Disney in Pictures

A few Magic Kingdom pictures.

DOD

Is it possible to experience Disney Over Dose? After a day and a half of giggling teenagers, crying children, screaming babies, cranky parents, being crammed like sardines on the monorail or ferry, hurrying from one place to the next in order to stand in line for 10-50 minutes for a ride, eating corn dogs, funnel cakes, caramel corn, hamburgers, french fries and cokes, I say a resounding YES! Leaving the park last night, if one more person had told me to have a "magical day" I might have snapped. Fortunately, Ed got me out of there before that could happen. Now you know I'm kidding, right? Of course Disney World is great but I've come to realize that what makes it great is seeing it through the eyes of children. Sure the fireworks were fantastic, the parade was great, some of the shows we saw were fun and educational. But during the course of the ride or show or fireworks or parade I would find myself scanning the crowd to watch for the look of wonder and excitement in the children's eyes. Their cries of Ariel, or Mickey or Cinderella or whoever was there made me look in that direction with expectancy of what I would see. What to me was a boring ride became a great adventure when I watched a little girl or boy cringe in fear from a fake crocodile or jump up and down when seeing a fake Tinkerbell fly by. So I think Disney needs to have a rule for those entering the Magic Kingdom...NO ADULTS ALLOWED UNLESS ACCOMPANIED BY A CHILD!

Most People Would Not Do That

(Ridgeland, SC: 1 March 2010) Stealing is a sin right? Most people would not take something from a store without paying for it. That's stealing right? Is it stealing if the salesperson makes a mistake and charges you less for an item than it cost? Or what if they miss an item and don't charge you at all? Is that stealing? Is it wrong? Is it sin? If you were overcharged for an item and discovered it later would you go back to the store and point it out? What if you were undercharged? Or not charged?
On our way back from Florida in late February driving up I-95 somewhere north of Brunswick GA we had another tow-car incident. The locking pin on one side of the tow-bar that keeps the car hooked to the tow-bar hooked to the RV, somehow shook loose. The pin fell out and I was towing the car by only one bar...not good. I felt it immediately when I was driving and saw it in my rear camera. The car was slewing from side-to-side without the other bar to hold it solid. Traffic backed away and I was able to slow the rig down and stop without incident. We didn't have a replacement pin so we unhooked the car from the RV. Joy drove the car and I drove the RV. We got back on the road headed for Charlotte, NC to see our friends.
To tow the car again, I needed to find a dealer for Blue Ox, the brand of tow-bar we have, to get a pin replacement. This was the weekend of the snowstorm that hit as far south as Atlanta. About 20 miles south of Savannah we saw snow on the sides of the road. This day, there was no snow on the road and very safe, dry driving conditions, but we could see on the sides of the road evidence of what had been only a few hours before. About 20 miles into SC we found an RV dealer who was also a dealer for Blue Ox. We pulled off the highway, parked and walked into the store. People were there, but the inside was dark. We eventually found the parts man and got the explanation that a car had gone into a power pole and they were without power. They expected it to be restored soon. He had the part I needed though. We found it with a flashlight and he wrote up a ticket the old fashioned way, by hand, and took down our credit card number and I signed it. The new locking pins worked great.
Joy noticed some time later that the credit card had not gone through. The receipt didn't even have that name of the store and we couldn't remember the town where we stopped, so we were stuck. This past Monday morning we were driving down the same stretch of I-95 and we remembered to look for the store. We passed by before they were open, but we got their name and found a phone number. Joy called and explained what happened. She told the same story to three incredulous people before getting to the guy who helped us. He had tried to run it through but it didn't go through. He had written the number down wrong. Joy gave him the right numbers. He said he had written it off; that he was going to have to eat that one. He thanked Joy for calling back and settling the bill.
"Not many people would do that" he said.
Why not I ask?

Surprised in Sarasota

(Sarasota, FL: 2 March 2010) We made it back to Florida for the second round of RV renovation. Since we had to be out of the way for the day we originally were planning and looking forward to some relaxing beach time. Overnight the weather turned nasty with thunderstorms coming in before dawn and raining most of the morning. We googled "off the beaten path, florida", for something to do indoors, and found a place we would have never visited. When we asked Harry, the salesmen here at Classic Coach Works, whether he had heard of the Circus Museum in Sarasota, he quickly seconded the high reviews we saw on the internet.
And we were not disappointed.
After about a 90 minute drive we arrived just in time to slip into a movie explaining the history and rebuilding of the Asolo Theater which was followed by a movie about John and Mable Ringling, the founder and benefactor of the campus of museum's we were about to see. The movie provided a great orientation. John Ringling was one of the famous Ringling Brothers of circus fame, who, in the late 1800's/early 1900's created and grew the most successful circus in history. They were 5 boys from a strict Christian family from Baraboo, Wisconsin. One year a circus came to town and captivated the boys imaginations. They worked on their own acts and started putting on shows locally. They got better and better at it. Family's appreciated them not using profanity in their acts and having a strict behavior code for their performers, they were known for their honest business dealings and their business grew. Eventually they took the show on the road and the rest is history. Eventually they moved the circus' winter home to Sarasota, Florida after John and Mable bought land around Sarasota Bay. They became wealthy not only from the amazing success of the circus operations, but from land, oil, and railroad investments. Mable built an incredible mansion, Ca' d'Zan (Home of John) and gardens here. They educated themselves in art and traveled extensively collecting art. They bought so many works of art that their home couldn't hold it all. So, they built a building, a museum; an amazing work of art in itself, to house their collection. Mable died after living in the mansion she built only three years. The Depression hit, John, the last surviving brother, lost all the circus holdings, but he managed to keep the art collection together. He was devastated financially. When he died in 1936 he had $311 in the bank. He left the mansion, the museum, the art collection and 20 acres of land on Sarasota Bay to the State of Florida. They are managed by Florida State University through a trust and a foundation. The museum is said to be the 20th most significant art museum in the US. The two circus museum's were actually established after Ringling's death. One museum has circus memorabilia, wagons, costumes, handbills and advertising and stuff from the filming of the movie The Greatest Show on Earth, filmed on location in Sarasota. The most incredible part of the circus museum though is an entire Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey circus circa 1919-1938 in miniature! That's right the entire circus...everything you could possibly think of connected to the circus, carved and built from wood! It was made by a man named Howard Tibbals and took him over 50 years to complete!
Yes, were were definitely pleasantly surprised by Sarasota!

An Eatin' Adventure

(Holly Hill, SC: 27 Feb 2010) One important criteria to check off on a state as having been "Hatched" is to experience a local eatery. I wanted to make this very specific and say, experience local barbecue, but decided to keep it open. Although Jestine's Kitchen in Charleston certainly filled that quota and we could have called it quits, I found another candidate on chowhound.com that was a bit more adventurous and fit the barbecue category. Sweatman's BBQ in Holly Hill, SC was the target.
It was adventurous because it is way off the beaten path (about 30 miles off the interstate) and because one of the reviews made compared the building and location to Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Mississippi Burning. We expected good food, but we weren't sure what we were getting ourselves into. In the end the food was very good...not the best BBQ I (we) have ever had, but very good, and the reviewer was a little over dramatic in his description. It certainly is out in the middle of nowhere and it is a very non-descript building, but the people were nice and the setting fit the down home taste of the food. There was dark and white pulled pork with a "hash" sauce. Also ribs, rice, skin, coleslaw and pickles served buffet style with all the sweet tea you can drink. The sauces were very basic; a mustard based sauce and a ketchup based sauce. The hash sauce was also mustard based.
On the way back home (to the RV!) Joy and I compared notes on what makes good BBQ. We realize that the cooking process of smoking the meat so the juices cook into and don't dry out the meat is the real key. But for both of us, we really like the sauce and we tend to like the more western, Texas style ketchup based sauces. So the food at Sweatman's gets high marks for the quality, flavor and texture of the meat, but low for the sauces. (I admit I am a self-proclaimed BBQ connoisseur and sometimes snob)
We'll keep you posted as to how this ranks in our Roady eating experiences, but it was worth the trip.

Doin' the Charleston X 2

(Charleston, SC: 26-27 Feb 2010) You were going to have to imagine how beautiful Charleston is, because when we got downtown after the 30 minute drive from our RV campground, we realized we forgot the camera. But it is such a beautiful old city it was worth having an excuse to go back a second day, with the camera, to capture it not only in our mind's eye, but in digits too so you can see what we saw. A bit about the city. One of the oldest cities in the U.S. first settled around 1670. Big slave city early on; 3 of every 4 slaves that came to North America before 1800 came through Charleston. The fourth largest city in the colonies at the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Two signers of the Constitution are from Charleston and buried here (we actually saw their graves): Charles Pinckney and John Rutledge. And of course this is where the Civil War began with the firing on the Union Fort Sumter which sits about 1 mile from the tip of the peninsula on which Charleston sits.
The thing that most amazed us about this city is the architecture and the large number of incredibly preserved old old homes here. Houses from the Revolutionary War period, pre-Civil War, Civil War and later. Old churches too. There are even a few original cobblestone streets.
A highlight for us was a late lunch at Jestine's Kitchen. I found this gem on chowhound.com, a website where people are the food critics. Joy enjoyed her original southern fried chicken and I devoured the meatloaf sandwich. We topped it off with Coca-Cola cake and Pecan pie and coffee. Mmmm good. It was so good the first day, we went back to their bakery on day 2 and got some goodies for the road!
If you have never been...for the history, the buildings and the food...Charleston is worth a visit!

Winged Warrior

(Charleston, SC: 25 Feb 2010) Chris Peterson is the son of our long time dear friends Pete and Pam Peterson. Chris is a Captain in the Air Force and flies C-17 cargo/airlift aircraft out of Charleston AFB. He just got back from Qatar in January after a four month deployment serving in the war effort. We came to Charleston primarily to catch up with Chris. Chris has had a special place in my life since 1996. When I was transferred to the Pentagon and we couldn't sell our house in GA which kept Joy and the girls from moving with me, I stayed with Pete and Pam and Chris in their townhouse in Springfield, VA. Later when Pete and Pam were sent to Turkey and Chris stayed back in VA to finish his high school senior year, I got to be Chris's stand-in dad on several occasions.
We enjoyed dinner together and catching up on Chris's life in the Air Force and here in Charleston. Since our son-in-law CJ is in the middle of AF pilot training we quizzed Chris extensively about his experience, not that long ago, in pilot training. It was not an easy time for Chris. He struggled greatly and several times came close to being eliminated from the program. He was not the first in his class, but eventually he received the prized pilot wings. He was however, the first to recognize how God used this experience and other things that were going on to humble him and strengthen his faith. Through the hard times he hung in there, kept faith, worked hard, and tried to keep a positive attitude. In the end he didn't just get his wings, he also got his choice of assignments. He took Charleston, perhaps the premier C-17 base in the Air Force. He continues to work hard, keep faith, and wait on God for what's next (like maybe bringing the right woman into his life!)
Chris has a special place in our hearts. It was great to see him. We were encouraged in our own faith as we saw God's faithfulness in his life.