Week 5

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Overview | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6
  • Day 29 (August 25, 2001) - Today was a refreshing change of pace. We got up, checked out of the motel at a leisurely pace (applied copious amounts of sunscreen) and headed for the beach. Once we decided to rent some chairs and an umbrella for the day I really started to get into the idea of doing...nothing. I even put my book down after a while and once I got into the water and tried body surfing, there was no turning back. I'm actually looking forward to spending tomorrow at the beach in Hilton Head and the day after at Daytona Beach. What a life! Maybe I should start taking the bar exam (and a subsequent 6 week long bar trip) once a year. With 49 more state bars plus Guam, Puerto Rico, etc. this kind of lifestyle could last well into my 80s...
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  • Day 30 (August 26, 2001) - Well, I believe congratulations are in order to Officer Davis of McIntosh County, Georgia. After a 4 week rampage of consistently violating the traffic laws throughout more than 30 states, Officer Davis was the one to finally bring me down; 85 mph in a 70 mph zone. Well done Officer Davis. McItosh County must be proud indeed. Other than that, today was relatively uneventful. You know, just another day at the beach. What can we say? I did graduate from body surfing to boogie boarding and let me tell you, surfing is hard work...Anyway, after drying off and packing up, we left Hilton Head and headed for Daytona Beach, Florida. Guess what we're doing tomorrow...
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  • Day 31 (August 27, 2001) - Not much to write about today. We woke up, went to the beach (again) and then packed up and headed for Orlando. I decided to avoid the water today. I can only take so much of the southern sun even with my SPF 20,000 sunscreen. Also, the minute we hit the beach we saw some girl running out of the water crying from the pain of having been bitten by a jellyfish. No thanks. I did, however, spend some time working on a sand castle which was very therapeutic. Tomorrow it is off to Disney World (yuck!)
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  • Day 32 (August 28, 2001) - Today we spent the day at Disney World. First, we went to see a vacation/time share presentation so that we could get a pair of Disney World tickets for $40 instead of $100. Our salesman, Royd, was the fakest, cheesiest, wheeler dealer we've seen in a long time. He'd walk past people and give them a big fat cheery "good morning, how are you today?" completely oblivious to the fact that he had just walked past the very same person and greeted them not two minutes before. Anyway, we listened to the spiel with feigned interest, told them we weren't interested, collected our tickets and went on our way. We felt a bit guilty but they take advantage of so many people day in and day out that it seemed justified somehow. As for Disney World, now I think I know how Ikuko felt spending time walking around all of those museums in which she had little interest. It wasn't that bad though. We rode many of the best known rides (Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, etc.) and of course we saw the parade. I was kind of looking forward to seeing the Hall of U.S. Presidents but it was closed down for refurbishing. i.e. they are in the process of adding an exhibit for George W. Bush. (Ha! Yeah, that's what I really wanted was to see was a George W. Bush exhibit in the Hall of U.S. Presidents...)
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  • Day 33 (August 29, 2001) - Our last day in Orlando was spent at Epcot. We had both heard a lot of good things about Epcot but we were both a little disappointed. We weren't sure exactly why we had to pay $100 to go in and see a bunch of companies exhibiting their technological prowess (otherwise known as advertising) and then go to a bunch of pavilions with shops that were just selling goods from various countries (otherwise known as shopping.) The highlight of the day was when the Disney character truck pulled up and unloaded Mickey, Minnie and the whole gang. I have to tell you, you have never seen a 33 year old woman turn into a little girl so fast. Ikuko absolutely loved it and we got the chance to snap some pictures of her with her favorite characters. (And I also took one with a character I've always identified with on some level: Goofy.) We left Epcot in the early afernoon and hit the road. It was at 4:51 PM Eastern Daylight Time that we finally made our long anticipated turn back toward the west as we hopped on US 10 heading out the pan handle of Florida and towards Alabama. We called it a night in Mobile.
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  • Day 34 (August 30, 2001) - We got up early and drove the few hours from Mobile, Alabama to New Orleans. We made it there in time for an interesting Cajun and Creole style lunch and then spent a few hours walking around the French Quarter before hitting the road again heading West. So far we've had very good luck with the weather (you'll notice that all of the pictures taken so far have been taken under sunny skies) but when we hit Texas we got caught in a torrential downpour. We finally made it to Houston before calling it a night but it doesn't look like the rain will be letting up anytime soon.
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  • Day 35 (August 31, 2001) - Today was another busy one. First we visited the Houston Space Center (the main reason I wanted to come to Houston in the first place.) We have seen a lot of impressive and moving things on this trip but for me, this was the one that finally made me well up a bit. To sit in the actual Mission Control Center where all of the manned space flights are controlled, to see the actual control room in charge of the International Space Station, to see the huge warehouse full of life size space shuttle and space station mock-ups for training astronauts was quite an emotional experience for someone who spent many hours as a kid pretending he was walking on the moon or communicating with Mission Control. The rain managed to hold off while we were visiting the Houston Space Center but the minute we hit the road to head further West to San Antonio, the downpour began again. I was worried whether we would make it to San Antonio before the Alamo closed at 5:30 but the rain finally let up and we made it with about an hour to spare. After the Alamo we took a walk along San Antonio's famous Riverwalk. We stopped at an Italian restaurant to grab a bite to eat before hitting the road again to head further west. Just out of San Antonio we hit another tremendous downpour (I have never seen it rain so hard) which gradually let up as we continued west. We ended up driving for another 4 hours and made it as far as Fort Stockton before calling it a night. It is unbelievable how desolate western Texas is. At one point on the way to Fort Stockton I tried hitting "seek" on the radio only to have the tuner begin spinning in an endless loop searching for a radio station that just didn't exist.
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