The first day of my vacation in Florida was the only day when it was not supposed to rain, so Kerrie and I decided to take advantage of the favorable weather to go to her favorite theme park of all times - The Cypress Gardens. It was shut down about two years ago after 62 years of operation. People were lobbying the state to buy it, but finally some rich millionair bought it and opened it again two weeks prior to our visit.

There was an indoor butterfly pavillion where the temperature was much warmer than outside, which Kerrie found very comfortable. There were several kinds of butterflies. One of them looked like a zebra. Here is the special video report by Kerrie:

Due to the recent hurricanes and the fact that the park has been closed for more than a year, there were not as many plants as there used to be. But still it was great to see some exotic plants that I have not seen before. One of them is the Banyan Tree which is quite huge. Parts of the tree's branches came down to the ground and became new roots! On certain parts of the tree, other plants found a home.

There were some other interesting trees that seemed to be happy to grow right out of the water and some preferred to grow sideways instead of upwards. Some parts of the park looked like wild jungle.

There were various shows in various sections of the park. One worth mentioning is the moving statue with fountains of water coming from its the head and hands. It actually was a real person dressed in an amazing costume through which the water was going through to the head and hands. Have a look at the video and see several pipes coming from behind the dress as the woman came down the stairs after the show:

The biggest show of the park is the ski show. When first Kerrie mentioned this to me, I thought that was some ski show on artificial snow, but later she told me that in Florida skiing implies water skiing. Here is a video clip of one of the acrobatic moves: Also as part of the show there was a hang glider who was launched by a tow boat and was able to fly up pretty high. He was cruising in the sky to the sound of music and was able to land on the beach right when the music ended. Amazing timing! Check out the video of his landing:

The latest addition to the park was the rides. They were not as thrilling as the ones in Great Advanture in New Jersey, but still were fun. The great thing was that there were almost no lines and you could go on a ride twice without getting out. Some roller coasters were not designed to fit someone of my size, but I found out about that after I came down from the ride. Kerrie cannot tolerate roller coaters for an extended period of time and I was ready to protect her precious dress from an accident. She did find her ultimate ride though - the one that made her look like a princess in a palace.

Here are all of the photos taken at Cypress Garden.