There are many things on our list of places we want to visit while traveling. One was very much “for the kids” – Disney World and Universal Studios in Orlando, FL. The plan was to make our way down the east coast on Night Music via the Intracoastal Waterway, then rent a car and head east. Mother Nature had other plans to rearrange the order of our list. After 3 months of hard work, waiting for boat parts, provisioning, and planning our route south, we were ready to go. READY! The weather forecast, however, was for 10 days of gale force winds and near freezing temperatures. Even the local sailors were cautioning against starting south under those conditions. After some family discussion, we reviewed our list and decided to still go to Orlando – but get there by driving our truck instead of boat. We decided on Monday night (Feb 9th) and headed south on Tuesday morning – 12 hours on the road until sunshine, palm trees, and roller coasters! Ten minutes outside of New Bern we knew it was the right decision. Wednesday started at Universal –the Harry Potter Diagon Alley and Hogs Meade Village were wonderful. Both Ava and Reed are big Harry Potter fans so it was a special treat. We spent most of our day there casting imaginary spells, visiting shops and riding on attractions. There were no crowds – which was very handy since we quickly discovered that Ava is a roller coaster addict (she gets it from Karrie), riding the Dueling Dragons – loop-de-loop – five times in one hour. Reed preferred the lower key rides and the carnival games, although Ava does owe him $15 for the roller coaster rides she bribed him to take with her. Wednesday evening we had a wonderful dinner with longtime friends Paul and Jim, who were gracious enough to gift us passes to the Disney Parks the following day. We spent Thursday morning at Animal Kingdom – starting with the Safari tour. It was great to see so many animals active in the morning. The rapidly warming weather called for a ride on the Kali river rapids. Reed and Eric were in the unlucky seats on the boat that got the wave of water washed over them. Fun but took a while to dry out. Ava got her arm tattooed with Henna - very pretty and lasted almost two weeks. Thursday afternoon and evening were spent in the Magic Kingdom – Tea Cup rides, Small World, all the icons – capped off by watching the fireworks over the castle from the Swiss Family Robinson tree house. As the name implies, magical! After a 15 hour “Disney Day”, Friday was definitely a day to sleep in. It also provided a perfect opportunity to check another item off our list. Night Music has a compressed natural gas (CNG) stove, with four tanks to keep us cooking meals and baking bread – as long as they are full. However, CNG refills are quite hard to come by on the East Coast and we were down to a single, ½ full tank. CNG is available either in Annapolis, MD, or Fort Pierce, FL. Both of these locales are a long drive from North Carolina. So while the kiddos were sleeping, Eric took the empty tanks to Fort Pierce and got them filled. Fresh baked bread will be back! After four days in Orlando, we headed north to Jacksonville, FL, to visit the Harvey family, friends from Seattle and Ava’s preschool/early elementary days. A stop at Merritt Island, FL, along the way provided our first sighting of alligators in the wild, as well as many shore birds and armadillos. The hospitality wonderful – we ended up staying several days including celebrating Eric’s birthday with them. Sue, Tom, Bridget, Michael, and Isabel – all gracious hosts. It was fun to walk the beach, play football in the backyard, share delicious meals and make more memories. After a week being away from Night Music, it was time to head north. We stopped in Charleston, SC, to stay with friends and pick up some supplies. Jack Jones, father of one our good friends, gave us a brief morning tour of the nearby historic sites and headed north to New Bern. It was a rearrangement of our list and schedule that was well worth it! | |
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AuthorsWe are Karrie, Eric, Ava, and Reed Sanderson. Our house is in Seattle but our home is wherever the four of us are...and for the next two years, our home is Night Music, a Tartan 37 Sailboat. Archives
June 2016
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