Category Archives: Adventures

Wow, What a Passage. While most people were eating turkey, we set off sailing.  One of our friends in Maryland asked how much we sail compared to motoring.  That’s a hard question to answer. Of course it would be great to sail 100% of the time, but we’re not in control of the wind especially on a passage that covers several days and a few hundred miles.  To get from Maryland to Florida we spent about 6-7 days underway and 6 days waiting for weather in North Carolina.  Of that time we motored about 40 hours of the total 130. My upper level math skills show we motored about one third of the trip and consumed 68 gallons of diesel.

The other two thirds was a crazy wild ride.  South from North Carolina we were no longer frozen even when bundled up, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never sailed with such wild weather for three days.

The new front and side enclosure did it’s job in keeping the wind out of the cockpit and the passengers dry.  To decrease sail area we had  two reefs in the main sail, rolled in the jib to the size of a handkerchief and still shot across the waves at 8 knots.

The waves were HUGE, or at least I thought so.  From the helm I could see them peaking in front of me.  One morning it was pouring outside and dolphins were jumping for joy and leaping off the top of these waves.  Behind us the wave looked like a cliff I didn’t want to fall off of.

I took Topaz out back to do her business on the back deck and she couldn’t believe I was jeopardizing her life for a pee.  No Thanks, I can hold it.  The water washed up our back stairs and swept the back deck clean.  We had three nights at sea.  The kids curl up in the aft cabins with a pile of blankets and unlimited movies on their iPods taking time out to retrieve crackers and water for their daily meals.  Eric and I have a loose watch schedule during the day.  He prefers to sit at the helm and take extra watch time while I rustle up grub for the crew.  This week the weather was too bad for anything more than hardtack and gruel to wash down Dramamine.  Hey, no one threw up, there’s a tidbit to celebrate over.  Once the sun goes down watches get serious, two hours on and two hours off. Our sleep time was regularly interrupted by some crazy crashing wave or something, it was really hard to relax.

I gave myself a lesson in faith.  The Bible talks about faith in God and I just haven’t figured out how to find a life and death situation in my cushy American Lifestyle to test this faith. But in these conditions, when I get scared I put my faith in Makai to keep us safe.  Bingo, there you go, that’s faith in God.

One morning I woke up from my 2 hour nap to find big purple splotches on the radar screen.  Our radar can pick up nearby squalls.  I guess that’s a good feature, especially at night, however if I just look outside I can see the dark sky and pouring rain.

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We had a rider for several hours.  This bird tried everything to get a free ride.  He tried landing on the spreaders but when the mast rocked back and forth he got bonked.  Eventually he settled on the deck.

Topaz was a good girl going potty when the weather allowed it and staying close to the helm for pets.

We arrived on Sunday morning and the kids were packed and ready to jump off like a bunch of rats on a sinking ship.  Nannie was waiting for them at a nearby fishing pier, so off they went.

Now Makai is safe on a friend’s dock.  We visit her everyday to do projects and spend the rest of our time and Nannie’s house.  The property here is owned by a family that has two small apartments and the house next door on a nice big lot.  There is a beautiful lap pool as well, but it’s not heated. Like most Florida pools, a screened structure covers the pool to keep out bugs and debris.

Besides Eric’s list of maintenance projects we had cleaning projects.  For the last few weeks the boat has been dripping with condensation, which is a perfect environment for mold.  The kids and I wiped down surfaces, removed all the bedding and searched for mold.  At Nannie’s house the washing machine got a workout.  The kids washed Topaz’s bed with a little soap, oxyclean and bleach we managed to clean it up like new.

We’re in New Smyrna until just after Christmas.  Back to driving around in a car, stopping at the supermarket, trips to West Marine, Home Depot and Walmart.  It’s not cruising, but it is over 80 degrees.

Wednesday has been a week since leaving the marina in Maryland.  It was really cold there but we had the van to drive around, the Captain’s Lounge (our little heated living room), and electricity to plug our heaters into.  But we can’t head south out of the great white north if we don’t leave.  Friday we stopped here in North Carolina to wait out cold North Winds, followed by South Winds and rain, which eventually returned to cold North Winds.  All this wind and cold has kept us inside Makai all week.  It’s a good thing we like our boat because we’ve all survived the week.

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Without shore power, it’s really hard to manage the cold.  The mid 60s are comfortable with warm clothes, mid 50s are too cold to warm fingers, noses and toes, and 40s just puts me in bed with layers of blankets. Between the moist air and the condensation our walls and ceilings are dripping. Beds and cushions are wet and we just need some heat to dry everything up. With the wind generator keeping our batteries charged, there isn’t much reason to run the generator, but when we do we can make water, heat water, and run the heaters.  Unfortunately, when the heater is off the heat disappears within minutes.

When the wind picks up the shrimp boats come to anchor.

This guy was really impressive in the mist surrounded by pelicans.  The birds just swarmed around, on and over it. I sure wish we had been able to go ashore, it looks nice in the right conditions.

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One day Topaz jumped in after the birds but we quickly dragged her out of the 46 degree water. On one nice morning Eric and I did a little work on the main sail cover and reefing lines.  On the way here our reefing line chafed through and broke twice in one day.  That line is going to be essential when we head south since the wind speeds are going to be 15 – 20 knots and we will prefer at least one reef in the main.

I’ve been doing a lot of cooking this week. Last night I made from scratch cinnamon rolls. Today dinner was fried breaded chicken strips and Stove Top Stuffing, most of our fresh veggies are gone.  We had braided sweet bread for desert. That’s when the kids asked about Thanksgiving.  They quickly answered their own question about what we’ll be having for dinner. Since we’ll be under way, dinner will be Dramamine, cheese and crackers, PBJ sandwiches, and top ramen. If things are going well, I’ll whip up bean soup and popcorn.

So we’ll leave in the morning.  Have fun watching the Macy’s Parade and football games, we have a 330 mile passage ahead of us and will probably arrive late Saturday.  BUT…. when we get there it’s party time.  After searching for a dock a friend offered us space on his dock and my mom is staying in New Smyrna Beach so we get to hang around with Nannie and JJ (her Duck Tolling Retriever) for a few weeks.  I’m looking forward to baking Christmas Cookies, making a list of Christmas events, there are a few places in Florida we want to take Eric, a few more projects to finish up, and best of all Nannie will take us to DOG BEACH.  Do you hear Topaz cheering in the background?

Everyone have a great weekend.

This wind is predicted to be here until next weekend with only short breaks over the next few days.  Luckily, we like being on the boat and we have Sprint 3G for great internet access on our iPhones.  Yesterday the kids and I started catching up on Pastor Surratt’s messages at Sea Coast Grace in Cypress, CA.  If you are in Cypress, go check them out, if not their services (including the music) are on http://seacoastgrace.org/ under the menu option for Messages.  You can go back for years and watch the archived ones.

We had one calm evening in the anchorage and Saturday mid-day someone turned on the fan.  In about 5 minutes the anchorage became ‘Victory at Sea’.  When we went to put out more anchor chain, for safety in high winds and big seas, the decision was made to move to the north side of the anchorage to cut down on the fetch, the distance across the water that the wind has to create big waves for us.  Shortly afterwards, two shrimp boats pulled in to stay out of the weather and then this poor little boat.

We’ve been watching it bounce around, swinging back and forth on the anchor line. One minute the bow is completely out of the water and the next you can barely see it behind a wave.

And this is the precise reason why Google is concentrating more on the on-page factors more than it should. discount levitra This is also available viagra no prescription mastercard in different tasty flavors. In order to build or rebuild trust you must start out with small steps or situations. buy tadalafil india check out this drugstore Tadalafil Softgel Capsule is an extremely effective tadalafil free shipping but simple way to treat erectile dysfunction.Is a prescription drug for a reason- only a doctor will be able to run long haul marathons, but living a inactive way of life where you do not do any exercise is not helpful. The activities for the day included, lots of cooking to keep the cabin warm.  We made frozen Taquitos in the oven to warm up the cabin and also make room in the freezer for Roy’s next big catch, Tacos for dinner, popcorn for snacks and cookies for desert.  The inside temp stayed mostly in the 60s.  The girls dressed up and danced around so that kept them warm.

Genny, our resident audio visual technician, discovered stop motion photography yesterday.  The kids spent most of the day using the iPad to make movies of their Littlest Pet Shop figures.  The movies are cool. The figures move around and you don’t see any hands, they added a few gags and everything is without words just like before the talkies. Today we’re trying to switch from the iPad to a camera and use the computer with Windows Movie Maker for more options.

We’re also enjoying eBooks from the two libraries we have accounts with.  The iPods and iPhone are working great for reading until we get Kindles for Christmas.  Ok back to our busy busy day.  Maybe we’ll do a puzzle

Check out yesterday’s post, I added photos.

I’m glad that passage is behind us. It feels like yesterday we were at the marina when actually three days blurred by.

Picking the weather window wasn’t all that hard, there weren’t many choices, basically storm or no storm. First we looked for a day there would be no wind at Cape Hatteras, the Gulf Stream gets really close to land around here. The Gulf Stream is a river of warm water meandering to Cape Hatteras where it disperses out to sea producing a 2-3 knot current northward. The big danger is when there are winds out of the north opposing the current thus producing dangerous brick wall waves. A wind out of the north is great for sailing but should be avoided in the Gulf Stream, and a wind out of the south is great for the Gulf Stream but would really beat us up bashing into the wind and waves.

Ok so this is getting long winded. The point is Thursday was predicted to be windless at Cape Hatteras, it took about 30 hours to get there so we left the day before and had a fantastic sail enjoying 10-15 kts of wind and a favorable current giving us speeds of 7-9 kts.

We were quite cold. The kids and topaz stayed in bed all day bundled up with all their blankets. Everyone practiced sea sick management, most of us were successful, a few were not.

The air temp was in the low 50s and water temp around 44 degrees, our new enclosure was a life saver keeping the wind, sea spray and rain out of the cockpit.After that we motor sailed around the Cape’s confused seas and through the 78 degree Gulf Stream to Lookout Point in North Carolina. Friday we were warm and the water was calm so Roy did a little fishing.
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Zing is the sound we listen for from his reel. Fish On, and the excitement begins. Roy got a nice Tuna.

On the way into the anchorage there were dozens of small fishing boats out and this further interested Roy. The anchorage is surrounded by beautiful low islands with dune grass and sand. One island has horses on it and there are dolphins and turtles swimming around us. Roy set up his fishing department with Marie casting off one side while he is on the other and Genny is the paparazzi taking photos. He pulled in a few small sea trout and a few spot and is excited to see what else might be swimming below us.

Unfortunately the water is in the 50s again so it won’t be any of us swimming, but maybe he’ll get just the right fish to keep. Roy has been getting good about catch and release since he and I are the only ones who eat it.

Storms are on their way, we may be here awhile waiting for the weather to calm down to 10-15 out of the north. Until then we’ll read, relax, do puzzles, I’ve been anxious to spend some time with the kids, all the boat chores have kept me away from mommy duties. Last night I cooked for the first time in weeks, Genny had been in charge of making Taquitos, pbj, mac and cheese and selecting take out. We had salad and a yummy potato soup and then the sisters and I played cards and Marie got a manicure.

The anchorage has no Wifi, our Sprint hot spot isn’t getting reliable 3G but I can get email occasionally on my iPhone.

November 15th has come.  That’s the date the boat insurance company wanted us to stay up north to safely avoid hurricane season.  What about snow, I guess they don’t care if we’re freezing.  We’ve had several nights in the 30s and days in the 40s.  Eric took the van to New Jersey and rented a car for the return trip.  We were going to head out on the weekend but there is big wind at Cape Hatteras so we decided to wait for the next weather window.  Not a problem, we have plenty of things still unfinished. Roy had another opportunity to go fishing.  I learned that the stripped bass spawn and spend the spring and summer in New England and the Hudson River and the fall and winter feeding off of North Carolina.  Roy was in the right place at the right time in June when he caught that sea monster whopper fish in New Jersey.

Our neighbor Ben has been a great friend and he has taken care of our fishing needs.  We got to use his crab traps all summer and he’s taken Roy and Eric fishing a few times.  After this trip, Roy decided his arsenal of poles still isn’t adequate. I guess the guy who dies with the most fishing gear is the winner or something.

So, off to work Roy goes, poles don’t grow on trees you know.  Now that I’ve run out of canvas, I’m waxing Makai. Wow, there sure is a lot of surface area here.  It’s not really a technical job, restorer wax on, restorer wax buffed, restorer wax off, paste wax on, paste wax buffed, paste wax off.  The nubby nonskid was a little easier.  We’re not really trying to achieve a shine there, but just protect the gelcoat from oxidation and leaving a chalky residue.  With that we used a small soft kitchen brush to apply the wax into the groves and then a little wiping to get most of the excess off.

After 4 days of this we got 90% of the boat finished, the rest will have to wait for warmer weather.  But Roy was happy because we rode loaner bikes from the marina, got hair cuts, lunch and his new pole.

When Ben came home from work Roy ran over there for a little fishermen bonding time.  They rigged it up and Ben cleaned out his tackle boxes giving Roy a man’s gift bag full of off shore tackle.  Thanks Ben!

At the last minute, Eric, Mr. Fixit, decided he didn’t want to mess with the stove any more.  He’s been wanting to get a new stove for months now and he did it.  The helpful associates at West Marine, know all of us by now and one of the guys brought the stove over on his break.  It would have been difficult to transport on the bicycle.

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The burners are very modern looking in a retro sort of way and the oven door has glass so you can see it the cookies are burning Another feature is I think you can set the temperature.  With the old one you had to turn it up and down based on the thermometer so setting the oven to 350 for 10 minutes was not so easy.

The only downside was the sad picture of the old oven left behind.  What about ohana means family, no one gets left behind.  I remembered the crepes, lasagna, tortillas, oatmeal raisin cookies.  How about all the Mac and Cheese, brownies, or chicken it cooked for us.  I carefully placed the little pieces of blue tape and drew circles so I would know which burner and knob combinations to use.  Sniff Sniff, adios oven, you served us well.

Now is time for Goodbyes, we just made new friends and had to say goodbye.  I met Casey in the library a few weeks ago, asked her if she was homeschooling, introduced myself and it was all fun from there.  Her family is also on an adventure, now quite like ours but equally as adventurous, they sold their house and are buying a 128 acre farm.  While they wait for the banks and real estate agents to get everything in order they had time to play with us.  Casey and Ed have to older boys as well as the crew below, Nick, Henry, Claire, and William. We look forward to learning about farming next summer at their place.  I’m sure they’ll have some job we can help out with.

We said goodbye to the great people who work at the Marina and in the Blue Fish Pub, our friends on other boats and I even texted goodbye to our pal who lives around the corner.  We’ll miss the comfortable lifestyle of driving to where you need to go, filling up the washers with laundry, flipping through cable tv in the heated captains lounge, how about toilets that flush with a push of a lever and hot water showers that freely flow, and of course the dumpster in the parking lot.  Topaz will certainly miss the grass.  Ben took me for a last minute trip to the market where I shopped like a cruiser, if you see something you want, get 3 of them.  We also had Chinese take out. It’s nice to have someone else cook for you once in awhile.  Last winter in the Caribbean, our pals on Orion would trade cooking duties with us once in awhile, I sure did appreciate Anita’s dinners.

We have a weather window between now and Friday to round Cape Hatteras.

We will leave early tomorrow morning and should be underway for a few days.  You can watch our progress at:
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We went straight from being busy with road trip and adventures, to panic mode trying to get all our boat projects completed.

After trouble shooting, Eric decided we need new batteries.  Replacing the batteries isn’t as easy as a flashlight.  In our case we went from 4 jumbo batteries to 8 golf cart batteries, new cables, rebuilding and repainting the compartment.  The capacity of our house bank increased from 780 to 940 amp hours.

At the end of our cruise, the anchor windlass switch started acting flaky, so Eric not only fixed the hand switch, but also added redundancy with a foot switch and another switch in the cockpit.

He also added an engine temperature alarm.  This alarm monitors the exhaust hose.  It alarms if the temperature gets above 200 degrees F.  This is an early warning for if we were to suck something in to the cooling hoses (i.e. plastic baggy, jellyfish, etc), or the raw water pump were to have an issue.

Once we entered U.S. waters we had a whole new complication with our holding tanks.  Over the summer Eric cleaned, plumbed, added pump out tubes and a tank monitor.

We flushed/cleaned the heat exchangers on both engines and the generator..

Now that we have new clear fuel tanks, it is easy to see the fuel level.  We fueled up and Eric marked the level so we’ll never have to wonder if the fuel gauge is accurate.

We added a system to polish the diesel fuel.

He even took care of little things like refilling the compass to get rid of the bubble.

Before:

After:

Roy spent a day watching a You Tube video to learn how to splice double braided line for our dinghy painter.

Earlier this summer I made new sunshades for the hard top, this week the job continues with ties to fasten the back shades when rolled up.

Then the Sailrite was put to the test.  When we got the new hard top, the list of new canvas projects warranted a new machine.  This machine works like a dream.  I was able to feed it Strataglass window plastic, several layers of canvas and even webbing and it didn’t hesitate.

These new dinghy chaps are my favorite project.  Most cruising dinghys have a canvas cover to protect the Hypalon and provide a comfortable seat.  The cover only seems to last a few years before it doesn’t fit anymore, I think it must shrink or something in the sun.  By then the stitching starts giving out and stains and tears start accumulating.

So knowing this project was coming we started surveying dinghy covers in the anchorages and marinas, did a little research on the web and even found a great example on another cruiser’s blog.

The key to this plan was velcro.  Normally you make the cover big enough to tuck around and under the bow with a line that tightens under the rub rail.  I find it’s always coming lose and is either baggy or too small and never seems to fit right.  So how do you sew velcro to an inflatable boat?  Ha Ha, you sew it to hypalon strips then glue the strips to the dinghy.

Next is a little protection for the helmsman.  With a new top, also comes the need for a new windshield in the front.  Then how about a window to shield the helm from wind.

Oh no, not just one window, how about enclosing the whole starboard side and while we’re at it lets enclose the port side too.  This was a huge job, but with the cockpit 3/4 enclosed we have been enjoying the protection it gives us from the wind and storms and will keep us protected from the weather while we’re underway.

One last sewing project to make the cockpit a comfy place to lounge is cushions.  The spacious fiberglass benches around the table just were not soft enough.  Now we have 3″ foam around all the seats and 2″ for the backs.

I made patterns with cardboard, traced it onto the foam and cut it out with a bread knife.  I’m currently working on teal canvas covers.  This is the same canvas we used on old Makai.

How about snacks!  First of all groceries are expensive in the islands, and secondly lugging them through hot dirt roads into the dinghy is not a fun time. So, we went to Costco!

Three times we went through the check out with an over flowing cart.  When I had been up and down each isle loading up with six months worth of dry goods, several hours had passed and the van was completely loaded.  We had a dock cart train moving all the mac & cheese, peanuts, cereal, flour, juice and ketchup to the cockpit staging area awaiting processing.

Everything had to be sorted, unpacked and repackaged.

Everyone picked the items they were most excited about.  I’m just excited that I won’t have to shop for this stuff again until next summer.

Marie’s room became the secondary pantry.  We went through everyone’s rooms removing unnecessary items, scrubbing out spaces under the floor boards, medicine cabinets and the spaces under the bathroom sinks for additional storage.

That huge forward locker got six storage tubs with 150 lbs of flour, pasta and snacks, two crates with crackers, a few dozen bottles of juice and several boxes of cereal. Marie’s clothes locker is housing several dozen cans of tomato sauce, paste, crushed tomatoes and salsa.

After two days of repacking, I came up with this pile of excess packaging.  It’s amazing how many items are double boxed and then plastic wrapped.

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We only have a few more days left here.  Thursday Eric is taking the van to New Jersey where Bruce and Ginger stored it for us last winter.  It’s really getting cold here.  The day time temps are around 50 and night time it dips down in the 30′s.  That might not be bad in a well insulated heated house, but the boat just isn’t set up for those temps.  We’ve been running two electric heaters all day and making sleeping arrangements so everyone has a turn with a heater, extra blankets and Topaz to keep warm in bed.  If you get the short straw and have a night without the heater in your cabin, you can have fun watching your breath in the morning.

If 48 isn’t cold enough, just add in the stiff breeze and over cast sky, and warm places are much appreciated.

The Captain’s lounge was great in the summer with the air conditioner, and now the room is heated and a toasty refuge from the weather.

Even Topaz has gotten used to sleeping in bed.

This morning’s temperature report:

We have made a few new friends.  Roy got to join the neighbor on their fishing boat a few times.  We also met a homeschool family that is starting their own adventure.  They sold their house and are purchasing a 128 acre farm.  These friends are welcome diversions from our chores.

Everyone around us is getting ready for the winter.  West Marine has a huge display of cases of antifreeze, the fishermen are transporting their traps to storage, neighbors in the marina are removing their sails and canvas and hauling their boats out for winter storage, and several boats have been covered in shrink wrap or tarps.

It’s time for us to head south with the snow birds.  The kids are even begging to get going. Check the Where’s Makai link to see if we made it out of here on the weekend and pray for good weather.

One year ago, after fun Halloween festivities with our friends, we set out on our adventure.  Eric and Brian flew to Grenada to put the boat together and did projects while I drove the kids and pup to the east coast.  This year’s Halloween festivities start in Buffalo with a little pumpkin carving with Uncle Jim.

Topaz and JJ supervised.  JJ ate any pumpkin debris he could find on the ground and Nannie scurried around trying to clean faster than he could eat and the rest of us could mess.  The one great thing about pumpkins in Buffalo is that it’s so darned cold the pumpkins think they’re being stored in a refrigerator and don’t go moldy, ever! The day time temps barely reached the 50s and the grass was frosty at sunrise.

Jim roasted the seeds and showed us some of his artistic carving ideas.

This was a really short trip as Nannie is heading out in 3 days with the snow birds flocking to Florida.  We got to have a great pumpkin day and dinner with my brother, then the next day Ania prepared an over the top fabulous meal of made-from-scratch-Polish food for the Jakubowski family and us, and I got one evening with Kelly, my only pal from when we were 13, and her family.

Dogs always know when packing is going on and make sure they’re the first ones in the car.

But, pumpkins must travel because Halloween is here. From left to right we have one of Jim’s lantern pumpkins, my slanty sad eyes guy, Genny’s jack o lantern with faces on all sides, Roy’s Monster’s Inc. Mike Wazowski one-eyed monster, and Marie’s classic triangle jack o lantern.

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Just after dark we visited a few neighbors, walked through the pub to say hello, and then set out to ravage the neighborhood. Genny is a sparkly angel, Roy is a sport fisherman, and Marie is a mermaid for the 4th time of her nine Halloweens. As usual, the girls come up with their elaborate plans, we select fabrics, sew, fit and finish their masterpieces over several weeks.  Roy on the other hand scratches his head and puts this with that and comes up with the winning costume.  A few years ago he did this thing where he had his head sticking out of the front of a man’s shirt, the arms were pinned under his chin and it looked like some guy holding his own head.  He got lots of compliments just like tonight.  People called their friends out from other parts of the house to see the kid with the Mahi Mahi and the fishing pole.  Come on! how does he do it.

Now it’s all over and the boat projects have to take priority over everything.  Autumn has hit southern Maryland. When Buffalo trees were red and gold Maryland was still green.  Now Buffalo trees are almost bare and Maryland trees are beautiful.  Our day time temps are in the 50s and the slightest breeze blows right through you and brings big shivers. At night we pile on extra clothes and extra blankets only to wake up to condensation on the windows and walls.

The pool is closed and the memories of open mike night on the deck and icy beers from the Blue Fish Pub are replaced by bundled up patrons watching Sunday Football and the Pizza and Beer special.

The Captain’s Lounge, which is really like our ‘remote living room’, is comfortable if you have a blanket. Now that daylight savings time is over, our projects have to be put to rest early and then we can veg out in front of the TV for the evening.

It’s time to get going like crazy on the project list.  But that’s for my next post.  Our boat insurance company says we can take the boat around Cape Hatteras November 15 so we have two weeks to get our projects finished, load up the boat with provisions and head south.  This year we’ll stop in Charleston, NC, Savannah, GA, a few places in Florida and then hop across to the Bahamas just after the New Year. There we’ll spend the rest of the winter staying warm in the islands.

Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse in 1928 with Ub Iwerks. Mickey was Walt’s way to keep Disney Studios in business after he accidentally lost the rights to Oswald the Rabbit.

Twenty-six years later, during a Disney TV special in 1954 Walt said, “I hope we never lose sight of one thing – it all started with a mouse.”  Walt Disney’s, now famous, mouse was with him when he was ready to fashion a theme park for families to experience the joy he had with his own children at California sea side amusement parks.

In 1955 Disneyland made it’s debut and then in 1971 without real estate constraints Walt Disney World opened for business.  Walt didn’t live to see his Florida park, but his brother Roy continued the project to honor his brother’s dreams.

Even though I would never say it out loud, I am a Disney Geek.  Eric and the sisters would probably sing it and Roy would roll his eyes.  Our family has more than the average number of Disney park visits, stories of fun with friends, mile stones, trivia knowledge, Disney encyclopedias and biographies and photos to prove it all.  Roy was 7 months old when we got our first annual passes to Disneyland for Christmas.  Over the next 10 years we had birthday parties, family dinners, and mommy and me stroller walks.  Genny’s first visit was when she was three days old, the day after coming home from the hospital, and Marie was a week old when she first experienced Disneyland attractions.  Living a few miles down the road from Disneyland made Disney World an frivolous expense that we quickly dismissed.
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Now that we’ve temporarily relocated to the East Coast and have our traveling van on hand, the elusive Disney World experience is possible.  We used our friend’s timeshare privileges again for spacious and reasonably priced accommodations a mile from the park entrance and purchased AAA five day park hopper tickets for a week of full Disney immersion .

Our Disney World park hopper tickets allowed us to skip from park to park through out the week and experience the 104 attractions available in Florida and compare them to Disneyland’s 83 attractions in California.

At the end of our week we agreed that it was fun to see the rides and shows that are only available in Florida, but for the most part we thought that we preferred the California counterpart for attractions shared by both parks. We also liked the smaller parks in California that you can experience in just a few days rather than taking nearly a week.  It could be that we’re biased but that is our opinion.

We were most excited to visit the Magic Kingdom and it to see how familiar its layout would be.

There is no direct way to enter this park, the parking lots are all quite a distance away.  Take a tram from the car to the monorails or ferry boats for transportation to the front gate.

The view as you arrive is like visiting another world, maybe OZ, but that’s MGM.

At Disneyland riding the Monorail was a treat because it only has two stops.  One at the end of Downtown Disney and the other a short walk in through the main gate and over to Tomorrow land.  At Disney World the monorail is an essential means of transportation from the parking lots or from EPCOT.

Main Street was a familiar sight with shops, vehicles, and holiday decorations.

The streets were festively decorated for Halloween.  Many years ago we attended Disney’s Halloween party in California Adventure.  It was a pleasant evening with trick or treating, great costumes, fun entertainment and short lines on rides.  This month the Magic Kingdom closes early every other evening for their Halloween special event.

Cinderella’s Castle in the Magic Kingdom (also in Tokyo) was very impressive compared to Sleeping Beauty’s Castle at Disneyland (also in Hong Kong and Paris).

There were more peaks and points, but no moat.

The hall through the entrance is lined with beautiful mosaic scenes from the story. It took nearly two years to complete these Italian glass murals set in sterling silver and gold.

When Roy was a toddler and we were still deciphering his language, one of his middle of the night requests was for Monsters.  If you didn’t know his favorite movie, you might think the poor little boy was having nightmares.  His request for Monsters was really a 2 am desire to watch his favorite movie Monster’s Inc. Now, all these years later Disney has come out with the movie Monsters University a prequel to his original favorite.

We enjoyed this audience interactive show collecting laughs which we all now know are more powerful than screams. Eric and even Roy we’re displayed on the big screen as part of a joke.

We have CDs of original sound tracks for Disney’s attractions that Eric regularly plays on road trips and sailing passages.  We’ve all heard “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” and now get to see the Carousel of Progress Attraction.

The Peoplemover was another long awaited attraction.  This train tram car snakes through Tomorrowland introducing attractions. The Tomorrowland Speedway is just like Autopia.

The queues were reasonably short and we were able to do this ride several times.  Only Marie needed an adult rider with her, so Roy and Genny we’re off on their own.

At Disneyland the Winnie the Pooh Ride is set in the Country Bear Jamboree’s previous location.  As a tribute to the Country Bears, when you enter Pooh’s Birthday bash room, look above and behind you to see the moose, buffalo and deer’s head from the Country Bear show.  Our kids have all seen these heads on the wall and heard the Country Bear songs and finally got to see the show.

My favorite ride has always been Splash Mountain.  This ride is pretty much the same at both parks.  Roy liked Brier Frog at the Magic Kingdom.

Just as you go over the edge of the big drop at photo showing the thrill on your face is snapped.

Splash Mountain is one of the rides we did over and over.

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Eric bought this photo to show the contrast between our 2013 drop and Roy’s first drop when he was about five.  The drop occurs about 3/4 of the way through the ride.  When Roy first experienced it, he was so petrified he tried to climb out of the boat.  Now everyone has fun and even poses.

The Hall of Presidents at Disney World is much bigger than Moments with Mr. Lincoln at Disneyland.

This attraction starts out with Mr. Lincoln’s speech and a short movie and then all 44 presidents are introduced with several of them having speaking parts.  This situation could never exist without Disney’s audio-animatronics.

We did enjoy the Haunted Mansion, it was a bit different with a smaller facade. We were also used to the Nightmare Before Christmas overlay at this time of year, but they don’t do it at Disney World.  Next is the Tiki Room.  The day was quite hot and humid and the thought of watching the birdies sing in an air conditioned room while eating a cold refreshing Dole Whip was appealing.  The Dole Whip stand wasn’t next to the attraction so we restrained ourselves to save the pineapple soft serve for the show.  Our timing was just right racing through the queue to find our seat when we were STOPPED.  ”Sorry, you can’t take that inside the theater”  WHAT? how can this be?  So we waited outside watching the less than impressive pre-show and slurping on our quickly melting treats.

What should we see next, how about Pirates?  Disney World doesn’t have the Blue Bayou restaurant so the Pirates ride doesn’t float past the bayou scene.  All of a sudden we’re in the room with the pirate ship fighting with the fort, where was the “Dead Men Tell No Tales” drop? where was the pirates song? how about the pirates lair bedroom full of pirate booty? and no Davy Jones projected on the mist?  Ok, Ok, lets not get crabby here.  The middle scenes were the same, then, bam the ride ends.

Big Thunder Mountain was a favorite that the kids went on over and over, we also liked the Jungle Cruise.  Most of the scenes were different but all very good.  With the new scenes came new jokes from the boat captain.

On a new day we hit Fantasy Land and It’s a Small World.  Many of Disney World’s attractions have covered queues.  I’m assuming its because of the frequent rain showers and scorching sun.  Small World’s front facade was also in the building, so everything was smaller and no topiaries. Comparing the ride from the two parks, Disneyland’s attraction was originally built for the 1964 World’s Fair and moved to Disneyland, it seems to contain more rooms and has Disney characters in the scenes.

Yippeee Dumbo!  They had two separate rides, one for the Fast Pass and one for standby riders.  Luckily there wasn’t anyone waiting so we had our choice.

The zero wait time for pictures with Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck was a bonus as well.

My favorite Parade is the Electrical Light Parade.  So there are way more photos posted here than are necessary, but they were all so beautiful and fun. This parade ran most summers between 1972 and 1996 at Disneyland, then it moved to California Adventure until 2010.  Now, to see the Electrical Light Parade, you have to visit it at Disney World’s Magic Kingdom.