Better Late Than Never - the End of Our Adventure

From Leland, NC, we headed west across North Carolina, eventually ending up in the mountains of Western Virginia at The Homestead, an older style resort that they say was originally built in 1766 and had visitors such as G. Washington staying there. It was a magnificent place, one of those bucket list type places that I like to visit and get a chance to stay at for a few days. Very posh, similar to the Greenbrier in White Sulfur Springs, W. Va. They, for some reason, upgraded our room to a beautiful suite with an outside balcony overlooking the back grounds of the resort where there was an ice skating rink, one of their restaurants (the Casino), and you could see one of their golf courses in the background. Their outside swimming pool was being totally redone to simulate a one acre water park with a lazy river, that kind of stuff. We had a treat Saturday night, for some reason they had a fireworks display and our balcony was great for viewing that show. The restaurants were pretty nice (coats needed in the main dining rooms for the guys), and, of course, they had their famous spas, indoor pool, bowling, a movie theater showing two shows nightly, avenue of shops, a high adventure shop for off-roading, falconry, etc., just an overall very interesting place to visit and stay for a few days. We left for Happy Valley on Sunday morning arriving home around 2PM, all in all a great tropical adventure which we'd like to do part of again, perhaps next Winter. Hopefully attached are a few shots from The Homestead, thanks for following our blog and being a part of our trip. Jim and Sheila

Three Good Days in Leland, NC

Our trip up the coast from Orlando to Leland, NC, via Brunswick, GA, was fairly uneventful.  We drove through Myrtle Beach on the way and made it to our friend's place by the late afternoon on Tuesday.  The last few days have been spent visiting around the Wilmington area and today we sat out in the sun at Oak Island for much of the afternoon.  We have a long travel day tomorrow and hope we make it to the Homestead in western Virginia by late afternoon.  We'll be spending a few days there and then it's back to HV on Sunday.  I'll try and send some pics from the Homestead, have a good evening.

From Hogwart's to Jekyll Island, Including Butter Beer

Had a very uneventful ride from Sarasota up to the Coronado Springs Resort in Walt Disney World, they even let us check in 3 hrs early and we bolted for their beautiful Mayan designed pool for the afternoon. Felt sort of like outsiders while there that night since there were about 1000 Grainger, Inc., employees (I'd never heard of the company) everywhere on the resort grounds and around the lakes, pools, walkways!! I spoke with one employee and he said this was their annual sales meeting convention, often held at WDW; it was interesting seeing all that Disney went to (the guy said the company dropped 2M for this event). We then spent two great days in the Disney parks, probably my favorite "ride" was the safari ride through Animal Kingdom where "many" animals were strolling the 100 acres they've developed to look as if it was the Serengeti Plain or other areas of Africa. We visited Hollywood Studios, Epcot, and the Magic Kingdom, walking 21000 steps one day (my feet hurt!!). Other favorite rides were Star Tours and Soaring, just to mention a few. Our third day in the area was at Universal's Island Adventure where the Harry Potter ride through Hogwart's Castle was sort of amazing. I don't know if I thought it was amazing before or after I wafted down a mug of "butter beer", good stuff!! We followed that one with a boat ride in Jurassic Park which terminated in about a seventy foot drop into a large pond, needless to say most everyone on the boat got pretty wet. Evening events included dinner at the Chinese pavilion in Epcot and the great fireworks on the lake which followed. Our last night in the Magic Kingdom ended with the electric light parade thru Main St which was also a lot of fun to watch. All in all, it was a good return to WDW and the Coronado Resort was a very nice place to stay for our visit. We got on the road early this morning and it was an easy drive to Brunswick, GA, with a stopover on Jekyll Island, GA which was a very interesting place to visit. It would be a great place to stop-by on a trip up or down the coast, especially at this time of the year. It is about 8 miles long, almost completely encircled by a great bike path, nice hotels to stay at, and very good restaurants for a nice evening dinner along either the ocean side or on the canals on the opposite side of the island. These pics were (1) below Hogwart's and (2) the electric light parade.

Our Stay in Sarasota is Over Tomorrow

Our past few days in the Sarasota area have been great. Monday was spent over on Lido Key where we walked around St. Armand's Circle for quite a few hours while a slight weatherfront was coming through the area. This place is known for its shops and it was interesting to wander and people-watch as well as see the many different "things" that were offered for sale. Tuesday and Wednesday were ideal beach days and we traveled both days to, supposedly, the #1 Voted Beach in the US, that being the Siesta Key Public Beach. It lived up to it's name. I've never seen a beach as big and as beautiful as this one with pure white fine sand that doesn't get hot in the sun. I've included several shots, one of Sheila coming out to the ocean area across the beach (it must have been two hundred yards from the parking lots to the ocean), the other of a "postcard" located outside of the concession area at the beach. Our stay here in Sarasota has been a good one, we especially liked the condo location where we're staying, it afforded us the ability to walk within minutes around a lakeside walkway to a town center complete with many restaurants and shops, very nice. We head to WDW tomorrow, staying at the Coronado Beach Resort, haven't been there in over ten years so it should be interesting, I don't think you can have a bad time visiting there. I'll be getting back on this blog in a few days after we've toured the park awhile. Until then, .....................

Punta Gorda Quilt Show, Mote Aquarium, Myakka River State Park

Our past few days in Sarasota have been busy. Thursday we decided to drive over to Lido Key, across the causeway from Sarasota, and tour the Mote Aquarium which turned out to be very good. On Friday Sheila met up with some State College quilting friends and spent most of the day at a show in Punta Gorda, a small town south of here. Meanwhile I went for a cruiser ride and went over to Siesta Key Beach (a famous US beach, supposed to be one of the best in the States), but was unable to "find" a parking spot so I came back to our condo and sat at the pool most of the day, not bad, though. Walked to the little town center again for a nice al fresco dinner at a Scottish restaurant. Weather turned a little cooler today so we decided to visit the Myakka River State Park not far from here. Had a very good time and saw many nice heron's, egret's, ahingua's, just to name a few. Also did some side hikes and did see a few good looking "gators". I guess the highlight of the visit was a climbing tower, I believe it was about 78 feet high and we got to it by crossing over a 100 foot swing bridge that only could hold four persons at a time. I've attached a few photos of that tower and bridge. The weird thing about it was that the wind was blowing fairly hard today and the entire structure (tower) w

as very noticeably swaying! It was a little nerve-racking to be up on top of this thing and it began to sway so we didn't spend a lot of time up there. The cool front is supposed to hang around tomorrow so we may go down to Armand's Circle just to check out the shops. Weather is supposed to rebound on Monday so we'll be attempting another visit to Siesta Key Beach early in the week.

Last Day in Naples Then Onto Sarasota

Our last day in Naples was a good one. We visited Clam Pass Beach, another that is reached by first parking your car and then hopping on a shuttle to travel about one mile out to the beach area. This one had very nice facilities, even a small Tiki bar serving a nice little list of beverages. Spent a good three hours there and then returned to our hotel to complete packing for our trip up to Sarasota. The morning of our departure we visited a tennis community called Sterling Oaks and looked at a condo that is available for next Winter which we're thinking about renting. This facility has 15 har-tru courts and a beautiful pool and clubhouse and sits at the North end of Naples. After checking this condo out we continued on our trip up the Gulfcoast, stopping by Fort Meyers and Sanibel Island before reached our destination in Lakewood Ranch located just out of the Sarasota limits. Today, Wednesday, since it was a little overcast, we decided to spend the day at the Ringling Museum/Mansion grounds and weren't disappointed. We went on a 45 minute tour of the estate, called Cad"Zan, which John and Mable Ringling built in 1926, I've included some pictures from the estate. We're finding Sarasota very nice so far, especially at the condo we're staying in which is within walking distance of a small town center with shops, restaurants, even a movie theater. This morning we went for a walk around the complex and went out on a pier which is on the property, many waterfowl all around that area, then we went over to another seating area and saw one of the alligators which lives in the local lake, he was also eyeing up the same waterfowl we were. As always, enjoy yourselves!

Busy Day in Naples

Headed over to the Naples Botanical Garden after lunch and found that was most interesting. Even though it appears to have been there awhile (everything was seemingly full-grown), the garden was only established in 2009 with some areas only finished last year. Attached are several pictures from the gardens. Then went to an amazing Catholic church for 4PM services, it was called St. Agnes and there

were no less than 1200 people at that service. The music director sounded like a cross between Michael Bolton and Billy Joel and was an accomplished pianist and organist, often playing two keyboards at the same time. No hymnals were needed since the church had four big screens on which all the readings and hymns were displayed, it was quite a place. Then traveled back downtown to the Waterside Shops and walked around there for awhile before having dinner at a California Pizza restaurant. Back home to get rested up for another tennis match tomorrow over at another State College guy's place not too far from here. There will be five of us from the PSU club playing tomorrow which should be good, hopefully I can keep up with them. The gals are all coming along and will spend their time at the poolside cabana while we play. Good evening.