Day 14 - Orlando

After two days of theme parks, today was a much lazier day.  We went downtown to pickup our mail from the last month before going to lunch.

Downtown Orlando.

Downtown was pretty empty, but maybe everyone was inside their cubicles working.  It seemed clean and nice enough.  We didn't stay too long.

Lunch at the Gnarly Barley!

Both wearing Columbia shirts!

Brisket, black beans, jalapenos, cilantro, and mistakenly, carrots.  Tiger sauce too.

Some sort of ham with spicy mustard that Mom regretted.

Erin's rabbit food.

Overall, a very cool place to eat lunch even if we would have changed our orders a bit.

Next we drove to the ocean because Mom has never seen the Atlantic Ocean other than from Coney Island two months ago.

Part of the ocean experience.

Unfortunately, there are fish in the ocean and nether Mom nor Erin appreciate rotting fish on the beach.  They decided not to stay.

Cape Canaveral.

What you don't see pictured is the huge thunderstorm behind me as I take the picture.

Due to inclement weather, I dropped them off at the mall to head to the Kennedy Space Center.  However, I realized the space center was going to take way more time than I had available, so I picked them up after they got their nails done.

Then it was time for some real fun!  Pictures will best illustrate our next stop.

What might we do here?

Dunk basketballs!

Do flips!

Bounce around the arena at super-fast speeds!

Or maybe even crawl out of a pit that resembles an intense cardio workout.

Not my most flattering video, but I thought you all would enjoy it anyway.  That pit is way harder to crawl out of than it looks like.  After about two minutes of bouncing around off the walls, your heart is already racing.  I'm not sure how kids do it.

After flying upside down for a while, it was time to cool down in the hurricane simulator.  This video only shows the end as its winding down, but the winds rise to above 75mph.  It's a fast way to cool off after a workout!

We dropped Erin off for dinner with her stepbrother while Mom and I went out for our own meal.  We found Noodles & Co nearby.

Japanese soba noodles and thai curry soup.

Linguine and salad.

We weren't too impressed.  I'd heard good things about the chain, but as with most cross-cultural restaurants, it ends up with breadth and poor quality.  Serving Italian, American, and Asian just makes all three worse.

After dinner we killed some time before Erin was ready.

Can't go wrong here.

I'm hoping to go to the Kennedy Space Center tomorrow but Mom and Erin don't appreciate space shuttles like I do.  I'm sure we'll find something for them to do.