OMG, what a crazy two weeks! And before I start, it's long, so be prepared for a good reading. Also, I DO have pictures, but I have about 200 of them, so it may be a bit before I post them! Links to the pictures will be posted after I've written about each section. (If the links don't work, let me know.)

Although I was rather poor, I went to Anthrocon this year. I'm glad I did, it was a blast, although I only had enough money for one commission, which was sad because there were so many awesome artists there, including tons of awesome art at the art auction. But I suppose it's just as well that I didn't have a lot of money, because I'm sure I would have spent it all. XD I ended up commissioning Dark Natasha, which is awesome because I've only ever been to three cons, but I've been able to commission her each time! Sinha got me an adorable paper lantern with cephalopds on it from the art auction, which I will have pictures of soon. Than you again, Sinha! -^_^- But I got to spend lots of time with some friends, and made a few new ones, and that's the important part. ^_^ The weekend went by way too fast and I was sad to leave. My friend Jennifer and I left AC around 5 PM, drove all night and arrived home around 2 AM. Literally an hour and a half later, we got in the van to go to Florida with my parents. XD

Pictures of Anthrocon can be found here: [link]

On the way, we stopped in Tennessee to look at an airpark where it seems we may be moving. The place is amazing, as it is butted up against a park preserve, and we're literally surrounded by areas where we can hike, swim in the river, canoe and do all sorts of outdoorsy things. We spent the night there where a random, but cute kitty came into our hotel room. We fed her some beef jerky and let her wander the room for a while, but put her back out side when we went to sleep. She was still there the next morning, though, so we called her the hotel kitty.

The next day we stopped in Georgia to look at an English Bulldog puppy my Mom had considered buying. After we saw her, Mom decided to get her. We picked her up on the way back.

Then we headed down to southern Florida to see my Grandpa. Jennifer and I watched all 26 episodes of Cowboy Bebop on the way. Didn't do a whole lot with grandpa. Went around town a bit and to a few restaurants, but mostly just sat around and chatted.

We went to an airplane museum called Fantasy of Flight for my Dad, since he loves planes and helicopters. It was pretty neat, but not really my thing, so I didn't take any pictures. I did, however, greatly enjoy being able to climb into a B-17, and if I had stopped being geekily excited for more than thirty seconds, I would have remembered to take pictures. Oh well. I did pick up a couple CDs with music from the 40's there. They had several CDs, and I was tempted to buy them all, as music from the 40's seems a bit hard to find.

After that we headed up to Orlando to go to Discovery Cove. It was AMAZING. It is basically a small, interactive aquarium. To quote the website: "Packages include unlimited access to our Explorer's Aviary, home to hundreds of species of exotic birds. The carefree currents of our Wind-Away River, and long stretches of white sand beaches along the shores of Serenity Bay and a 14-consecutive day pass to either SeaWorld Orlando or Busch Gardens Tampa.
A generous continental breakfast and lunch, as well as all snacks and beverages throughout the day are also included, along with your mask, snorkel, swim vest, towel, locker and sunscreen. All-day self-parking is also included with no additional charge."

The place itself is rather small, but the interactiveness and closeness with the animals is incredible. There are five areas within the park (or whatever it is called): a large saltwater reef "pond", a small, shallow pond with stingrays, an area with dolphins, a freshwater meandering river, and an aviary. We went to all of them except the dolphins because we (except for Jennifer) have swam with dolphins before. Jennifer wanted to upgrade to a dolphin swim, but you have to book it in advance.
Anyway the large reef "pond" was the best part of it. There is a large assortment of reef fish freely swimming around, and a few types of stingrays (cow nose rays, spotted eagle rays and southern rays). There are also two enclosed areas (within the pond) that house gar and white tip and black tip sharks. But, aside from the gar and sharks, you are free to swim among and touch all the fish in the reef pond. I spent most of my time with the rays, because I love them. ^_^ They are so soft and squishy, I just want to pick them up and hug them!
The shallow pool was about waist or chest high (depending on how tall you are XD) and was flat with only sand, but it contained many cow nose rays, which would swim by and you could pet. You could pet the ones in the reef pond, too, but you had to work at it by diving down!
The meandering river was a slow moving river with no fish or anything in it (it was basically like pool water) but it went around the park and in the aviary. It was nice to laze about (and warm up after the salt water!) and look at the pretty scenery.
The Aviary, as the name suggests, contains many species of exotic birds. But you are free to get as up close to them as you want, or they allow. I found ibis walking idly around and roadrunners dashing by while watching another visitor balance three or four brightly colored parrots on his arms. A strange vulture-like bird sat in the shade and let a child pet it without a qualm, and a peacock dashed out of the bushes and wouldn't let us pass until he had made sure we had seen his elegant display.
But then, around 3 o'clock, a severe thunderstorm rolled in and everyone was called out of the water and shepherded under shelter. But by this time we had done everything twice, and was just hanging out with the rays in the reef pond, so we had at least been able to have our fill. Sort of. I miss swimming with the rays already. Jennifer and I decided that if we ever go back, we are spending two days there.

Pictures of Discovery Cove can be found here: [link]

The next day we went to Sea World, which is quite literally across the street from Discovery Cove. Jennifer and I wanted to do the shark dive, but there was only one slot left. So, I let her do the shark dive, and I went on the Penguin Spotlight tour. My tour was at noon, so we spent a couple hours wandering the park and looking around until my time came. When it did, our tour guide came and got us, and we went into the regular part of the penguin and puffin exhibit, and she told us some general facts about them, most of which I already knew. XD But then we went into the back, where the employees work, and showed us the food preparation area (smelled overwhelmingly of fish--go figure), the nursery--although it held no chicks at that time. It did, however, hold a murre trouble maker. They removed him because he liked to mess up the puffin's nest. They also had a female in with him, in the hopes that they would bond, and next year he'd be more interested in her than the puffin nests, heh. Then one of the workers went into the penguin area and brought out a rockhopper penguin, which made me happy because they are similar to my favorite penguin, the macaroni penguin. The rockhopper was a 22 year old female named Skippy. We were all allowed to pet her, and then the worker put her down, and she was quite content to waddle around and peer up at us. Then we went into the penguin enclosure, where some king penguins and some more rockhoppers greeted us from behind a low gate. More information was divulged, mostly about how they could only have a few types of penguins (adelie penguins were in the exhibit, too) since, being in Florida, they couldn't make it as cold as other penguins (such as emperor penguins) needed it, and some of the penguins personalities (some of the penguins would sit under the snow maker all night and be buried in snow when the workers came in the next morning), but I didn't hear all of it, because I was too busy watching Skippy trundle around, and continued to pet her. I wanted so badly to scoop her up and cuddle her! Lisa, a king penguin, was at the gate and kept talking to us. Kings sound similar to emperors, while the rockhoppers made cuter, chirpy noises.
After leaving the penguin enclosure, we went into a room across the hall where another worker had two puffins. She held one puffin on her hand, and another was on the counter that ran around most of the room. She, too, divulged information about puffins. We weren't allowed to touch the puffins, since it would damage the waterproofing of their feathers, but we were allowed to take pictures of and with them. The puffin in the worker's hand was quite content to sit and watch us, but the one on the counter was a trouble maker. Whenever someone went over to get a picture, he was pecking at zippers or straps or anything else loose that he could get his beak on. He tried eating scraps of paper on the counter, tried pulling out push pins in the corkboard and would pick up and flip around a small notebook. Curiosity, it seemed, was natural to a puffin. According to the worker, puffins loved to watch people outside the exhibit, and would swim up against the glass and watch them. Apparently, they really loved it when someone would walk through with a large stuffed animal.
After that, the tour was pretty much over, but I quite enjoyed it. Penguins are one of my favorite animals, so I couldn't pass up the opportunity!

Pictures of the Penguin Spotlight Tour can be found here: [link]

Afterwords we meandered around some more. Hit up most of the shops--there are a lot there! Most are themed to the area that they are in within the park. Went to lunch in a crowded buffet with way too few seats. But, the food was good and plentiful. Jennifer and I talked about going on the Manta roller coaster before leaving.

Before too long, it was time for Jennifer to go on her tour, so we split up with her at her meeting point, and went to go watch one of the Orca/Shamu shows called Believe. We got excellent seats. Right in the middle, about four rows away from the front. Oh yes, the soak zone. I wanted to take pictures, but ultimately decided not to, for fear of the camera. Well... it turns out I could have, as we didn't even get a drop. :/ The right side of the stadium did, and so did the left side but nope, not us RIGHT IN THE CENTER. The show was pretty neat, but seemed rather short to me.
After that, we went to the shark exhibit to look around before watching Jennifer get into the tank. She and one other woman donned wetsuits and a large bubble helm and were lowered into a shark cage and taken around the shark tank. You'll have to consult her for more information on that. We watched her part of the way (the cage moved slowly, and the tank was very large), then went out to meander some more. On our way, we stopped to refill on lemonade, when it started to drizzle. A few minutes later, it became a torrential downpour. Luckily, the Nautilus Theater was just across the road, and we sheltered under the eaves. On a side note (speaking of the Nautilus Theater), there was a show there called A'Lure: Call of the Ocean which apparently is something akin to Cirque du Soleil, which I very much wanted to see, but we were unable due to our tour scheduling. T.T (Actually, I want to see Cirque du Soleil really bad, too.) It poured for a good hour before we got tired of sitting around, and went to go meet up with Jennifer. We promptly got drenched. And just in time for our reservation at the Sharks restaurant. XD We got fairly good seats. Not right next to the shark tank wall, as I had hoped, but on a raised dais a couple rows back, so we could still see the sharks well.
We were pretty much done for after this. The rain and then the conditioning in the restaurant made us cold and everyone was aching for one reason or another. The Manta ride was called off and decided to go to the shops to get what we wanted and leave. The park was only open for another hour or so by that time, anyway. Jennifer got a shark plushie that she'd been wanting for a long time (she chose a black tip reef shark), and we headed to the front of the park to get the cow nose ray plushie that I wanted. Only, the shop was closed. On top of that, it was the ONLY shop that had them AND the ONLY shop in the ENTIRE park that closed early! I was quite upset. So, we went to the Stingray Lagoon where they had a pool you could pet cow nose rays in and hung out there for the last few minutes the park was open.

SeaWorld pictures can be found here: [link]

We slept in a little later the next day, since SeaWorld had pwned us the previous day. We had one stop this morning, then we'd be on our way. There was a place in Orlando not far from SeaWorld and Discovery Cove called Titanic: The Experience. It was basically a lifesize reconstruction and tour of certain parts of the Titanic, which was neat in itself, but on top of that, there were re-enactors that took you through it which, I think, made it much more memorable than a simple display. I quite enjoyed it (even if I didn't really learn anything new), but I'm not sure if anyone else did. XD

Titanic pictures can be found here: [link]

Annnddd... that's about it. We left around 12:30 yesterday, got home around 3 PM today. Took longer getting home due to stops for the puppy, and so Dad could nap. But yes! I had a grand time!

But I miss the stingrays...