Wondering No More

I will admit it: That upside down building on International Drive in Orlando has always intrigued me. So much so that I suggested a trip to WonderWorks Orlando during a recent visit to the city. But after I got my husband, daughter, sister-in-law, and mother-in-law on board, I started to worry a little about what we might find there. Would it be wackily whimsical or weirdly woeful?

Luckily, WonderWorks exceeded my expectations. Yes, it was teeming with tourists and summer campers. But it also offered opportunities for many entertaining and educational experiences.

In the course of a couple of hours, Lindsay felt the force of a simulated magnitude 5.3 earthquake, created some monster bubbles, lay (very briefly) on a bed of nails, climbed into a replica Mercury space capsule, and stuck her hand into some icy cold water meant to demonstrate the conditions faced by the passengers on the Titanic.

We all got a good laugh when she posed in full astronaut gear, and again when her body appeared to disappear thanks to a mirror-covered box. And we adults got to put our powers of perception to the test in the Far Out Illusion Gallery, where we marveled at an image of Jesus floating on the wall and other tricks that our eyes and minds played on us.

“I love WonderWorks!” Lindsay shouted as we neared the end of our visit. And I was just happy that our trip to what could have been a tourist trap didn’t wind up being an experiment gone wrong.

Streetcar Simplicity

My daughter knows what a tweet is. She can navigate an iPad with the best of them. So during a recent visit to Tampa, it was heartening to see that she got just as much of a thrill from an old-fashioned form of transportation as from a spirited session of Angry Birds.

We were cruising around the city on the TECO Line Streetcar System, which travels between Tampa’s Ybor City neighborhood and the southern edge of its downtown area. In car-centric Florida, we don’t get many chances to try out different modes of public transportation. So Lindsay excitedly climbed aboard the bright yellow, vintage-looking electric streetcar that pulled up to our stop in Ybor City.

We were the first passengers to board, so we had our pick of the car’s polished wood seats. Soon we began to make our way to the Channel District. My husband and I were happy to let someone else do the driving; Lindsay enjoyed watching the driver as he maneuvered the streetcar down the tracks, tooting its horn now and then to alert cars and pedestrians to its movements.

Thanks to this throwback to the early twentieth century, we were able to cover a lot of ground during our day in Tampa, without having to traverse unfamiliar city streets or search for parking spaces. And Lindsay got a taste of what life was like before everyone just punched coordinates into their own GPS devices.

Want to read more about our day riding the TECO Line Streetcar System? Check out my story in the July/August 2012 issue of RSW Living (free registration required).