The Beauty Around Us

Our “Get out of the Cold” Vacation – Day 3

By Linda G. on January 20, 2010

We enjoyed sunshine and blue skies throughout the day on Wednesday, January 13th . Although it was cool in the morning, it warmed up nicely. I wore a lightweight fleece pullover with a tee shirt underneath. When it warmed up in the afternoon, I pulled off the fleece pullover and tied it around my waist.

After eating breakfast at Shoney’s Restaurant, we went in search of the Tibet-Butler Preserve. I learned about the Tibet-Butler Preserve on the Internet. A review of the nature preserve said it was a terrific place with nice trails to walk on and exhibits of the area. The Tibet-Butler Preserve sounded like it might be similar to the Jamestown Audubon Center and Sanctuary that I enjoy visiting near my home. I had taken down the address of the preserve; nothing more. When we programmed the address into the GPS, it could not be found. Bob programmed the route number into the GPS. We drove up and down Route 535, the road on which the preserve was located. We didn’t find any signs directing us to Tibet-Butler Preserve. After a short while we gave up searching for the nature preserve and attempted to locate a car wash instead. We asked the GPS to look for car washes in the area. The GPS brought up several car washes in the area. We told the GPS to take us to a particular car wash. The GPS took us to the location of that car wash. All we found was an open field, no buildings of any kind. We found a car wash eventually and, as Bob described it, “we got the winter washed off the car”.

While looking for the Tibet-Butler Preserve we saw signs for Downtown Disney. We decided to visit Downtown Disney. What an enjoyable place! Downtown Disney is an outdoor shopping, dining, and entertainment complex located at the Walt Disney World Resort. It is open to the public, requires no admission fee and offers entirely free parking. Neither Bob nor I had ever visited Downtown Disney, so it was a first experience that we shared together. We spent several hours just walking around Downtown Disney, enjoying the sights and sounds. There was a wide variety of entertainment, food and merchandise available for purchase. We, however, spent very little money at Downtown Disney. The only money that we spent was for ice cream and a souvenir candle that we purchased for my stepdaughter. We actually walked through Downtown Disney two times. During our first walkabout, I carried my point and shoot camera. I thought we would do a little shopping, eat lunch and then figure out someplace else to visit. Boy, was I surprised by the abundance of photo-taking opportunities! I asked Bob if he would mind walking around Downtown Disney one more time so that I could take pictures with my Digital SLR, which I had with us in the car. Bob was a sport; he walked with me as I captured a second round of photographs.

 

We enjoyed Downtown Disney so much that we planned to return on Friday evening (January 15th), but that didn’t happen.  Instead of relaxing at Downtown Disney on Friday evening, we found ourselves on our way back home because our vacation was cut short.

We ate dinner at Crabby Joe’s Seafood Restaurant, which is located on-site at the Clarion Hotel. We enjoyed the all-you-can-eat seafood buffet.

Stay tuned; Day 4 of our “Get out of the Cold” vacation will be covered in tomorrow’s blog post.