Norton travels, USA and beyond

It’s quite a drive to the Keys, almost 100 miles beyond Fort Lauderdale, but beautiful once you get there. We only drove half way through the keys; they go on for about 100 miles to get to Key West. But you have to go beyond the Key Largo area to get where the road has the beautiful ocean views and long bridges between islands. The water is the most stunning turquoise color I’ve ever seen, even better than Hawaii. We took Okie to a dog beach there so he could pretend he was dog paddling in the Atlantic Ocean.

On Monday we drove to Orlando. We decided to go there instead of staying along the “space coast” area (Cape Canaveral) since Chuck had never been there. We are kind of beyond our amusement park days having grown up convenient to Disneyland. But there are so many things to do in the Orlando area that we’re glad we went. First we went to Gatorland, a great place to see lots of wildlife. It’s much easier to see and take photos of gators in captivity than in the wild, haha. The park has crocodiles, tortoises, snakes, parrots, and of beautiful birds in their gator breeding lakes. We really enjoyed the day there.

The Disney park we chose to visit was Epcot. It has lots of attractions that appeal to a slightly older crowd than the rides of other parks. We enjoyed the movies and buildings from the different parts of the world. Their Eiffel Tower reminded me of Las Vegas, haha. The fireworks and light show are done in Disney’s top quality of production. Then tonight we went to Downtown Disney. It is about four times as big as the Anaheim version, and was quite crowded. But the entertainment and shops were fun. This would be a really good place to snowbird. Besides the many things to do here, the weather has been around 80 all week. We’ll be here a couple more days, then off to the St. Augustine area.