Orange world

"Ladies and gentlemen, please keep the limbs of your children out of the aisles." Flight attendants working Orlando-bound routes include this admonishment in their airplane safety talks because planes bound for the Magic Kingdom have lots of antsy kids aboard.

Dana and I are back from the Orlando-as-substitute-for-Egypt spring break trip. Because we should have been doing relatively exotic things like navigating Cairo's labyrinthine Khan el-Khalili souk, contemplating the Sphinx and sailing the Nile on the deck of a felucca, I sought out Orlando activities with at least a whiff of adventure. Orlando is theme parks, kitschy retail strips and the sidewalk-less freeways that connect them, but we did manage to find some fun stuff that had nothing to do with big-eared mice, princesses, movie studios, killer whale performances or shops selling citrus and seashells.

We drove about 45 minutes southeast of Orlando to Forever Florida, a 4,700-acre wildlife ranch and conservation area with a menu of EcoSafaris designed to get you out into the Florida wild. You can hike, ride on horseback, travel in a safari vehicle or take a two-hour zipline safari through a varied ecosystem, which we opted for. Advance reservations are essential, as spaces are limited and fill fast.

The zipline safari was exhausting and exhilarating. And scary. I wanted to quit several times, like when we were in the staging area learning how to put on and control our gear and were told "DO NOT TOUCH THE CABLE. YOU ARE MOVING AT 15-20 MILES PER HOUR AND IF YOU PUT YOUR HAND UP THERE THE CABLE WILL SLICE THROUGH YOUR SKIN, MUSCLE AND BONE," and when we climbed the first tower we had to jump from, a tower three times higher than the fire ranger tower atop a mountain near our New Hampshire place, a tower I gave up climbing years ago because each step on those metal stairs with the huge, see-through gaps between them made me want to faint or vomit. But, hey! I'm on vacation! Keep climbing, baby!

Had I not kept going I would have missed zipping over a 12-foot gator who'd been relegated to this isolated outpost in a muddy bog in the woods because, according to our guide, "he kept swimming over to the kids' camp where the kids go kayaking."

At Horse World Stables, 12 miles down a quiet road from my parents' rental condo in Kissimmee, Dana spent two afternoons communing with the horses and went on a trail ride specifically geared to her intermediate/advanced level. Horse World is a beautiful, peaceful, family-run place that rescues unwanted and abused horses and and treats them well. "All our horses die here," said the owner, and he meant that as a good thing. There's a horse cemetery on the property.

While Dana rode, I sat on a dock over a pond and watched a long-necked, black bird swallow a live snake whole. The process took 25 minutes and was almost as exciting as the zipline.

www.LoriHein.com

Hipmunk: Sort by agony

We've been figuring out what to do with spring break week, the week for which I still hold four spots on Intrepid Travel's Egypt Adventure trip and four tickets on Delta's flight 84 to Cairo. Cancellation gymnastics to begin in earnest on that tomorrow; I'm waiting for Intrepid to cancel our departure. They've canceled all Egypt trips through the day before our departure and will decide on ours tomorrow, using the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade travel advisory status as a guide. As long as Egypt remains on the department's "Do Not Travel" list, Intrepid will cancel our departure (I hope). I'm waiting for Intrepid to cancel us because that will make it a little easier to recoup our money: Intrepid will give us a refund for the land portion, and I'll just have to battle the insurance company over the airline tickets.

Mike's decided to take the planned vacation week and stay home and work. Adam's going to head to our New Hampshire place for some snowboarding. Dana and I have invited ourselves to Orlando to my parents' rental condo in the Villas at Seven Dwarfs Lane. Talk about plans doing a 180: from revolution in the Middle East to sunning in a gated community named for Disney characters.

I've been bouncing around Kayak, Travelocity, Expedia and Orbitz trying to find the best flights to and from Orlando, and it's been a piece of work. I don't want to pay top dollar, but I want nonstops and convenient departure and arrival times on both ends. Trying to get these pieces to fit has been difficult. Until now.

I just found Hipmunk, a website that lets you sort flights by various categories, including "agony." This is just what I've been looking for. Hipmunk measures the agony factor of flights by considering price, duration and number of stops. And it displays search results on a spreadsheet that gives you an easy, intuitive view of how flights compare.

When you find flights with the degree of agony that's right for you, you can click through to Orbitz to buy your tickets. Hipmunk is genius and is my new go-to flight search site. Even if you're not going anywhere, Hipmunk's fun to play with.

www.LoriHein.com

Uncrowded America: Bikers, fish and one old grouch

We're about to take off for the Fourth of July weekend. We're spending it, as we always do, at our place in New Hampshire's Monadnock region. While I can't wait to get there and crack a beer, I'm not looking forward to being on the highway for the next four hours with thousands of other people. Four-dollar a gallon gas notwithstanding, the roads will be mighty crowded this afternoon.

Makes me nostalgic for some of the uncrowded places I've seen in my journeys around America.

Like Sand Cut, Florida, the "Speck Capital of the World." This little burg sits on Lake Okeechobee, the best spot in Florida to fish for speck, also known as speckled perch or black crappie. Sand Cut gets a lot of fishing visitors but has a permanent population of fewer than 10 souls, including the "old grouch" who merits mention on the hamlet's welcome sign.

Then there's Aladdin, Wyoming, population 15. When the kids and I drove through it, we stopped at the Aladdin General Store, where dozens of bikers on their way to Bike Week in nearby Sturgis, South Dakota, were hanging out on the store's porch chugging Cokes and smoking Marlboros. I sat on the porch and marveled that, for those few rest stop minutes, we and the bikers had swelled Aladdin's population to triple its normal size.

www.LoriHein.com