We slept in again today which was nice and had breakfast in the hotel. While waiting for our laundry to dry my daughter and I went out to the basketball court and shot hoops for a bit. I also took my disposable camera from the caving trip over to Walgreen’s to have it developed before we left the area. Later that morning we went back to the mall to finish shopping (picking up some things we had seen yesterday).
Road Trip 2010: Day 4
Ah, a day without (major) driving!
We slept in after our late (early!) arrival yesterday (this morning!) which was fine since the mall didn’t open until 10am. My daughter and I took a dip in the hotel pool and then cleaned up and joined my wife for breakfast. Then it was off to the largest indoor mall in the country: the Mall of America (or MoA).
Road Trip 2010: Day 3
Today was our longest driving day, just over 800 miles from Mammoth Cave, KY to Bloomington, MN (about 14 hours in the car). We got up early with the other family in our cabin, packed up, checked out, loaded the car, said our goodbyes, and hit the road.
Road Trip 2010: Day 2
We got up early this morning thanks to a particularly loud chirping bird in the woods outside of out cabin. Ah, nature!
Road Trip 2010: Day 1
We hit the road early this morning, grabbing breakfast from the free spread at the hotel and eating it in the car.
Road Trip 2010: Day 0
We’re on the road … Road Trip 2010 has begun!
Road Trip 2010 prep: loading up the GPS
We’re getting ready for our big summer vacation road trip starting next weekend: over 4,000 miles in 9 days through 12 states. As we finalize our plans, finish packing, and prepping the car, I took some time this weekend to get my Garmin nüvi GPS ready for the trip, the first step which was to purchase the latest map update.
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Time for the 2010 hurricane season
This past Memorial Day weekend, in addition to the national tradition of grilling out, we also followed our own family tradition of re-stocking the supply closet in preparation for the 2010 hurricane season, which starts today.
Let’s hope it doesn’t rain oil anywhere this year. 😯
Star Wars Weekend at Disney
We spent the day over at Disney’s Hollywood Studios to check out the Star Wars Weekend event, and it was pretty cool! The park was the most crowded I’ve ever seen it, and this time it was mostly Star Wars t-shirt-wearing dudes my age waiting in lines to meet the characters (although, to be fair, most of them also had their kids with them, like me). 😀
Don’t mess with Boba Fett, he’s all business!
The Gammorean Guard wasn’t very talkative either.
The “parade” was cool, seeing all the characters go by, especially the “local Florida garrison” of Imperial Troopers:
One of the celebrity guests in the parade was Jeremy Bulloch, who played Boba Fett. Since it’s the 30th anniversary of the release of “The Empire Strikes Back” I thought that was pretty neat. Pac Man and “Empire” both turned 30 this week? Wow, 1980 was a great year for geeks …
Of course my daughter loves the Star Wars saga so she had a great time as well. We got to “meet” and get autographs from Darth Vader (who knew he had such good penmanship, much less signed autographs?), a couple of Storm Troopers (signed “Stormtrooper TX-352”), Boba Fett, Queen Amidala, and Luke and Leia. We also saw, wandering around, Chewbacca, some Ewoks, Tusken Raiders, the Cantina band, and various other characters. Unfortunately the lines for Darth Maul and C3PO/R2D2 closed before we could get in them. We didn’t even bother with the Star Wars-themed Disney characters (like Darth Goofy, Jedi Mickey, etc.).
Let me say that I’ve also never seen the line for the Star Tours line as long as it was in quite a while. In addition to it being a Star Wars Weekend, it was probably more popular since it will be shut down for rennovation in September before re-opening in May 2011 (for next year’s Star Wars Weekends).
Oh, and we did manage to squeeze in rides on Toy Story Mania and the Rockin’ Roller Coaster before we had to leave.
