orlando, florida

the drive from tampa to orlando is pretty simple.   it takes less than 2 hours using interstate 4.   oh, how i love the sound of being on interstate FOUR!  it's the lowest even-numbered interstate which means it's really far south which means it in a warmer climate.  that i like.

the reason i was in orlando was to pick up my sisters from the airport.  jolene judi and jeni were flying in from delaware, new jersey, and california so that we could have our 3rd annual sibling vaca!!

i had some time to roam the downtown streets of orlando before jolene's arrival.

in the evening i picked up jolene at the airport.  our other sisters judi and jeni weren't due to arrive until the next day, so jolene and i figured we'd stay somewhere relatively close.   we considered the idea of sleeping in my van somewhere which would have been a fun adventure.  she would have been my first overnight guest in my traveling abode...

but instead we opted to crash at a house belonging to a friend of one of our cousins.  we were greeted there casually by chris and ecstatically by his two dogs (dochshunds?).  chris and his roommate gave us the choice of a fairly empty room that had just been painted or the couches in the living room.   we decided to sleep on the couches.  surrounding us were a set of drums, sound equipment, and some guitars hanging on the walls because chris had been part of a band.  i fell asleep staring at a guitar scale chart.

in the morning jolene and i, grateful for the accommodations, had some coffee and got going.  we did some errands and randomly drove around orlando looking at buildings, streets, people, signs, trees, cars...   we noted and liked the plant hangings in the downtown area

jolene noticed an architectural theme of curves which helped the buildings complement eachother.

i thought this building was interesting

judi was the next to arrive at the airport.  we picked her up from the airport and dropped her off at the car rental place. she was going to wait for jeni to arrive that evening.

meanwhile jolene and i went ahead to merritt island to meet our hosts and hang with our relatives.  jolene was my navigator for the day.  it was really different having someone with me as i drove because i'm so used to being by myself.  i had to use a different part of my brain to digest directional information that was verbally expressed.  the fun part was having someone to laugh with, especially about really dumb stuff. it was so great getting to chat with jolene and to enjoy the silly humor that we share.  yay for sibling time!