As with all trips, there is fun along the way that may not have been included in the game plan. the hunt for a Winn-Dixie that couldn't be found, and stumbling upon great roadside oddities such as the building shaped like a fresh orange, the Gator Motel with it's amazing plaster gator eating a car, the upside down building and of course, the three story McDonalds shaped like a box of frys. We discovered a great little snack bar by the pool at our hotel, and laughed that most of the seven channels we were able to get on our cruddy TV were in black and white.
We packed as much in as we could on this amazing free trip and thank Alloy and Do Something from the bottom of our hearts for this great escape!
THE END
Monday, May 2, 2011
Epcot Center, DisneyWorld
As much as Harry Potter geeks, we are Disney geeks. To have a trip to Orlando and not see DisneyWorld would have been heartbreaking. Robyn Needham to the rescue. Just out of the blue she mentioned she had some unused tickets that would expire at the end of may, and would we be interested? Unbelievable! She even had food coupons!!! So plans went into motion on when and how we would do Disney. Becca had never been to DisneyWorld so I was extra thrilled to be able to give her that opportunity.
I had been when my first three kids were little but I had forgotten how massive the property is. You could NEVER walk there from a hotel like you can with DisneyLand. I spent more time driving on the Disney property to the parks than I did from the hotel to the property itself. So impressive. We went first to the Animal Park which has been a dream of mine, but they were CLOSED. I should have known something was up when the sign on the parking building said "Continue to parking" without charging. I mean, when would Disney not charge for parking? So, we went on to Epcot. You would think that I would feel disappointed that I didn't get to do the Safari that was on my bucket list, but I was too excited to be at Disney to feel let down. When we walked into Epcot the smells were amazing. HGTV was doing a gardening festival and topiary's of the characters were everywhere and the flowers were abundant, spectacular and more fragrant than I can describe. We wandered from one adorable character to another, amazed that they could do that with plants. It was enough just to be there to see that! But we also enjoyed the rides, the hats, the people watching, and, thanks to Robyn, a fabulous meal. We even got to see Paul Revere and the Raiders in concert! Becca's new medication causes her to tire quickly (we've gotta get her some new stuff) so we left, just before the fireworks. Quite a magical day!
I had been when my first three kids were little but I had forgotten how massive the property is. You could NEVER walk there from a hotel like you can with DisneyLand. I spent more time driving on the Disney property to the parks than I did from the hotel to the property itself. So impressive. We went first to the Animal Park which has been a dream of mine, but they were CLOSED. I should have known something was up when the sign on the parking building said "Continue to parking" without charging. I mean, when would Disney not charge for parking? So, we went on to Epcot. You would think that I would feel disappointed that I didn't get to do the Safari that was on my bucket list, but I was too excited to be at Disney to feel let down. When we walked into Epcot the smells were amazing. HGTV was doing a gardening festival and topiary's of the characters were everywhere and the flowers were abundant, spectacular and more fragrant than I can describe. We wandered from one adorable character to another, amazed that they could do that with plants. It was enough just to be there to see that! But we also enjoyed the rides, the hats, the people watching, and, thanks to Robyn, a fabulous meal. We even got to see Paul Revere and the Raiders in concert! Becca's new medication causes her to tire quickly (we've gotta get her some new stuff) so we left, just before the fireworks. Quite a magical day!
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter
Universal Studios, FL. That is where we thought we were going. We wanted to see what they did when trying to make a theme park out of the Harry Potter books. But we were wrong. After a long walk through the lost civilization, we saw it, and when we stepped through the gates we knew we were someplace else. We were REALLY in Hogsmeade. What a transformation. I can't imagine that it could have been done any better. Spectacular. To be fair, I have to admit we are complete HP geeks. Yes, we are the ones you laugh at who are wearing robes and carrying wands at the latest book or movie opening. But then that might make us more hard to please in this situation. But it is AMAZING!
From the moment you step in you hear the Harry Potter theme song welcoming you in. The charming British train conductor is there welcoming you next to the Hogwarts Express. The train is exactly as I envisioned it, but you can't ride it. The snow capped houses with their little crooked chimneys made you feel chilled, even in the 90 degree heat. We meandered through the streets, stopping at HoneyDukes candy store, Zonkos Joke Shop, and stopped to drink DELICIOUS Butter Beer at the Three Broomsticks. Hogwarts Castle looms majestic at the end of the streets, and we chose the walking tour rather than the ride for fear that a ride would cheapen this experience that felt so completely real. I loved the "Owl Post" which was the post office, filled with Owls in the rafters waiting for their assignments. The shops did NOT sell heavily merchandised things such as "My Grandma went to Harry Potters Wizarding World and all I got was this dumb T-shirt." Sure you could get a hoodie that said "Harry Potter" on it, but mostly it was things that students themselves could buy on a HogsMeade trip. Sneek a Scopes, Extendable Ears, Pigmy Puffs, Chocolate Frogs, Robes, Wands, etc. When Becca bought her choclolate frog, she had to sign her credit card receipt with a quill. The details are amazing, right down to something like that. As usual, a bathroom visit was required, and Moaning Myrtle was crying and complaining all through the bathroom. The whole "world" was better than I expected could be done at all. It was true to the books which I loved. Thank you Universal, for making a place where HP fans can step into the world they love!
P.S. If you are planning a trip, I highly recommend the ButterBeer, not so much the Pumpkin Juice....
From the moment you step in you hear the Harry Potter theme song welcoming you in. The charming British train conductor is there welcoming you next to the Hogwarts Express. The train is exactly as I envisioned it, but you can't ride it. The snow capped houses with their little crooked chimneys made you feel chilled, even in the 90 degree heat. We meandered through the streets, stopping at HoneyDukes candy store, Zonkos Joke Shop, and stopped to drink DELICIOUS Butter Beer at the Three Broomsticks. Hogwarts Castle looms majestic at the end of the streets, and we chose the walking tour rather than the ride for fear that a ride would cheapen this experience that felt so completely real. I loved the "Owl Post" which was the post office, filled with Owls in the rafters waiting for their assignments. The shops did NOT sell heavily merchandised things such as "My Grandma went to Harry Potters Wizarding World and all I got was this dumb T-shirt." Sure you could get a hoodie that said "Harry Potter" on it, but mostly it was things that students themselves could buy on a HogsMeade trip. Sneek a Scopes, Extendable Ears, Pigmy Puffs, Chocolate Frogs, Robes, Wands, etc. When Becca bought her choclolate frog, she had to sign her credit card receipt with a quill. The details are amazing, right down to something like that. As usual, a bathroom visit was required, and Moaning Myrtle was crying and complaining all through the bathroom. The whole "world" was better than I expected could be done at all. It was true to the books which I loved. Thank you Universal, for making a place where HP fans can step into the world they love!
P.S. If you are planning a trip, I highly recommend the ButterBeer, not so much the Pumpkin Juice....
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Kellie Pickler Meet and Greet
The day started slowly with Becca needing to sleep in because she was having a reaction to the meds. So we didn't leave the hotel until around 2:30. It felt good to get in the car and on our way to someplace special. I mentioned to Becca that this trip was good for me in many ways. The biggest way was to show me I was completely capable of doing things like this on my own. Neal always does the driving when we travel, and sometimes I forget that I am perfectly able to do that kind of stuff on my own. Those thoughts and statements will now live in infamy in family legend....
I brought my own GPS because I wasn't sure that we would be getting a car with one, and I was already familiar with mine. I plug in the address, and it asks me if I would like to simulate this route. I have never seen this screen before and selected no. Then the darn thing wouldn't do anything. The screen popped up again so I selected yes and away we went. It told me to turn left, and we were off to the Suwanee Music Festival deep in the woods of Live Oak, FL! Along the way I was delighted to see the building shaped like an orange that was on my "oddities" list as well as the Gator Motel featuring a large gator eating a car. We stopped at both for pictures. I just want to say that Florida is beautiful. Becca slept as we drove for several hours past heavily forested areas and then wide open grazing land with cows and very odd, long birds that at first I took for geese, but later decided they were too tall and skinny to be geese, but not short and squatty enough to be seagulls. Don't know what they were, but it was a pretty sight, and kind of an unusual one, as the only place I saw the birds was where there were cows along our journey. I couldn't figure out why the GPS didn't ever put me on a freeway, but I knew that the festival was in the backwoods somewhere, so maybe that explained it. It also said I was going 68 miles an hour, which wasn't even close on that two way road with constant stoplights. But, it was when we came to a dead end directly in front of a body of water, which I assumed was the ocean, and my GPS was telling me that I had to drive straight for 4 more miles that I knew I had a problem. Oh my gosh, what was going on. Becca was awake by now, and started messing with the GPS and couldn't figure it out. So she plugged in the address on the other GPS and up popped the information that put my heart in the pit of my stomach. We were now 259 miles in the opposite direction of our destination.... Um... What was that bit I was saying about being perfectly capable of getting us around unfamiliar places? We had left quite early to factor in any unforseen problems like traffic, accidents on the road or whatever. But I didn't factor in stupidity.
You see, this trip had already been taken once. Becca and Rachel went to CA to meet Kellie and it was so messed up on their end that she never got to meet her and the company offered her a "re-do" trip. This was that trip. And here I was, nearly three hundred miles from the festival with the meet and greet scheduled in two hours. I felt so sick. So stupid. Obviously I had been following a "simulation" of a trip the whole way that wasn't actually connected to satellites. The weird thing was, that it would say turn left or turn right at perfectly logical places to do so, so it didn't send up any red flags. But who designs a machine that will run a simulation of a several hour trip, IN REAL TIME, and who are the people who want to sit and watch it? So, I had to make the phone call to the person they specifically flew out to help "handle" our meet and greet. "Hello, you know how you were flown to Florida to help us with this awesome opportunity? Well, we are nearly three hundred miles away in the wrong direction." I felt so stupid. She was so nice. I was determined to make it to the festival before she had to leave just to apologize in person. So we turned the car around (as opposed to going the suggested 4 mile route into the ocean) and followed the OTHER GPS's instructions. She kept saying that Kellie didn't go onstage until 8:30, and maybe we could make it, so I believed we could. After several hours on the road, stops for gas, and gut wrenching self loathing, I was turning off onto a dirt road, bumping along to the festival grounds close to ten pm. We stopped at the gate to get our wristbands and parking pass and could hear Kellie say that this would be her last song. Her voice sounded clear and beautiful as it floated through the air, deep in the woods of Florida. Well, at least we could hear her, even if we couldn't watch. We parked and found that our phone did not work in the depths of the woods. Luckily Jacyln had given us instructions on how to find her in the sea of drunken cowboys. After several failed attempts, we connected so I could grovel and beg for forgiveness. She smiled at us and said, "It will just be a few minutes." Whaaaaaat? And indeed, in a few minutes a gentleman who was absolutely adorable, came and escorted Becca and I back to Kellie Picklers TOUR BUS! I had never dreamed that they would still be willing to do a meet and greet with us, let alone at her personal tour bus. She popped her petite blonde head out of the bus and greeted us with a warm "well hi y'all, glad to see you finally made it!" She posed for a couple of pictures and gave Becca a personally autographed picture. It was awesome. She was so sweet and genuine, and her kindness so unexpected from a star, that I was very touched. As we stumbled over the rocky trail back to the drunken cowboys, Jacyln also showed us a video that Kellie had made for Becca when she thought we weren't going to make it. Can you believe that? It will be up on facebook. What a sweet, sweet girl. I hope she has a hugely successful career.
After that excitement we realized how exhausted we were. There were more music acts scheduled in the festival, but with hours to drive, and our mission accomplished we were suddenly anxious to get away from the smokey haze and the boozed up bronco riders. We especially shuddered at the thought of being on the roads at the same time as that crowd. So we stumbled through the woods to the parking lot where our little red car really seemed out of place in a sea of pick up trucks. What a day. As Becca said, it was better than it could have been had I not made my disastrous mistake. We got to go back to her tour bus. We missed the heat and the bugs that were prevalent a few hours earlier. We even got a video from her. And we didn't have to spend all night with a bunch of cowboys whose comments were getting more inappropriate with each beer they drank. Yes. It was a perfect day.
We headed home and about two am we realized that we really hadn't eaten so we stopped at Denny's for an appetizer and some pie and ice cream. I haven't been anywhere but bed at two in the morning for years so this was a real rare experience for me and one that Becca documented by photographs and texts to her siblings. "you will never believe where I am with mom at this hour!" Ok, it's true, it was DAYS past my bedtime. And I was never more happy to see a hotel room in my life.
I brought my own GPS because I wasn't sure that we would be getting a car with one, and I was already familiar with mine. I plug in the address, and it asks me if I would like to simulate this route. I have never seen this screen before and selected no. Then the darn thing wouldn't do anything. The screen popped up again so I selected yes and away we went. It told me to turn left, and we were off to the Suwanee Music Festival deep in the woods of Live Oak, FL! Along the way I was delighted to see the building shaped like an orange that was on my "oddities" list as well as the Gator Motel featuring a large gator eating a car. We stopped at both for pictures. I just want to say that Florida is beautiful. Becca slept as we drove for several hours past heavily forested areas and then wide open grazing land with cows and very odd, long birds that at first I took for geese, but later decided they were too tall and skinny to be geese, but not short and squatty enough to be seagulls. Don't know what they were, but it was a pretty sight, and kind of an unusual one, as the only place I saw the birds was where there were cows along our journey. I couldn't figure out why the GPS didn't ever put me on a freeway, but I knew that the festival was in the backwoods somewhere, so maybe that explained it. It also said I was going 68 miles an hour, which wasn't even close on that two way road with constant stoplights. But, it was when we came to a dead end directly in front of a body of water, which I assumed was the ocean, and my GPS was telling me that I had to drive straight for 4 more miles that I knew I had a problem. Oh my gosh, what was going on. Becca was awake by now, and started messing with the GPS and couldn't figure it out. So she plugged in the address on the other GPS and up popped the information that put my heart in the pit of my stomach. We were now 259 miles in the opposite direction of our destination.... Um... What was that bit I was saying about being perfectly capable of getting us around unfamiliar places? We had left quite early to factor in any unforseen problems like traffic, accidents on the road or whatever. But I didn't factor in stupidity.
You see, this trip had already been taken once. Becca and Rachel went to CA to meet Kellie and it was so messed up on their end that she never got to meet her and the company offered her a "re-do" trip. This was that trip. And here I was, nearly three hundred miles from the festival with the meet and greet scheduled in two hours. I felt so sick. So stupid. Obviously I had been following a "simulation" of a trip the whole way that wasn't actually connected to satellites. The weird thing was, that it would say turn left or turn right at perfectly logical places to do so, so it didn't send up any red flags. But who designs a machine that will run a simulation of a several hour trip, IN REAL TIME, and who are the people who want to sit and watch it? So, I had to make the phone call to the person they specifically flew out to help "handle" our meet and greet. "Hello, you know how you were flown to Florida to help us with this awesome opportunity? Well, we are nearly three hundred miles away in the wrong direction." I felt so stupid. She was so nice. I was determined to make it to the festival before she had to leave just to apologize in person. So we turned the car around (as opposed to going the suggested 4 mile route into the ocean) and followed the OTHER GPS's instructions. She kept saying that Kellie didn't go onstage until 8:30, and maybe we could make it, so I believed we could. After several hours on the road, stops for gas, and gut wrenching self loathing, I was turning off onto a dirt road, bumping along to the festival grounds close to ten pm. We stopped at the gate to get our wristbands and parking pass and could hear Kellie say that this would be her last song. Her voice sounded clear and beautiful as it floated through the air, deep in the woods of Florida. Well, at least we could hear her, even if we couldn't watch. We parked and found that our phone did not work in the depths of the woods. Luckily Jacyln had given us instructions on how to find her in the sea of drunken cowboys. After several failed attempts, we connected so I could grovel and beg for forgiveness. She smiled at us and said, "It will just be a few minutes." Whaaaaaat? And indeed, in a few minutes a gentleman who was absolutely adorable, came and escorted Becca and I back to Kellie Picklers TOUR BUS! I had never dreamed that they would still be willing to do a meet and greet with us, let alone at her personal tour bus. She popped her petite blonde head out of the bus and greeted us with a warm "well hi y'all, glad to see you finally made it!" She posed for a couple of pictures and gave Becca a personally autographed picture. It was awesome. She was so sweet and genuine, and her kindness so unexpected from a star, that I was very touched. As we stumbled over the rocky trail back to the drunken cowboys, Jacyln also showed us a video that Kellie had made for Becca when she thought we weren't going to make it. Can you believe that? It will be up on facebook. What a sweet, sweet girl. I hope she has a hugely successful career.
After that excitement we realized how exhausted we were. There were more music acts scheduled in the festival, but with hours to drive, and our mission accomplished we were suddenly anxious to get away from the smokey haze and the boozed up bronco riders. We especially shuddered at the thought of being on the roads at the same time as that crowd. So we stumbled through the woods to the parking lot where our little red car really seemed out of place in a sea of pick up trucks. What a day. As Becca said, it was better than it could have been had I not made my disastrous mistake. We got to go back to her tour bus. We missed the heat and the bugs that were prevalent a few hours earlier. We even got a video from her. And we didn't have to spend all night with a bunch of cowboys whose comments were getting more inappropriate with each beer they drank. Yes. It was a perfect day.
We headed home and about two am we realized that we really hadn't eaten so we stopped at Denny's for an appetizer and some pie and ice cream. I haven't been anywhere but bed at two in the morning for years so this was a real rare experience for me and one that Becca documented by photographs and texts to her siblings. "you will never believe where I am with mom at this hour!" Ok, it's true, it was DAYS past my bedtime. And I was never more happy to see a hotel room in my life.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Let the Fun Begin
Well, obviously all went OK on the plane, because we are here and ready to have some fun. We had an issue when we first got on the plane. Becca had taken her newly prescribed medication without food and maybe a little too early and had quite a reaction. She had already had some issues with a side effect of "shaking" but once we got on the plane she started trembling so badly that it really scared me. Her hands and shoulders were shaking but her chin was vibrating so badly that I thought it would break. She looked like she was violently freezing to death. The airline attendant grabbed a blanket from first class and other passengers were offering their jackets. It was crazy. But it passed in about ten minutes, but it was a little scary. The think is, I don't think she was cold.
Our rental car is a hot red Toyota Corolla with a gps. I am delighted because I think it will get good gas mileage and we have a lot of driving today.
Today we are heading to DisneyWorld for a few hours and then to the Kellie Pickler concert at the Shaunee Music Festival in Live Oak, FL. We have a meet and greet and concert tickets so we will likely see quite a few artists there tonight. Hope it doesn't go too late because it's a three hour drive back, and hey, it's already past my bedtime... I'll write more tonight if I can still function, but more than likely, it will be tomorrow.
Tomorrow is Harry Potter Day! Can't wait!
Our rental car is a hot red Toyota Corolla with a gps. I am delighted because I think it will get good gas mileage and we have a lot of driving today.
Today we are heading to DisneyWorld for a few hours and then to the Kellie Pickler concert at the Shaunee Music Festival in Live Oak, FL. We have a meet and greet and concert tickets so we will likely see quite a few artists there tonight. Hope it doesn't go too late because it's a three hour drive back, and hey, it's already past my bedtime... I'll write more tonight if I can still function, but more than likely, it will be tomorrow.
Tomorrow is Harry Potter Day! Can't wait!
Thursday, April 28, 2011
The Airport
Well, we are at the airport. We went to the check in desk only for them to tell us that they "couldn't" assign us seats, we had to wait until the gate personnel arrived and THEY could do it. I find it amazing that there are so many American Airline employees who don't have authority to perform simple customer service. And although I don't mind outsourcing to India as much as some people, I think if your business name is AMERICAN airlines, you shouldn't have people answering your phones with such thick accents that they can't be understood. Literally, when I called to work out this seat assignment issue, I had to call back twice because I could not understand the people who answered the phone. But anyway, we got our boarding passes, waited for the gate guy to get here and approached him. He complained that he had to do this simple task because he "wasn't even working that flight", but he did get us seats together, so I'll shut up and be grateful for that.
Departure Day
Well, it's 2:30 am and I am up getting ready for the trip. American Airlines told me that if wanted to ensure that Becca and I sit together that I need to be there at 4:00 am when the ticket counter opened or pay 25 - 35 bucks a seat at a kiosk to make that happen. I find this so absurd that I have no words to describe it. So we are up and packed and getting ready to leave at 3:30 for our 8:40 flight just to make sure that the seats that were booked and paid for are together. Of course, when the people who arranged our flight talked to me, I told them it was the only thing that was important to me as I am quite a mess if I'm not seated next to my travel companion. They assured me that they would make that happen. And yet, here I am, up at 2:30 am, having to attempt to make it happen for myself. I will never, ever fly American Airlines if I am in control of my travel arrangements myself! When you win trips, it isn't entirely under your control, but I'll certainly tell them my preferences. However, once we are past this, we have a lot of great things to look forward to!
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