San Francisco

Whilst we had been on a couple of short trips & met up with them overseas this was our first extended overseas holiday with Alan & Diane Hee. We were spending time in San Francisco before flying over to Florida to see quite a bit of that state.

Our first stop was San Francisco for four nights.

San Francisco is one of those places that has no shortage of things to see and do. So the four days we spent there were full of seeing, doing & experiencing.

The most obvious tourist sights being Alcatraz & The Golden Gate Bridge did not disappoint.

The day we went to Alcatraz was a bit breezy, slightly overcast but with glimpses of sunshine. However crossing the bay to Alcatraz was about so cold we may as well have been visiting the Antarctic.

Over on the island the cold wind was biting and made us wonder how anyone survived on the island in harsh conditions, considering this was in Spring.

The island itself was memorable and having just recently watched the Clint Eastwood movie again it really brought the events of 1962 to life.

Alcatraz was for the worst of the worst, including Al Capone who died there, and broke many a man.

 

Our next stop was the Golden Gate Bridge. Prior to driving across we stopped off at the park before the bridge where you can see the size of the massive cables used in suspending the bridge. After driving across we went up the far side to a lookout that gave great views of the bridge and the city. From here we visited Muir Woods which is a forest of giant redwood trees.

Fishermans Wharf whilst good, needs a face lift as do some of the restaurants it houses.

The piers are good to mosy around and we had a great seafood chowder which is a tradition here. The seals that have made themselves at home are an added if not unusual attraction around Pier 39.

After each day we always seemed to make it back just in time for happy hour when the hotel we were staying at put on free drinks.

FLORIDA

Orlando

We traveled from San Francisco to Orlando and got there mid afternoon. After picking up our hire car we set off to Cocoa Beach where we were staying for the next couple of nights.

Our first full day was spent at Kennedy Space Centre, Cape Canaveral.

What a great day. We took the opportunity to do a bus tour of the facility which, whilst a pretty long tour of about three hours, it was fascinating, interesting and very informative.

The tour started at the launch pad and “block house” (mission control of the day)of the first manned Mercury rocket, which Alan Shepard flew in to become the first man to fly into orbit.

The rocket, as you can see by the photo with Molly standing next to it, is not as big as you might think it should be.

From here we were shown to some of the other significant launch sites throughout the facility.

Probably the most interesting for us was the launch pad of Apollo 11.

The launch pad or what is left of it is basically a small concrete structure open at it’s four walls with a large circular hole in the roof.

It was this hole that the exhaust flames went through and were then “spread” by large “deflectors” which spread the flame horizontally along the ground instead of a massive continuous burst of flame in the the floor of the launch pad.

From here we were taken to mission control for Apollo 11 which was significantly bigger than the previous block houses we had been in.

Amazingly though that the average home computer nowadays is more powerful than the total computing power available to send the first man to the moon.

We were then ushered into a huge “hangar” in which resides one of the only two Saturn V rockets left.

The size is amazing however the moon landing craft was so “flimsy” & the return rocket so small you have to give credit to the bravery & ingenuity of that generation of astronauts and technical staff.

Belinda & Molly can be seen touch a moon rock brought back by Apollo 11.

After checking out everything there was to see in the Saturn V rocket hangar we went outside to find one of the Space Shuttle “Explorer” having been retired to the space centre.

After seeing the Saturn V rocket it was amazing to see how small the space shuttles are. Earlier on the tour we saw the tracks that the shuttle “crawler” takes when it is transporting the shuttle & it’s rocket to the launch pad.

Finally we had a wander through the centre’s rocket garden. This is a collection of rockets and spacecraft in an outdoor area that in many instances you can climb into and see how tight for room these things are.

A great day was had and we would thoroughly recommend a visit to the Kennedy Space Centre should you get the opportunity.

Florida Keys & The Everglades

From Orlando we left our hotel at Cocoa Beach to travel down to Miami, along the Florida Quays to the southern most point of mainland USA, Key West. From there we were headed back up the quays through the Everglades before spending eight nights at Disneyworld.

We found Miami basically America’s version of Surfers Paradise. Skyscraping apartment blocks built right on the beach. Not a whole lot of character but we’re not real fans of Surfer’s either.

As we were going through the Everglades on the way south as well as on the way back we took the opportunity to make a few stops both on the way and on the way back.

Whilst looking like vast grasslands the Everglades is an ecosystem abundant in all sorts of wildlife, both water and land based.

We took the opportunity to go on a couple of fan boat rides through the Everglades.

In some areas you cant see any water for the grass but you are indeed floating on water. It was a lot of fun as well as a way to see wildlife in the wild.

 

Disneyworld

Having been to Disneyland three years earlier we thought we had an idea of what Disneyworld would be like.

How wrong we were.

Thinking of Disneyworld as a theme park is like thinking an outback sheep station is like a farm. The scale is just so much bigger.

Disneyworld is a collection of five theme parks & two water parks all around the size of Disneyland. On top of this they have their mall area where you have everything from shops to virtual reality rides to many food places.

All this is set in an area measuring 40 square miles. About the same size as San Francisco.

We spent eight nights at Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort. At the time this was the largest (by land mass) resort in the world.

To get around Disneyworld they have their own bus system comprising over 500 buses.

Of a morning you just decide which park you want to go to, walk the 30 or so metres to the nearest bus stop, wait for the bus that shows your park of choice as it’s destination and hop on.

If you want to change parks during the day or go back to your resort youjut head ot to the front of the park & repeat the procedure.