Our final few days in Orlando

We drove back to Orlando a couple of days ago - the last 400 miles of our epic road trip, with a few stops along the way including Ocmulgee National Monument, an old Native American settlement that still had the burial mounds – giant mounds that the settlement folk were buried in when they died. It was really interesting and the planned 15 mins turned into over an hour!

We of course had to stop off for some famous Georgia peaches and pecans, so we came across Lanes Orchard and I had a slice of peach cobbler and Dan got some pecan pie. Oh my goodness, it was so good. I even bought a packet of peach cobbler mix to try and make some when we get back home.

 

And then it was lunch time, so we hit our final BBQ joint of the trip - Smokin' Pig BBQ. And I of course had the ribs. The portions were massive, we both left rather full!

The final 160 miles passed in a flash, and we were back in Orlando 2235 miles later

 

The past couple of days we've just been hanging out. We went tubing {finally} at Kelly Springs, hit SeaWorld and Aquatica, took a bike tour around Celebration (oh my, how beautiful is that little town} and did quite a bit of shopping in the malls.

 

And we're quite sad that we're flying back this afternoon. Back to rainy Scotland.

 

 

So with a huge city like Atlanta and just one day we knew we wouldn't be able to see it all.

We started off at Centennial Park and the CNN tower before heading to World of Coca-Cola. This place was like heaven to Dan: 60 flavours of Coca-Cola drinks from around the word to taste. He must have drunk a few pints, while I barely sipped each one {the only one I really liked was their iced latte drink!}.

After that we grabbed lunch at the largest drive-in in the world - Varsity - and then headed for the Martin Luther King National Park to complete our Civil Rights tour. We were too late to tour his childhood home, but we spent a good few hours in the museum, the information centre and the church where he used to preach.

Our final stop of the day was the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum {to add to our stop the day before at FDR's Little White House}. I didn't really know too much about Jimmy Carter beforehand, but learnt a lot.

It was then on to the mall for our fourth Abercrombie stop of the tour and a cupcake from Sprinkles

DAN'S REPORT: MONTGOMERY TO ATLANTA

We didn't have a busy day so had a small lay in. Happy days!!

 

Our first stop was to the 'Town of Spectre' which is a 10 building 'town' that was constructed for the filming of  the movie Big Fish.  It's pretty run down now but really cool because they all look like real buildings until you get a little closer and see the inside is completely empty {with no floor or ceiling} and you can see all the chip board used to build it...

 

The next stop was The Bulloch House Restaurant in Warm Springs, Georgia, for an all you can eat southern food buffet, including fried green tomatoes. It's was awesome to get some quality food and vegetables inside of us!!

 

Last stop was 'Roosevelt's Little White House'. This was the summer house that President Roosevelt used for vacations and where he could recover from his polio. It is also where he passed away whilst having his portrait done. It was great to learn about FDR and see the eerie unfinished portrait.

 

Then onto to hotel to rest...

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF MARTIN LUTHER KING

After a couple of days learning all about slavery in the Deep South we were now jumping forward a century and following the trail of the Civil Rights Movement.

We started out from Jackson early and got to Selma  - one of the pivotal locations involved in changing the voting rights.

After walking half way over the Edmund Pettus Bridge - where Bloody Sunday took place in 1965 - we followed the march route from Selma to Montgomery with a stop at the NPS Interpretive Centre where we saw footage from the day and learnt some more about Martin Luther King.

We got to Montgomery early afternoon and headed straight for the Rosa Parks Library and Museum where we watched a reconstruction of the Bus Boycott and heard about Rosa Park's life.

Next stop was the First White House of the Confederacy, where Jefferson Davis lived during his time as President. It was free and had a lot of furniture in it that Mrs Davis had sent from Beauvoir {where we visited a few days ago in Biloxi}.

We ran across the road to make the 3pm tour of the Capitol Building and after that we drove around the downtown area and saw a few more sights before checking into the hotel. We headed for Applebees for dinner as we felt we needed some vegetables!

{We'll finish out Martin Luther King trail in a couple of days when we get to Atlanta}

WE TOOK THE LONG WAY ROUND TO JACKSON

Not a lot of photos from today! We started off in Natchez visiting William Johnson's House {the home of a freed slave} and the grounds of  Melrose Plantation {I didn't want to pay, so we didn't do the house!}.

 

After that we had a four hour round trip to go and visit the filming location of Duck Dynasty - this is stop Dan had been most excited about since the start of the holiday. And we saw Godfrey {although I don't think I saw him as I don't actually know what he looks like}.

 

Following lunch we headed for Jackson which would be our stop for the night with a detour to Vicksburg where we visited the original candy shop that Coke was originally bottled in.

ALONG THE I10 TO BATON ROUGE

So we started the day out early heading north on the River Road, known for its antebellum mansions and plantations. But when we got to Evergreen Plantation {the one we were going to tour} we were told that we wouldn't be able to go on the first one as there for 60 high schoolers coming for a school trip. We weren't able to wait until the next one at 11.30 but as we went to turn away the tour guide said that we could go along with the field trip and it would be free as it wouldn't be the normal tour...even better! So we followed along with the 60 teenagers from Baton Rouge and saw the slave cabins and inside of the house.

 

Afterwards we were back on the road onto Baton Rouge with a stop at the Bluebottle swamp and then on to the Louisiana State University campus. We went to see Mike the Tiger - the mascot of the LSU Tigers football team. He's a real tiger and has an enclosure on campus, we then went for a drive down Greek row and saw all of the sorority and fraternity houses {this was my favourite part of the day!}.

 

It was then a final stop at the Louisiana Mall and on to our hotel in Natchez. Tomorrow we're looking around historic Natchez in the morning before heading over to Monroe to visit the Duck Dynasty team!

NEW ORLEANS

Dan's blog from New Orleans:

 

Up early again to make sure we were in the first 25 people to get the free walking tour - we were 24 and 25!! The tour was interesting and we learnt all about the history of the city. Afterwards we went to the famous Café Du Mond for their Beignets {crispy doughnuts absolutely covered in powdered sugar}- they were great but very sweet! From there we headed to Jackson Square and went inside St Louis Cathedral. We walked around the French Quarter and on to St Louis Cemetery #1.

 

After that it was lunch time so we headed for Johnny's famous Po'Boys for our second round after yesterday.

 

We took the tram over to the Garden District and wandered around looking at all the mansions. After getting the tram back we looked around the French Market and bought some Mardi Gras beads and masks. After dinner and a quick change we went to the Smoothie King Stadium to watch the New Orleans Pelicans take on the New York Knicks. Unfortunately the Pelicans lost 98-91...

THREE STATES IN A DAY

 Today was a fun day. We headed out early to get to Jefferson Davis' house for opening.

As we crossed the state line into Mississippi the fog was thick and we couldn't see too far in front of the car, let alone the sea right next to us! We had a great Southern tour guide at Jefferson Davis' house {Beauvoir} who was telling is all about his time in the war visiting Britain.

After we left there our next stop was a bit of a daring one - the abandoned Six Flags theme park just outside of New Orleans. I'd read about it online, it was used right up until Hurricane Katrina but the damage done was too much and they couldn't afford to repair the rides so they left it.

The only problem was that it is on private property so going there is trespassing...but we risked it! It was really good and we managed to get a few photos before security came and asked us to leave. Dan just claimed British ignorance!

Our final activity was an airboat ride on the Bayou - now this was really cool. We saw lots of gators and turtles and shot lots of video on the GoPro. Afterwards we headed to the hotel and had a wander around the French Quarter before we sat down in a little outside courtyard and had fried shrimp, hushpuppies and jambalaya with a mint julep!

Tomorrow is a New Orleans day and we're hoping to fit in all the sights before heading to basketball in the evening!

 

WE'RE NOW IN ALABAMA