Vacation 2009

With my upcoming deployment to Iraq, we decided to go on vacation this year during our girls spring break. We debated the destinations and at first looked at visiting our nieces in Ohio. With spring break being the last week of March and weather being unpredictable, we looked at locations further south. We ended up choosing Orlando, Florida.

First day was to be the most eventful. We wanted to reach Lake City, FL and found out that Mapquest travel time and Garmin Nuvi travel time were not the same. Leaving Dresden at 6:30 am, the Nuvi indicated, we would arrive at 7:30 pm. We made very good time and didn't take many breaks. We took a long break at A Peachy Place a nice geocache at an Interstate Rest stop in Georgia. We moved on through Atlanta and into Macon, Georgia. That is when the rain really came down and only got worse. Finally fed up with the weather we stopped in Valdosta, GA for the night. The next morning, I got up early and grabbed a few Park and Grabs in the area. Did find an ammo can in an urban area, that cache at a Boy Scout office, Timeless Values. Being it was an early Sunday morning, I had the area to myself.

We gathered our items and moved onto Tampa, Florida to visit Busch Gardens. We got in free, since I am military. Anheuser-Busch has free admission for military to include National Guard members at their parks. Military and families can visit one park for free, once a year. We found the virtual cache, Typically Floridian . The cache was at the flamingo location. About dusk, we left the park and headed towards Orlando. Got off the Interstate and I found out that I was going to dislike Orlando. At 9 pm on a Sunday night; traffic was horrid. We would face this dilemma every time we went out and I decided to suspend geocaching in the Orlando area.

Monday morning, we endured a time-share presentation in order to receive discount Disney tickets and went onto Sea World. We found the virtual cache, Seaworld Serpent. We didn't stay long at Sea World. The two long days of driving had taken a toll on us and we went back to the hotel.

Tuesday, we visited the Magic Kingdom. This made my third visit, my wife's second and my girls, their first. The park was packed with tourists but we did pick up the virtual at Cinderalla's Castle .

Wednesday, was probably the best day. We visited EPCOT. Back in 1986, while in the Navy and attending schools at NAS Jacksonville, I visited EPCOT but didn't like it. This time knowing what it was about, I enjoyed it and my girls really enjoyed it. We liked touring the other cultures and trying out food from different countries. Picked up two virtuals in the park, EPCOT and a waterfall in Canada. While in EPCOT, I turned my GPS on and saw I didn't have coordinates for the two virtuals. The one in Canada didn't bother me, all I needed to do was find the waterfall. The other required me to call a geocacher whom was near a computer. I contacted Nashville Joe and he saved the day. That evening, we attended a dinner theater at Capone's. The theater was fun and different from what I have seen before.

Thursday we left Orlando for the final destination of Charleston, South Carolina. I decided to take advantage of our situation and see the only ex-Confederate state that I had not visited. First we stopped in St. Augustine, Florida to see the oldest city in the United States. I had been to the beach in the city back in 1986, but this time, we looked at the history. Very nice city and would like to return someday. We found two virtuals, Cathedral Basilica a church with roots back to the 1600's and Hot Shots a fort, reconstructed in the 1700's but roots back in the late 1500's.

We proceeded up I-95 finding an fruit stand and onto Georgia where we met rain again. The rain would torment us through Georgia and into South Carolina. We continued to find a couple fo rest stop caches but the one I was after was H.L Hunley. The rain was coming down on us in buckets and made travel in the city difficult. We arrived at the cache location only to see the custodian closing up for the evening. We did manage to visit the beach in the rain, that being the highlight of the day.

On Friday, we headed back home to Dresden, a very long drive from Charleston, South Carolina. We picked up some caches in South and North Carolina. As we moved into Tennessee, I became more aggressive in my caching finding caches for the Tennessee County Challenge. I picked up Sevier, Cocke and Jefferson counties.