However, Calgary left their "A" game, back in Calgary, and did not play very well overall, and did not really challenge the Argo's very much.

So tomorrow morning, the Argo's will get their Grey Cup Parade, right down Yonge Street in Toronto. There will be a bunch of people out... wish I was there... (not!)

Today the temps got up into the high 70's here in Florida... just a beautiful day.

This afternoon Judy and I decided to jump on the motorcycles and take a ride over to the Atlantic Ocean! How about Vero Beach! It is about a 95 mile drive, across Hwy. 60 for us. We should have started sooner in the day, but thankfully our headlights work, as we did not get back till about 7:30 tonight.

 

We made it down to the A1A Hwy, which runs along the Atlantic. What a day for a drive! Below Judy is off loading her bike, to go and check out the water...

 

It was a beautiful day, and we found a nice little park to check things out...

The bridge below, leads out to the Ocean. We made the crossing and headed north up the A1A.

Nice little boat sitting in harbour, on the inland side of things...

This is along the beach at Vero, there were some big breakers hitting the beach, but no one was surfing.

 

Overall, just a great day, and a great ride!

Till tomorrow...

 

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