Funkdubie.com - 2005 Florida Excursion

It was the trip of all trips... (picture pages listed at end click HERE to skip the narrative)

We left for Destin on the night of Sept. 29 th and stopped in Montgomery for some sleep. Cody, who had to go to school on Friday (don’t ask) wasn’t with us yet. We made great time and checked into our suite around 11 a.m. We stayed at the Pelican Beach Resort and we were all pretty pleased with it. On a 1-10 scale, I'd give it about a 7.5. We were all pretty zonked and Marc had a stomach ache so that first day we didn’t do much – mostly Jess and I doing some light beach strolling and getting some groceries. Cody, Mom, Dad, Matt, Christy, Kenzie, and Maddie all left around 3-4 pm on the 30th and got to our suite around midnight. The red tide (see below for description) was out so Jess and I got to see quite a few dead fish (some pretty big!) and 3 dead sea snakes on the beach... gross, yet nifty.

We got to sleep in till a whopping 5 a.m. so that we could catch the charter boat, The Bounty Hunter, at 6. We were all a little worried about the fishing conditions due to hurricanes Katrina and Rita, not to mention the red tide (algae blooms that suck most of the oxygen out of the sea and the fish, essentially, suffocate.) Captain George and his crew (Drew and Taylor) were great though - I can't recommend a better ship! When we stopped a few hundred feet out to catch bait, we found out quickly that the red tide is all it’s cracked up to be. The one tiny fish we caught died within seconds of being drug through the red tide. We gave up after that and just decided we’d use frozen bait and headed out to sea (while the others got to lounge on the beach and play in the pool!).

The water was really rough – well, 3-6 foot swells which FEELS really rough (see video clip). Not too long after we got out Matt, of course, started catching fish. The surpise was that Cody was quickly catching up and then surpassing him. Cody got the official “GREAT FISH BUBBA!!” fish of the day with his “Tournament Day (then 2nd for the week!) Winner” trigger fish (see detailed pages for pictures, listed below). He might actually win the junior division for the entire tourney! The red snapper were really hitting and then, after moving out even further, we started getting into some other types of fish. Marcus, aka “Grouper King” caught a huge red grouper and then some smaller (yet still sizeable!) grouper. He also caught a ton of red snapper and some decent mackerel. Cody, who also beat the tar out of the red snapper, was our official “Trigger Happy King” of the day, catching the Day One Winner & Week One 2nd place tournament winning trigger as well as some other triggers. (I know I've said this, but he's still in the running for the 2nd biggest trigger in the Jr. division!) Dad has the “Weird Fish & Fishing” award for the day because he caught (more often than not) more that one fish per drop (there are 3 hooks on at once and dad rarely caught less than 2 at once) as well as (for weird fish) one of those freaky fish that have a suction on the top of their heads and they stick to the bottom of sharks and really large fish. Dad caught, by far, the most fish... of course, he was mastering that "wait till all 3 hooks are taken" maneuver! Matt, who did his usual “biggest, baddest” fish routine caught the killer tuna, a scamp, some snappers, and mackerel. We ended up heading back a lot sooner than we originally planned – it was just getting too rough – so we cut our 12-hour trip down to a 9.5 hour trip. All in all, no one was complaining. Cody was tired, Marc was wore out, Matt was ‘spent’, and Dad n’ I were both mild shades of green. (As of 10/7/05, Matt and Cody are still on the leaderboard for the Destin Fishing Rodeo Tournament).

Cody and Dad won t-shirts for their catches and Cody is still on the board for the Junior Division with his Trigger – Matt’s currently (as of 10/7/05) on the leaderboard for biggest tuna, I was replaced and fell to *cough* no-longer-on-board*cough*, and Marc – whose grouper we thought would make it most of the month – ended up getting put down by a pound. Still, all of us were worn out, sunburnt, and still swaying like we were on the boat (read: thought there was possible spewage later!).

We spent Sunday loafing around and watching the Talladega race on the tube. We were all still really worn out from hauling a few hundred pounds of fish through a few hundred feet of water. Sunday evening, however, we took some of our catch to the Fisherman's Wharf - a local eatery - and they cooked up some of our trigger, the tuna, and some grouper. Marc decided that cajun blackened grouper is his cup of tea, most everyone loved the tuna, and Cody and I decided that some deep-fried trigger is just about as good as beef.

Monday was 'check out of Destin' day and we left early, knowing it was a 6-hour drive to Orlando. We made decent time (taking the back roads, as is our style) and checked into Orlando around 6. We stayed at the Quality Suites - and let me say now that we weren't happy with them at all. I'm still trying to figure out how to put a negative review on the hotels.com website! The pool area (landscaping, etc) was pretty nice, but the room left a lot to be desired. I think Marc and I had a combined total of 20-hours of sleep in about 4 nights. On a 1-10 scale, I'd give this hotel about a 1.5-2.

We did, however, score 2 free tix to Universal Orlando (which came in handy since they raised the price to $64 pp!).

We went to Universal on Tuesday and it was cool because we opted to give the kids $40 and strict instructions and they went off to do that "running from ride to ride non-stop" thing while Marc and I leisurely wandered around, hitting shows and rides equally. The last time I had gone to Universal (regular, not Islands of Adventure) I wasn't impressed. However it seems that the great temperatures and lack of crowd can really help a place out. Not to mention, the Mummy ride is pretty darn cool. We didn't wait longer than 10 minutes to go on/to anything. Overall, I'd rate Universal at 8 of 10 for this trip. The kids had fun, Marc and I had fun... yup, it was a good choice.

Wednesday we were all zonked again. I'm not sure if it was "Universal strain", swimming till late each night, or just lack of sleep from those horrid beds that wore us out. We ended up doing some shopping at the Fossil and Gap outlets and hitting a little novelty/ride district called Old Town. During our lunch we had the joy of being entertained by 2 squirrels that were french-fry theifs... and I *think* they were on crack. They sure were spastic, anyhow! (see video) Later that evening we ate some good barbeque at Smokey Bones and headed back to the room for some more tossin-n-turning.

Thursday was our "2nd park" day and we had kicked around where to go. My over-zealous love for space finally won out and I talked them into going to the JFK Space Center. It was expensive as crap (over $250, not including the $40+ lunch for burgers!), unexpectedly, but mostly because Marc knew I'd want to get every feature packed into my day so we opted for the Maximum Access Pass along with the Nasa Up-Close tour. Talk about heaven. I got to see the launch pads (active, mostly), the clean area where they are assembling the parts that will soon be docked and added to the ISS (International Space Station), I got to meet Story Musgrave (who has been on SIX missions! [of note, he called me a beauty! WHOO HOO!]) and I FINALLY got some of that stupid freeze-dried ice cream that I've wanted since I was 10! (side note: freeze-dried ice cream is not all I thought it would be... one bite will do ya! ha!). After the JFK Center we headed over to the Astronaut Hall of Fame (included free in the maximum access pass) and got to see more real modules and the kids went into an astronaut G-force simulator. Granted, it only goes at 4 G's and the actual G's encountered by astronauts is around 16... so it's not QUITE as cool as the real thing. Did I mention I got to meet Story Musgrave? Ok, just checking. Anyhow, NASA was a blast and I loved every science-filled, nerdy second of it. ("Hi, we're nerds... sorry!")

Friday was check-out day and I was absolutely ready for it. Not because I didn't want to be on vacation anymore, but mostly because I woke up at 2:30 in the a.m. (tossing and turning) and my sore back made it impossible to go back to sleep... so I got up and got packed and hauled things to the car as I woke everyone else up (before 5 a.m... bet they love me!). We got on the road (cody: "are we there yet?") at 5:30 a.m. (cody: "are we there yet?") and I was missing my dog so much that I hauled butt (cody: "are we there yet?") at every opportunity. We made great time (cody: "are we there yet?") back (arrived home at 3:30) and now I'm settled in... (side note: if you live in the Chattanooga area and need to board your pet, I can't say enough great things about The Pet Palace in Ooltewah - they seemed to have taken great care of LeiLui [she stayed in the Disney Princess Suite!] and they don't keep them penned up all day long! They even have group play time! She actually seemed to have fun [though she missed the fire out of us!] and now she's one pooped-out pup! - great price too!)

On the pictures below - please note that if you want to save any of them to your PC, you simply need to right-click on the photo and then choose "save as" and save it to your computer. If you would like to get any made to print (family and friends) you can either get with Shutterfly or take them (digitally) to any local CVS/Eckerds/etc.
***Please be warned that most pictures are very large and may take a moment (or thirty!) to download!!!***