Sorry that it has been so long since I posted an update. Things are crazy with work leading up to the election. I actually had a few minutes to spare this morning, so I wanted to get something up.
The next morning we got up fairly early and I started looking through our brochures to plan out the days agenda. We were originally supposed to be going to a spring training baseball game that afternoon too. One of my clients had also mentioned that we should visit Myakka River State Park where you could actually rent canoes and ride through the river that was full of alligators which sounded pretty cool to us.
As I was doing this Kris looked outside the window and noticed that there were pretty fast wind gusts blowing through the area. We turned on the computer to look up the weather and it wasnt looking good.
Even though the torrential downpours from the night before were over it was freezing. Even for our Michigan blood, a day at the beach or at a baseball game in the upper 40s, low 50s didnt sound that appealing!
Kris said he didnt want to go to a spring training game in this weather and asked me what we could do that day since going to the beach was out too and I said we could visit Siesta Key which is an area with shops and that we could still try to hit up the park. I also mentioned a couple little restaurants that sounded nice too.
At this point, he looks at me and says theres not much to do here,
why dont we just go back to Disney tonight! I was shocked when I heard these words coming out of his mouth. He likes Disney when we go, but its never his idea for a trip there
I tried to hide my excitement and calmly said that sounds like a good idea, Ill start looking for a hotel. Since we already had the computer out, I looked for a room on Hotel Plaza Blvd. We were staying in Sarasota using some rewards nights and didnt really have a lot of room available in the budget for paying for another night at a hotel. I can get a government rate on rooms which is pretty good, but for that night the cheapest I could find a room anywhere was $180. I even called Disney to check for a room, but nothing was open at any of the values.
I told Kris our options and said that I could start calling some other hotels outside the World. A this point, he said why dont we spend money on a nice dinner and then just see about staying with some of our family that are still there. Not exactly what you want to do on your quasi-honeymoon, but since we were going to Hawaii alone in a few weeks and we were going back to Disney for one more night. I agreed that it was probably the most responsible thing to do. I then called the front desk to see about cancelling our room for that night (I wanted to make sure that I didnt forfeit my rewards points). Next I called up my parents to see if we could crash in their room that night. I told them how we were coming back to Orlando and couldnt find a room in our price range, so they agreed without any problem.
After getting off the phone with them I called the Disney Dining Reservation line to see if I could get us in somewhere for that evening. I thought it would be easiest to try a resort restaurant since we could drive straight there, so I asked for availability at several places that we hadnt been to that week. Most of the places didnt have anything available. I asked about Artist Point at Wilderness Lodge and it wasnt available, but Whispering Canyon had some openings. Not exactly romantic, but Kris loves the Lodge and the food is pretty good there, so I took it.
The reservation wasnt until 7:45 pm, so we had plenty of time to spend the day in Sarasota. After checking out we decided to drive around town since Myakka River State Park was on our way back to Orlando. We stopped near downtown to take some pictures with the ocean in the background. We found out that none of the boat tours were even running that day because of the waves!
We then drove through town a little bit near the Siesta Key area and didnt even stop. It seemed nice enough, but it just wasnt really our scene. Lets just say we were young enough to be everyones grandkids!!
We grabbed lunch at our new favorite burger joint for the second time that week.
Then headed off to Myakka River State Park for the afternoon, which was just a little ways out of town. We had a little adventure trying to find the expressway, but we eventually made it there. The ranger at the gate told us that they werent running the air boats that day because of the winds. Darn another activity lost to the weather!
We drove through the park and went to the back where the boats are normally launched. We considered renting bikes, but the rental stand was closing in less than an hour, so our time would have been cut short.
There were a ton of birds flying in the air and it was quite creepy! I couldnt get them all in a shot, but I would say there were probably 30-40 like these guys:
Kris blowing in the wind; the area behind him is where the airboats normally are launched.
We decided to jump in the car to drive up to an area where there was a lookout point and a long rope bridge strung up between the trees several hundred feet in the air.
On the bridge:
It was a little wind on the top:
Views in the canopy:
After going to the top we took a short hike on the trails in that area then decided to head out. As we were circling through the park we came to the area where the alligators are normally spotted, so we pulled over to check it out.
But the only wildlife we saw was this guy:
It was a pretty view of the river though:
At that point we decided it was time to hit the road and we started making our way back to Disney! We made a couple of stops along the way including a side trip to
Walmart for Kris to get new earphones for his iPod which he knew he would want for the plane ride home. After all, he would be flying back to Ohio by himself. It was an interesting town where most of the people that run the traveling carnivals across the country live during the off season. There were carnival rides and food trucks everywhere through town. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful.
When we got into Orlando we decided to stop at the Outlet mall at the end of I-Drive (I always forget the new name- it used to be Beltz). I wanted to go to the
Disney store and Kris wanted to hit up the Puma store. We were running a little tight on time, so we were in and out in about 30 minutes. I bought some Disney scrapbooking supplies although I was tempted to buy much more!
It was around 6:30 p.m. at this point and we figured the expressway would be backed up, so we decided to cut down past the convention center. This was a bad idea! There was a comic book convention going on and the streets were packed. Not only were there a ton of cars there were people in costumes wandering in and out of the street! I have to admit it was pretty interesting though
Finally, shortly before our reservation we pulled on property back by Downtown Disney. We cut the back way around by the campground and arrived at Wilderness Lodge just in time
Up next our dinner at the Lodge and time at the park?
What a nice present for your parents, glad they enjoyed it!
oops! I can't read! I'm glad your mom and dad enjoyed it then
a speedy recovery.
It was the best decision we made! I would be more than happy to send you all the materials. Just PM me your email address and I will send you everything over. 
Figment napkins through Disney floral. They were a little expensive, but in my opinion well worth the cost. Happy planning and I look forward to reading all about them 
All the other little perks like the fries were nice since I wasn't expecting too much which made every little thing all that more special. I was really happy with the hotel; I had some more shots, but they never made it to Photobucket 
It is so exciting to get the extra pixie dust. That's so cool that you got the dreampasses too! 
We wanted to go to Disney again for our 1st, but Brad's work had a blackout for vacation the first two weeks of October so we went the first week of Sept. instead. (By the way...if you ever want to go to Disney when there are absolutely no lines what so ever you need to go the first two weeks in Sept. It was so cool!) Brad took me to a bed and breakfast not to far from here and it was so relaxing and yummy to boot! We shopped at the outlet mall, I kicked his butt in some mini golf, and we just cuddled in the awesome feather bed in our room watching TV. It was an awesome two day get-a-way. 
Then back to reality...don't ya just love that part! 
