Closer to home - Eno River

So, in my Geocaching post, I mentioned snake identification...  Yes, I did.  Stop and go back, you should read that!  You didn't?  Really???  Well, at least promise you will read it when you are done here.  Geocahing if fun...  But those of you that did read that...this is where we got to have not one not two not three etc etc but 7 opportunities to identify snakes!  Woo hoo lucky us!  Not only that but six of them were copperheads.  Going hiking?  Take us along!  We will identify the heck out of those poisonous, oops, venomous snakes!  So where you ask, did we have such a fabulous opportunity to commune with nature???  The Eno River State Park.

The Eno River State park is located in northern Durham county in NC.  It is a small but sprawling park that protects much of the land around the Eno River which in my opinion is one of the prettiest ones in the area.  you can take a look at all the offerings here: http://www.ncparks.gov/Visit/parks/enri/main.php  Our favorite hiking area right now is the Cole Mill trail and the Bobbit's hole.  Although both hikes are loops we prefer to hike out and back because we really enjoy being on the river.  There are plenty of spots along the trail to climb on rocks and teeter out into the river.  There are also a number of good little swimming holes so in the summer wear a bathing suit and bring a towel. 

You would think after that particular visit back in July of last year that we would never want to go there again.  In actuallity, this is one of our favorite parks in the area.  The hiking is well marked and offers a variety of difficulty.  Most of the trails are along the river and for those of you that haven't done much hiking, there is something really soothing about hiking along the water.  The day of our 7 snake sightings was unusual and even a ranger mentioned that there were an uncommon number of snakes out that day.  That said we did hike the full trail and we were just much more careful than usual about where we stepped and sat.  Eeek! 

We also had the opportunity to look up copperhead snakes when we got home from the park and discovered that NC has the most copperhead bites in the country and that these bites are rarely fatal.  We will be heading back out to the Eno when the weathr warms up some more!

Universal - Islands of Adventure

Have you read Harry Potter?  No?  Why not?  What are you waiting for?  Are you being stubborn because you missed the "boat"?  Did you see the movies and think that was good enough???  I have read these books!  Multiple times!!!  Love them.  Last year my oldest daughter started reading them.  We would lose her in them.  To the point that we HAD to take them away amid tears and screamming fits that we are the meanest parents in the world.  Harry Potter is the reason that child stayed up until 11:00pm on a school night with a flashlight!  So it should come as no surprise that while we were down in Florida for a non-Disney adventure I planned a day to visit Harry Potter land. 

On the frugal side of things, we used our Chase Freedom card to get our tickets.  The tickets were offered through the point reward system.  We had enough rewards that we could buy tickets for our whole family and Josh's parents.  Plus they were cheaper than I could find online at any of the discount ticket sites!  WIN!

That would be the best part of the day!  Okay, I may be exagerating, but we did not love Universal Islands of Adventure (henceforth known as IOA).  That said we did go the Friday after Thanksgiving so the crowds were probably fairly large.

I will start with the good.  If you are a Harry Potter fan, the town of Hogsmeade is really really well done!  There was a lot of attention to detail, very cool.  We also felt the other various areas throughout the park were authenticly decorated.  There were some decent rides, some rides that looked really good but we didn't get to and a couple really fun rides. 

The not so good...  In a nutshell, I think this park is designed for older kids.  Our older daughter who read Harry Potter was 7 1/2 when we went to this park, and a pretty tough 7 1/2.  Many of the rides were too much for her. 

First of all, the parking for IOA was far away.  I have never been to this park before and I am an admitted Disney fan.  We got to the park very close to opening.  Then we had to take two escalators, and three people movers to get to the "shopping area".  Think Downtown Disney, but again for a slightly older audience.  Once through that shopping area we got to the ticket booths and then passed through another smaller shopping area.  The layout of the park put Harry Potter land in the back so we rushed through to get there.  Alas, it was still incredibly crowded.  The Universal version of Disney's fast pass is an additional fee which really just rubs us the wrong way.  Plus, it wasn't good on the really popular rides.  Kind of counter-intuitive in my opinion.  The main Harry potter ride was just okay.  I don't know if it is because so many people talked about how great it was or if it just wasn't what I expected but I wasn't nearly as impressed as all the hype.

I was under the impression that the ride was a trip through Hogwarts.  Not so.  The ride was flying on a "broomstick" at the Hogwarts campus.  It was SCARY!!!  The adults were a little scared in a couple spots.  The child who so loved the books, had her eyes closed for almsot the entire ride!!!  There were no signs outside the ride that said it was scary.  There were no warnings.  The ride is also one of those huge movie screen virtual rides.  So you are buckled into your seat and it moves around and you watch your "flying" on the big screen.  Interspersed were areas with giant props from the stories, fire-breathing dragons, giant spiders, dementors etc.  SCARY!  And yet, not as well done as you would expect.  I found the seat to be to close to the screen and the resolution made it really feel like a movie.  I wanted more time in the castle to see all the cool things that are magical.  One ride was plenty!  Plus the husband doesn't do well on these virtual rides and would have hurled if it had gone on any longer!
Outside the castle there was a smaller rollercoaster (Flight of the Hippogriff) for the littler children and our 5 year old enjoyed that ride quite a bit but the waits for all the rides at IOA were extremely long.  There is one other rollercoaster in the Hogsmeade area but it was too big for our little people so we passed. 

Outside of Hogsmeade, we did go to a very entertaining show and got in there quickly.  Lunch was extremely crowded in Seussville with insufficient seating.  We considered the meal plan but it priced out as too expensive to be worth our while.  This was a disappointment to me because I like to not think about what we are buying during the day.  We maybe should have continued to a different place for lunch but the park was just so crowded.

One of the best parts of our day was the fact that our children really didn't complain.  This was shocking, as it was our last full day in sunny Florida after a week going to theme parks and spending time with extended family.  We had been prepared for the sweet things to meltdown into a puddle of crying exhaution!  We waited on some really long lines!  I think total, we rode 6 rides.  We were there ALL day.  We did pass on a couple rides because the kids just didn't want to ride them but we really stood in line a LOT.   We did have a fantastic dinner at the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade, complete with butterbeer.  Ashley walked the entire day and the first complaint about her feet showed up as we were walking out of the park.  What a rockstar!  Good grief!  My feet hurt by then!

My in-laws park hopped to the Unviersal Studios side and said there were really no lines there but that again the rides were bigger and scarier than our kids would have been able to handle.  They had a lot of fun though riding the rides so again this may just be a park we need to be older for.

Without going further into too much detail, We found this park to be just okay.  The layout was poor for crowd control.  The rides tended to be better for older kids and adults and the lines to ride many of these rides were uncomfortably long.  For the money, I think even my non-Disney loving husband would agree, Disney does it better.

I am glad we went but we won't be going back for at least 5 years!

Discovery Cove - I swam with Dolphins!!!

So over Thanksgiving this year my husband's family decided to go on a getaway.  I affectionately called this trip the Novak Adventure because it took over 3 years to plan and it took a LONG time to decide what to do and where to go.  We ended up in Orlando but NOT at Disney, which was a little hard for me as a Disney lover but the in-laws are not all Disney lovers so compromise was important.  Mind you I still find it baffling that there are people that don't love Disney!  So our trip was going to Discovery Cove, SeaWorld and Universal Islands of Adventure.  My favorite place, this trip, was absolutely Discovery Cove so I will start there!

dolphin lagoon 3

Discovery Cove is a sister park to SeaWorld and admission to Discovery Cove also includes admission to SeaWorld for 14 days, 7 before your Discovery Cove visit and 7 after.  That is as frugal as Discovery Cove gets.  I know this is a frugal blog but I too believe that some experiences can be priceless. 

Overview of the park - First of all, Discovery Cove is a resort experience where you can play on the beach, snorkel a tropical "reef", float on a lazy river, meet birds in the aviary and swim with dolphins (for an extra fee).  The park is limited admission so if you are going during a peak time you do want to make reservation.  You also have to reserve the dolphin swim.  You can split up and some people can swim with the dolphins but you should book these tickets at the same time.  The age to swim with the dolphins is 6 years old.

Discovery Cove is also all-inclusive.  Your day includes breakfast, lunch, snacks, drinks, wetsuits, towels, lockers, everything.  It is important to note that the breakfast is a FULL hot breakfast, not just cereal and bagels.  The lunch is also a full hot lunch.  The snacks vary from hot pretzels and ice cream to assorted bags of chips.  Beverages included the standard soft drink fare along with a good assortment of alcoholic drinks including some super yummy Pina Coladas.  Not to mention the standard coffee and tea and the somewhat less standard hot chocolate.

I would recommend arriving as close to park opening as possible.  This will give you time to get checked in and eat breakfast before you want to get started with your day.  There are lockers located in various areas of the park.  I would recommend deciding where you want your "home-base" to be located and getting lockers there.  We did end up with 2 sets of lockers on opposite sides of the park but found this to be unnecessary.

Once breakfast is done go get sized for your wetsuits (if needed) and pick up your snorkel and mask.  You get to keep the snorkel which made the kids pretty happy! 

The Park Layout - The center of the beach area is devoted to the dolphin lagoons.  There are three lagoons.  The coral reef is to the right of the lagoons and the swimming area and lazy river are to the left, when you are looking at the lagoons.  The swimming area is fresh water and it is heated to a very balmy 82 degrees.  The reef and the dolphin lagoons are salt water and are kept at 72 degrees, although they may be warmer in the summer.  A wetsuit was truly appreciated!  The aviary is located behind the swimming area.  If you turn your back to the dolphin lagoons, you are facing the buffet building and eating area.  There are a couple of gift shopping areas as well.

Dolphin Swim - This experience is a little extra but it is what most people think of with Discovery Cove so I am going to start here.  This was easily the best part of the day for me.  That said, my 7 year old daughter loved this but it was not her favorite part of the day.  Although this experience is super cool, I don't think it is significantly different from other dolphin swim programs out there.  Nonetheless, this is super cool!  When you check into Discovery Cove with a reservation for the dolphin experience you are given the time and location of your swim.  At the designated time you report to the designated hut for an orientation film and the standard release form signing.  Note - you are required to remove all jewelry for the swim, they will allow some wedding rings to remain on, I imagine that is for those of you that can no longer remove them!  :)  Once every one has signed their life away you will get split into smaller groups and head across the beach to your assigned lagoon.  Your animal trainer will take you in the water and you get to watch and participate in some training and tricks with a dolphin or two.  My hubby was taking LOTS of pictures of this for me and said that it looked kind of dull from the beach but I was not bored for a second!  You get the photo ops with the dolphin (kissing, posing and riding), which they will sell you after your swim.  There is plenty of time for touching, feeding, and asking questions.  This experience makes me wish a little for a do over so I could be a dolphin trainer.  Just a little though, as the do-over would have to include junior high *shudder*.  You have an option for a deep water ride or a shallow ride.  My daughter did the shallow ride.  She was the first to go and I think that made her a bit nervous but the staff was very sweet and even allowed me to help get her situated.  Her smile was priceless.  I chose the deep water ride which was no trouble but a tad chilly.  My smile was ridiculous!  Seriously, did I forget the cameras?  WAY TO CHEESY!  It was that much fun!  I don't think the deep water ride was any better than the shallow one so if someone isn't comfortable in the deeper water they will not miss out.  After everyone had their dolphin time there were some more tricks and touching and then we were done.  I loved every minute!

Tropical reef - So above I noted that the dolphin swim was not my 7 year old's favorite part of Discovery Cove.  That is because her favorite experience was snorkeling in the tropical reef!.  This was also incredibly cool.  Basically, they have set up a snorkelable (is that a word??) aquarium.  Not only that but the reef is set up so that if your young children are nervous they can see most of the fish by simply standing and putting their faces in the water with a mask on.  Let me back up a moment.  The "reef" is saltwater and a walk-in from the beach.  There are some coral/rock formations right on the sand.  As you walk further in there is what we called the "canyon" this is where the topography of the bottom had a gully where it got very deep (15 feet) and there were a lot of different corals in it.  It was absolutely possible to walk to the edge of this "canyon" and look over without ever swimming.  The reef is teeming with fish and rays, lots and lots of rays and they are big, REALLY big.  Good thing they are "tame", I swear they could eat a child, not even a small child, a whole yummy child!  Okay, yes, I know rays don't eat people!  The fish are an assortment of super colorful ones and big ones.  If you swim to the back of the reef there is a glassed off tank of sharks.  On one side of this tank you actually feel like you are swimming with the sharks.  Pretty neat but it spooked my 5 year old a little who realizes at the tender age of 5 that she is in fact a yummy child!  There was also a tank with lionfish.  There is a section of the reef that is cordoned off for the SNUBA option but none of our children were old enough and I am not sure that that experience would really be any better than the snorkeling.  We all truly enjoyed the snorkeling.  Even our niece who was still 2 at the time was able to look in the water and see the fish. 

Swimming area & Lazy river - This area was my 5 year old's favorite part.  I think part of the reason for this is that she is a scrawny little thing and gets cold really fast!  This water was fresh and heated.  You do NOT need the wetsuit in this area.  The park did a really good job making the whole place look natural.  There were rock formations, waterfalls, lots of tropical plants and again zero entry from the beach.  The lazy river is VERY lazy.  In fact I am not sure you would actually make it all the way through if you really just floated!  It is very relaxing and they provide floating noodles to hold onto.  The river even passes through the aviary.  My girls also enjoyed diving for rocks throughout the float and there were some designs on the bottom (think fossils etc.).  This was not my favorite area as my 5 year old who realizes that the shark could eat her forgot that even though she can swim she can not swim for the 30 continuous minutes or more that it was taking us to float the river.  Since she really didn't want a tube and much prefered to dive to the bottom of said river to the point of near drowning, it wasn't as lazy as one might hope. Hee hee.  I did like thatis was warm though, I also dislike the cold!

Aviary - The last major area of Discovery Cove is the aviary.  It is an enclosed area comprised of 3-4 "rooms"  I had seen pictures online of this and thought....oh, that is such a promo photo, no one can really get that close to a bird...  Yes, yes you can.  If you don't like birds, this is not the place for you.  These birds are tame.  The staff hands out little bowls of food and the birds will eat right out of your hand.  They land on the bowl, your hand, arm, head etc.  They have NO fear and they know you have food.   Psychology 101 conditioning happened here!  I actually had on bird land on my lanyard on my chest and go to sleep.  She was so darn comfortable she even pooped on me. I WIN!  Again all the children could participate and feed these super friendly birds.  I would have liked to have spent more time in here but the day was drawing to a close and I drew the short straw for the potty run so I didn't get to walk around as much as I would have liked.

That about sums up the big day at Discovery Cove.  I am sure there is more useful information I am forgetting.  I will update this post when I think of it!

Gee…Ohhh…Geocaching

So I am starting with an adventure that is close to home.  Close to EVERYONE’S home.  We discovered geocaching about 6 months ago.  I had read magazine articles about this activity before but discounted them as something we could do because you need a GPS which we didn’t own.   But now we do, right there in the smartphone!!

So for those of you that don’t know what geocaching is, here is the definition from the website http://www.geocaching.com/default.aspx

Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location.

My definition is: an outdoor adventure with the family where you get to get rid of your old happy meal toys for someone else’s happy meal toys! 

Here’s the thing though.  You are outside and you go hiking.  You usually end up somewhere you haven’t been before and the adventure part really is fun.  The geocaches are hidden off the trails so you end up bushwacking some of the time, sometimes, most of the time!  You usually get to see some cool nature stuff and best of all it is FREE!!!  We have some within walking distance of our house in North Carolina and tons of them nearby.  We have geocached in Virginia too.  The local parks usually have a good number of caches available.  To add to the fun there are Geocoins!  No, no, you can’t make money (although our nephew did take a Dick’s Sporting Goods gift card that ended up have $20 on it!).  Geocoins are trackables.  So if you find one you take it and then you move it to another cache.  You really need to log these coins so their travels can be followed i.e. tracked.  We found one that started in California.  I think the adults may like this aspect better than the kids as the hubby now searches geocaches specifically for the ones with coins.

To get started, set up an account on the website (http://www.geocaching.com/default.aspx) and search for caches near you.  You need a smartphone with GPS and an app for geocaching.  (We use c:geo on android) You can also download the cache for offline use which means that kids, big and small, with the iPod touch should be able to play as well.  Of course you can also use a GPS. 

The caches vary in size and when they say micro they are not kidding!  If you are taking younger children the micro and small caches don't yield the toy reward.  Just a slip of paper to sign and you are done.  We prefer to find traditional caches and we usually take exta toys to drop off (read - get out of my house).

Our next foray into geocaching is going to be creating our own cache.  For Christmas we received an "official" geocaching box from the in-laws, along with our own trackable geocoins.   When the weather gets a little warmer we are going to place our box out there somewhere.  I will be sure to post it's location for you guys to find!

The Nitty Gritty - Dress for the weather but also in layers.  Wear shoes (and socks, and pants, and shirts...) that you don't care about too much.  My older daughter is a dirt magnet and she has managed to step in mud halfway up to her knee, more than once!  I am just thankful I haven't had to wade in after her yet!  We also like to pack a backpack with the toys to trade out, nature pamphlets for IDing animals (we used them to identify 6 copperheads on one hike but that is a different post) and snacks because my children think there should be food all the time!  We also like to take the dog but he can't manage that well anymore, the poor old man gets tired and he is pretty deaf now!  If you bring a dog, check the area and the rules about leashes but usually once you get off the trails you can let your dog off leash if they are friendly and will come when you call.

Who Am I? Why am I doing what I am doing?

Sounds like the start of some deep philosophical blog post…  Nope, not here.   I’m going to get about as deep as a puddle.  So here goes, this is who I am.   I am an almost *gasp* 40 stay at home mom of two beautiful girls ages 5 1/2 and (almost) 8.  I am married to a younger man…hee hee…  He is a good egg!  He has to be to put up with me!  I think his biggest complaint is that I think too much, about everything!  I could worry about the air and you know, we probably should…pollution and all, but I digress.  Both my girls are in school now and I have been looking for something else to keep me busy.  Would still like a work from home job so contact me if you need the help!  (wink wink)

As for this blog I am starting…  I am hoping to combine a few things I am passionate about to create a valuable resource for other families out there that may be passionate about the same things.  What “things” you ask?  Let me tell you…  First, and I am sure we ALL have this in common, family.  I love my girls and my hubby!  Would love to just spend time with them all the time…well, maybe not ALL the time, but a lot!  Second, I LOVE to travel.  I like to go to new places and places we have been before.  I love to dream of new and exciting adventures.  And third, I really like to save money and get the best deal.  Bet we all have that in common too, well, unless you are Brangelina and you’re reading this, in which case, call me about that work from home job I mentioned earlier, I’m sure there is something I can help you with! Ha!

So there you have it, the shallow answer to the deep philosophical question at the top of this post.  I hope some of you out there will enjoy reading about our past adventures , future plans, and find some of my ideas and tips from trips we have and will take useful as well.  Okay people!  Buckle up, we are traveling!