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This is the third of a three-part series. You can also read about the first part of our trip to Florida here.

Day 7:
This day was Universal Studios Epic Universe (USEU) day. We had been seeing ads for it, and it looked fun. And we had some friends who went, and they liked it. And we don’t take our kids to theme parks (unless you count one trip to Cedar Point), so at least they can have had the experience.

We took the shuttle from the hotel to the park, and had no problems with that. The park was crowded, but the line to get in moved along well enough.

Thanks to the Universal Studios app, we could see the wait times for all the rides on our phone, so we headed first to the one that looked decent enough to ride and had a short-ish wait time. It was in the Isle of Berk.

Most of my experience with amusement parks has been Cedar Point. I like Cedar Point, but one thing that USEU did better than Cedar Point is that they have a lot of shade for people waiting in line and they also have drinking fountains along the way. Maybe in the Florida heat that’s more of a necessity than Ohio.

The different worlds were well done, with the right props and settings, people who stayed in character as they were walking off their post back to the break room, and different music in each area that set the mood. The music really was a nice touch, it was always there, not blaring, and even if you weren’t paying attention to it, it sub-consciously had an effect.

And there were plenty of props – some animate, some inanimate – to keep your attention, like this sheep in the Isle of Berk.

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Like many Michiganders, we headed south for our spring break. Our destination was Florida. Normally you don’t want to go to Florida during spring break, as it is overrun with crazy college kids, but this was our high school’s spring break which was a couple weeks after most college’s spring break weeks.

It takes long enough to drive there that we decided to take two days to drive it.

Day 1:
Not a lot to report here. We took the boys to a Waffle House for the first time. It was fine, and now they can say they’ve been.

Our destination this day was just outside Atlanta. We got there with some daylight left, and we had been sitting in the car for several hours, so we took a short hike after dinner.

There was a small parking lot and trailhead by the Chattahoochee River. We picked it because it had the remains of an old mill on site, which the boys liked scrambling around.

Then it was evening, then morning the next day.

Day 2:
Our second day was a little more exciting than the first day. Still a lot of driving, from Atlanta to Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay was not our actual destination, but it was on the way and I wanted to see manatees and TECO has one of the better manatee viewing areas.

TECO is an electric power plant that uses the water from the bay/channel for cooling. The result of cooling the power plant is that the water in the channel gets the extra heat and makes it cozy for certain wildlife.

We walked down the boardwalk to the end and saw that the channel is separated from the rest of the bay, all the way out. I think so that manatees that come for the warm water don’t end up in a boating area.

But despite all the great reviews and the whole setup, we did not see any manatees. All we saw were some fish, like this:

Someone at the viewing area told us “Due to the recent hot spell of weather, the channel got too warm for the manatees, so they moved out into deeper water. If you had been here a week ago, you would have seen a lot of them.”

So no manatees for us. We bought a manatee trinket at the souvenir shop as a reminder of this occasion.

On the plus side, the manatee viewing station also had a stingray tank, where you could try to pet a stingray as it swam past you. Maybe they called them just rays, because they’re not the stinging type. At least we got to do that.

Then we continued on our way to the house, had dinner, confirmed timing for the next day’s plans, and went to bed.

Then it was evening, then morning, the next day.

Day 3:
This was our first full day in Florida. Our plan was to go to Sanibel Island and enjoy the beach. And maybe find some interesting shells.

For those of you not familiar with that area of Florida, there are lots of beaches, and almost enough parking. And the parking is not free. It was only about $5 per hour, cheaper than most cities, but you do have to have your phone to pay online.

The groups of islands in that area are connected via bridges for the most part. Here is the view getting onto Sanibel.

We chose Sanibel because we heard it had a lot of shells. What was interesting was there wasn’t much sand – the beach was all tiny bits of broken shells. But the boys did find some shells, including a couple that were alive. Most of the good shells had been taken, the beach was full of other people also looking for shells.

Our first stop was right after the bridge, at the lighthouse.

I thought the lighthouse was rather bleak. I later saw pictures of what it looked like before the last hurricane and it was not so bleak back then.

And here’s what the beach looked like

For lunch that day, we had packed a lunch. We found another beach, this one with some shade, and sat in our beach chairs and watched the ocean. Here’s the view from our picnic spot.

We ended up driving to about 3 different beaches, trying them out and seeing if the shells were better anywhere.

Then we drove back to the house for dinner, confirmed timing for the next day’s plans, played Phase 10, and went to bed.

Then it was evening, then morning, the next day.

To Be Continued…

This is the third of a three-part series. You can also read about the first part of our trip to OBX here.

Day 6:
Mostly driving. Made it from OBX to Pittsburgh.

Then it was evening, then morning, the next day.

Day 7:
We spent the day touring Pittsburgh. I heard that Pittsburgh is very pedestrian friendly and one does not need a car to get around, so I picked a hotel downtown and left the car in the parking lot during our stay.

After a nice breakfast at the hotel, we walked out the front door and headed toward the river, and then walked over the bridge to get to Station Square. It was a few blocks of walking, it felt to me like a good way to start the day and get a feel for Pittsburgh.

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This is the second of a three-part series. You can also read about the first part of our trip to OBX here.

Day 3 Continued:
It wasn’t that long of a drive from the Great Dismal Swamp to Kitty Hawk, so we drive straight to the first tourist attraction on our list rather than going to the hotel. Plus it was mid afternoon and the Wright Brothers Memorial closed at 5pm so the best plan seemed to be to see the WBM first and then just relax for the evening at the hotel.

One thing I learned at the memorial is that Wilbur Wright died as a result of eating bad oysters, which helped further my resolve to not eat non-fish seafood. The memorial thingy is on top of a hill. But the official flight stuff is in the meadow next to the hill so the hill is some sort of misdirection.

Here’s the view from the airplane launch point toward the landing markers.

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I had heard good things about the Outer Banks of North Carolina, so that area was on my list of places to visit eventually. No one came up with other ideas, so we went to the Outer Banks (AKA OBX).

Plus I wanted to get there before the ocean levels rise and wipe out coastal touristy areas.

Day 1:
We drove. All day. Made it to Virginia.

Then it was evening, then morning, the next day.

Day 2:
We took a break from a lot of driving and did some hiking.

Our first activity was a cave tour. We have toured a number of caves and I don’t know that I would have been that excited about this one, but they do have the world’s largest musical instrument – the Stalacpipe Organ.

Much of the cave was the typical cave stuff, but it was a self-guided tour so we didn’t get the turn-off-all-the-lights bit.

This formation was called Curtains:

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We did a few things related to water this past summer. I normally post a vacation recap after our vacation, but I neglected to do so for 2024.
So instead, you’ll get some photos of water-y things we did, both on vacation and not. With things warming up it’s time to think about water rather than snow again.

We did some waterfall and river exploring. This was in Big Falls County Park on the outskirts of Eau Claire, WI. Note that if you’re wondering how to get to Big Falls County Park to visit the falls and go wading, you want the south side – come across on 9 Mile Creek Rd then up N. 130th Ave to the park entrance. Nothing wrong with the north side, but if you want the normal experience use the south side.

Here is what it looks like when you come to the end of the trail and first see the falls.

And then if you go down a level here’s what it looks like.

And this was what I saw looking back up at the falls – the boys testing out the waters.

They worked their way down the falls and were wading through the river. There was a lot of it you could wade through, but there were some spots that required swimming.

That was our stop in Wisconsin. Then we went over to Minnesota, where there are a lot of lakes so we did lake things.

Mainly tubing

and wake surfing. Here’s how one starts wake surfing.

And here’s how it should look just after starting. The wave does settle down and become smoother and then you can stay ahead of the break, if all goes well.

As far as I can tell, the main difference between tubing and wake surfing is that in wake surfing the boat driver is working with you to help you but in tubing the driver is working against you.

Then from Minnesota we went back into Wisconsin but only to pass through to the UP of Michigan. There we got to do some cliff jumping into Lake Superior.

I jumped, although it was not pleasant. It wasn’t that bad, but I don’t need to do it again. I may have needed a few minutes to work myself up to it. My youngest was in the same boat, but once he jumped he liked it and kept jumping.

Then he got the idea in his head that he wanted to swim across the channel, which was basically the open seas of Lake Superior. Here is what it looks like from the POV of the jumping spot.

In fact, that picture is of him and his cousin-in-law reaching the other side.

And here is their swim back. The water is about 8-10 feet deep right next to the cliff, so in the open water like that it’s probably 15-20 feet. The weather was good though so not much of a current for them to fight.

Then from Lake Superior on the north side of the UP we moved to Lake Huron on the south side of the UP. That was a very shallow section so our activites there were more relaxed, like hiking, kayaking, and rowboating.

We did some other water stuff throughout the summer. Here is a trip to Lake Michigan, which was mostly sitting on the sand and wading in the cold water.

And rounding out the travelogue here is our river tubing trip.

This is the end of the whitewater rapids in Ann Arbor, MI. They have a feature there called the Cascades, which is a manmade series of small falls so that kayakers and canoers can bypass the dam on the Huron River.

Those falls are also fun for tubers, as it’s basically a class 0 rapids, or level 1- or whatever is the easiest thing you could do. And if things go bad, all you gotta do is stand up and walk, as it’s about waist deep.

Every year we go ice skating in the winter. We usually hit up an ice rink during the holidays with family. And then when our pond freezes the boys will go out there some times and skate.

And we did all those things this year, but then we also made a trip to Toledo. Toledo has a fun place called The Ribbon.

The Ribbon is a skating path. Here is what it looks like from above:

They have roller skating in the summer and ice skating in winter. It is cooled, so they can keep it frozen throughout the winter season even if the temperature goes above freezing.

And there is a slight elevation change, just a few feet overall and gradual. It’s most noticeable on the back stretch coming back to the rink, where you don’t need to do anything because gravity propels you down the path. Not too fast, but enough that you can stand on the skates and keep going.

The skating path is wide enough for 3 people, which is good because couples tend to skate together and you still have room to pass them.

And they have a nice firepit in the middle of one of the arms, so you can take a break and warm up if you want.

And if you want to host a party, you can rent a cabana. When we were there, we saw a couple of cabanas rented, with people hanging out. Plus some people had roasting forks with marshmallows, so I’m guessing the cabana rental includes an option for smores.

And then for those who don’t like the contraints of The Ribbon, it is attached to a small rink.

It’s a nice little respite from The Ribbon, in that you can stop and not be in anyone’s way.

I chose the above photo because it shows the decorative tower between the rink and the river. I’m guessing it looks better at night.

The Ribbon is 1000 yards long, so about 2/3 of a mile. It didn’t seem that long because it loops back on itself so everything always seems close.

There is a natural ice path (not refrigerated, so it’ll melt on sunny days) in Muskegon at the luge adventure sports park. That one is only 1/4 mile long, but it is in the pine forest and is a little more spread out. I haven’t been to that one, but it’s another option.

Then of course there are a bunch of ice skating paths in Canada. And in looking up these places, I found a place that makes them. So you can petition your own city to install an ice skating path.