Robin Donald Morris

Sarah and I set off this morning nice and early for West Palm Beach, top down and sat-nav primed!

Me on Juno Beach, West Palm Beach, Florida

I had a story about a Frenchman called Drefuss buzzing around my head, it must have been on the radio when I fell asleep last night. He was wrongfully imprisoned at the end of the 19th century and prompted a famous author to pen “j’acuse”, pointing the finger at the French Army and establishment… must look it up in more detail.

Anyway, it took us about 2h 45 to get to West Palm Beach (aka Palm Beach) from Kissimmee and we headed straight to a pedestrian friendly area (a rarity in these parts) where we wandered around some shops, grabbing some lunch in an Italian place next to a fountain in the square.   I had a walnut, gorgonzola and pear salad… no real gorgonzola, soft walnuts… but the pears were ok.

Sarah on Juno Beach

On the advice of the waitress, we headed North on I-95 to Juno Beach to stroll along the sand and dip our toes in the Atlantic.

Juno is a very nice, sandy beach with coast guards actively patrolling. Considering it is so close to such a built up area, I was pleasantly surprised by how relaxing it was – and how quiet.

Only one comically pumped, bandana sporting, bronzed Miami-style runner to speak of!

Following the beach stroll, we got back in the motor and set off north on route 1, heading back homeward with a vague notion to stop somewhere on the way for dinner.

Where are the towns?

Sarah and I drove around Florida a fair bit and I have no idea where they keep their towns!

The feeling you get is that everyone lives in one giant suburb with 3 lane highways ploughing through the middle giving no clue as to the character of the places you are passing. For a European, this is really frustrating as in general if you get of the main motorways in Europe, you will find something resembling a town that you can stop in and walk around, instead you are forced into a mall, some form or drive through or purpose built car park.

Now, vague notions to stop somewhere can work in Europe where the roads generally take you through towns and villages where you can spot a potential venue… in this part of the States at least, you are specifically routed past anything of interest, pushed in rows of 3 or more at 55 mph north, south, east or west.

We did stop somewhere called Stuart that resembled a town in some respects but it was difficult to find and this was after a few failed efforts to find somewhere that would be nice to walk around and find a place to eat.

Once you have figured this out and you make a real effort to leave the main drag, you can sometimes find places that resemble towns and find a good place to eat.   We managed to stumble upon Stewart, and had a fun meal, the home made Lemonade and Orangeade were a highlight!

Today we drove, top down towards Cape Canaveral to take a trip on one of those “Gentle Ben” style air boat rides that are the done thing when you are in Florida.

A Bald Eagle from our air boat, Florida

Our sat-nav guided us to the venue without too much trouble, only a slight hickup taking us 2 miles (which in US context is nothing) in completely the wrong direction for some reason.   We pulled into the empty car park, with no sign of life other than a pickup parked on the grass near what was obviously the shop entrance.  As we walked gingerly into the shop, we were greeted with a friendly lady whose voice I recognised from the earlier booking telephone call, “you must be Morris… your captain will be with you shortly” she hollered and pointed us in the direction of some camouflage covered seats to await his arrival.

In what must have been a deliberate attempt to tick as many cliché boxes as possible, we had to step over a large pig (yes pig), negotiate our way past at least 5 snakes (including a python) and along the line of stuffed Gator heads to our seats.   My attention was drawn to the “Rockets of the World” poster, showing world rockets all to scale from smallest to American – I thought to myself while we awaited our captain that it must have been a difficult exorcise collating that information given how secretive many countries are about their rockets and if you were to do it train spotting style this would be even tougher given how fast rockets generally travel.

Amongst the Cypress trees in a feeding tributary into St. John's river, Florida

We shared our boat with only 2 others – a man in his early twenties and his great grand father – plus of course the captain. Our captain/driver/tour guide took us on a whirlwind (literally) ride through along the St. John’s river pointing out the wild life plus an indian burial ground.   It would have been nice if he had identified the flora and fauna more than once for each item, he was a little too economical with his words – “Blue Heron over there, and that is a Cormorant” was kind of all we got despite the large number of both birds on display and there must be more to each species than their names!

The highlight was being taken into the mangroves amongst the Cypress trees, extraordinarily beautiful.

Our fellow passengers on the trip, approached us in the car park afterwards – in a Grandpa from The Simpsons moment the first words the great grandfather declared to us were “I drove semi’s for 40 years you know!”, and when we asked him if he had ever been to Scotland he declared: “I ain’t never been out the state much, ‘sept to Main on one of those big planes, y’know big planes”… big plane arm waving followed.   The grandson seemed a little embarrassed.

See: airboatridesatmidway.com

Looking at the Balloon in Downtown Disney

A brief summary of today would read…

• Shopping in Downtown Disney
• Lunch at Rainforest Café
• Lounging by the pool
• Cinema to watch “The Invention of Lying”

and indeed it did read like that.

Sarah under the Downtown Disney Lights

We spotted '68 Special Elvis watching Las Vegas Elvis

Today was a lazy day – we did a little sun bathing and swimming before heading to Kissimmee Old Town for some crazy golf and finished the day watching some americans pointlessly driving down the high street.

This was described as “cruising” by the over excited announcer man (wittily playing “Here in my car” by Gary Newman) so I suspect this is a regular activity – I am not sure if it is the same 10 cars or if they get other cruisers along each time.

Our Old Town experience was not in vain, as we spotted there was a band due to come on at some point soon.   We hung around in front of the stage as the area filled up with people of a certain generation, and the air of anticipation grew. We started to think that perhaps the coming event would be something of significance – and we were right!

The band fired up and started to build up as the star of the show walked in from stage right: it was Elvis!

Well, no it was Dwight Icenhower.

He also started belting out the Elvis classics and as time went on, handing out freshly sweat clad scarfs to the ageing audience. The Colonel handing fresh, pre-sweated scarfs was a nice touch.

It was at this point we noticed that 68 Elvis was standing directly in front of us in full leather gear!   The amazing thing that has subsequently illuminated most of my Florida experience was that this was taken with absolute sincerity.

Simon is informed that the flight is delayed

The day started early (7.30, which for me on a Saturday morning is really early) to drop our car off at Mum and Dad’s before Dad gave us a lift through to Glasgow.   In return for a lift the get 2 weeks use of our Audi TT which Dad seems to be looking forward to a little too much, we will probably find he has planted it in a ditch upon our return.

No problems getting to the airport and check in was only slightly delayed when we confused them with the old baby on board but no seat required which although you would imagine is a fairly regular occurrence, the system was thrown by this freak event!

We the learnt of a slight delay, which as you can see from the photo, did not go down well with Simon!

The plane journey itself was pretty uneventful with April enjoying running down the aisles between groups in our party and eating her jelly snakes.   I think the Snakes on a Plane reference was lost on the four year old however.

One year old Violet only got slightly miffed towards the end of the flight which was a bit of a miracle given we landed well past her bed time UK time.

Sarah and I picked up our hire car, managing to sneak a cheap upgrade to a convertible… woo hoo!

30th April – 5th May 2009

Myself, Colin Valentine, James Davidson and Simon Beattie headed to the French Alpes to play a bit of golf.

It was great fun and thanks to The Thomas’s for letting us use their chalet in Saxias as a base.

James and I lost so I will not write any more about this ghastly event… here are some pictures!