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.All Trips / Florida / North America / Southeastern USA
Disney World’s Boardwalk, Orlando
Few places do a better job of creating false reality than Walt Disney World. When I recently visited Orlando, I attended a medical meeting within the theme park, not far from the”Epcot Resort” region. This area is near Crescent Lake and includes the Beach and Yacht Club resorts and Disney’s Boardwalk. While I was in a beautiful subtropical place, the area gave me the very carefully crafted impression I was somewhere else. It’s one of the many aspects of the Disney parks I really enjoy.
The Beach and Yacht Club resorts are designed in the New England style and feature the top quality amenities you’d expect when staying at Disney — comfortable rooms, pools, a variety of eateries — but also …
Tagged Boardwalk, Disney, Family Travel, Walt Disney World
“Pic of the Week”, December 25, 2015: Christmas at Disney Springs
Merry Christmas everyone! Today’s featured collection of pics looks at some of the seasonal decorations at Disney Springs (formerly Downtown Disney) in Walt Disney World, Orlando.
Visiting Disney theme parks is lots of fun but has gotten quite expensive, especially if you’re taking the family. But there’s a few places you can park your car for free and walk around without paying admission at the Disney Theme parks, and one of the best is Disney Springs. Here you can stroll up a street beautifully designed in the Disney manner, go window shopping, get a snack or a meal, catch a movie, go bowling, or perhaps see a concert or a Cirque Du So-lei performance. And during the holidays the park dresses …
Dec 24, 2015
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“Pic of the Week”, November 13, 2015: Gator wrestling, Florida
Alligators are fascinating animals. Large, primitive, with alert eyes that, like any good predator’s, follow you wherever you go. I must admit that when they fix their unblinking eyes on me, the hair stands up on my neck. They are six inches long when they’re born, but as fully grown adults can reach a length of almost 20 ft (more than 6 meters). Once a threatened species, they’ve recovered and you’ll find them in freshwater swamps and lakes of the southeast.
I recently visited Orlando with my father and one day was spent at the fun old-fashioned amusement park, Gatorland. There are several shows at this venue, including one featuring alligator wrestling. This is not a violent sport …
Nov 12, 2015
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.All Trips / Florida / North America / Southeastern USA
A gallery of gators — Florida’s Everglades National Park
There’s sometime viscerally disconcerting about looking into the eyes of an alligator. Dark, non-blinking, but clearly focused on you, it sends a shiver up my spine. Something being tickled in the primitive parts of my brain — prey intuitively recognizing a successful killing and eating machine that has survived for millions of years. They sure look menacing with those armored bodies, powerful tails and dozens of sharp teeth, like the apex predators they are.
My instincts make me back off and keep a good distance, and that’s good advice for everyone — stay at least 4 m (13 ft) from alligators (and crocodiles) because over a 2 meter distance there’s no faster attack animal on the planet. You won’t have a …
.All Trips / Florida / North America / Southeastern USA
A visit to the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida
The Kennedy Space Center is one of my favorite attractions in the United States. It highlights some of the greatest technological achievements of our species and is testament to one of the most significant advances of human civilization — mankind leaving its earthly home to travel to the moon. It was President John Kennedy’s challenge to the nation to get a man to the moon and return him safely to the Earth before the close of the 1960s, a goal accomplished by the landing of Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong on the moon in July 1969. I was very young during those halcyon days of space travel but remember vividly the great successes (and some heart-breaking failures) of the …
Tagged Florida, Kennedy Space Center, NASA, rocket, Saturn V, Space Shuttle
.All Trips / Florida / North America / Southeastern USA
The Tampa Bay Automobile Museum — a fascinating collection of fine cars!
One of the great pleasures of traveling is discovering those special places — gems that aren’t necessarily very famous or perhaps are off the beaten path, but still so very worthwhile visiting. So it was with the Tampa Bay Automobile Museum which I had the pleasure of discovering during a recent visit to Florida.
Situated in a light industrial area just outside of Tampa in Pinellas County, the museum abuts a factory run by the owner of the wonderful car collection I’m about to share with you. The factory is Polypack (manufactures packaging machinery) and its owner is Alain Cerf. Mr. Cerf is an immigrant from France, a man with obvious exquisite taste in cars and the means to indulge …
Tagged cars, Florida, Tampa, Tampa Bay Automobile Museum
.All Trips / Florida / North America / Southeastern USA
A visit to the Everglade National Park: Shark Valley’s “River of Grass”
This is the last in a three part series highlighting a visit to Florida’s unique Everglades. The first part discussed the Cypress forests of the Everglades and the second part highlighted the coastal mangrove forests near Everglades City. Today I’d like to share with you a great example of the major component of the Everglades, the “River of Grass” — tens of thousands of acres of partially submerged sawgrass. Within this flat landscape are some small islands on which grow cypress, palm and gumbo-limbo trees.
The Everglades is characterized by a broad shallow river flowing from Lake Okeechobee into Florida Bay. This river averages 40-50 miles (75 km) in width, 6 in (15 cm) in depth and flows very slowly, …
.All Trips / Florida / North America / Southeastern USA
Everglades City, Florida: Mangroves, Manatee, and the Sea.
This is the second in a three part series on Florida’s unique Everglades ecosystem. The first part focused on the Cypress forests of the Everglades, which you read about here. This post deals with a visit to the coastal Everglades.
Everglades City is a small town (population 400) in southwestern Florida abutting the ocean to the south and Everglades National Park to the east. The town is situated towards the southern end of the Everglades. In this region, the “River of Grass” has transitioned to a coastal mangrove forest. Mangroves thrive where the water is brackish and saw-grass can’t survive, and mangroves are ecologically important because they helps anchor the land and keep it from eroding during …
Tagged airboat, birds, Everglades, Everglades City, manatee, mangrove, wildlife
