Clearwater to Orlando

The next morning we woke up and headed over to Clearwater to see what the beach looked like. Brent and I were shocked. It was absolutely gorgeous! You wouldn't know it based upon area in Clearwater you have to drive through to get to the beach. In fact, we even debated on turning around just because the traffic was heavy and it didn't look like there was much hope for the beach at the end of it.  But, when we finally crossed the bridge over to Clearwater Beach, our jaws dropped. The water was turquoise and the hotels were tall and gorgeous.

The only sad little picture I took that doesn't do the water justice. 

It's definitely worth vacationing at in the future! We had hoped to stay and play at the beach for awhile but since the kids were already asleep in the car, we felt like it was a better option to let them nap and push on through to Orlando instead. We did get to drive by the aquarium where Winter the dolphin with the prosthetic tail lives (although I'm way too big of a wuss to ever watch the movie).

Half way to Orlando, there is a little roadside stand called Parkesdale Farms which President Obama deemed as having the best strawberry milkshakes in the entire country. While I don't necessarily agree with him politically, he might be right about the milkshakes. As far as strawberry milkshakes go, it was in fact the best strawberry milkshake I've ever tasted. We tried the strawberry shortcake too, but it wasn't half as good as the shake. It's probably worth the stop if you're a huge strawberry milkshake fan. Callie loved it!

When we got to Orlando, we headed to downtown Disney to get a taste of Mickey.  It really made us miss the Magic Kingdom.  We wandered around for awhile and had fun poking around in shops we had never been in before.  We finally got to our hotel after dinner and we were all so tired.  The kids kinda whimpered off to sleep missing their own beds at home, and we kinda were too.

Jenny boat from Forrest Gump.

Vinylmania!