On our second journey to Orlando, we drove from Naperville, Illinois. The year earlier than we flew on United Airways and this yr we flew on Southwest. This web page depicts our driving journey, some issues we noticed alongside the best way, somes tools we used to get from Naperville to Orlando, and my ordinary ramblings along the best way.

As we travel, we’re at all times on the lookout for something unique that you don’t discover at each exit of the highway. Simply over the Tennessee line in Calhoun, Georgia, we discovered a store that sells over 100 flavors of popcorn called Popcorn Haven When we stopped, we tried the darkish chocolate popcorn, the white cheddar popcorn, and the cola popcorn. I appreciated the cola popcorn the best as the flavor reminded me of the cola bottlecaps. My youngsters nonetheless, preferred the chocolate popcorn. The popcorn was excellent and with over ninety seven different flavors to strive, we will be stopping there once more.

The next day, we’re off to the Elijah Mountain Gem Mine close to Asheville, North Carolina. In case you’ve by no means been Gem Mining, here’s the idea, you get a bucket of filth and utilizing water, you wash all of the dirt off and what’s left needs to be, rocks and gems and things. You by no means know what your going to get and generally you get nothing. So, for those who don’t want to get nothing, you then go to Elijah’s, where they have premade buckets with gems already in them. They also have buckets with Indian Artifacts and Fossils. Probably not prospecting here, however the children have a lot of fun because the sand sifts away and so they see multi-colored gems. This stop was a number of miles off of the expressway into Asheville. Different gem mines are off the beaten path a ways, so it depends on how a lot time it’s important to get to your subsequent destination.

Effectively, we reside in St. Aug, Florida and have numerous favourite locations round here. It’s not Orlando, however you go us on your approach! Not fairly as widespread as Castillo de San Marcos, we actually love to go out to Fort Matanzas State Park on A1A south of St. Aug. It is free and never in downtown so the parking is easy. It is excellent as a result of there’s a ferry boat trip out to the Fort and youngsters LOVE that.

What an excellent web site! Thanks for all the useful advice. We’re planning on driving to Orlando this 12 months. We’re from Joliet so the distance will likely be about the same. We don’t essentially take probably the most direct route, as a result of part of the enjoyable of driving is seeing America. Whether it is a cavern or cave within the mountains, or the 20 foot Superman statue in Metropolis, IL, it’s numerous fun to go off the crushed path. Being from the Chicagoland area and being of Polish respectable, the chicagoland area celbrates Casimir Pulaski day, when I discovered Fort Pulaski in Savannah, Georgia, it was a no brainer to cease. Apart from the statue, there’s a Superman store in Metropolis. The shop has quite a lot of Superman memorabilia and a small Superman Museum. The second weekend of every June is dedicated to the annual Superman celebration. And the current website exhibits an image of President Barak Obama posed with Superman.