Scott: A rough 3 days at work

In the R&D portion of my job at work I occasionally end up attending conferences or shows at different convention centers around the country. One of the conferences that I have been involved with over the years revolves around the RFID industry and this year their show was in Orlando, Florida at the Swan And Dolphin convention center near Disney's Epcot.

Margaret likes Florida so she decided that she would take vacation and accompany me this year and hang out at the pool and boardwalk while I was slaving away in the convention center. We arrived at the Orlando International Airport, disembarked from the airplane and picked up our rental car. National rental allows you to pick the car you want from the available cars in the lot and Margaret picked the soon to be extinct PT Cruiser for our vehicle for the next few days.

The Swan and Dolphin Convention Center, part of the Epcot Resorts center is an older but still spectacular place to stay. Our room was on the 15th floor with a great view of the surrounding area. We could watch the fireworks every night from our room.

Located on a small chain of lakes and canals serviced by water taxies you can travel by boat or bus from the hotel to other parts of the Disney properties quickly and easily for free.

Just across the bridge from our hotel is another set of resorts around another lake, the Boardwalk, the Yacht Club, and the Beach Club. A beautiful walking path around the lake connects all these resorts and you can wander freely between them checking out all the facilities. (Margaret nearly wore a groove in the path around the lake from walking)

So starting Monday morning at 7:30 till 4:30 for the three days below you see what each of us did

If you have followed our blogs over time you have seen our Spring in Minnesota photos.

Here is a contrasting perspective of Spring in Florida.

So can someone remind me why we live in Minnesota again?
Sunday had some open time for me since the conference didn’t start until Monday morning so we went out exploring together. One of the things we wanted to see was the Disney campground Fort Wilderness. We may be taking the coach there some day.
We took the car to the gate at Fort Wilderness and the gate attendant allowed us in to park and explorer the campground. We walked from one end to the other. Its actually quite large over a mile from end to end with very large, nice sites with full hook ups and large paved parking spots. A bit expensive at 50 + dollars a night but it seemed like we may spend a week here sometime in the future.

Throughout Disney properties there are free busses and boat taxis that will take you to other parts of the park for free. At the north end of Fort Wilderness we caught a boat across the lake to the Wilderness Lodge which is right next to the Enchanted Kingdom.

Here are the Hotels in the enchanted Kingdom across the lake as viewed from the water taxi.

When we arrived at the Wilderness lodge we had lunch at an outdoor cafe near the pool area.

This is the only recorded instance in history where I have ever drank a Budweiser. It was all they had. At least it had lime in it. That sort of made it drinkable. (almost)

The duck joined us for lunch, but when we ignored him we thought he would leave, he wouldn’t take that for an answer and started pecking me in the leg to get my attention and a scrap of food.

After lunch we toured the inside of the Wilderness lodge. Its quite a place to see.

After the tour we headed out into the woods following an old sand road behind the “Cast only beyond here” sign looking for a way back to the campground and our car. The trail turned into a nice walk and far more interesting than the typical paths the crowds get to walk on.

More Cast only areas with Clydesdales!

Onward to Downtown Disney for a tour.

Margaret gets a new Eco drive Mouse watch that never needs batteries or winding. It runs on light! You charge it for a few hours in the sunshine and it runs for up to a year!