And the rest of the visit

Monday morning Randy made waffles with homemade blueberry topping for breakfast before our guests headed out for another day at Disney. Our Disney tickets aren't good today so we didn't join them. But they had another wonderful day at the Magic Kingdom!

Tuesday morning Randy made cinnamon rolls - always a good way to start the day.

Unfortunately Jordan and Kassie had to leave on Tuesday, so we drove them to the airport late in the morning. On the way back from the airport we stopped at Kelley Park Rock Springs. We intend to play in the springs like we did at Alexander Springs, but when we pulled up to the park entrance there were signs saying the park was closed for the day. However, the officer at the entrance gave us a voucher to get in at 2 pm. Since it was only 1 pm, he suggested we have lunch at a nearby Italian restaurant before renting inner tubes to go tubing in the springs. He mentioned he had an Italian brother-in-law, so we wondered if this was a sly way of drumming up some business for his relatives. No matter, it was time for lunch anyway. We went to Pastavino Italian Restaurant and had a good lunch, followed by something they call Ghost Cake, which is cheesecake layered with slices of cake-cake. 

After lunch we drove back, got inner tubes ($7 per tube and they make you leave your driver license as collateral), paid $5 to get into the park, parked the car and changed clothes in the restrooms. Then we carried the big tubes along the wooden walkway to a place to put in and got started. The water was cool - I read it was 68 degrees, although at first it seemed a bit warmer than Alexander Springs. But it was crystal clear and in most places it was shallow enough to stand. The bottom was white sand with large rocks and water weeds on both sides, leaving a clear channel for the water to slip through. The section set aside for tubing was probably a half mile long and the tubes floated smoothly along. It was great, and the walk back to the top of the springs was so easy that we went three times! We also played in the central pool area awhile. We will definitely be back!

At the end of the day we were tired enough that we just stopped at Public for some of their good fried chicken. 

Wednesday we woke up to a rainy day. We had ideas of places to go and things to do, but the Manatee park and Glass Bottom Boat rides are strictly outside activities. So we breakfasted on cinnamon rolls and eggs, watched Ice Age, and waited for the rain to stop. It slowed down but not enough for the activities to commence, so we just went out for a bit of shopping, which included enough sampling at Sam's club to count as a light lunch. Back home we did naps, video games, and watched the Wizard of Oz. Randy cooked steak and scallops for dinner, with large puff pastry full of strawberries and chocolate for dessert. Izzy found some Lego shows on Youtube so we watched a couple of those until bedtime, which came early for Randy and I.

Thursday we had to let the last of our guests, Aaron and Izzy, go home. We got up at 4 am to make sure they made their early morning flight. I get to nap, but Randy will be at the dive shop all day. I'll take a second nap for him.