"Enough of this POOL stuff - Let's do what we REALLY came here for, visiting beautiful downtown Davenport. Davenport? Davenport? What the....."
....if truth be told, even I was getting itchy feet after spending the entire day lounging adjacent to a crystal-clear sparkling pool. It was well after lunch (those pizzas were pretty tasty) but not quite time for dinner. Jesse and Alexis had already set their sights on the villa - they jogged back, took showers, and did some last-minute packing, for their return flight home. It wasn't too hard for Ron to convince me to do the same, since we were delegated to drive them to MCO.
Within the hour, we were on our way, surprisingly with little or no traffic. That, in itself, was a tad strange, considering it was almost 5PM on a Wednesday afternoon, but apparently the traffic gods were smiling down upon us and wished for a safe and speedy jaunt to the airport. At curbside, we unloaded their belongings and wished them a good flight, and once again, headed for Mystic Dunes. The conversation was pleasant, leading into where Ron had spent the better part of the afternoon - just driving around and looking at houses; how they are constructed, what kinds of windows and roofs were used, if the doors were constructed of solid wood, etc. Being in the construction occupation, I guess you can take Ron off the job site but you can never truly take the job site outta him...

He was particularly interested in the number of homes for sale, so we decided to do some sleuthing together, as he tried to retrace his steps. Well, we wound up weaving our way in and out of several lakefront communities - namely, Davenport, because everywhere we turned we seemed to keep running into a
Welcome to Davenport sign! It began to get a ittle unnerving. I must admit there were quite a number of homes that were either for sale or boasted "Foreclosure" signs prominently in the front yards - further evidence of our sad state of a failing economy. Just for kicks, we decided to call a few of them and, not surprisingly, the range of prices began at as little as $90,000 for a 3BR home to upwards of $210,000. Of course it is safe to say that the price depended greatly upon its location. In other words, some communities were just plain 'NICER' than others. It wasn't too difficult to figure out which communities were newer either, and, with an 'expert in the field' on board, we could estimate the approximate age of the homes and their respective communities. These were taken at one of the more amenity-laden communities:
All too soon, we began to get weary of this adventure, so we decided to head back to the villa, hoping that everyone had rid themselves of the pool fascination and were already getting ready for the dinner hour. Justin had recently become a Cici's Pizza aficionado (personally, I'd call it an OBSESSION, and I'd stay clear of the joint, but hey, it's a free country, and everyone's entitled to their own opinion, right?) The plan was for Dylan, Justin, and Justin's GF to spend the evening there, while Jean and Maureen had dinner plans of their own - which didn't even matter to us, since they were nowhere NEAR ready to go anywhere! The plan was to meet up with them later in the evening for a night of wine-tasting, hailed by the travel guru herself, Samantha Brown. It's called The Wine Room, and it's located in Winter Park, and according to Samantha herself, promised to be an evening of fun and good times.
We decided to grab a bite to eat nearby at one of the inexpensive local eateries [heck, you can't even count all of them in as short as a 2-mile span on Irlo Bronson Memorial Hwy - host to buffets galore!] One of the nice things about Mystic Dunes, as, I suppose, with all the other places to stay, is that the villa has brochures for discount tickets to local things to do while staying in the Orlando area, as well as a local 'Things To Do' magazine. I decided to peruse the newest copy and, with cell phone in hand, randomly called the various restaurants to see if a), reservations were needed, and b) did they offer a gluten-free menu. Rest assured, they do NOT. I proceeded to call not less than a dozen places, but to no avail. You'd think that I was inquiring on whether or not they barbequed baby seal steaks or something!

One would think that, in this day and age, it'd be more commonplace to offer a GF alternative. Suffice it to say, this is yet another reason why I always insist on staying ON-SITE. Worrying about a GF menu becomes a non-issue; that is one worry that magically melts away....but I digress.
I'm sure by now you are wondering where we DID wind up eating. [hint: well, it wasn't in Davenport...

] We were ever-so-blessed to be part of the apparent Little League jamboree that was taking place in the WDW area (my guess is Disney's Wide World of Sports). In other words, we found ourselves in a sea of grimy, sweaty 10 and 11-year-olds donned in their, ummmm, less-than-spotless baseball regalia, smack-dab in the middle of Outback Steakhouse....seriously, if I wanted THIS experience, I could have done it at home...when Outback first came into the spotlight, it was a novelty and new. Nowadays, the food there is barely passable at best and the ambiance is, well, there really isn't any, unless of course your lifelong dream is to be seated approximately 20 feet from the kitchen door to the right, and exuberant pre-teens, with their baseball chatterings [and the dads were WORSE!] to the left....all this after a 45-minute wait, too. You'd think that I couldn't WAIT to leave that place and skee-daddle to the wine-tasting, but, at this point, neither of us really had our hearts in it anymore, so, sadly we called Jean to let him know that we would not be joining them later in the evening...reflecting upon it now, I suppose that I was a bit premature in pooh-pooh'ing Justin's gastronomic choice...it's now the waning hours of Wednesday evening and, finally, sadly, I am with the realization that we are beyond the halfway point of our journey; tomorrow promises to be a new day with new adventures...
[...continued on Page 65 - Post #962...]