Cypress Gardens- Day Two
Today we visited Cypress Gardens, which is right next door to Marc's grandparent's house. Cypress Gardens is an old Florida attraction that closed down for awhile and was renovated. I never saw it before, but as far as I can tell, they tore down some of the gardens and added some really tacky carnival type rides to revitalize the place.
We got there kind of late and most of the shows were already finished for the day. Among other things, we missed a pirate show, a water skiing show and an ice skating show. A lot of the stores were closed or closed early and the park was nearly completely empty.
One of the best things happened right off the bat. We went into the Christmas store, which had a display of Santa's around the world and through the ages. The santa's were not all that exciting, but the elves were the best. They moved in very slow motion and had demonic features, crazy eyes. They were doing stuff like sawing wood and hammering toys together. They were just plain creepy. So creepy that we had to take a ton of pictures and video tape them for youtube As we were doing this, several other people commented on the scary elves!
We spent some time tasting Florida wines and picked out some for Marc's grandparents.
The neatest thing in the garden's were giant topiary animals. I have never seen such large topiary. My favorite was a giant rabbit with glasses, but they also had a snail, a peacock, ducks, a snake, swan, lady bug, cardinals, et... The snail reminded me of The NeverEnding Story! We ran around taking pictures of all of the animals.
The rest of the garden was sort of a swamp walk. I saw my first wild gator! I was standing on a bridge and saw a baby gator swimming in the algae. It was well hidden and I would never have noticed it, if it had not been swimming. I was way more excited that I should have been over a little gator! We saw a giant Banyan tree and a lot of pretty flowers.
We played air hockey and Marc actually beat me in a game. I'm still sick! That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!
The ride section was large...a large disappointment. We went on one wooden coaster and it just hurt! I slid and banged me knees the whole time. That did it for us. Most of the rides gave the impression of being second hand carnival cast offs. They also had a water park, that we steered clear of.
I got ice cream that turned to soup in minutes. It's been hot and humid. I actually love the heat and humidity!
The last part that we saw was their nature walk. The first thing on the walk was two resident alligators. One of the gators is an actor and he played a crocodile in one of the old Tarzan films! As we walked away from the gators, we heard some rustling in the bushes and noticed a whole litter of ferrel kittens. They were tustling and playing. So cute and so dangerously close to the swamp and wild gators! We also saw Wallabies,a panther and Cavies. A really weird assortment of animals. We went into a butterfly aviary, where we thought we saw two butterflies, until we realized it was one reflected in a mirror! We left right as it was turning to dusk and the mosquitoes were getting ready to eat me alive!
We saw Marc's Grandparents and Father for dinner. We have discovered it's best to visit them in short spurts for all around. A good chunk of the evening was spent watching golf, so we took off and played ping pong in the club house. The medicine is kicking in and I am feeling much better today.
We got there kind of late and most of the shows were already finished for the day. Among other things, we missed a pirate show, a water skiing show and an ice skating show. A lot of the stores were closed or closed early and the park was nearly completely empty.
One of the best things happened right off the bat. We went into the Christmas store, which had a display of Santa's around the world and through the ages. The santa's were not all that exciting, but the elves were the best. They moved in very slow motion and had demonic features, crazy eyes. They were doing stuff like sawing wood and hammering toys together. They were just plain creepy. So creepy that we had to take a ton of pictures and video tape them for youtube As we were doing this, several other people commented on the scary elves!
We spent some time tasting Florida wines and picked out some for Marc's grandparents.
The neatest thing in the garden's were giant topiary animals. I have never seen such large topiary. My favorite was a giant rabbit with glasses, but they also had a snail, a peacock, ducks, a snake, swan, lady bug, cardinals, et... The snail reminded me of The NeverEnding Story! We ran around taking pictures of all of the animals.
The rest of the garden was sort of a swamp walk. I saw my first wild gator! I was standing on a bridge and saw a baby gator swimming in the algae. It was well hidden and I would never have noticed it, if it had not been swimming. I was way more excited that I should have been over a little gator! We saw a giant Banyan tree and a lot of pretty flowers.
We played air hockey and Marc actually beat me in a game. I'm still sick! That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!
The ride section was large...a large disappointment. We went on one wooden coaster and it just hurt! I slid and banged me knees the whole time. That did it for us. Most of the rides gave the impression of being second hand carnival cast offs. They also had a water park, that we steered clear of.
I got ice cream that turned to soup in minutes. It's been hot and humid. I actually love the heat and humidity!
The last part that we saw was their nature walk. The first thing on the walk was two resident alligators. One of the gators is an actor and he played a crocodile in one of the old Tarzan films! As we walked away from the gators, we heard some rustling in the bushes and noticed a whole litter of ferrel kittens. They were tustling and playing. So cute and so dangerously close to the swamp and wild gators! We also saw Wallabies,a panther and Cavies. A really weird assortment of animals. We went into a butterfly aviary, where we thought we saw two butterflies, until we realized it was one reflected in a mirror! We left right as it was turning to dusk and the mosquitoes were getting ready to eat me alive!
We saw Marc's Grandparents and Father for dinner. We have discovered it's best to visit them in short spurts for all around. A good chunk of the evening was spent watching golf, so we took off and played ping pong in the club house. The medicine is kicking in and I am feeling much better today.