Another Magical Year Ends

Our time the last two weeks of 2010 was generally spent hanging out at the RV, eBaying some stuff we had in storage, and of course going to Disney World. We finally ventured over to the Magic Kingdom to catch Disney’s Main Street Electrical Light Parade, a 20-minute nighttime procession featuring floats and live performers covered in half a million lights timed to a synchronized soundtrack. The parade made its return engagement this summer replacing the Spectromagic parade, and has been extended indefinitely. Tinker Bell leads off the parade waving to the crowd from the basket of a hot air balloon followed by Mickey and Minnie on the Electrical Parade train driven by Goofy. Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and Pinnochio are just a few of the other floats, and the entire parade ends with a float called “To Honor America”. Though this is a very popular parade and fun to see, personally we still prefer Spectromagic and hope it returns.












We stayed to watch the Wishes fireworks spectacular that happen above and around the backdrop of Cinderella’s Castle. The Castle is stunning this time of year with more than 200,000 tiny white lights attached to netting that drapes over the Castle creating a glistening icicle effect. During the day, you can't even see any of the lights or netting and then magically at night the lights are turned on, and voila! The Castle changes colors throughout the evening so if you don’t particularly like the color it is now, stick around for a few minutes and the color will change!


During the holidays, the pavilions at Epcot’s World Showcase come alive with Holidays Around the World. Each country brings to life their unique holiday traditions and legends through decorations and Holiday Storytellers. We’d seen some of these in the past, but there were others we hadn’t. Russ didn’t really care one way or the other about seeing them, so one afternoon I went over by myself. It turned out to be a beautiful, warm Florida day, something we hadn't had for a couple of weeks down here. Though the telling of each tradition is only about 5 minutes long, there’s no real flow to the timing so that you can simply go from one country to the next. I had sort of mapped out a plan and managed to see 7 of the 12: Papa Noel – Canada, Pere Noel – France, the Daruma Vendor – Japan, Kwanzaa – U.S., Helga – Germany, The Monkey King – China, and Los Tres Reyes Magos – Mexico plus I passed Santa and Mrs. Claus with children lined up ready to sit on their laps. Unfortunately, the timing was just off to see the others. In fact I had planned to catch Julenissen and Sigrid at Norway even though I had seen them before. While waiting for their first performance of the day at 3:10pm, a cast member informed us that the 3:10 performance was cancelled but we could return for the 3:50 show. Well bummer!! I knew I wouldn’t make that one because I had to get something to eat and then get in line for the 5pm Candlelight Processional performance narrated by Thomas Gibson (Dharma & Greg, Criminal Minds). He was alright, pretty much just reading it straight and very dry, but the music is always incredible.




















We returned a few nights later to catch country music artist, Trace Adkins, narrate the Processional. Beforehand I wondered aloud if he would be wearing his cowboy hat, and sure enough he came onstage with it on, but before he started reading, he respectfully removed it till the end. His big baritone voice was perfect for the narration.

Our Christmas Eve tradition for the last couple of years has been to fight the crowds and attend the Candlelight Processional. Once again this year the narrator was Edward James Olmos (Stand and Deliver, Battlestar Galactica). He is another great one to see as he puts so much emotion and emphasis into the narration, sings along with several of the songs, and even translates small sections of it into Spanish. We were pleasantly surprised that even though it was Christmas Eve, the line was not too long for the middle performance nor the last one, both of which we attended. (Below are a couple of pictures to give you a little better idea of the scope and size of the Candlelight Processional.)










The last night for the Processional was Dec. 30 with guest narrator Marlee Matlin (Children of a Lesser God, West Wing, Dancing with the Stars), and of course we attended. Since she is deaf, she performed the narration in American Sign Language and was voiced by her personal interpreter, Jack Jason. The WDW interpreter signs only the songs on nights when Marlee narrates, and the whole thing is still very moving. At one point during each performance when the choir sings Silent Night, the conductor turns out to the audience and conducts us to sing along. As we sang, Marlee signed along, turning more towards the choir as if she was singing back to them, and it was very moving. During her remarks at the end, she credited the Walt Disney World Choir standing behind her with tapping their feet during the songs so she could feel the rhythm. We had no idea they were doing that and had been wondering how she was keeping the beat, swaying her body in time to the music, at times tapping her hand against her hip, and figured she was somehow feeling the music. Now we knew…very cool.

We stayed for Illuminations, and as we were heading towards the exit afterwards, we came across a party getting started right in front of the fountains near Spaceship Earth…DJ pumping music...people dancing and singing along...what a blast! It was New Year’s Eve Eve, and they were getting everybody ready for the big party the next night! We watched for a little bit but didn’t stay too long since we wanted to make it over to Magic Kingdom for the Fantasy in the Sky fireworks. We timed everything just right and arrived just as the Electrical Light Parade was finishing at the front of the park. This was perfect because we could follow along right behind as they made their way up Main Street, giving us an escort to the area where we wanted to be in front of the Castle. We found a great spot to hang out at 11pm, waiting for the fireworks to begin at 11:50….yep, we were going to have to wait that long, and we didn’t dare move from our spot! As the crowd grew around us, a DJ on the Castle stage made the time fly by with loud, pounding music, and encouraging everyone to dance and sing along. The Fantasy in the Sky fireworks are only performed a couple of times a year, and what we saw was spectacular, awesome, fantastic!! They began promptly at 11:50 as a normal fireworks show (well, as normal as Disney does!) timed to Disney music, and then a couple of minutes before midnight, Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy came on over the loudspeakers creating a New Year’s countdown. Right at midnight the grandest fireworks you’ve ever seen exploded 360 degrees around the park…absolutely breathtaking!!! I’m sure everyone felt like a little kid again…eyes wide with amazement!! Disney sure knows how to throw a party!!

Merry Christmas

“Although hundreds of years have passed, we still celebrate the birth of the baby in Bethlehem…and the joy of that first Christmas still lives in our hearts.” - from the Candlelight Processional

During this special time of year, we all take time to reflect on our lives. We remember those we have lost and those we have met along the way. We give thanks to those men and women serving in the military, protecting our country, and pray for their safety. And though miles may separate us from friends and loved ones, they continue to be close in our hearts.

Christmas is a season of hope and magic, a time to be thankful for the many blessings in our lives. It's a time to look in wonderment at life through the eyes of a child. For Christmas is not just a date on the calendar, it is a frame of mind and a way of life. May the joy, love, hope, and peace of Christmas be with you always.

Friends in Florida

Our home for the next 4 months is the same place we stayed 2 years ago, Lake Magic RV Resort in Clermont, FL, located just outside Orlando and about 15 min. from Walt Disney World. The past few weeks have been busy settling in, going to doctor appointments, visiting Disney (of course), and re-connecting with friends. Though we are at a different campground than Paul and Anne this year, we’ve gotten together a few times including an early dinner one night at Manny’s Chop House (http://www.mannyschophouse.com) for their buy one get one free fajita night and endless salad bowl! We also visited with Bob and Joanne at their new location this year, and in the “small world category”, we got a visit from Leslie and Vince, folks we met in Accord, NY, a couple of years ago. We had not seen them since then but had stayed in touch, and it turns out that while we were in Summerton, SC, they had arrived at the exact same campground the day before we left but neither of us knew the other was there. Not only were they at the same campground, but they were parked at the other end of our row, only 4 sites away! Then we found out that they were going to be spending the next couple of weeks just down the road from us here in Clermont…told you it’s a small world! We had a nice, long visit and hope to get together again when they're back in a few weeks.

We also discovered that Beth and Dick were going to be staying at the Disney campground, Fort Wilderness, for a couple of days and made plans to get together. Christmas is such a wonderful time to visit Disney World with all its beautiful decorations and annual traditions, and since this was their first time seeing the parks at Christmas, we were happy to act as tour guides. We met them at Hollywood Studios to see the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights (OsborneLights). We arrived shortly before 6pm, the time the Spectacle begins, and stood with hundreds of others in the middle of “Streets of America”. At precisely 6pm, more than 4 million lights that drape nearly everything in sight came on all at once accompanied by Christmas music and “snow flurries”…Beth and Dick were amazed. No matter how much you read about it or how many pictures you see, nothing compares with experiencing it!

Next we drove over to Epcot for the Candlelight Processional (Processional), another first for them. It’s held three times nightly at the outdoor America Gardens Theater, and in a nutshell, the Processional features a celebrity narrator reading the story of the nativity backed by a mass choir and a 50-piece orchestra while an interpreter relates all in sign language. The narrators change every few nights, and some are better than others because even though they all read the same script, some put much more emotion into the reading while others simply read the words…some even sing along! We make good use of our annual passes during this time and try to see as many as we can. This particular night it was being narrated by John O’Hurley (Seinfeld, Family Feud, Dancing With the Stars), and he did an excellent job. It seems that no matter how many times we see the Candlelight Processional, we marvel at the beauty and majesty of the sound and the performers. Afterwards we stayed for the Illuminations fireworks, and then drove them back to the campground. Quite a number of people go all out decorating their campsites at Fort Wilderness for Christmas so we drove through checking out the sights.

Our friend, John, called from St. Louis to let us know he’d be in Orlando on business the beginning of Dec. so we met up at Miller’s Orlando Ale House (http://www.millersalehouse.com/). This location had just opened a couple months earlier, and we enjoyed a great meal and a great visit. However, right after this picture was taken, John realized after all these years just how much shorter I am than him…too funny, John!

The weather here was beautiful when we arrived as you would expect Florida to be in the winter but then it took a turn. OK, so we haven’t had snow and it’s warmer than most places up north, but it dropped to the low 30s a few nights and even got down to 27 one night! What’s up with that?!

Otherwise, over these past few weeks we celebrated Thanksgiving by cooking a 22 lb. turkey (yes, just for the two of us!) and tried our hand at making homemade cabbage rolls, which actually turned out pretty good. We made a couple more trips to Epcot, and one of those trips was to see Whoopi Goldberg narrate the Candlelight Processional. We arrived at the park about 5pm with plans to see the 6:45 show, but when we got over to the World Showcase area, the standby line was already so long that a cast member was telling those of us in the back that we were in line for the 8:15 show! Now the decision was whether to stay waiting in line for 2-1/2 hours or leave, and though I had seen her narrate last year, we decided to stay (after all we had driven over specifically for that purpose). While Russ wandered around talking on the phone, I stood in line chatting with the gal in front of me who was saving spaces for her family and friends, and it made the time fly by. Whoopi did an incredible job, putting so much feeling and emphasis into the narration. Only negative would be that she obviously couldn't resist making a little funny when reading the part that says "a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed" to which she commented "some things never change". Yes, humorous, but there is time allowed at the end for each narrator to make any personal statements they'd like, and it just seems it would have been more appropriate for her to make a comment then instead of in the middle of the scriptural reading. Anyway, we finished the evening once again by watching Illuminations. We never seem to tire of this especially during the holidays when they add on an extra few minutes of fireworks performed to Let There Be Peace on Earth…one of my favorites.

Waves & Harmony

The next couple of weeks were spent heading south for the winter. Our next stop was Waves, NC, on the Outer Banks, one of my favorite places because of its proximity to the ocean. We stayed at the same place as the last couple of years at Camp Hatteras RV Resort & Campground (http://camphatteras.com/), and our site was about 100 yards from the sand dunes that separate the campground from the beach. This is the latest we’ve ever been at this location, and though generally very windy, it was also cold. But that didn’t stop us from taking the dogs for walks on the beach and letting them sniff and run. Abby is such a beach baby! Mikey generally likes to simply meander along, enjoying the breeze and all those ocean smells. The ocean was especially riled up while we were there, and suddenly the tide would come rushing higher onto the beach as we’d rush to avoid getting wet. One particular time Mikey didn’t move fast enough since he can hardly hear any longer and couldn’t hear us yell at him to come quickly. Oh well, he didn’t seem to mind getting his feet wet.

We spent a week here and really didn’t do much but relax and walk on the beach. One day we had planned to once again visit the Wright Brothers National Memorial (www.nps.gov/wrbr) at the other end of the island, but it had been particularly stormy the night before, and as it turned out, the ocean had washed up over the sand dunes a few miles down the road on Hwy. 12 (the main road connecting the islands of the Outer Banks). We were sitting in a line of traffic as an officer came along to inform each car that the road was closed just a couple miles ahead, and there was a foot and a half of water this side of the bridge. Glad we had visited it a couple of years ago! I've included a shot of the GPS so you can see how narrow the land is between the Atlantic Ocean and Pamlico Sound...in spots only a mile across! However, if you’d like to read more about the area on our previous trips, there are two entries for 2008 which you can access by clicking these links: WavesMay2008 and WrightBrosMay2008, and if you’d like to read about last year’s visit, simply click on this link: WavesMay2009.

Next stop on this trip was Summerton, SC, enjoying the fall colors as we traveled down the highway. We stayed at Big Water Lake Club Campground (sorry, no website at this time) for a few nights, just off I-95 about 70 miles northwest of Charleston. We would have liked to have stayed in the Charleston area, but there are no C2C campgrounds (at $10/night) and we were going to continue our trip down I-95 to FL so this place made the most sense. Nice campground though if you're a light sleeper, you might not appreciate the noise from the highway. Didn't really bother us though.

Now you may remember in a previous post I said that I generally don’t travel more than 30 min. to visit a Sweet Adeline chorus, but this time I did to see my old friends of Southern Harmony Chorus (http://www.southernharmonychorus.com/). I met up with 6 of them for dinner a couple hours before rehearsal, and before leaving the restaurant, the server insisted we sing something for her. Since we did have all 4 voice parts present (critical in barbershop!), we serenaded the restaurant with Thank You Dear Lord for Music, a Sweet Adeline staple that I still remembered, and got a generous round of applause. Then it was off to rehearsal to see Tom (the director) and the rest of the gang. Some gals are no longer with the chorus and there are some new faces, but the energy and excellent singing is still there. (You may remember them from previous posts.) They were preparing for their upcoming Christmas show, and thanks to the absence of one of the ladies, I got to stand in her place. I had such a blast singing with that old gang of mine (tee hee) and didn’t even mind the long drive back to the campground at 10:00 that night.

From here we made a one night stop at King George RV Resort in Woodbine, GA, a place we’ve stayed before and definitely nothing special, and then it was on to Clermont, FL, our home for the winter.

Anchors Aweigh...Mac

We drove a little over 200 miles south and settled in at First Landing State Park (http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state_parks/fir.shtml). Located on Cape Henry in Virginia Beach, VA, the park's name was changed in 1997 from Seashore State Park to First Landing to reflect its heritage of being the first place where the English colonists landed in 1607 who established Jamestown as the first permanent English settlement. Our site was directly across from the walkway that led to the beach situated along the Chesapeake Bay where cargo ships could be seen in the distance. Though cold and windy while we were there, it didn’t stop us from taking the dogs for a walk on the beach and even letting them off leash. You can see how much Abby enjoyed that as she bounds behind me!










Since we planned to stay for a couple days, we decided to drive the short distance into downtown Norfolk one day and check out the Hampton Roads Naval Museum (http://www.hrnm.navy.mil/) where the USS Wisconsin is berthed, one of the largest and last battleships ever built by the Navy. The museum “celebrates the 234 years of history of the fleet in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia” and was free according to what we had read. The battleship has been securely chained to the bottom of the Elizabeth River since Dec. 7, 2000 (57 years after it was first launched) and floats 2’-4’ above the bottom.

As it turns out, you can tour the museum for free, but at the beginning of the year the Navy turned the USS Wisconsin over to the city who now charges to board and tour it (though admission also includes the interactive science and technology center). We were really disappointed by this but chose to skip touring the battleship and simply partake of the museum’s free tour. What a fascinating place! The museum introduces you to over 200 years of naval activity in the area starting with the critical Battle of the Capes in 1781. We had no idea the extent to which ships played a part in our nation’s history. There’s quite an impressive collection of ship models as well as artifacts pulled from the waters including this 1,800 lb. anchor dating back to the 1800’s that was found in the river in 1993. An extensive number of exhibits help tell the story of naval operations through America’s history up to and including today’s Navy.

As we were leaving, we discovered that just a few blocks away was the Gen. Douglas MacArthur Memorial (http://www.macarthurmemorial.org/), and it too was free! Located on a beautifully landscaped square, the Memorial consists of 4 buildings and we started our self-guided tour in the Memorial Theater with a 25 min. film on the life and times of Gen. MacArthur. The museum itself is housed in Norfolk’s 19th century City Hall on the square, and the rotunda is the final resting place for Gen. and Mrs. MacArthur surrounded by banners, flags, and inscriptions. This hidden gem is quite an impressive museum and well worth a visit.






















As mentioned, the campground is located on Cape Henry (http://www.nps.gov/came), and just down the road you can visit the Memorial Cross and two lighthouses. However, to access this area you must go through the Fort Story (http://www.story.army.mil/) checkpoint, an active Army base established in 1917. We actually had to get out of the car and open all doors while they also checked under the car with mirrors.

The Memorial Cross was erected in 1935 commemorating the site of a wooden cross that had been constructed by the early settlers back in 1607. Nearby is a statue of French Admiral Comte deGrasse who was sent to support Gen. George Washington as well as a marker commemorating that French/British naval engagement of 1781. This is also the only location in the country where you can see two lighthouses from different eras of lighthouse technology. The first, built in 1791 and built of sandstone, was the first federally funded lighthouse, and it served until 1881 when the checkered black and white cast iron lighthouse was built basically across the road.

Though this little side trip to the Virginia Beach area had not originally been planned but rather was because of the need for electrical power, it turned out to be informative, educational, and fun.