Old Timer

Florida

No, I did not use the title "Old Timer" because Florida is filled with "snow birds" that venture down there for the winters. I actually used that because Florida is home of St. Augustine. This is the oldest permanent settlement in the United States.  I actually taught my students about St. Augustine last week and had them make visitor brochures to convince me to visit.  Clearly, they weren't convincing enough... 

Florida is also home to the "most magical place on Earth" -- Disney World.  
So instead of going to St. Augustine, I decided to take the most basic trip with my two best friends to Disney World... just like 70,000 other people on memorial day weekend. On average, between 45,000 to 100,000 people visit Disney World daily making the yearly attendance around 50 MILLION PEOPLE!! With all that being said, the most important part of planning a trip to Disney is picking people that know "How to do Disney." It can easily go from the best place on Earth to the most miserable! And let me just say we rocked it. We did the whole experience... visited all the parks, had mickey bars at 9:30 am, ate and drank around the world, rode the best rides with the shortest waits and even had matching shirts. All of this was completed successfully in a day and a half.  So if anyone wants a tour guide or pointers,  I have summers off!  :)  

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Here is a couple of the new things we learned on our Florida trip. 

1. There is tons of tolls! Believe it or not, Florida has the most toll roads and bridges. We learned this the hard way since we probably owe the rental car place lots of toll money since we did not realize basically every road is a toll road! We switched our GPS to avoid tolls and 10-15 minutes were added to each drive.
2. The Winn-Dixie is opened until 12:00am and has the nicest workers. Even though we were those costumers coming in a 11:50 and all loud because we haven't seen each other in months, they were still extremely nice and helpful! If you are in Orlando at Winn-Dixie, ask for Brian. (he's the best and knows thfe secrets of cracking a coconut)This is where I purchased the fresh Florida oranges and coconuts that inspired the Florida cookie. However, FL is largest producer for watermelon!  

After an extremely relaxing and exciting "business trip".. I'm excited to announce, ​

"The Gator" 
The gator is a double chocolate orange cookie with a coconut and orange chocolate glaze on top.  
The oranges used for the cookie are from Hale Groves. On their website you can order fresh Florida fruit to your home monthly! The coconut was brought back from Winn-Dixie. However, I was told the best way to drink a coconut is to find it fresh of the beach. (Thanks Brian:)) 

Thanks for reading and continuing to follow me throughout my journey to create a cookie for each state! 
​If you have any ideas or places you want me to visit, email me! 
​I would love to add you to my adventure! 
​
xo 

Jessica Rose