This morning we woke to beautiful blue skies albeit with the temperature early on on the cooler side.
After breakfast we sat outside by the pool for a while having a real chill time catching up on reading and other stuff. Mid morning we decided to visit Celebration for a wander and to make Karen human again by getting her first caffeine fix of the day.
The town centre of Celebration was as busy as we had ever seen it and I struggled to secure seats by the Lake for us to enjoy our Starbucks drinks (This and all our trips should be sponsored by them). It was idyllic with deep blue sky and the sun providing real heat by then. At that moment I remembered, why we make the effort to come to Florida, why we keep coming back and why Celebration would be our dream place to own a house.
Well it was idyllic until this family of loud mouthed Essex Cockney Geezers came and sat on some rocking chairs near us. They were the epitome of why the Brits get a bad reputation abroad and as a fellow Brit I was embarrassed by them and for them. Loud, fat, tattooed, bejewelled, vested and obnoxious, that was just the grandparents. They may have been nice people, they may have been on their one trip of a lifetime but there was something about them that didn’t fit in with what we consider to be the sanitised sanctuary of the town of that is Celebration. I know this makes me a snob, I know in reality that I am no better than them. But at that moment I was glad when they eventually moved on and peace prevailed.
There were also a couple of locals fishing. When one them reeled in his line there was a commotion in the water. On his line was a 3ft Gator. He had trouble shaking it off his line and it caused quite a stir. Thereafter every time he cast out again the Gator got the line each time. It was a little disturbing only being about 10 feet from the Gator especially as we had learnt this trip that the mothers have a maternal instinct for their offspring for the first few years and so she was probably closeby.
We then walked to the local Farmers market. Wherever you go in the world these markets always seem to sell the same ‘artisan’ stuff. The only stall that actually took my attention had framed pages from early ‘Life’ magazines showing the development of Disney World and some mounted early Disney record recordings from their films.
A ‘Kilwins’ Ice cream on the way back to the car maintained Karen’s energy levels before we headed back to the Villa for lunch and another relaxing period by the pool.
About 4.30pm we headed out again to Disney Springs. It was much busier than we had anticipated. We wandered pleasantly and aimlessly for a good couple of hours stopping in places like the newly enlarged Disney Store that had had its official re-opening the day before. Everywhere was decorated for Halloween although there was already signs of preparation for Christmas. Karen managed to eat 4 of the free handouts from Ghirardelli before we left and drove to Joes Crab Shack for our evening meal.
Not only do I enjoy the food here, but we knew it would not have been necessarily on the boys list of chosen venues so thought we should go before their imminent arrival. In addition as Landrys Members there was an offer to get $25 free credit for eating at one of their restaurants over this weekend. This in addition to birthday bonus they give you each year meant we would have $50 credit to spend later this trip (I may have accidentally told them Karens birthday is in November as the birthday credit has to be used within 30 days!).
I had the Captains platter which was delicious especially the crab claws. Karen had the Cedar Roasted Salmon. We then went back and I found Karens favourite ‘Shark Tank’ on one of the channels for her and ended another day in our happy place with anticipation for the arrival of Neil tomorrow.
