UnitedStates

United States Adventure

October 15, 2006 - Sunday

We left Syracuse, NY heading South to Virginia Beach!! The weather was starting to get quite chilly and that was enough to get our journey started.

Prior we had just spent five weeks traveling all over Italy as our vacation treat. When we returned we stayed a few days with our good friends Steve and Sondra in Nyack, NY. This is when we experienced major "JET LAG." Next we went back to Syracuse, NY to see our family & friends where we stayed for a week with my sister Jaime, Harris, & family.

It was so great to see everyone, and it was amazing how our nieces and nephews had grown up in just the two months that we were gone. Although the cold and damp weather did strike as usual in Syracuse. So we packed up "Lil Cooper" and hit the road!

How does this happen? "The History"

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October 15 - 17, 2006 Virginia Beach

Virginia Beach was a quick easy choice mainly because Christine had gotten her Master's Degree there from Regent University. It also met two major parts of our criteria of having warm weather and an ocean. Although when we arrived we soon discovered it wasn't warm enough at this time of year for our liking. We did stay two nights and took some time to enjoy the high 60 to low 70 degree weather.

Virginia Beach does have a very nice beach area, and it also has a nice bike and running trail that goes for miles beyond the boardwalk into the residential area. It is very important to see that a place cares about providing opportunities for physical fitness in the community.

We definitely took advantage of the bike trail that morning along with a great morning walk on the beach. In the afternoon we went to visit Regent University. Then in the evening we went to a long time favorite restaurant at the beach called "The Raven." Here you can get a huge bunch of blanched broccoli with hollandaise sauce for dipping. YUMMMY!!

Christine at Regent University

The Beach

Look close...This is the true essence of "MULTI-TASKING" !! Yes, those are roller blades on her feet. (This is someone that we do not know.)

Trace in Nyack giving Lil Cooper a fresh coat of wax.

of Christine and Trace Chandler

October 17-18, 2006 Charleston, SC

After two nights we hit the road again for Charleston, SC. It is a place that we have been wondering about since it came up on www.findyourspot.com after we took the test that they offered. It took us about 7.5 hours to get there from VA Beach.

It was dark when we arrived, and we had to find a hotel. As we drove around the "historical city" part we were in awe at how beautifully lit up it was. It held a definite Southern charm. There were many boutiques and restaurants that lined the brick streets.

We were able to get a great room at the Holiday Inn, and I (Christine) was able to talk the manger down from $139 to $89 for the night. It was actually difficult to find a vacancy. We learned that in Charleston October is "High Season" in the Historical district.

We walked around in the warm evening air in shorts and tank tops. It felt great to be able to finally do that.

The next morning we went for a bike ride to see what this charming area looked like in the light of day. The temperature rose quickly into the 80's which is usually wonderful to us, but here the humidity was intense. It was so much more then even Florida. From talking to people it seems that this is the norm.

The homes were gorgeous, but definitely out of our price range. We then went to investigate the beach scene, and here we were quite disappointed. So we made a quick decision to just get onto the highway again and head South towards Florida.

Charleston absolutely is a beautiful city and place to live. Our decision to take it off our list was for one the humidity and two the beaches. We felt lead to just move on, and that is what we did. We didn't stop in Savannah, GA due to the similar humidity.

October 18-20, 2006

St. Augustine Beach, FL

Finally in Florida!! St. Augustine is just south of Jacksonville, and it is the oldest continuously established city in the United States (look it up). Also trivia lovers, Jacksonville, FL has the largest land mass for a city. It is something like 830 square miles!

Now talk about a really nice beach for the East Coast - St. Augustine is one of them. Of course the term "nice beach" is relative to what one desires in a beach. We like a beach that offers waves for body surfing. St. Augustine has them, and large enough waves for actual surfing.

We toured around the town/city, and we even played tennis at one of the public courts. The main thing that we really wanted was some beach time, and finally we were in a place that the weather was perfect and the beach was too.

Our hotel was on the beach, and being off season the prices are good. Our two beach days were fantastic. We were wanting to make it four, because we needed a break from the car.

Although that dream soon ended due to "BIKETOBERFEST". AAAAHHHHH! Every hotel raked their prices up three times higher, and there were hardly any places to stay. You see we only book two nights at a time, because we might not like a place.

The biker festival was in Daytona. That meant that anything south of us would also be the same. So we decided to go in-land and give Disney our money instead.

Who designed these padded bathing suit tops??? There's a problem here!!

We discovered grilling in the dark wasn't the wisest idea.

The Hampton Inn has a very nice Hot Tub, but wait aren't we staying at the Regency? OOOPS!

A fun beach! No that is not either of us.

October 20-24, 2006 Orlando, FL

Orlando, what a busy place no matter what time of year. We happened to arrive there right at prime time rush hour. One would swear that they were in L.A.. It took an hour and a half to go four miles to our exit.

We arrived on a Thursday night and got a nice room at a La Quinta. They had their own nice pool and hot tub so we didn't have to borrow any one else's. Our plans for Orlando were to take a break and pick three things that we wanted to do.

The temperatures on Friday were a very hot 95-98. We were also very exhausted still from all of the traveling since we didn't have our long break in St. Augustine as planned. We decided to take it easy and do some looking around and shopping. We chose for Friday to attend a Pirate dinner theatre show that evening.

It was fun to dress ourselves up for the occasion. We both got pulled from the audience to participate in the events of the show. I (Christine) had to hoist a flag, and Trace had to carry the booty onto the ship. They even outfitted him with a hat and vest.

Saturday was another scorching hot day, but our choice for this day was all day at "Typhoon Lagoon." This is the waterpark at Disney. What can be said about a waterpark other then it was a BLAST. They had a really super wave pool.

Sunday was another wisely chosen day. We knew that the cold front was coming through where temps would be in the 70's. This was the Universal Studio day with Adventure Island. There were some really incredible rides. Some of our favorites would have to be the Jurassic Park ride first. It made you feel as if you were actually in the movie. The sets and everything were so well done as you road this ride through on the water. The Spider man 3D ride experience was another great one. The 3D effects made you feel as if you were really falling and catapulting through the air. The rollercoasters and the few water rides were awesome too. It was such a fun day!

Monday morning we headed to the Tampa area where we planned to visit Marlene and Pete Daks along with Carrie and Jen who I use to babysit when I was 12 years old. I haven't seen them for at least 20 years. There are not any other pictures of our Orlando adventure, because we were having too much fun to take them.

October 24-26, 2006

Tampa, FL & area

Carrie holding 8 week old Elizabeth & Marlene w/ her other two grandchildren Samantha & Brady.

Pete & Marlene and Scott & Carrie and of course little Ellie.

It was so great to see the Daks family!! Marlene and Pete were the same upbeat loving people that I knew so many years ago. Then seeing Carrie all grown up was so amazing. I (Christine) told them that one of my most vivid memories of Carrie is when I use to babysit her as a little baby. I would have to hold her and walk the whole time or she would cry.

After spending time with Carrie and her family, Marlene and Pete drove us around the beautiful city of Tampa to show us the different areas. South Tampa seemed like such a great area to live in from what we saw. We then went to a wonderful restaurant called Jackson's. Here Jen joined us who was about 6 or 7 years old when I was her babysitter. Of course she was a mature adult who recently just got married and is moving to Ireland with Patrick her new husband that we got to meet as well.

We spent the night at Marlene and Pete's home in Brandon, FL, and the next day we went on to investigate Tampa and the surrounding beach areas. One beach that we were very interested in seeing was Siesta Key. It is voted (on the Travel Channel) the 2nd best beach in the world, and it is known for it's sand that is made of white white quartz and feels like babypowder. It is located about a good hour South of Tampa. Yes, the beach sand is incredible, and the white sands stretch a long way. Although for us what the water is doing is important - such as waves to at least body surf. This beach didn't have any waves. It also was too far of a drive from Tampa for our liking.

We then went to other beaches closer to Tampa - Bradenton and Anna Maria Island. These beaches Trace actually use to live at 20 years ago. It is amazing what 20 years does to a community. It seems that both of us where experiencing blasts from our 20 year past. Again they were nice beaches, but there were not any waves. We stayed right in Tampa that night to look around some more. The next morning we decided to check out the Panhandle area of Florida. We were told that there are waves there. It sounds like we are these "surfer dudes" looking for the perfect wave! Really we just want to make sure the beach we live at is fun for us.

Trace at Bradenton Beach while enjoying that morning or afternoon cup of coffee.

This is the VERY TALL Skyway bridge that connects St. Pete to Bradenton. There are many bridges that connect the beach strips to get to the main land area.

Christine at Siesta Key Beach. The sand feels really good!

Look close this poor little guy is missing his left foot, and no other seagull would be around him. The seagull community really needs some restructuring on good ethics.

These two pictures really show problems here in the seagull population. This is a definite example of the segregation that still exists among seagulls.

October 26-30, 2006

Panama City Beach, FL

It was time for a long break from the driving. We decided to stay at Panama City Beach for four nights. We didn't care if the weather was good or not. In fact the evening we arrived and the next day especially was extreme winds and rain. This is when we finally got a chance to rest and get started on this website. It soon cleared up after that, and we were able to walk the beach, bike ride at the nature reserve (Here we saw a real alligator!), and do much more. On Sunday we even got to go to church at Eastgate Christian Fellowship, and Trace later that afternoon had a chance to watch the final Championship race for the Moto GP (motorcycle race) on TV. Those normalities when traveling are actually special times.