Monday, June 17, 2013
Day 2 - Universal Studios / Harry Potter World
We got up early again to head over to Harry Potter World at Universal Studios. The place is incredible – huge, commercial as you can imagine and incredibly expensive. We were only staying for 3 hours, but we paid an obscene amount of money anyway. Kelli really loves Harry Potter and was super excited to see Hogwarts. She spent the entire three hours there. It was super hot. There is a pretty intense roller coaster there (goes upside down a number of times) that we all went on.
For the last hour, Maddie, Jessie and I left Kelli, Katie and Patty at Hogwarts and rode a couple more rides – a Jurassic Park water ride to cool off for a moment, and then a giant roller coaster that was pretty intense called the Incredible Hulk. We had a quick lunch, then walked back to the car (about a mile through a bunch of shops!) and drove to the Road Bear RV pickup location. We’ve rented a number of motorhomes – none of which has been a great experience. I did some research this time and had heard these guys were good. It was not disappointing. The motorhome is a 2014 model with 4,000 miles on it. It’s in a different world from the Cruise America piece of junk we rented a couple of years ago with 80,000 miles on it. We pulled out around 4:30 and went to a big grocery store and stocked up. We left around 6:45 and drove a couple of hours north to Faver-Dykes State park near the coast. It’s 1.5 miles out a dirt road and we haven’t seen anyone else here. It was really pretty, but I didn’t stay outside long because I was getting eaten alive by the mosquitos. The motorhome was excellent and holds all 6 of us easily. Patty made some lazy-pasta and I made salad. We found we didn’t have a corkscrew for our bottle of wine, so I read on wiki-how about ways to open a bottle without one. Turns out there are many. I tried number one and it worked great: put a towel around the bottom of the bottle (to protect it) and bang it against a tree. The wine hitting the cork forces it out little by little. Took about 45 seconds and we were in business. ☺
Tomorrow we’re off to Savannah, GA.
For the last hour, Maddie, Jessie and I left Kelli, Katie and Patty at Hogwarts and rode a couple more rides – a Jurassic Park water ride to cool off for a moment, and then a giant roller coaster that was pretty intense called the Incredible Hulk. We had a quick lunch, then walked back to the car (about a mile through a bunch of shops!) and drove to the Road Bear RV pickup location. We’ve rented a number of motorhomes – none of which has been a great experience. I did some research this time and had heard these guys were good. It was not disappointing. The motorhome is a 2014 model with 4,000 miles on it. It’s in a different world from the Cruise America piece of junk we rented a couple of years ago with 80,000 miles on it. We pulled out around 4:30 and went to a big grocery store and stocked up. We left around 6:45 and drove a couple of hours north to Faver-Dykes State park near the coast. It’s 1.5 miles out a dirt road and we haven’t seen anyone else here. It was really pretty, but I didn’t stay outside long because I was getting eaten alive by the mosquitos. The motorhome was excellent and holds all 6 of us easily. Patty made some lazy-pasta and I made salad. We found we didn’t have a corkscrew for our bottle of wine, so I read on wiki-how about ways to open a bottle without one. Turns out there are many. I tried number one and it worked great: put a towel around the bottom of the bottle (to protect it) and bang it against a tree. The wine hitting the cork forces it out little by little. Took about 45 seconds and we were in business. ☺
Tomorrow we’re off to Savannah, GA.
# posted by Craig @ 8:07 PM 
