The alarm went of at 4am and usually it’s not that hard for me to get out of bed when vacation looms but for some reason it was this time. We showered up, drank a shake and made our way to the airport for a 6am flight out of Moline.

We got checked in just fine and made our way to the checkpoint to go into the gate area. There was a small line, but not that long. We had our first check off (they check your ticket and your ID to make sure you’re who you say you are) and then “stripped down” (I have seriously thought about wearing a trench coat to the airport with nothing but briefs on underneath and stripping down when I get to this stage, but at this point I haven’t done it) to the bare minimum. I go through the metal detector and it buzzes. I forgot to take some stuff out of my pockets (I’m still a bit tired). I go again. No buzz, but I’m “selected” to be searched (my wife made it through just fine). The officer tells me they are doing a random search and if I could raise my arms and spread my legs, blah blah blah. I comply but don’t say anything. He asks me if something is wrong. I proceed to tell him that this is the 3rd time in the last 3 times that I’ve traveled that I’ve been “randomly selected”. He proceeds to tell me that he’s never met me etc etc. Basically saying that he wasn’t out to get me. Then this one I’m kind of puzzled about. He finally says I’ve been selected because I’m a male. So yeah…I’m probably on the watch list at the Moline airport and will probably be searched each and every time I go on a flight.

The flight to Chicago was pretty uneventful. I took some pictures out of the window that I thought would turn out good, but they didn’t (on first glance). One of them was of the Chicago skyline as the sun was coming up. I’m kind of disappointed about that one. But I might work on it.

We made our way to Orlando just fine. A bit of turbulance, but no problems. Prior to leaving my wife called to see if there was a shuttle to the motel from the airport. Orlando’s a pretty big tourist area so we thought that would be a no brainer. WRONG. They didn’t have a shuttle. So we said we were going to be taking a cab to the motel. We talked to the information people and they said it would cost about $35. Which to my wife and I was a lot. But if it saved us from a rental and got us there safely we were all for it. Let me be honest…my wife and I have not taken a lot of public transportation so this part I was really nervous about. I’m not sure about my wife, but I was nervous. I had images of us being driven out to the Everglades, hacked up into pieces and then fed to Bubba’s pet alligator Beau. But as it turned out it was very smooth and there was only one hair raising incident were my wife nearly crushed my wrist.

Once at the motel we got checked in. We arrived a bit early so they weren’t entirely ready for us but they found us a room. We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the grounds. It was almost like it’s own city at this motel. There was the high rise, that you see in the picture and then there were a bunch of 2 story buildings around it. We were in one of the 2 story buildings. Later in the evening we made our way to the front desk to ask them about the best way to get to Sea World. They said there was a pathway to get there. Excellent. No cab ride or trolly ride. So like any smart person we went to find a bearing of where this path was. We found the path with no problems, but Sea World was nowhere to be seen. So we started exploring. Across parking lot after parking lot we went. Still no Sea World. It’s dark by now and my wife is getting a bit nervous. I’m not because I’m ready to kick some ass if anyone were to jump out (granted they would have had a gun and we’d be gator bait again!). So we make our way back to the motel. That path did take us to Sea World. We just needed to turn left instead of right.

My photos of the trip will be added here (and I’ll post them up on the blog as I process them!)