Florida- Day 2

The next morning we didn't have too much planned, and so we weren't in any sort of big hurry. We woke up, I don't know, not too late, but not too early, had breakfast and drove out to the air force base. Okay, remember how this whole trip was planned around free tickets to Disneyworld? Well, those sort of fell through. We were supposed to get them from Alysha's grandma's neighbor (got that connection?) But we didn't give her enough notice, or something fell through somewhere. Well, it turns out that I also have connections to Disneyworld that I never knew about. Kim's friend John can get people in too, up to four people a day. It was a long shot but I asked Kim to see if he would do it for us. Yep, he sure would, but Kim said that he could only get us into one park. So our plan was to have John get us into one park and then buy a ticket to another park. Alysha has a military ID so we decided to go on base to get a discounted Disneyworld ticket. We met up with Anne (Alysha's grandpa's girlfriend: got that connection?) on base because she works there and we picked up tickets to Disneyworld and Kennedy Space Center. I felt like such a leech because Alysha's grandma gave Alysha money for the Disneyworld tickets because it was her fault that her neighbor didn't get the tickets in time, and Anne insisted on getting the Space Center tickets for us. If I am a leech, at least I am a grateful leech, and I let them know how much I appreciated everything they were doing for us on this visit/vacation/whatever.

After picking up the tickets Anne pointed us toward the golf course where we could see manatees :o) Alysha's mom suggested that Alysha take me to see the manatees. Alysha thought it was pretty much one of the lamest ideas, but said that she'd suggest it to me. Alysha was definitely not expecting my reaction. I was so excited to see them. They used to be my favorite animal (now they're my second) and I always wanted to go to Florida to snorkel with the manatees.

Well, we weren't able to snorkel with them, but we were able to see six of them just chillin' in this tiny little cove in the boat marina. I was so excited!!! Now, they aren't highly active creatures, and at first all we saw was a tail here and some nostrils there. But, the longer we were there, the more they started moving around and popping there whole heads out of the water, or swimming up to the deck we were on. I'm convinced that they were as amused with my squeals of delight at seeing them as I was of hearing the silly noises they made too.

After watching the manatees for a while we left base and decided to drive across the street to the beach. We hadn't brought our swimsuits or anything, but I wanted to at least go stick my feet in the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. The beach we went to was completely empty which shocked me. The water far away was really blue and pretty, but the water at the shore was brown and icky, but it was warm and felt so good that I was really sad that I didn't have my suit. We had thought about going back, grabbing our suits and coming back out, but we got home a little later than we thought we would and didn't have time to go back.

That night we went to Alysha's grandma's house for dinner. Dinner was really good and dinner conversation was even better. Alysha's a recent convert and no one else in her family is a member. Her grandma was very good about checking with the things that we could and could not eat and drink (even though Alysha assured her that we're not restricted hardly at all), and she was good at trying to keep her husband's language to an appropriate level. The poor guy could not do it. It was so hilarious to hear him catch himself and say "That darn son of a gun" instead of what he really wanted to say. Great entertainment.

Oh, also that night I got was texting John to make sure it was still okay for him to meet us the next morning and I found out that Kim was mistaken. John could actually get us into all of the parks, not just one. Crumb bucket :o( It worked out okay in the end though. We tried to sell them at the park the next morning, but with no luck. We tried to get our money back for them, but they wouldn't do it, but the guy at the ticket office told us that they never expire so we ended up giving the tickets to Alysha's grandma when we left because it turned out that she was planning on going with her friends to Disneyworld in a week or two.

That night we did not sleep well. Alysha kept getting up in the night, which I obviously noticed. And not only that, but she kept stealing the covers. Rrrrgggg..... But it went both ways because the night before Alysha was way too comfortable on my side of the bed, but I guess that night I rolled my way onto her side and had her squished for a little bit of time. Good thing we were waking up early, so that we didn't have to spend too long in that bed!