WOW, I thought driving a bus was tough because it was so long. This guy is hauling broken down buses on a trailer into the shop. So that's where we are: where broken down buses go to feel better. Disney has some very cool graphics on their buses- this one is a Van Hool 2145 that has smooth sides that make it easy to do graphics anyway you want them without being able to see what the real window profile is. They also have a cruise ship window- porthole style that looks like an old school sailing ship.

Why Winter Garden? A planned stop at ABC Bus- as we replace 2 pieces of windshield glass that were assaulted by gravel while we were in the ROCKY mountain region last month. Now, all of the front glass is new and what a great view! Also tuned up the air conditioning- like riding in a 45’ refrigerator. As it goes sometimes, the bus people want the bus overnight and we’ll have to suffer through a hotel stay- c’est la vie. During the day without a bus we decided to follow up on a rack card that advertised The Jesus Film Project, near Orlando.

No shortage of cutting edge technology here from film and exhibition to attractive signage.

At the Campus Crusade for Christ campus, there is a entire wing dedicated to this immense undertaking. The film has been around since 1979. Translations of it are still being done, and at the time we visited, they were up to 1,100-ish languages other than English. They use the talent of college aged volunteers that go into other countries and record local people reading the script of the film, then dub and synchronize the new language so it matches very closely the original spoken words. It was interesting to learn about their switch from 16mm film projectors that they have been using for exhibition in all of these countries- to a pocket sized projector. Now, their entire film projection system fits in a moderately sized backpack. I also now know where you could get a good deal on a few 16mm projectors... Part of the tour was for a volunteer to read a few lines while the film was running- their voice was recorded and then played back with the film. It was funny that our volunteer was a girl, and the speaker in the film was Peter. Good match of syllables, but it was a girl’s voice- quite comical. If you have the chance to go, volunteer! Ours received a DVD with her ‘performance’.

Just back inside from the heist with her fruity booty. Just one, just to get a feel of freshness.

Kelly is the queen of finding good deals- and that night booked us into a 3 bedroom condo of about 1200 sq ft, with a pool and washer dryer. After our restful swimming overnight, and on the way to pick up Bussie, we ran across miles of grapefruit and orange groves. Our resident family u-picker Kelly insisted we stop and feel the fruit on the tree. Covertly she did just that and came back with a grapefruit sample. We wondered why all locals don’t have a fruit tree in their yards? Just one tree for the family? In Clermont we stumbled on a city park (NW of CR 561 and Seminole St) with a great wooden superplayground, and raised boardwalk to the adjacent lake.

So, Simon was walking along and this lizard jumped him and nearly ate him all up and he was screaming and crying and... actually, he was pretty proud of this lizard that we set on his hat to let us get a closer look at it.

The park provided us with a shaded spot to park for the day (thank you Google Maps for the recon) and a 500’ boardwalk across the swampy canal that I was almost sure we would find the alligators that we’d been searching for in. Collecting all of the sightings from all of the family members, we saw: bald eagles, painted turtles, alligators (I did not witness this), water snake, lizards and all the other standard park animals (squirrel-ers, birds, etc). We snuck another free night in at Home Depot, and then headed for Cocoa Beach and the East Coast.

They sounded this sign out when they read it, to their surprise! The park looked naturally decorated for Halloween- with Spanish Moss on every tall tree and bush along the walk. We dare you to walk THAT plank at night!  ooooOOOO-oooh!