Holidays and vacations seem to go together. After we celebrated Christmas with the families we headed out for a little drive.
First stop was Lookout Mountain Georgia where we visited “Rock City”. I have seen the barns painted with “See Rock City” along the roads for years so finally decided it was time to see what it was all about. We made it in the evening for the “Fantasy of Lights” which they do every Christmas time. You can see the pictures in the album.
It was about as expected. Some very nice natural scenery and a lot of tourist stuff.

My curiosity satisfied we were on the road to the next destination, Florida’s “Emerald Coast”. Nancy had heard about the emerald green gulf waters and white sand and wanted to see for herself. We hit the coast beaches from Fort Walton across the pan handle until we turned towards Orlando.

We did not want to use a full day of a Disney ticket when we only had a partial day, so we spent time visiting some of the theme resorts. As they do for about everything, the Disney crew puts together some pretty nice resorts! They were decorated for Christmas so it seemed extra special. We also had tickets to see Cirque Du Soleil La Nouba. This was really cool. We have been to several “Cirque” shows and each one seems better than the one before.

Over the next two days we spent time in Animal Kingdom and Disney Hollywood Studios (new name for MGM studios.) Lots of photos, and a good time… even if it did rain a little the final day.

The other place we wanted to see was Sanibel Island. Nancy loves natural things, and shells is high on the list. We have been told about how great Sanibel is for finding shells so we wanted to see for ourselves and hopefully score some “hand picked” shells. We made it down to the island and out onto a number of the beachs. Unfortunately the weather had turned a bit nippy, and the wind was kicking up pretty good. We still managed to spend a couple of hours wandering up and down the shore line looking for “finds”. Since we came home with some pretty full bags of shells I guess it was a success.

We had some dinner at the local tourist spot “The Bubble Room” and then headed back off the island. After a nights rest we headed back towards Michigan, and got home about 2 am…. We had been concerned since we had heard there had been about a foot of snow since we left, and were not sure how we were going to get into the garage. It turned out that a mysterious neighbor had cleared the drive way already so we were able to pull right into the garage and hit the beds!

This is a pretty condensed version of the trip, but probably few people if any really want all the details.

Until Mickey and Minney fall out of love,

The secret can be told now that we are home again. We decided to take a short vacation and get some education in the process. So, off to Washington DC we went. The weather, while nippy, was great every day. Warm enough with no snow, better than home, but neither was it a tropical island. We had been to DC and especially the Smithsonian before when we took the brothers and sisters when they were younger, but it has been quite awhile since then. We also visited places this time we did not then since not everyone is excited about seeing the original Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. We managed to find a few places to get a little nourishment along the way too. One just for fun spot included the International Spy Museum. The White House had put up the Christmas Tree in Presidents Park. It was nice, and included trees from all fifty states. After visiting the Capital area and museums we also visited the newly renovated Union Station. Lots of nice shops, restaurants and big cookies.

Finally we headed out and stopped by the National Cathedral which is awe inspiring in it’s size and grandeur. Here, like so many other places in DC the amount of stone carving defies the imagination. How many people and hours did it take to create all these stone reliefs, columns and gargoyles.

After climbing and walking about the cathedral a last meal was needed. So we swung by Georgetown and went though a couple of blocks worth of boutiques, clothing stores and restaurants before we found a place to eat. Walking off the meal we visited the “Old Stone House” the oldest building in the area, supposedly built in 1765 and predating the creation of Washington DC.

“Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar”.

George

A sampling of the pictures taken during the trip has been posted on Kazology.