Rob and Hild visting Coral Springs - October 2012
It was time for our first visit to Kristin and Alvaro in Coral Spring - after the big move in February.
We were excited to try the pool in summer temperatures as well as sightseeing and go to Harry Potter World.
Of course, we wanted to hang out with Kristin, Alvaro, Tigger, Austin, and Reina!
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| Austin, Tigger and Reina posing first with Alvaro and Kristin and then with Rob and Hild. Tigger and Reina were cooperating during the photo session, while Austin was more interested in lying on his back with his feet in the air - or just chewing away at his toy... | ||
| Universal's Islands of Adventure | ||
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| Kristin, Rob and Hild went to Orlando to visit Universal Studio's Islands of Adventure. The main goal was to go to Harry Potter World, but we also explored the rest of the park and restaurants and shops in the City Walk outside the theme park. | ||
| Harry Potter World | ||
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| The main goal for the trip to Universal was so Rob could visit his name sake's theme park. Also Hild was adamant that she would go on the main attraction ride in Harry Potter World. Everything looked just like we imagined it in the books and as seen in the movies - even down to the (fake) snow on the roofs. We walked through Hogsmeade with all its familiar shops to get to Hogwarts. Here we are before and after the "Forbidden Journey" ride. Amazingly we were still smiling because the ride was much wilder than expected. Hild admits freely that she kept her eyes closed for much of the ride - expecially when it was tossing us around while showing us 3D-footage of rushing around Hogwarts on brooms! | ||
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| The first part of the popular ride was much quieter and let us explore Hogwarts including through Dumbledore's office, walk past the Sorting Hat, and visit the defense against the dark arts class room. As in the books, all the paintings on the walls did indeed talk to us and each other. Modern technology using flat screen TVs and holograms made it all seem very realistic!! We enjoyed every minute of it. Rob also enjoyed the ride in spite of the tossing and turning and dipping and diving. | ||
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| We went past Hagrid's Hut and the Hippogriff in his nest. Then Rob and Hild took a ride on the Hippogriff. This also turned out to be quite a violent ride. Or maybe we're just a bit wimpy in our old age!? Still, it was enjoyable to experience it all. Later on Rob also rode the Dragon Challenge which just escalated the excitement. This was way too much for Hild so she passed and just waited by the exit. We have no photos of this. | ||
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| At some point we needed cash and it made us laugh to see that the automatic teller machine ("minibank" in Norwegian) was run by Gringotts, which is the main bank in the Harry Potter books. | ||
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| We had to try the pumpkin juice as well as the butterbeer. The butterbeer was delicious. We got a cold one and a frozen one. Both are highly recommended by us. The pumpkin juice is not great but that is because we found it too sweet. Others who like pumpkin flavour will love it, no doubt. Kristin and Rob were both amazed to see Hild drinking beer (even the non-alcoholic kind)! | ||
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| After a nice lunch at the Three Broomsticks, Kristin and Hild held their annual general meeting. It is always fun to be in exotic places for our annual meetings even if we don't really need to hold these meetings! | ||
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| The park isn't all action as we also spotted a number of fish and this turtle in the lake in the middle of the park! | ||
 
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Rob and Hild got almost as
wet as this turtle when they rode the "get wet" rides around the park. Both of us rode the big and round "Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges"
three times - that's how much fun and not scary it was. It was by far the wettest ride of them all!
Hild also did the "Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls". This was a log flume ride ("tømmerrenne" in Norwegian) and we got wet and also scared by a huge 25 metre (75 foot) drop at the end. After that Hild had had enough, so Rob did the "Jurassic Park River Adventure" ride on his own. He rode a big river raft with a 28 metre (85 foot) drop at the end. |
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| Kennedy Space Center - NASA | ||
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| Proof that we visited the Kennedy Space Center. Here posing in front of the NASA logo and Rob found the Union Jack. The aptly named Rocket Garden holds many many different rockets. | ||
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| The US flag on the side of the HUGE vehicle assembly building is the height of a 22 storey building! That is hard to tell from a distance. We went close to the Launch Complex 39 - Pad A, built and used for the Apollo and Saturn V rockets. It was also modified and used for the later shuttle missions. | ||
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| This photo shows the space shuttle's main engine - we are amazed at the number of small cables running here and there! We also got to see a small scale model of the space shuttle, which is very similar to the lego version Kristin bought later (see below). | ||
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| The lego challenge: Almost as in the real shuttle program, we found there to be what seemed like millions of small pieces to be assembled... Kristin assembling the external tank and Rob battling with the space shuttle itself. The photo on the right shows the completed two solid fuel rocket boosters and one big external tank. We didn't finish space shuttle itself so the Coral Springs space program is behind schedule. Kristin and Alvaro will have to finish it later. | ||
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| Kristin finalized the shuttle a few weeks later - here the shuttle is using its famous Canadarm to launch a satellite (famous in Canada because it was designed by Canadians), and then a shot of the shuttle ready for launch. | ||
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| We went to see a real and very large Saturn V rocket on display in the KSC. Rob poses to show how extremely large the bottom end rocket exhausts are. The other photo is borrowed from Wikipedia as we couldn't fit the entire rocket into our camera view finders.... The structure is HUGE! | ||
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| Rob and Hild particularly loved the exhibit about the various robots sent into space. It also included this lego-replica of one of the Mars Rovers. | ||
| The Everglades | ||
| Our route from Kristin and Alvaro's to Flamingo Harbor in the Everglades: | ||
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| These two photos show the difference in altitude from Colorado to Florida. In the Everglades, we passed through Rock Reef Pass - 3 feet above sea level (90 centimetres). The other photo shows Janet and Olav on their way across Independence Pass in 1998 - 12 095 feet above sea level (3 687 metres) | ||
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| Hild, Alvaro, and Kristin at the Pa-Hay-Okee overlook looking out over the swamp and hiding from turkey vultures and crows. We had brought sandwiches (and cold pizza for Rob and Hild) for a picnic at Flamingo at the southern end of the Everglades. |
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| We went on a guided boat trip up the river into the mangrove forest, swamp and lakes. The mangrove trees are fascinating and there are so many kinds. However, we found it hard to tell the different mangrove trees apart so the guide may have been pulling our legs: white mangrove, red mangrove, black mangrove... A quick check on Wikipedia tells me that the guide was not kidding. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_mangroves). | ||
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| On our boat trip we saw everything from edible heart of palm trees (also called swamp cabbage!), through air plants that may carry fresh water in reservoirs for lucky thirsty people, to the very pretty but very dangrous manchineel tree with poisonous: sap, leaves, bark, fruit, even the smoke from from a burning tree can make you go blind!! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchineel). | ||
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| We saw many many kinds of birds. There were vultures and turkey vultures. There were warning signs up that vultures love rubber and may damage cars (windscreen wipers and tyres). They adviced us to park in the sun to avoid the vultures... so we did. There were many crows around the place. Kristin and Alvaro were familiar with them chasing tourists for food. This particular crow was happy just pecking at its very dead and flat mouse (we suspect it was roadkill). | ||
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| A white heron took flight just as we drove past - beautiful! A blue heron ignored us and our rather loud river boat. An ibis was sunning itself as we toured by. | ||
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| An anhinga sat in a tree drying off its wings. An osprey was hiding in the bushes - and the camera couldn't quite focus on it. A pigeon wandered unfed past our picnic table as there is a $5000 fine for feeding or harassing the wildlife. We're not sure what constitutes 'harassing' so we just sat still and took photos. | ||
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| Surprisingly the seagulls showed no interest in our picnic lunch, and they only lounged around on the jetty. We saw a couple of turtles - one was swimming and the other was sunbathing. | ||
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| To everyone's excitement we saw a large alligator lying on the river bank, and we saw several crocodiles. This is the only place in the world where you find alligators and crocodiles living side-by-side. After having seen Australian crocodiles we weren't impressed by the size of these crocodiles, but we expcect that their teeth are just as sharp - so no swimming. Finally, we also saw this alarmingly big grasshopper. Not as large as an alligator but 10-15 cm long is scary when we are talking grasshoppers and not crocodiles... | ||
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| Hild was constantly checking out her new T-shirt which changes colours in and out of sunlight. | ||
| In and around Coral Springs | ||
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| Kristin, Rob, and Alvaro going for a walk at the fishermen's pier on Deerfield Beach. Rob and Hild also returned another day to go for a run and a swim on the beach. It was as nice as they remember it from Perth! | ||
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| There where plenty of opportunities to have fun in Kristin and Alvaro's swimmingpool. The doggies still prefer to keep their paws dry. | ||
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| One of our many dinners together on this trip - here at the Melting Pot, which is a great fondue restaurant. Thanks to Mamma and Daddy for sponsoring the dinner since they weren't here to join us! | ||
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| Another dinner - this time at the Latin Bistro right here in Coral Springs. Kristin had Mofongo (fried plantain dish. In Norwegian: "Steikt og mosa banan") with beef strips, Alvaro had tortilla soup, Rob had beef with rice and beans, and Hild had salad with beef strips. Thanks to Mamma and Daddy for sponsoring yet another dinner! | ||
| We had a great time and are already looking forward to the next trip. The things we didn't have time to do on this trip have been moved over to the "must do list" for our next trip. See you soon. | ||
October 2012