Harry Potter at Universal

On Sunday, we headed back to Universal with the plan of heading straight to Adventure Island to the Harry Potter part of the park. We arrived very early and there was not a wait into that section of the park. We rode the rides and shopped without waiting in lines. Sunday is definitely the best day to go to the Harry Potter section of the park! The best ride, which takes place in the castle, starts with the hall that has pictures that talks to the audience. If you have read the books, you'll understand how people in pictures move and talk. As you walk through the castle before you get to the ride, you see Dumbledore's office and other neat parts of the Harry Potter story.

After the Harry Potter ride, we went to Hosmeade to eat. We had a great English dinner with Butter Beer to drink. The butterbeer tasted like butterrum. It was much better frozen.

Here's a great picture of the castles. The tops are skinny and snowy, and look great. Not we had expected, but still fabulous!

After the busy morning, we went to Athos to eat. The food was delicious.

Home

It's Monday night, and we're home. We went to Kennedy Space Center on Saturday, back to Universal on Sunday, and then drove home today. It's 10:00, and we're all ready to go to our own rooms to sleep. Blair was excited about being able to go to the bathroom without "lining the seat!" We didn't hug each other before going to our rooms this year like last, but we did all cheer when we drove across the Maryland state line. Nana had left homemade potato salad, cut-up watermelon, homemade pie, milk, and bread in the fridge. We were all so thankful. We will write more tomorrow.

Waterpark

We decided to visit the waterpark associated with Universal figuring it would be a great way to cool off since it is about a hundred degrees here in Orlando and very humid. Well, the waterpark, like the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, was packed with people and the water was warm. The kids even mentioned missing the cold water of Braddock pool. The rides had enormously long lines so we stayed in the wave pool and the lazy river, both of which were packed with kids and teenagers from summer camps.

We left the waterpark and went into the older portion of Universal, the part of the park that does not contain Harry Potter. As you can guess, it had far fewer people and we could actually walk around without feeling like we were forcing our way through a crowded New York subway. We saw an interesting show on how they do horror movie make-up, we saw an explanation of tornadoes, an exhibit on Lucille Ball, and a laser and light show over the water. Blair and Molly had a good time riding the Revenge of the Mummy and Brooke enjoyed playing arcade games.

Molly on the first day at the park

Okay, so in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, I rode a dragon, hippogriff, and then went on what as know as the Forbidden Journey, being sure to pose for the picture. Then, in the muggle part of the park, I rode on a Suess creature marry go round, got myself shot up into the air on some crazy tower, then rode upon a fish. Also, I now have a scarf (Ravenclaw, of course), and a wand all my very own. In other words, I feel, to put it best, TOTALY AWESOME!!!!!!

Harry Potter

Hi It's Brooke. (Mom is typing.) I am writing about Harry Potter. It was very, very cool, except for the beginning when we had to wait in line for an hour to get into the Harry Potter part of the park. Then we had to wait in a line for 2 hours to ride the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride because the ride broke down for a while. Then we went over to the Owl Post and I bought Neville Longbottom's wand. On the top it's brown and very straight, and on the bottom it's black and swirled. Then we ate at Three Broomsticks (I think the three broomsticks is for Ron's, Harry's and Hermione's brooms) where I had a butterbeer. We got the frozen ones and it tasted like butterscotch.

Then Blair, Molly, and Dad rode the Dragon Challenge. Then we went to another section of the park, called SeussLand. We rode the Cat in the Hat, and other rides. We also rode the Spiderman 3-D Adventure, which was really nice because it was air-conditioned!

Then we went back to the Harry Potter section of the park. We rode some more rides, and then we ate dinner with a family from Middletown, who also happened to be here this week.

Then I rode the Hippogriff, which is a ride that is fast and goes around really fast. You only go around the ride once, so it only lasts about 45 seconds.

Right before the park closed, about 9:50) we got back into line for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. We rode the ride with the family from Middletown, the Speigels, and the line was a lot shorter.

Then we left the park and drove back to the hotel.

everybody writing

Our first evening in Pensacola was great - warm Gulf water, a great pool, good food, nice view from the balcony of the room. It was so good we decided to stay another day. Got up this morning early because we wanted to see the sunrise over the Gulf. Well, to do that we would have to be on a beach that faced east, not south, but we had a good walk along the beach anyway. Later we went out to go swimming and found something new in the water - an algae bloom. In front of our hotel it was the worst, we didn't even want to swim there, so Blair, Molly and Jerry walked down the beach about half a mile and swam for an hour or so. The water itself is clear, when not filled with algae. The algae bloom got worse as the day wore on. Molly likes to jump waves and the waves aren't too great here so the time on the beach was a bust. We went back to the pool and enjoyed it through the early

afternoon. Later in the afternoon Jerry took a walk down the beach and found a tar ball. Thanks BP! Everything here is Jimmy Buffet oriented. He has his own beer - Landshark Lager, his own tequila - Margaritaville, his own food - Cheeseburgers 'N Paradise. If he wrote a song that fits the easygoing beach lifestyle he also has a product to fit it. At some future time here he plans to add a fancy restaurant and a waterpark.

Hey, its Blair again. Here at the beach, we were quite surprised that indeed, animals and plants lived in the Gulf of Mexico. Although the water in front of our hotel was clear last night, this morning it resembled a green shag carpet. So, having been told by the coast guard that there were clear waters up the beach a bit, Dad, Molly and I decided to try it out. "Clear", around here, has a very loose interpretation. It wasn't as awful as the other part was but it was still like swimming in a fish tank, a description solidified by the fact that a fish began to follow me around and bite at my legs. After that, I decided to call it quits. Rather then walk on the sand back to our hotel like a normal person, I went to the road. I had left my flip flops at the hotel and the ground was hot enough to cook a pancake on, so a very nice couple seeing me skip-sprinting let me borrow a pair of extra flip flops. After surviving this adventure, I went to the pool for a whole five minutes before heading in for the air conditioning. Margaritaville has not been boring.

Hi it's Brooke. I am writing about the bat bridge, and what I am expecting at the harry potter world in orlando. The bat bridge was cool if you like sitting for 3 hours in warm air and seeing no bats fly out. It was horrible. Okay it was not all horrible like when we started to leave to go to the hotel, and the bat guy let us see through his binoculars. They were infrared so you could see the bats flying out and I looked up and I could see millions like 20 bats flying across fast.

About harry potter expectations on Thursday. Me and Blair are going to buy wands and have a duel. It will be very fun. I hope that they have the leaky cauldron and all of those places that are in the books. I want stuff to happen like it does in the books, so let's hope that it does.

French Quarter

On Monday we walked around the French Quarter of New Orleans. It was very hot very early, one of those situations where the humidity was nearly overwhelming. We walked down to the Cafe Dumond and had the French donuts and coffee.

Afterwards we took a carriage tour of the French Quarter. We learned that all of the architecture is Spanish due to a fire in the 1780s that burned down the old French buildings. Our tour guide first took us to the cemetery. The tombs in New Orleans

are all above ground, so they are like little buildings and the graveyard seems like a town of small houses. Many members of families are buried on each site, and if nobody takes care of the sight the Catholic Church will remove the bodies from the little family mausoleum, place the bones in the cemetery wall, and then resell the original site. Weird.

About 10,000 people live in the French Quarter. Brad Pitt has a house there, as did Nicholas Cage. Cage actually had two houses. One of his homes is supposedly the most haunted house in America. Ironically it has been "repossessed" by the bank.

After our tour, we shopped in the Open French Market. There Molly bought a great Mardi Gras mask and Brooke got her name painted on a paper with the letters printed artistically. Then we ate wonderful Cajun food before wandering though stores back to our hotel and van.

We left New Orleans in the late afternoon and headed east.

We quickly went through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama and reached the Florida border. At Pensacola we decided to stop and

spend a night on the Gulf Coast. We decided to stay at the newly opened Margaritaville Hotel, part of the Jimmy Buffet empire. We have rooms facing the Gulf, probably the nicest rooms we will ever have at the beach. The water here

is incredibly warm, warmer than most pools we have ever been in

and about thirty degrees warmer than the Pacific water we were in last summer. We ate a cheeseburger pizza beside the pool, then headed to our rooms for the evening.

Swamp Tour

We got up and left east Texas, headed for New Orleans. Beverly and Jerry had been there 16 years ago for a NEA convention. We were there for a week, which was too long. We didn't plan on returning but thought that since it is one of America's great cities we should take the girls there. Above Baton Rouge we stopped to take a swamp tour. We went out on a pontoon boat with several other people and saw the wildlife of Louisiana. We saw some white egrets and other water birds, but the big excitement was in seeing some alligators. We saw two, one which dived under the water and one which stuck around to have some snacks from the boat. The boat captain brought some bread, and a few pieces were tossed at the alligator. It came close enough to the boat so that we could all have a good look.

The landscape was also interesting. Most of the Cypress trees had been cut down over a hundred years ago because the wood was great for building; it was really strong and didn't rot. But these trees take hundreds of years to grow back, so in many places you could see nothing but stumps. Where the trees were going, they were very pretty. The Spanish Moss hanging from the trees was also neat. The 60-year-old man giving us our swamp tour said that his family used the moss to stuff pillows and such when he was a child.

Afterwards we ate a Cajun meal. We had an appetizer that included a few crawfish, catfish, shrimp, and alligator. The gator was quite spicy. We also ate poorboys. In New

Orleans they are called Po Boys, but we would call them sandwiches on sub rolls. From there we drove about two and a half hours into the French Quarter, where Beverly got us a great room at a Holiday Inn. Prices are good because tourism is down.

A few notes on the state of Texas. They love to fly the Lone Star flag. We saw more of those than the American flag. They also seriously use the phrase, "Don't mess with Texas." I thought it was originally a joke from the television show Saturday Night Live, but it was on signs that involved not throwing trash, etc.

LBJ

We spent the morning resting and relaxing at the hotel. The girls had stayed up late the last few nights trying to watch A Very Potter Sequel (a fan fiction Harry Potter musical) on the Internet, so we needed to sleep-in. The hotel provided a great breakfast. They even had a man who fixed omelets to order. After breakfast Brooke and Jerry went to the pool while Blair and Molly looked at the computer and Beverly did some laundry.

We checked out of the hotel and drove up to the University of Texas campus to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum. The LBJ library is the only free presidential library because LBJ wanted anyone to be a

ble to visit. Inside they had some of the same presidential exhibits the other presidential libraries had - a history of what the president did w

hile in office, a biographical movie, a re-creation of the oval office as it was,

pictures of white house events, gifts given to the president and first family. They also had a nice exhibit on the American First Ladies and a big temporary exhibit on Walter Cronkite.

What I (Jerry) was amazed at was the museum store. It had the usual trinkets but it also had a huge collection of original political buttons and posters, not only from LBJ but from other presidential candidates dating back to Wendell Wilkie (

1940 Republican who ran against Franklin Roosevelt). The staff was helpful, the prices were great, and I have lots of material to decorate my classroom this fall.

After leaving the museum store we went over to Amy's Ice Cream and had some tasty treats. Then we drove

two hundred miles to wind up

east of Houston where we spent the night.

The Alamo

We drove into the San Antonio Riverwalk area and parked at the Hyatt. The big thing going on there was that the Dallas Cowboys were arriving to open their summer training camp. We saw some large people who could have been football players and some large people giving autographs who certainly were football players, but nobody we recognized.

We saw an Imax movie about the Alamo, then walked over to see it. It has a long history, dating back into the 1700s. They have

done a nice job with it. It is a small compound of buildings that has a huge history/mythology for Texans. Apparently it is the only place in the USA where the state flag can be flown at equal height with the American flag. We had a nice meal at Saltgrass, a Texas steakhouse, then drove up to Austin.

In Austin we stayed at a hotel beside the famous South Congress Bat Bridge. About 25 years ago they fixed up a bridge on South Congress Avenue and about a million bats decided to live under it. They fly out at night and hundreds of people show up to watch them. We went over to watch the bats and saw... not much. They few out a few at a time but it wasn't much to see. After everyone else left and it was past 10:00 p.m. a guy from the bat

conservation group let us use his night vision equipment to see a few of the remaining bats fly out.

Pecos to San Antonio

We left Carlsbad, New Mexico fairly early and headed south and east toward San Antonio. We tried to find some food in the first town we came to in Texas, Pecos, but could only find food at a truck stop. Remember the Paul Newman movie in the 1970s about Judge Roy Bean? Well, that takes pace in Pecos.

The speed limit from Pecos to outside of San Antonio is 80 mph

. We didn't know the USA had speed limits that high. You can really cover some ground if you do 80 and don't make many pit stops (we made one). As we drove the landscape began to change from a fairly green desert (they have had a lot of rain in west Texas this year) into an area with scrub brush, then trees. We drove through mesas for a bit then got to the Hill Coun

try outside of San Antonio.

San Antonio seems to be a vibrant city. The University of Texas is located here. After finding a hotel outside the city (by the way, finding a room to accommodate a family of five is much tougher this year) we drove into the downtown area to the Riverwalk.

The Riverwalk was started by the federal government as a New Deal flood control project in the 1930s. They are still expanding it. Frederick's Carroll Creek Project is based on the same idea, but in size Carroll Creek is to the Riverwalk as Frederick is to San Antonio. We took a boat ride around the area then ate at a Mexican restaurant (lots of those to choose from). We felt that we had done a lot in a day that included about 430 miles of driving.

Carlsbad Caverns

We stayed a place that promised internet access - it had none. We searched for some in the town of Carlsbad - no luck. McDonald's said they had it but they were long on promise and short on internet. So we gave up on that and headed for Carlsbad Caverns.

On the drive to the caverns we passed many oil wells. They give off a really bad odor, something we had not noticed in California last year. They smell either like sulfur, gas or burning tires, take your pick.

The caverns are in the foothills of the Guadalupe Mountains. When we got to the caverns we all thought that the view to the east, back towards Texas, looked like the view of the ocean - except that there was no water. Later, in the caverns, we found out that it was an ancient sea.

Carlsbad Caverns are different than most caverns because they are only a few million years old. They were made from a stronger

acid than the acid that carves most caves. We first took a tour guided by a park ranger. It was quite cold 750 feet underground and after almost two hours down there we were ready to come up for lunch.

After lunch we bought sweatshirts and headed back down for the self guided part of the cavern.

In the 1890s Jim White, a 16 year-old cowboy, discovered the caverns because he saw hundreds of thousands of bats flying out of a hole in the ground one evening. He saw it was a cave, went home, made a home made ladder, created a kerosene lamp out of a coffee pot, and decided to go back and explore the caves. In the afternoon we walked down into the caverns through the route that Jim White had found. The smell of bat dung (guano) was nearly overwhelming. But once past the bat area of the cave it was quite an interesting and rigorous walk. We saw some huge areas with ceilings over 200 feet high. Pictures could not capture the beauty (although Beverly tried her best). We lingered in the caverns looking at all of the interesting things. We stayed for another three hours in what was suppose to be a ninety minute self-guided tour.

We took the girls to a waterpark at the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns Park for a little over an hour, then came back into the park to see the bats fly out of the cave at dusk.

Ranger Rick gave a talk about bats then we began to see them fly out of the cave.

It lasted about half an hour. The rangers kicked everyone out of the park by 9:00 PM. We drove back to the town of Carlsbad, gave the internet another try at McDonald's (failed again), then went to bed.

Fort Worth and west Texas

On Tuesday morning we drove around Fort Worth. They have an interesting urban man made waterfall and park. At the bottom we were surrounded by falling water, an unusual experience in a city. Afterward we drove to the stockyard area in the "historic red light district" (really - it's called that). They did a cattle drive up the street, about a dozen longhorn cattle and five cowboys. They do it twice a day. All the girls took turns riding a mechanical bull.

We ate lunch at Kincaids, a locally famous hamburger restaurant. From there we drove over 400 miles across Texas into New Mexico. As we drove the trees began to disappear, replaced by scrubby bushes as the climate became more desert like.

Bubba

We visited the Bill Clinton Presidential Library today. Lots more security there than at the Carter museum. I asked why and they said any federal building built after 9/11 has higher standards of security. The outside of the building was designed to look like a bridge (remember "a bridge to the 21st century"?). Beverly thought it was ugly. Clinton narrated his own biographical movie.

We saw the replica of the oval office and the cabinet room (the president's chair is slightly taler than the others). There was a year-

by-year list of events and artifacts. At one point we could look up the presidential agenda for any day of his presidency (he met the Japanese prime minister the day Blair was born). They had the usual exhibit of gifts given to the president and first lady. One interesting exhibit was a table laid out for a full state dinner. It had four different glasses at each place setting.

In the Presidential libraries, we have been amazed at the gifts that the presidential family has received from the people of other countries. The family is not allowed to keep any gifts worth more than $50 as the gift may be

thought of as a bribe. So they receive the gifts on behalf of the American people, and then the gifts get displayed in their libraries. Some of the gifts are really nice.

This library and

the Carter library had replicas of each president's

Oval Office. We liked the Clin

ton dark blues to the Carter pastels.

We drove from the Clinton Library to Little Rock High. It is a still functioning high school and

museum. The building, built in the 1920s, is beautiful. Across the street is a museum run by the

park service that has a great exhibit on the integration of the school in 1957. It is small but very informative.

Nine benches around the pond in front of the school are engraved the names of the first nine black students who went to school here.

If you are ever in Little Rock at lunch time (I know, the chances of this are small) try eating at Larry's. It is a pizza buffet full of creatively made and unique pizzas. If I had to pick one place to eat pizza Larry's would be it.

From Larry's it was just a quick 375 mile drive to Fort Worth.

Graceland - thank you, thank you very much

Jerry here ...We left central Tennessee and headed west toward Memphis. Listened to the Elvis channel (Sirius radio 13) to set the mood. We arrived at the Graceland parking lot around noon and went inside to buy tickets. Yes, the Donald family was once again paying to see the house of a famous, deceased rich person. For a mere $130 your family of 5 can have the Graceland experience as well.

We first toured his airplanes. Gold plated sinks, blue suede apolstery, you get the picture. One time his daughter said she had never seen snow, so he immediately took her to Colorado, they played in the snow for a bit, then they flew back. Next came a tour of the house. He bought it in the late fifties. It was built in the thirties. It screams seventies. Green shag carpet in the jungle room should tell you all you need to know. We

saw the kitchen where his cook made him the famous peanut butter and banana sandwiches fried in butter (we tried them after the tour - not bad but a little goes a long way). Upstairs was off limits to the tour "out of respect." When you sell tickets to see his house and clothing the "out of respect" has left the barn.

Graceland has many other buildings besides the house. These were filled with artifacts from his career. One hallway, about 60 feet long, was decorated with gold record after gold record. He sold over a billion records. He had an amazing vocal range. Then there were exhibits from his movies, his office, etc. We also went to a building that showed a few of his motorized toys - Rolls Royces, a pink Cadillac, motorcycles, a John Deere tractor, a snowmobile that could run

on the grass (not much snow in Memphis). He liked to have a good time with his friends, known as the Memphis Mafia. His grave site is on the estate. He is buried beside his parents.

The museum seemed to have a good sense of

humor. The announcements and even the trash cans quoted Elvis' famous phrase, "Thank you. Thank you, very much!"

You have to give him credit for one thing - unlike more recent stars he made more money than he spent, which is saying something. He took care of his family and entourage, gave away lots to charity, and didn't die broke.

Ruby Falls and Nashville

Friday evening we drove out of Atlanta for about an 1 1/2 hours to Dalton, GA, before stopping for the night. I'm using the GPS to find hotels this year. I don't have internet access on my phone anymore, so I plug in the destination on our GPS, and then search hotels. The GPS gives me a list of hotels and their phone numbers. Isn't that cool!

Saturday morning, we started toward Chattanooga, TN, with plans to stop at Ruby Falls which was only about a 45-minute drive. I had found the idea of stopping at the Falls the night before searching the internet for things to do in and around Chattanooga, and Ruby Falls was a number one idea. Ruby Falls is a cavern with a 140-foot water fall inside of it. It was beautiful. We walked about 25 minutes into the cave before coming to the falls. Then we were able to walk behind the falls which was amazing. From the way the falls fell over the rocks above, it looked like you could see each drop of water falling down. I wish that I would have had a water-proof camera to get a picture of it. I did take a picture in front of the falls, but a picture is never as great as the real thing. The cavern had other neat formations that we looked at. The tour of the cavern lasted only about an hour, and we were glad that we stopped.

Then we drove to Nashville. We weren't really sure what to do there, since we really aren't country music listeners. I work with a lady, Sue, who's son lives in Nashville, so we followed her advice. First we drove to the Hillsboro Village district and shopped. That's were Molly got her Alice in Wonderland charm bracelet. We enjoyed looking.

Then we drove to downtown Nashville to the Crazy Horse Saloon. The saloon has in-line dance lessons every 45 minutes. We had great food; Molly and Brooke each ate 1/2 a rack of ribs! And Brooke and Molly danced. It was great fun watching everyone dancing. Then we walked around Nashville a little.

We took a 20-minute carriage ride and the driver pointed out interesting buildings as we went. We pretended to know who she was talking about and be impressed when she dropped certain names and explained how they were connected to Nashville. There were a lot of people by the arena that we drove past, and we found out that American Idol was holding auditions. One person in a car shouted, "I'm going to be on the next American Idol!" as he drove by!

After the ride we got ice cream and walked on a bridge that overlooked the river that had just flooded. You really couldn't tell that Nashville had recently suffered a big flood, although a few buildings were still not completely repaired. A few buildings that were still closed were pointed out to us on our carriage ride. From the bridge we got a great look at the skyline. People had gathered along the banks for a concert that was to be held. It looked like

the group was going to play on a barge on the river while the people sat on the riverbank. It looked like fun.

Then we got back into the van and drove. Jerry wanted to go for a while, but we were so tired that we only drove about 1/2 hour. Earlier we had driven into Central Time, so although we drove to what was 9:30, it was really 10:30 to us.