The Wandering Disciple

Lake Buena Vista, Florida:  We hit the road early this morning for a day trip to Walt Disney World.  Today's adventure took us to the Magic Kingdom.  Having resumed our annual passes following an almost five year break from the parks, we were excited to see what's new at the Magic Kingdom since our last visit in 2019. One advantage to living so close to Walt Disney World is being able to take day trips to the park.  One downside is having to deal with I-4 traffic to get to the park.  We were originally going to go up yesterday, but when we punched in the trip on Google, our usual 2:20 trip was skirting close to 4 hours.  So we chose to go today instead and what a great choice!  The early start on the road left us smooth sailing to the park and Mother Nature prepared a beautiful, mild and sunny Sunday.   We arrived to Walt Disney World right as the Disney Princess Marathon was completing.  Despite the traffic modifications as a result of...

Fairfield Glades, Tennessee:  For those of you who know me or follow the site, you know we love the mountains.  I have spent my 23 year career working in public safety in Florida and as that career winds down, I am looking forward to retiring to the mountains.  I grew up in Lebanon, Pennsylvania and moved to Florida when I graduated high school because I hated working in the months of cold and snow.  I decided to work in reverse, work in Florida and then return north when I retire and won't have to work in the cold.   As the time gets closer, we are starting to take trips to explore small towns to find that perfect fit.  We are leaning towards Tennessee but trying to narrow down the right spot.  We recently toured Sevierville and English Mountain.  On this trip we are headed to Crossville and Fairfield Glades. We hit the road bright and early at zero dark thirty for our trip north. From our home, we have about an eleven hour drive.  We ...

Reading, Pennsylvania: For our 2023 summer vacation we embarked on a trip back home to Pennsylvania. While I have now lived in Florida longer than I lived in Pennsylvania, the Keystone State still runs in my blood. But its been a while since I have been back home, almost 18 years to be exact. We have a lot in store for this trip with visits to Philly, Lancaster County, Jim Thorpe, Gettysburg and much more.  Our trip began with a short drive south to Fort Myers for our flight northbound. When planning this trip, the airfare component was ridiculously expensive! When we looked at direct flights from Fort Myers to Philadelphia, airfare and baggage was almost $600 a person. We had almost reverted to driving when we decided to check out Avelo Airlines, a low cost carrier that started operations about a year ago. I have seen them operate around the airport but didn’t know much about them but when we priced them our party of three could fly for the price of one ticket on the legacy...

Key West, Florida: It’s spring break time in Florida and time for a trip. Due to work schedules and doctor appointments, we did not take a traditional trip. However we opted for a day trip and we chose a day trip to Miami and stops at Zoo Miami, Miami History and the Wings over Miami. However when we were about to get off the Florida Turnpike for the zoo, there was a destination sign for Key West. We looked at each other and said you know we have always wanted to do the drive to Key West and the Overseas Highway so we changed the plans and headed south.  We visited Key West a few years ago on a cruise, but in 25 years of living in Florida, I have never made the drive. I have seen it so many times in magazines and road trip articles but just never got around to taking the drive. Today was going to be the day! The Overseas Highway or US-1 connects the mainland of Florida with the Florida Keys ending at Mile Marker 0 in Key West. The 113-mile journey passes through towns like K...

Washington, DC:  For our final road trip of 2022, we had originally planned on hitting up the Smokies for the holidays.  However a last minute change in plans rerouted us to our nation's capital and a holiday trip to Washington DC for a week of exploring the city and its museums and memorials as well as a few day trips to the surrounding areas. We hit the road under the cover of darkness, leaving the house a little past midnight.  We had a 14+ hour road trip in front of us and figured might as well get started while everyone is still sleeping.  I preplanned our route to ensure there was plenty of places to refuel and get food since we are travelling on Christmas Day.  So northbound we went, headed to DC. The decision to leave early was a good one.  Traffic was very light on the first stage of the trip, in fact when we reached I-10 in North Florida we only encountered one truck from US-301 to I-95!  We headed into Georgia and attempted to stop at Huddle...

Greensboro, North Carolina:  As we wake up from sleep, we enter into the final day of our Fall road trip.  This is mainly a travel day, but we had a few things planned on the day as well as that daunting 11 hour drive home.   We packed up the car and checked out of the hotel and began our day. It was a chilly 41 degrees this morning, the coldest day of the trip.  The remaining two items we had on our list of things to do were outside attractions.  Based on the drive before us, the fact that one of them did not open for another two hours and we didn't have time to let it warm up a bit before going hiking.  We decided to pass on them and conduct a quick driving tour of downtown before hitting the road south. Greensboro was a great city.  For being the third largest city in North Carolina, it never felt like it.  You were not overwhelmed with people or traffic, felt out of place as a tourist and there was tons of things to do.  We filled o...

Greensboro, North Carolina : Hello and welcome to day three of our Fall road trip to North Carolina.  This is our final full day in NC before heading home to the Sunshine State in the morning.  We still have a bunch of stuff to do on our to-do list however we are running out of time.  Today's day of exploration will take us to the International Civil Rights Museum, the Greensboro Science Center and Gilford Courthouse National Military Park.   The day got started with a hearty breakfast at Carolina's Diner.  We had dinner here last night and vowed to return so we decided to head there for breakfast this morning.  The breakfast was just as good as the dinner.  My wife had her usual ham and cheese omelet, I had the Diner Sausage Skillet and our son had French Toast.  Just like dinner last night, the food was delicious and you got a lot of food for a good price. Our first stop of the day is the International Civil Rights Center and Museum, but we...

 Ashboro, North Carolina:  Good morning from the Piedmont.  Welcome to the second day of our fall foliage road trip to the Piedmont region of North Carolina.  After grabbing a quick grab and go breakfast from Chick-fil-a, we hit the road for our day of exploration.  Today we are visiting the North Carolina Zoo as well as the Richard Petty Museum. Our day kicked off with a short drive south to Ashboro and a visit to the North Carolina Zoo.  For those of you who follow the site, you know our family's love of the zoo and our mission to visit as many as we can.  We learned about the North Carolina Zoo thanks to the Nat Geo show Secrets of the Zoo.  From watching that show we instantly knew we had to visit the zoo and today was the day. The zoo was absolutely huge!  The drive into the zoo showed just how much land the zoo owned, it was pretty much a city all to itself with a great network of roads in and out of the zoo.  We got to the zoo sh...

Greensboro, North Carolina: We have been planning a fall road trip to the Smoky Mountains for a couple months, however in the past few weeks our plans have taken a turn.  While we are still headed north to check out the fall foliage, our plans have migrated from Tennessee to neighboring North Carolina.  While don't get me wrong we love the Smokies, we decided to focus on some new towns and chose to visit central North Carolina. We planned on hitting the road at zero dark thirty, however with the excitement of the trip no one got much sleep so we ended up leaving even earlier.  We pulled out of the drive way at 1:30 am and headed north to North Carolina.  We drove under the cover of darkness until we stopped for breakfast outside Savannah, Georgia.  On road trips, we typically skip chain restaurants with the exception of travel days.  Since it was Sunday, our usual favorite of Chick-fil-a was not an option, so we settled on Huddle House in Savannah.  M...

Orlando, Florida:  The second day of the Busch Gardens/Sea World sets our sights on Sea World Orlando.  Our season passes were set to expire soon so we figured to get another trip to Sea World before they expire.   Our morning plans had to be modified thanks to the unauthorized bait and switch by our hotel.  We originally booked the Holiday Inn Express at Sea World due to their hot breakfast, but they moved us to the Towneplace Suites by Marriott which breakfast consisted of an apple, banana nut muffin and a bottle of water.  It would be hard to tackle a day at the park without a good breakfast so we set out to Orlando for breakfast.  We had a hard time finding something initially because so many places were closed due to COVID.  So rather than keep looking online, we decided to hit the road and try and find something. Following our amazing breakfast at Keke’s Breakfast Cafe in Sarasota yesterday, we hit up the Keke’s in Orlando.  There was ...

St Augustine, Florida:   After skipping our annual road trip last year because of transitioning to a new job, I was really looking forward to this year's trip.  We had originally planned on Charleston for the trip, but we were still recovering from an extended time without pay during the transition so we decided to stay a little closer to home.  The choice for this year's trip was St Augustine. We were in St Augustine a while back but left with only scratching the surface of what the city has to offer.  So during this trip, we decided to experience more of what the Old City has and by doing this we used the Old Town Trolley and Historic Tours of America to enhance our exploration of the city. As the trip came closer, the world and the country began to spiral out of control with the COVID-19 pandemic.  Disney closed, Universal closed, Busch Gardens/Sea World closed, much of Florida and the country was closing.  We were concerned that the trip wouldn't ...