Disney World Orlando Florida

Disney World has 4 parks; Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdon, and Disney Hollywood. They are currently building another park called Wild World of Sports scheduled to open in 2010.

We only spent about half a day at Disney's Animal Kingdom. I think this park is mostly for young children, it is a zoo and an amusement park with a lot of rides for smaller children. We were here for a while and then left and went to Downtown Disney for the afternoon.




At Disney's Hollywood Studios Park we went to a couple of stunt shows and enjoyed them a lot. This stunt show was cars and action scenes for movies. They showed how some of these stunts are done and how the stunt cars work.

There were lot of characters dressed up and greeting the children and taking pictures with them.

We enjoyed the Beauty and the Beast play that we went to there and we went on some rides and to some other shows too.

Disney's Hollywood Studio was very good, although we loved Magic Kingdom, this was our second favorite. We had lots of fun there, lots to see and lots to do.

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We spent one day at Epcot and enjoyed that park too, they have resturants and cafe's from many different countries as well as gift shops and displays for these countries. Some of the exhibits had rides and displays showing the history of that country.

Epcot had the most fantastic fireworks display that we had ever seen. It lasted for a long time and even though these pictures can't show the fireworks like you see if you are there, I took these anyhow. So check out the pictures below.

Our favorite park was Magic Kingdom. We had a wonderful time at this park here at Disney World. We loved it here, in fact we spend two of our five days here.

We also were able to spend New Year's Eve with Joe's 2 sisters and their families, they arrived here on the 24th of December. They brought all of the Grandkids to Disney World to spend 10 days at the parks for Christmas this year. Wow, what a great Christmas present.

We stayed in Orlando for a couple more weeks and then headed for the Tampa area. We stayed a week at Three Lakes RV Park, a beautiful Morgan Park in Hudson Florida just North of Tampa. Then went to a Mandalay Travel Club Rally at the Tampa RV Show at the state fairgrounds. We had a lot of fun there, met up with some friends, and even met some new ones.

Now we are at our appointment at Lazydays for some repair work. Our water pump went out again, and we have a leak in our fresh water tank. Thanks to all of the Florida rain we have discovered a few water leaks also, so we hope the factory will authorize them to check those out also.

Universal Studio - Orlando

Once we arrived in Orlando, the first week of December, we found the Thousand Trails campground, we got the motor home all set up and hooked up, and within 20 minutes the rain started. It rained and rained. We stayed inside the coach for 3 days waiting for the rain to stop and the Florida sun to come out.



We decided to go to Universal Studios first. We had a good time there, we went on some of the rides and checked out some shows and took lots of pictures. The free tickets for the Military Active and Retired were for 6 days, we will only use 2 days, because we also have the Disney World passes that expire on the 23rd of December.



There are lots of things to do at Universal Studios. Universal has two parks, one is for the movies and Universal Studio exhibits. The other park is an amusement park with lots of rides. We spent one day at each of the two parks.

We loved the Blues Brothers performance, it was lots of fun.

Check out these rides, they looked like lots of fun, but they looked wet too, so we took pictures and laughed at the other people who were very wet.

We went to a few shows and had a great time. We watched the Macy's parade, it was lots of fun. Joe was even asked if he would like to be in the parade, but he said no thanks.

We had a lot of fun at Universal and we are very thankful to them for this offer to the Military.

The cows of North Florida

When we left our friends in Maggie Valley, we were on our way to Florida, Sunny Warm Florida !!! We have our tickets for Disney World and Universal Studios and warm weather.

We are stopping just one exit over the Florida line to see our friends Connie and Terry. We had met them at "Camp Mandalay" (the factory service department) in Elkhart Indiana about the first of October. We hit it off with this couple when we first met and hated to see them leave, so we are very excited to see them again. Terry drove up to the Flying J to lead us into the property, they have a lot of land and we would never have found it alone.

Wow, they are way out, off the beaten path, and what a beautiful place they have. Many big old trees with moss hanging from the branches. We parked right out in their back yard near a pond.

We had such a good time with Connie and Terry, They have a great home and we met Connie's Mom and their son Samuel. Joe and Terry fed cows and ran around all day, visiting with the neighbors and taking care of the chores. I spent the day with Connie, and had a great time. Connie shared some of her recipes with me, and she's a great cook. Connie and I took the golf cart out and went to the garden to cut some cabbage for dinner. We picked some grape tomatoes for me to take with us, and boy are they good. I froze several bags to use for sauce and in recipes.

Our last day there, Joe and I went out with Terry to feed the cows and I took these great pictures of them. The cows were so funny, they heard us coming and met us at the gate, then followed us mooing all of the way. They are so cute (for cows that is).

We said our farewells to our friends, and now we are on our way to the Thousand Trails of Orlando and hopefully warmer weather.

Thanksgiving in Maggie Valley, North Carolina

We left Memphis about 7:30pm and decided since we had lost a day due to these repairs we would drive for a few hours. We arrived at the Flying J near Nashville about 3 or 4 hours later and slept until morning. We had breakfast there, and then headed for our friends home in Maggie Valley. The main highway through the smoky mountains was closed, due to a bad rock slide, so we had to go around the mountain about 100 miles further.

We finely made it there about 7pm, when we got all hooked up in the RV park, we went over to Rhonda and Bill's for pizza and salad. Rhonda's Mom and Brother, Andy live in Charlotte and drove up for Thanksgiving and when they got there on Wednesday and the three guys played golf. The next day was Thanksgiving Day and what a great dinner, with great people. Rhonda is a wonderful cook, and everyone ate too much, just like we are supposed to on holidays.

They have a fantastic log home and we love it there. Their beautiful daughters Alysia and Allison are a joy to be around, they are both so talented and fun to be with, just like their parents.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year, and we have a lot to be thankful for, we are living the life that we both love. We have great friends all over the USA and we meet new people all the time and make new friends. Our children and our grandchildren are all happy and healthy, all of our other family members are also. We actually get to see more of our family and friends now than we did before. Yes we have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.

The deer attack and Memphis repairs

I forgot to tell you all about our run in with a deer in Camdenton. Joe was driving home about 9:30 at night when a deer came running across the road and ran into the side of our car. The deer hit the front fender just in front of the driver's door, broke that mirror and then hit the rear door. The deer was nowhere in sight when Joe stopped to call police and make a report. Joe was fine but our car was not so fine. We will get it fixed when we get to Florida.

We left Camdenton MO on Sunday morning and headed toward Memphis, our plan was to get a little past Memphis the first day and then go to rest of the way to Knoxville Monday and arrive in Maggie Valley on Tuesday around noon. However, as you all know, our plans do not always go as intended.

We stopped about 50 miles before we got to Memphis to eat dinner at Cracker Barrel and then we came out we checked the car and tow bar like we always do. The entire back end of the coach, our car and the tow bar was covered with oil. We called Cummins Engine in Memphis and got on the schedule for 8 in the morning, they told us they have electric hookups in the parking lot so we drove over there for the night. The next morning they discovered that the Springfield Cummins had not installed the oil pan correctly. Memphis is ordering the parts, doing the work and charging everything to the Cummins in Springfield, so it will be a few hours at least.

Since we had all day to wait, we went and found a car wash first thing. Then we decided since we had so much time to wait for the coach, we would go visit Graceland. Wow, what a great place, we both had a blast there. What a great job they have done to display it all like it was when Elvis lived there, you almost expect him to walk out and talk to you.

We had a great time here, we had a tour of the house, and his airplanes, went to Elvis's car museum and a museum all about his military tour of duty. We even had a great lunch at a little BBQ place near Graceland. When we got back to the repair place they were still working on the coach but by 7:30 that night they were done, and we were on the road again. We drove about 4 hours and stopped near Nashville at a Flying J for the night.

Frank, Julie and Grandkids

We had a problem with our windshield wipers on our way to Missouri, but was able to drive out of the rain and make it to Camdenton without having to stop for more repairs. We did call and make an appointment with Camping World in Springfield MO for the following Thursday, we are spending two weeks here before we head for North Carolina and then Florida.

We were able to spend a week with our family and enjoy our Grandchildren for a while before we went for repairs. We had so much fun, Austin is 6 and is so smart and cute, he is at school all day and is he loves school and enjoys learning things. Cassidy is 2 1/2 and is such a joy to be around. She talks so well, and has such a good imagination, so much fun to watch her play all day.

We had such a great time with them, and enjoyed our week here in Camdenton, we stayed at a campground nearby and spent most days with Frank and Cassidy. Julie and Austin had to go to work and school, but they got home around 4pm so we spent a little more time there then Frank had to go to work and we went on home. I would go shopping and do laundry during the day and leave Joe over there so he could have time with Frank, so Cassidy and Joe struck up a great friendship, and had lunch (chicken nuggets and tater tots) together everyday.

We took our coach in to Springfield (about 85 miles) on Thursday, and they had to order parts, so we decided to take it over to Cummins to have a recall on the engine taken care of. They said they would start it the next morning and it would take all day, so they got started early on Friday. We called Camping World and told them we would be there on Saturday.

Of course it did not go exactly like that, we got a phone call about 2:30 on Friday saying they needed a part and could not get it until Monday morning. So, not only is it not done, we could not stay in it over the weekend because the engine is all taken apart. We stayed in a motel over the weekend and Monday they finished it up. However, the oil pan had a scratch and was seeping oil from a little accident in Elkhart involving a mailbox, so they had to order a new oil pan and replace it. (of course that was at our expense) So the following Thursday, we finely got to the Camping World to get our wipers fixed and then back to Camdenton, after a week away.

We stayed another week there with our family and then headed for Maggie Valley, North Carolina for Thanksgiving with our friends, Rhonda and Bill and their 2 Daughters.