Orlando vacation Archives - Circles in the SandCircles in the Sand

I’ve already posted about Orlando’s theme parks – including the fact I got over my allergy to Disney – but I don’t want to leave the impression that Florida is all about mass development. Because, the truth is, it’s a supremely wild place.

Follow me, if you dare!

When we lived in the Sunshine State, in an apartment complex snuggled in swampland, with a sparkling pool and carpets of thick-bladed grass all around us, a new warning sign was staked into the ground one day. Right by our mailbox.

BEWARE OF ALLIGATORS, it said. And it wasn’t a joke. They’d found a baby gator nearby.

For me, a city girl from London, this served as a reminder that I was now living in a subtropical paradise where alligators turn up in neighbourhood swimming pools and roam the golf courses. It was the first time in my life that getting eaten was actually a possibility.

This time around, on holiday with our boys, I talked up the gators. “Look out for the alligators,” I told them, every time we were near swampy water. “They especially luurrvvve naughty boys.”

We came across a pool of baby gators you could feed ~~small children to~~ at a crazy golf course in Daytona Beach, and spent a long time peering at a head-like rock in the crystal-clear waters at Blue Springs State Park. But, our one and only up-close sighting came at a rather surprising place.

On a bus tour round the Kennedy Space Centre.

Remarkably, there’s a pristine wildlife refuge right by the rockets with 500 different species, including sea turtles who heave their huge bodies onshore to lay eggs just a short distance from the launch pads.

For my boys, the alligator made their day – and was upstaged only by the black-spotted snake and giant spider’s web we encountered on a walk in the woods.

Who says holidays with children can’t be wild?

The wonderful wetlands of central Florida: Not somewhere to dip your toe in

Can you remember what you wanted to be when you “grew up”?

Until I was about 15 and had to start filling in careers advisory forms, I dreamt about being an astronaut [laughs head off now].

It might have been because my mum sat me in front of the 1972 moon landing when I was a baby, but whatever the reason, being something of a space nerd definitely played a big role in knowing my husband was the one.

Excuse me while I digress and remember the moment: On a date (in a light aircraft), he flew us at a low altitude down the 4.5km-long runway at Nasa’s Cape Canaveral. ‘Wow, this is what you see when you return from a mission,” I thought to myself, amazed.

With 33 space flights under its belt, and still covered in space dust, the Atlantis will spend its retirement ‘wowing’ visitors to the Kennedy Space Centre.

(It was the closest I’d ever get to being an astronaut, because, the truth is, I wouldn’t last five minutes in space with all that bird-legged bouncing around, zero-gravity puffiness and endless freeze-dried food.) And, obviously, if we attempted to fly low over the space shuttle landing facility now, we’d be shot down. Pronto.

But my fascination with space is still there and bubbled over on a visit to the Kennedy Space Centre on holiday. My most memorable moment of the entire trip took place when the doors to the new $100m Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit opened.

“Is it real?” I gasped, eyes wide as I walked slowly up to the black-and-white space shuttle. Presented as though it’s in mid-flight, the Atlantis still bears all its scuffs, scorch marks and space dust from her last mission. “Yes, it’s real,” confirmed DH (who used to see the shuttle zoom past while buzzing around Florida airspace years ago).

In awe, and so close I could almost touch it, it was as much as I could do to not start clapping.