We woke up early at the Swan Hotel and ran out without a swim. Driving around downtown Orlando we saw lots of banks and churches, a lot of new construction and many, many homes for sale.  Johnson’s Diner for breakfast, soul food, better for the atmosphere than the food itself, although not bad for eggs, grits and a biscuit, I can’t complain. Strait out of Orlando and one hour drive to the Kennedy Space Center, amazing, exciting…5 hour visit and it still was not enough. Take the “NASA Up-Close” tour, (love the hot pink badge) we did, definitely recommend it if you are into space, it was worth the time and expense. On the tour we got a close-up of the shuttle on the launch pad and a bunch of the facilities, not as close-up as you want but it’s cool regardless. The Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) is one of the largest buildings in the world. It was originally built for the Apollo/Saturn vehicles and was later modified for the Space Shuttle operations. Cool, it’s the most 2-dimensional 3 dimensional structure I have ever seen. If you are into geeking out you’ll love this…driving around NASA it’s definitely “I Dream of Jeanie” when you come to the 1960’s low rise structures, they are where the astronauts hang out just prior to going into space, how would it feel to go from a 60’s structure into a 80’s flying machine into outer space? We toured the ISS display where you get to walk through replica segments of the space station, essentially the structure is a mesh of a science lab and a boat interior. White on white. Compact and minimal. I found myself transfixed by the grow lab. AH SCIENCE.…More to come on Day 2, this is getting long and rambling– A.

Orlando Food options:

Johnson’s Diner
595 W Church St
Orlando
(407) 841‑0717

Queen Bees Soul Food Restaurant
3214 Orange Center Blvd
Orlando
407–299-1001– lunch

Day 1:

Arrive in Orlando February 26th, both of us were surprised by the lack of green, the nature was quite brown. Thankfully very little Disney at the airport. We decided not to visit the M. MOUSE on this trip but as a concession we booked a room at the Walt Disney World Swan “Resort” within the magical zone. Designed by the architect Michael Graves in the 80’s and opened in 1990 the compound is described as “entertainment architecture”- interesting… I am not a fan of Graves even though I have always liked his teakettle, the one with the bird  from the 80’s not the knock-off he did for Target. I was hoping during the stay I would become more fond of his work,  however, the only thing I could think was, how does he keep producing such crap? Then I remembered Michael Eisner was behind this baby and I don’t have to wonder much more, but then again, what excuse does Princeton have? Jesus… the idea of “when it is 25 years old the building will look great, you will be nostalgic for that time” is totally out the window with his work. Paired with it’s sister hotel The Dolphin, I can’t say I remember much about the experience, beyond the scale being utterly massive, besides I was glad it was paid for with our Starwood Amex points and it was a pretty cool concept to sleep in “entertainment architecture”.  Anyway, was glad to get out of the mouse domain when we left even though the staff was hyper-nice the entire time. Out of the Disney compound and into the wilds of Florida. By the way, the reason for the compound being so huge was apparently because Walt was pissed hoteliers were opening their inns adjacent to the California location, Disneyland. Apparently he felt they were stealing from his glory, in a way WDW was kind-of the first gigantic gated community, you feel it right when you get there, which leads me to Celebration, Florida but we will come to that later. WDW is apparently in crisis now with 400+ employees being laid off last Friday and 600 executives recently being offered buy-outs.  That’s a lot of crying mice. Damn, will our government get involved in a Disney bail-out, imagine that imagineers! Mouse ears in the White House!

Snorkeling in the Keys and kayaking with alligators in the Everglades and tubing down a crystal clear river with turtles and swimming with manatees and eating Apalachicola oysters strait from the burlap bag they are delivered in and the panhandle and lying on powder white sand and the people and Stiltsville and looking at funky Sarasota architecture and Waffle House and walking to the end of a boardwalk in nature and finding birds, a snake and alligators and realizing the tables are turned and visiting the oldest town in this country and the biggest concentration of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings in the world and getting a speeding ticket from a Florida State trooper and seeing a space shuttle launch tonight, etc etc etc

Florida is exciting and we found some objects too. We can’t wait to share all of our finds with you. It’s all been so strangely good, is it the sunshine going to our heads or really, is it just FLORIDA? This picture of the trail the shuttle left behind leaves me with not only one but two big question marks. — a.