Long Weekend Trip, Part I

This week is Cherry's first Spring Break at BCC, so I took a few days off to go on a little vacation with her.

On Saturday, we basically just relaxed and eventually went to the beach. We tossed the football around, but more importantly, we splurged for some Cold Stone Creamery, right before we headed home. We needed to get home before 5:00 so that Cherry's classmate could pick her up for a little dinner party that they had planned, but it turns out that someone made a communication error along the way and the party was moved to Sunday without us knowing. Still, the weather was fabulous, and we had a good day.

The next day, we went to Sea World, to take advantage of our Silver Passports once again. There wasn't really anything new since we went last time - in fact, I think the Shamu Show was actually worse this time, since they are building for a new show to open in May. However, this time, Cherry and I seemed to be a little more awake, and I was able to appreciate some of the shows a little more. We made it on time to the acrobat show this time, and I realized that there was actually a little story involved in the show - the guy finds a suitcase with all sorts of little wonders inside - a little cliche, but nice. Plus, I didn't get enough of the Slinky man last time, so it was a good chance to see it again.

We took our time this time to look at the animals, such as the King Penguin who is very comfortably standing on the very edge of his heels to the left. We also saw a Harbor Seal (I know the name because Cherry and I play the North American Critters Memory Game regularly) that was particularly entertaining in the Seal and Sea Lion habitat. You can buy little fish to feed the animals, and it turns out that Sea Lions tend to shout a lot more, so they grab the guests attention more often than the seals. This seal, however, had his own way to get his chow. He would swim up to the edge of the habitat and pound on his chest, as if to say, "Hey Buddy, over here man, yeah that's right, right here!" Another visitor said that this seal had done this the last time they visited Sea World, so it wasn't just a coincidence.

As for rides, Cherry only went on the Atlantis ride, but I did go on the Kraken again. And again, I was still impressed. It's a really long coaster, and has no floor so you can see pretty much all around - up and down. You can kind of see me in this shot that Cherry took - I'm the one with my arms up in the air.

The next day, we headed to St. Augustine. For some reason, I thought that St. Augustine was three hours away, but it's really only slightly over two hours, which worked out pretty well, since we were able to spend a lot of time at the Castillo de San Marco, the major landmark of St. Augustine. I had gone to St. Augustine many many times during my college career, but I had never been inside the fort! There was a lot of cool stuff in the fort, and a lot of cool historical stuff. The fort is built mostly of soft coquina - not something you would think would be good for battle - but it turns out that the soft rock would "swallow" enemy cannonballs! Those Spanish were some pretty smart cats.

We were able to limit the amount of money we spent on food to a very minimal amount by having picnics on the fort grounds. I made some kick-ass bologna with cheese and steak sauce sandwiches. Everything is better with a little A-1! The weather was still a fabulous cloudless 65 degrees, so eating outside was a very nice affair.

At the end of the day, we took a Scenic Cruise in the St. Augustine Inlet. Now, that 65 degrees felt significantly colder, as you can see from Cherry's eskimo suit here in front of the St. Augustine Lighthouse - one of the other sites that we would visit later on. We also saw quite a few dolphins on the boat. The little splash in this picture really is a dolphin! Really!

That night, we couldn't decide what to have for dinner, so after searching for nearly forty minutes, we settled on McDonald's, where I got the new, heavily advertised Spicy Chicken Deluxe Sandwich. I was thoroughly disappointed with this sandwich. I should have believed those Wendy's commercials. You really can't beat those Spicy Chicken Sandwiches!

Well, I'll let you digest that for now. Tomorrow, I'll post Day Three of our vacation, where we hit all of St. Augustine's top tourist traps!