Lake Eola, and downtown Orlando behind it |
This time we stayed in the area of Lake Eola, which was sooooooo much different than our last location in December, Kissimmee. That area was very car-centric. You had to drive to go anywhere, be it groceries, eating, or shopping. All the roads are near freeway speed and size, and packed with cars all in a hurry to get somewhere. Nothing was in walking distance. Somethings were in biking distance but you had to be near or share the road with aforementioned speedy cars.
I dubbed the place Swan Lake. LOTS of swans. |
The biggest reason we wanted to go back to Orland was, of course, Disney World. We'd bought unlimited passes and, while we think we broke even on that deal, thought we'd get a couple more days of use out of 'em. First we did Epcot, because we do like a bit of walking and that's a great place to do it. After Covid, injured shoulders, and nose-Mohs we needed to get back into 10,000 step goals. Epcot always delivers.
You can see Olaf and Sven, and, with the lights on, the catwalks above. While there was no music or motion, the animatronics did continue to blink. I thought that was weird! |
Same scene. This is how it should look. |
We wanted to go back to Animal Kingdom because there was a ride we never, ever have ridden because it's a big water (read that "wet") ride. Not awesome in the winter. Now that it was warmer we put it on the list. We made the park reservation, and that morning, checked the ride times. However, the ride wasn't showing up. Turned out, it was closed for remodeling. (They couldn't close it during the winter when no one wanted to ride it... I'm just a bit disappointed about that). So. We didn't go.
From Orlando we made a quick stop back at The Villages to drop the "when we rent" stuff off in our storage unit, then headed north. We didn't need to get to our Baltimore rental until March 15, so we took a long saunter via highway 301, both more beautiful and less stressing than the interstate. We stayed the nights in Augusta, Georgia (not great), Greensboro, North Carolina (really cute), and Fredericksburg, Virginia (also really cute).
Downtown Greensboro, taken from an amazing taco place, Crafted. |
Perhaps Greensboro is most famed from the Civil Rights "sit in" that happened at the local Woolworth in 1960. Now a museum, they've kept the storefront just as it was. |
With any luck we'll be underway mid-May or so.