Loyd Have Mercy - Escape from Mos Eisley (to the Death Star) - Stick a fork in me, I think I am done.

Magical_Suitcase

aka: kid-at-heart
Joined
Oct 9, 2018
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Our cruise was a 7-Night Western Caribbean Cruise from Port Canaveral with Star Wars Day at Sea, Stateroom #8184 on the Disney Fantasy. This was our first cruise as Castaway Gold!

This was a last-minute trip scheduled in late December for an early March trip. We “had” a b2b scheduled in late spring but our sitter for Mom (age 92) fell through. Fortunately, we were able to reschedule the b2bs into a spring break cruise when someone was available for "Mother care". As some of you know, our vacations are dependent upon having someone available to stay with Mom and the school year since I am a professor at a community college – hopefully retiring next spring (meaning working as an adjunct part-time professor) but for now we are still vacationing by the school calendar and sitter availability. Do to our late reserving of the cruise we lost the advantage of a b2b (working towards platinum) but were still traveling for about the same number of days. We also saved a bit of money booking so late in the game. Sometimes that happens, most times that does not.

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This cruise just happened to be a Star Wars cruise. I am not a fan of Star Wars. I saw the first one many, many years ago and was bored to tears. However, my spouse and child both like the movies and were quite happy to help me come up with a title for this report. Me, I was happy just to be cruising.

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Here is a link to my last report in case you want to “see the family” and such. (Also found in my signature.)

https://www.disboards.com/threads/escape-to-concierge.3730250/

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A big event for us during this cruise was Mardi Gras! We used to live in Louisiana and still celebrate Mardi Gras. Often we have friends over, Rob cooks gumbo and I make King Cake. This year we celebrated a couple of weeks prior Mardi Gras at home and then again on the boat.

Home celebration.

I cook the cakes, Rob makes them pretty.

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Gotta have Tony's and Tabasco for any Louisianan meal.

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One of the three tables we had decorated.

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Mimosas, Bloody Mary’s, wine, beer... We had fun.

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The meal was pot luck with loads of great food.

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Since our booking was last minute we missed the “gold” advantage for booking Palo, etc. so had to make the mad dash once onboard to sign up for Palo brunch, liquor tastings, etc. I did manage to sign up for one character meet and greet prior our cruise, “Darth Vader”. As you are aware, I know next to nothing about Star Wars and the characters, but Rob was happy to get up early for our meeting. I wanted to have a meet with the big furry guy but that did not happen. Oh well, the big furry guy must not be too important since I do not even know his name.

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Time to start prepping for our cruise!
 
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I'm in!

Your Mardi Gras celebration looks fantastic! Too funny you ended up on a Star Wars cruise and aren't a fan. :0) Can't wait to hear all about it and that big hairy guy! LOL

Jill in CO
 
I am here, saving my space (and not too late this time ;)) - now going back to read it all.
 
When researching flights, we were limited in options due to “spring break” and being late in reserving our flights. I wanted to use either a SW or Delta companion pass so was focusing on those two airlines. First, I looked at MCO (Orlando). Both airlines were too expensive for our dates, then TPA (Tampa ditto MCO), then I checked out how far (JAX) Jacksonville was from Port Canaveral. Two and a half hours, flights were available, prices were reasonable. We were set. We booked Southwest and since this was the first time I had used a SW companion pass I called in for assistance in making our flights. I requested the SW representative to sign me up for Early Bird boarding and asked if Rob needed it also since he was flying as my companion. She told me no. Uh Oh, that was wrong….

We took the Michigan Flyer (bus) to DTW (Detroit) for a late afternoon flight. This worked out well because (1) they have wifi and I was able to work on the bus and (2) since it was spring break and the buses were packed, we took a direct route to the airport and bypassed a stop in Ann Arbor. Yea! (The same happened on our return trip.)

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Plus it was snowing and we hate driving the interstate when it is snowing.

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Once at the airport we picked up our tickets and I had boarding #A30, Rob had #C-something- the very last number possible. No worries, I said, I will save you a seat. Vell, let me tell you, the flight attendants do not like it when you save a seat and our attendant was *****y with me the entire trip, *****y with a smile… Oh well, Rob managed to sit with me and as soon as we were in our hotel he went online and booked Early Bird boarding for himself for the return trip. We had a couple of free drink coupons a friend had given us so we made use of those to make the trip more enjoyable. Love my friends.

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It was late when we got in…and raining but no snow. :dance3: :banana:

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We called our hotel for a shuttle and waited. And waited. And waited. Rob called again and the shuttle was there shortly afterwards.

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By this time Rob was beginning to get a migraine so once at the hotel he grabbed a bottle of Gatorade from Residence Inn store/refrigerator which the hotel clerk comped us for since we had waited so long for the shuttle. We did not complain about the shuttle wait but the clerk was aware and took it upon himself to apologize in the form of a comped drink.

Residence Inn JAX - nice hotel especially when you can stay on points. https://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/jaxra-residence-inn-jacksonville-airport/

I did not find the sofa very comfortable for sitting but that seems to be the case for most budget hotels...


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We had a one bedroom opposed to a studio. I like it when you have the option of choosing the size of room you desire.

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The bed was comfortable and it had a comforter on it. I do not understand why Disney resorts will not provide a comforter when a budget hotel does. Geeze.

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INDIVIDUAL shampoos and conditioners. Even a makeup remover pad.

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I like Residence Inn hotels mainly because they supply a full sized coffee maker. I love my coffee and drink quite a bit of it. I hate those little pod coffee makers that are basically giving you instant coffee.

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I love my coffee and prefer a full sized coffee maker. However, this Residence Inn had a four-cupper which worked, we just kept making more pots. I imagine if I had called down to the desk, they very well may have provided us with a regular 12-cup coffee maker.

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Last thing we do when staying in a room with a dishwasher is to load it with all dishes including the coffee carafe and set it to washing.

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Our room was nice. Our dinner was tasty. We ordered in from Pizza Hut. It has been years since we have had food from Pizza Hut (not available in our area) and it was very good. Sorry no pictures of the pizza but here is one of the receipt. I assume the $3.25 convenience fee was a service charge for take-out. I know we also tipped the delivery person extra.

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We were asleep not long after eating dinner.

Our goal for the next day was for me to work a few hours then go pick up our rental car and drive to Titusville. We wanted to take our time and drive through the Ocala National Forest on the way to Titusville. We were staying at the Towneplace suites in Titusville for two nights (again on points) before boarding the Fantasy. After pricing various car rentals we went with Budget. Costco had them priced the lowest and since we had not used them before and they had a shuttle to the port we signed on with no idea of the hassles that would follow…

After the usual hotel free breakfast, I worked for a few hours before we requested a shuttle back to the airport to pick up the car. We left the larger pieces of luggage in the room to pick up after we had the car and just took our briefcases and camera bag with us. Which ended up being a very good thing since… We waited a long time at the Budget counter, the counter attendant tried to sell us every upgrade you can imagine and even after we had said no to everything she still added on about $150 of extra insurance which if I had not reviewed the invoice closely, I would have not noticed before signing. We had checked with our credit card company and car rental insurance is one of the benefits that comes with the card so we did not want to pay for something that was not needed. I requested she remove the insurance charge and she did. Finally we had our keys to the car and walked over to the garage … and walked, and walked and walked. The garage was directly across from the Budget office but we could not find our car. We asked at information, they pointed “that way”, we walked “that way”, no B42 (or whatever the number was), we asked a worker that was walking around, she pointed “another way”, we walked the “other way”. Finally, finally, finally, we asked another worker and he told us our number was hidden behind that pole….

Back at our hotel we grabbed the luggage and headed south but first we need to find a Winn Dixie and pick up wine for the cruise. A friend on the cruise (a new friend since we had only met via facebook) had volunteered to bring on a couple of bottles for us since he did not drink (shhhhh). I am cheap and I like my cheap wine. I hate paying the 3x upcharge that Disney charges for wine and miss the olden days when you could bring on unlimited supply of liquor. I also do not want to waste precious port time searching for wine, not being familiar with the brands and gambling on buying something I may not like. We were very grateful for our new friend’s offer.


I like my Minnie luggage but it does pick up scuffs from airport baggage belts. The black Mickey luggage does not show the scuffs...

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Winn Dixie, not their wine aisle but very colorful. By the way, this stuff throws me into an asthma attack but I still like looking at it.

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We had to swing through Orlando to drop off the wine and a little thank you gift to our new friends for bringing our wine onto the ship. This slight detour actually added a couple of hours to our trip, we were not aware that would be the case. Also added many, many tolls….

I was amazed at the number of tolls we had to pay just going from Jacksonville, via Orlando to Titusville. On our return trip from Port Canaveral to Jacksonville we paid no tolls but going down, I was constantly pulling out money to hand Rob. The tolls take only cash or a Sunpass or E-pass. We have an E-pass but did not realize we could use it in FL until we were there. No receipt is given when you pay cash. This presented a problem because after we got home, several weeks after we got home, a charge appeared on my credit card from Budget for “tolls”. I immediately disputed it and Chase took it off my charge. Geeze. Bad, bad Budget.

Once off the interstate we stopped for lunch and a very good lunch it was.

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Prices were ok, a bit more than I am used to seeing at Taco stands but in a tourist area, probably about on par.

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The only down side was a man (who you cannot see) sitting in the blue car who was smoking a cigarette with his windows down. :crazy2: We sat as far from him as we could since we are not smokers.

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We shared this meal. It was so good that I wish we had each bought a plate instead of sharing but the idea was to stop again later and grab more food. The "Taco Lunch".

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These shirts were hanging around the eating area, they came in various colors.


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The Taco truck was parked next to a veggie stand so we stopped in there to pick up snacks for the next couple of days, oranges, tomatoes, etc…
 
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I like your Mickey napkin holder!
Did your husband check in exactly at 24h? I don't think we've ever gotten "C" boarding at 24h. B, sometimes...
Nice luggage! We used to have Mickey luggage, well still have it, it's cartoon-y and we always got a lot of comments on it!
Smart that you came up with an alternative to the wine restriction...on Cunard (we did NYC-Southampton 4 years ago), there's a lot more leniency: we brought on 5 bottles of wine, and a bottle of gin.
 


I am here! I guess I am the second person to comment on your napkin holder! It's too cute!

I like the look of the King cake, very colorful! What is it? Mardi Gras is a big thing here in Germany as well, for me it is even only a half working day (office closes at 2 pm). I guess it's a catholic thing. However, we celebrate it quite differently. It is actually more like Halloween in the US, people dressing up in costumes and such, but no trick and treating. But there are parades as well, not with beads though, but candy being thrown out to the watchers.

We have lucked out with last minute prices for cruises, too, in the past. How great that that worked out well for you. I personally would always rather do a 7 night than b2b cruises. The two days at CC might be nice, but I would not enjoy the day at PC.

Looking forward to how you felt about roughing it after your lovely concierge experience!
 
Your Mardi Gras celebration looks fantastic! Too funny you ended up on a Star Wars cruise and aren't a fan. :0) Can't wait to hear all about it and that big hairy guy! LOL

I love Disney but I just have not gotten into Star Wars or the Marvel folks. No matter, as long as I am on a ship, I am happy. It was fun seeing the characters and asking Rob who they were. I liked the big furry guy, I need to google his name and the little men with hoods on, I think they were called Sandmen. They were funny. I finally figured out they traded stuff. One kid gave them a pencil so they dug around in their bag and gave the kid a pencil back.

I am here, saving my space (and not too late this time ;))

Never too late. Love having you onboard!
 
I’m glad we’re not the only ones with His and Her Disney luggage!

I buy way too much luggage. We have a closet full and I am always wanting to buy more. I was so tempted on the cruise to buy some they had in the gift shop, way overpriced but so cute!

I like your Mickey napkin holder!
Did your husband check in exactly at 24h? I don't think we've ever gotten "C" boarding at 24h. B, sometimes...
Nice luggage! We used to have Mickey luggage, well still have it, it's cartoon-y and we always got a lot of comments on it!
Smart that you came up with an alternative to the wine restriction...on Cunard (we did NYC-Southampton 4 years ago), there's a lot more leniency: we brought on 5 bottles of wine, and a bottle of gin.

I miss the old days of bringing on all you could carry. We still would spend $$$ in the bars since we like to sit and talk with the bartenders but I like have wine available in the stateroom without having to search around unfamiliar ports for restocking. I hope the next time we cruise that we can find another "new friend" who does not drink and who will be a carrier for us. Shhhhh.

Joining in!

Awesome, the more the merrier!

Just marking my place here, will be back to read!

Ugh! That's the third time this week that I've said that! :faint:

Not a bad thing, "third time this week that I've said that!" Means you are busy and have a life. Very happy to have you hear.

Looking forward to your next update!;)

Thanks Cinderbrella1! I will have one posted soon.
 
Joining in! We did the SWDAS in Feb and had a great time despite not being into Star Wars. BTW, big furry guy is Chewbacca and little guys with hoods are Jawas. My son made SURE I knew characters before we left upon threat of flogging if I got them wrong! :rotfl2:
 
I like the look of the King cake, very colorful! What is it? Mardi Gras is a big thing here in Germany as well, for me it is even only a half working day (office closes at 2 pm). I guess it's a catholic thing. However, we celebrate it quite differently. It is actually more like Halloween in the US, people dressing up in costumes and such, but no trick and treating. But there are parades as well, not with beads though, but candy being thrown out to the watchers.

Yes, King Cake is a Catholic thing, although we are not Catholic or any other religion, we celebrate because we lived in Louisiana and Sarah’s ancestors are Catholic and Jewish. You should see our house during the winter holidays, we move from one celebration to another.

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Mardi Gras is BIG in Louisiana. Our school closed down for the week. A lot of locals go on vacation during Mardi Gras. We had a lot of Louisianan folks on our cruise.

The link below takes you to the Mardi Gras celebration that was sponsored by our tiny town. The population when we lived there was about 1200 people.

http://iotamardigras.com/main.html

Where we lived in Southwest Louisiana (Cajun country), they celebrate Mardi Gras differently from New Orleans or Baton Rouge, no parades with big floats and no beads are thrown. They celebrate a country style Mardi Gras that comes from the medieval fête de la quémande, a sort of ceremonial begging tradition where the revelers go around the countryside offering a performance (sing and dance) in exchange for gifts (items to use in making a gumbo). The revelers are mischief makers who are dressed in costumes like clowns. There is a Capitaine who carries a cloth whip to keep the mischief makers in check. Actually, this is all well planned in advance setting up whose houses are to be visited and what gifts will be given, what behaviors are allowed and what is not allowed. It is considered an honor to be invited to join the Mardi Gras revelers. Some of the revelers ride horses and the rest ride on the bed of a large truck/trailer. Those that are old enough enjoy a bit of drink during the day and by the time they arrive downtown after collecting all the gifts, they are often quite happy. After collecting the ingredients for the gumbo, the revelers and everyone else gathers downtown for a big, big party with music, food and dancing.

Here are a few photos from Sarah’s first Mardi Gras.

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Sarah and one of the revelers. I have no idea who the reveler was, people in Louisiana are very child focus thus it was not unusual for random strangers to say to us "Give me that bebe." "Sha bebe" (Sha means something like sweet or darling baby).

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Rob and Sarah.
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We have lucked out with last minute prices for cruises, too, in the past. How great that that worked out well for you. I personally would always rather do a 7 night than b2b cruises. The two days at CC might be nice, but I would not enjoy the day at PC.

Looking forward to how you felt about roughing it after your lovely concierge experience!

We did a b2b up the west coast and then Alaska. The "2" b2b embarkment day seemed like a wasted day. You know, we really did not miss concierge. Probably the best part of concierge was being escorted off the ship and taken to the front of the very long disembarking line.
 
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Joining in! We did the SWDAS in Feb and had a great time despite not being into Star Wars. BTW, big furry guy is Chewbacca and little guys with hoods are Jawas. My son made SURE I knew characters before we left upon threat of flogging if I got them wrong! :rotfl2:

You are right! Chewbacca. I kept thinking Chewy but I knew that was not right. Is Chewbacca one of the "nice" guys? He looks nice. Ummm, Jawas. Why did I think they were called sandmen? Oh well. They were funny!
 
You are right! Chewbacca. I kept thinking Chewy but I knew that was not right. Is Chewbacca one of the "nice" guys? He looks nice. Ummm, Jawas. Why did I think they were called sandmen? Oh well. They were funny!

I guess his nickname that Hans Solo called him was "chewy" so you are right there. He is a good guy. :) Not sure where sandmen came from, but if I remember right, their planet is sandy! LOL
 
Now where did I leave off? Oh yes, the veggie stand. We popped in here to grab some snacks for later. The lady running the stand called everyone "sugar". She was charming but I did not feel comfortable asking her for her photo.

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After leaving the veggie stand we drove through the Ocala Forest. It was not as interesting as we thought it would be… and we did not stop to hike as we originally planned to do. It was pretty but there did not seem to be any place just to pull off and hike about.

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Finally we made it to our home away from home for the next two nights. Townplace Suites in Titusville, FL. https://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/tixts-towneplace-suites-titusville-kennedy-space-center/ The room was nice, the staff awesome. We always request an upper floor away from elevators, vending machines and pools since we like quiet areas. Our room was very close to the elevator but we never heard any outside noise. The room was bright enough with the exception of the foyer, which really needed an overhead light, especially since there was a great floor length mirror in the foyer but it was so dark you could barely see yourself. Also, since I have old eyes and am near sighted I like to stand very close to the mirror when applying makeup. This mirror would have been great for that purpose if the area had been bright enough.

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The bed was very comfortable with a real comforter and duvet.

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The sofa was a bit too hard for long term sitting...

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I like this desk area. I would have preferred a real dining table for eating but we managed by pulling out the desk and sitting on each side.

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No real closet but this worked well enough for our two nights.

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Nice kitchen with a full sized coffee maker! I am not sure you can see it but there is also a full sized refrigerator in the corner.

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I do not like the shampoo/conditioner dispensers on the wall.

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After our day of road travel we were tired and took the hotel clerk’s suggestion to use “DoorDash” https://www.doordash.com and have them deliver. Apparently your first delivery is free or it was during our stay at Townplace Suites.

My mother is from Florida and we still have many relatives who live there so we ordered from a family favorite that they always recommend, Sonny’s BBQ. It did not disappoint, neither did DoorDash. Our food arrived in the amount of time posted on the website and it was steaming hot. YUM! We had yet to get into the taking photos of meals habit. We got better as the trip progressed. Meanwhile, here is another receipt.

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Tomorrow – hiking day, Merritt Island and Loyd Have Mercy
 
We were up early, made coffee and went down to enjoy the free hotel breakfast. Except breakfast was not good. Generally I can find something that I like, even oatmeal but this time it was subpar all around. Luckily we had granola bars and such in the room so we did not go hungry. After breakfast we headed out to Merritt National Reserve to do a bit of hiking.

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At our first stop, Rob parked the car so we could take a photo of the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge sign – right next to a fire ant hill. If you have ever been attacked by fire ants you know this is not a good situation. He quickly moved the car to a different area and we grabbed a few photos before moving on to the official visitor’s center.

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There were a few trails here that were wheelchair/walker friendly and did not take long to circle around.
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And a few warning signs about alligators but none about fire ants...

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It was humid and my hair likes to "fuzz" when the humidity is up.

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This photo is for Cass who loves trees.

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We stopped by their gift shop and bought a couple of items then back in the car to drive just a short distance to a hiking trail.

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We brought our travel walking sticks and like to collect medallion's to attach to the sticks. We have several different walking sticks but the ones we brought with us break down into three parts that makes them easy to fit into your suitcase. Then once you are where you need to be, you screw them together. Since the terrain was so flat we ended up not needing the sticks. I suppose the sticks would have come in handy though for fighting off snakes or alligators. :rotfl2:

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Once on the trail we realized we had left our mosquito spray in the hotel room and that we would not be hiking very far without some form of protection.
 
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Oh my, mosquito spray was a necessity! The little buggers do not generally like me but this time they were not being picky. Rather than go back to the room we drove the short distance to the Merritt Nat’l Res gift shop and paid about $9.00 for a very small bottle of mosquito spray. It was worth it and we just considered it our entry fee to the park.

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The spray worked great and we enjoyed our time walking about the reserve.



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Can you see the wild oranges the tree?

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Rob looking at "something".

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Still looking... I have learned to "just freeze" when this happens as he is generally getting ready to take a shot of something.

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We did not see another person on our hike but did see this little fellow – who Rob frightened and it slid away. We could have used our walking stick to protect us from the snake. :thumbsup2

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This is the second time in my life that I have stepped over a snake before realizing it was a snake. The first time I was three or four, I stepped over the snake, realized what it was, then stepped back over to go tell my mother. I was not the smartest of children.

Poor snake. Humans in its space.

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Rob breaking the rules.

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Rob still breaking the rules.

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After our hike we were ready for lunch. As I said in my previous trip report, Escape to Concierge, we like to eat at “hole-in-the-wall” places and this time we had chosen “Loyd Have Mercy” based on Yelp reviews. It DID NOT disappoint. Yum, I would go back to Titusville again just to have the opportunity to eat at Loyd’s.
 
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