Nala & pride "A Bucket Full of Magic" TR About This Page:

[Nala]

Hi everyone,

If you are just joining me for this adventure, you might want to start with the pre-trip report here: http://www.passporterboards.com/foru...-trip-ptr.html

If you have already read that, well, then read on. Let the adventure begin.


Tuesday morning finally came and our routine was pretty much normal. Grumpy got Kiara ready for school while I got ready for work, and when the time came make our morning drive, Grumpy got behind the wheel to drop us both off. From there, he headed home and loaded the Toaster and waited for the time to pass. I, in the meantime, was busting my hump to clear my desk. It was an ugly day at work, but after 8-½ hours, I finally threw in the towel, told my co-workers I was done, and made my way out the door to join the pride, who were waiting for me in the parking lot.

And while I didn’t scream on the way out, I did pass a co-worker, that I have a good relationship with, and as I walked out the door, I turned to her and in a very loud voice said “I’m going to Disney World!” and out the door I ran. I hopped in the passenger side, looked at Grumpy and said “DRIVE!” I wanted to get as far away from that place as I possibly could. I was extremely stressed out but after we got a few miles down the road, I felt my frustrations leaving me, and a smile began to break out on my face. We were on our way.

We had traveled about ten miles when from the back seat we heard Kiara say “Is that Florida up there?” It was going to be a long drive.

The drive that evening was pretty much uneventful, but Kiara did say something from the backseat that puzzled us. Out of the blue she said “I don’t like Ak and Eddie. Eddie scares me” Grumpy and I couldn’t figure out what in the world she was talking about, or who Eddie was, but it finally dawned on Grumpy what she was saying. Yak and Yeti! We got a good laugh out of it, and then explained to Kiara that Yak and Yeti was a restaurant, and there was no scary Eddie in it.

We had traveled a few hundred miles and decided to look for a place to spend the night. We had no intention of pushing too far that evening, so we started looking for a hotel. In previous trip reports, I have talked about this strange thing that happens to my brain when on a Disney trip. It is what I affectionately refer to as my “Disney dumbness”. It is almost as if the logical side of my brain pulls down the shade and closes for business, and it became clear that it was setting in rather quickly on this trip.

Grumpy and I started watching the road signs for a hotel and when we passed one I said “Wow, that's cool”. Grumpy asked what I was talking about and I said “They had the room rates above each of the hotels listed on that sign”. Grumpy reached over, patted me on the leg and said “Ahhh, honey, that would be the EXIT numbers, not the room rates.” We both got a good laugh out of that one and we were still laughing when we pulled into a Comfort Suites. Grumpy checked us in and we headed to our room.

With an indoor pool on the premises , Kiara, of course, wanted to go for a swim. Grumpy took her to the pool and Sarafina and I watched the finale of Dancing with the Stars. Shortly after ten, we all turned in for a good night's rest to ready ourselves for the drive in the morning.

We awoke without the alarm, cleaned up and packed up and were on the road shortly after 7 AM. The drive to Chattanooga was mostly uneventful, with the exception of some heavy rain for the first few hours. Once we passed Nashville, the skies cleared and we noticed it was very warm outside. After about five hours on the road, we found our little cabin on the lake at Hales Bar Marina.

Grumpy headed into the office to check us in and came back out a few minutes later. He told me there had been a mix up in our reservation and instead of a land cabin, they had us booked in a water cabin. This freaked me out a bit, as the water cabins were literally little cabins floating on the lake, with a front and a back door that opened to a little balcony over the water. I knew I would never be able to sleep in one for fear that Kiara, the water obsessed child, would get up in the middle of the night and want to go for a dip! Grumpy said he considered taking the cabin, but the same fear hit him as well. The woman checking him in then realized her error in our reservation and since there was not a one bedroom land cabin available, she did the only thing she could. Upgrade us!

We took a little winding road up a steep hill and found our THREE bedroom, TWO bath cabin! Grumpy had really scored well on this one. We stepped inside and began exploring our home for the evening and found a nice living room with a fireplace.



OK, so the fireplace was an electric one with the fake logs, but it still was a nice touch and added to the ambiance of the place. We explored some more and found a master bedroom with a full bath attached and Grumpy immediately claimed it for us.



We found two more bedrooms and the other full bath, as well as a large eat in kitchen.



And of course, there was the deck with a large grill and a view of the marina and the old power station. Hales Bar Marina was quite the interesting place with a lot of history around it. The power station is reported to be one of the most haunted areas in the state of Tennessee and they offer ghost tours of it. I wish I would have been able to do a tour but there was not one scheduled for the one evening we were there.

We were yet to have lunch, and rather than go on a quest for a restaurant, we decided to make good use of the facilities in the cabin. While I am not one to want to cook while on vacation, or clean up the mess, it seemed only fitting that we should grill some steaks and just spend the evening relaxing and enjoying our surroundings. We found a grocery store, picked up what we needed and headed back to the cabin. Sarafina and I set to work getting everything ready for dinner while Grumpy did what he does best:



Grillin’ and chillin’

The meal was wonderful, even if we cooked way too much food, and we spent the rest of the evening sitting on the deck and enjoying the warm night air. The pride was full and tired and one by one they each turned in and I was the last one standing. By 7:30, I found myself alone, but I didn’t mind as I enjoyed the quiet of the surrounding woods and water around me. It really was a peaceful place to be and I wished we were able to spend a bit more time there.

After a few hours, I decided to turn in as well and sleep quickly found me.


Up next: Life’s a beach
　
　
　

[ariel14]

Great start Nala!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[greentie]

Wow! What a nice upgrade! It sounds like your trip got off to a great start. Hopefully by the time you were enjoying the grill all the stresses of work were well and truly behind you.

[bonphil]

Wonderful start! Looking forward to more!

[disneydani]

Awesome upgrade and a great way to kick off the Magic! Glad you could unwind from the work craziness by munching on a steak and enjoying the great outdoors.

Looking forward to Kiara's first reaction of the ocean!

danielle

[islandgirl]

Great start! Congrats on the cabing upgrade!

[Colexis Mom]

Great start Nala! What a great cabin!

[lauriep]

The magic has already begun--Upgrade! "Ak and Eddie"

[B.M.]

great start!

[nalexander]

Great start

[lazanya]

Great start!

[Minnie Lor]

Nice dig's! The cabin on the water sounds interesting to see but not someplace I'd feel comfortable staying. Love Ak and Eddie.

[Ciavobella]

Hurry back

[Nala]

Originally Posted by Minnie Lor

The cabin on the water sounds interesting to see but not someplace I'd feel comfortable staying.

I totally agree!!!! I like to think I don't have a fear of water, but rather great respect for it. I forgot to include a picture of the floating cabins.



As cool as they look, there is no way I could have slept in one of these, even if Kiara was not along for the ride. I think if we had spent the night in one of these, the song "My Heart Will Go On" would have been running through my head.

[Nala]

I awoke long before dawn and quickly realized I was alone in bed. Grumpy was not in the bathroom, so I climbed out of bed and went to look for him. One step out of the bedroom I found him, curled up on the couch. Grumpy opened one eye and in a dry voice, answered the question before I could ask it: “You were snoring like a freight train”.

Sorry, honey. Guess I got really relaxed.

I then noticed that Kiara was on the loveseat across from him and not in one of the other bedrooms where I had last left her. She was wide awake and playing on the computer. It had been a bit of a rough night for poor Grumpy, and since three of the four members of the pride were awake, Grumpy stated we might as well get packed up and hit the road. We were sure that Sarafina would soon be awake too, and a few minutes later she emerged from her bedroom.

We made a pot of coffee, loaded everything back into the Toaster and before the morning light reached Hales Bar, we were on our way. We headed down the narrow, dark, winding road to the highway and proceeded south. As much as I was looking forward to the next chapter in our road trip, a part of me was sorry to leave the marina. There was something very therapeutic about the place and if we wanted to take a trip to a place that would take us back to nature, this would be it. I hope one day we can return for a longer stay. (and I would really love to do one of those ghost tours)

About an hour down the road, the pride was hungry, so we stopped at a Cracker Barrel for breakfast. Eating at one of these had been a favorite thing of mine to do on the many road trips we took to Florida all those years ago, and it was only fitting to do it this trip, if only for the sake of nostalgia. While breakfast was ordinary, it filled us up and we were able to get back on the road pretty quickly.

The drive was a long one, but the weather was good and we noticed it getting warmer and warmer with every mile we traveled south. As we feared, Kiara was growing more and more restless with every mile that passed, but we were spared the usual “Are we there, yet?” question that drives most parents nuts. Instead, Kiara’s version of the question was “Hey, Mom, Dad, when’s Florida come?” After about nine hours of asking the question over and over, we were able to tell her Florida had come and we crossed the border!

Knowing that Amelia Island was not far over the border, thirty miles before we reached it I pulled out the directions Grumpy had printed out for our journey down. Note to self: Besides never trusting a pirate, one should also NEVER trust directions from Map Quest, or Google Earth, or whatever website Grumpy had printed our directions from.

The directions said to take Exit 380, so as we crossed the border, I started looking for Exit 380. The first one I noticed was Exit 377. Hmmmm. Perhaps in my excitement of finally being in Florida, I, the navigator of the pride, had missed it. I watched for the net exit and saw it. Exit 376.

I scratched my head and thought to myself “Houston, we have a problem”. I was certain we had missed our exit and said something to Grumpy. He didn’t get too concerned about it and told me he thought on our previous trips driving to Florida he recalled the exit numbers not matching the mile markers as in other states. We decided to wait for the next exit before we started to panic. It came. Exit 375. And, it matched the mile marker. Clearly something was wrong. Either we had missed our exit, and two others for that matter, or our directions were wrong.

As we tried to figure out what was going on, a sign for Amelia Island appeared in front of us. We took the exit and did our best to figure out which way to go. Knowing that our hotel had a Ferandina Beach address, we followed the signs to it. After driving around for a bit, and not making any progress, Grumpy called the hotel, told them where we were, and they were able to point us in the right direction. A few minutes later, we pulled into our hotel.

(And, for the record, we found out there is no exit 380 on I-95. Again I say, never trust those internet directions! )

The Amelia Hotel looked exactly as I expected it would and it was really lovely from the outside. Grumpy headed in to do the check in thing while the three of us stayed in the Toaster. He soon returned with our room key and we followed him to check it out. The hotel was small, and it was pretty easy to figure out that there were two views available. The view of the parking lot on the backside of the hotel, which was what we had booked, and the view of the ocean, on the front side of the hotel. When we found our room, I was thrilled to see it was actually on the side facing the ocean! Grumpy had scored yet another upgrade.

We entered the room to find it to be a standard sized hotel room, but the furnishing were quite lovely, done in the dark cherry Queen Anne style that I adore, and it was very clean, well cared for and well appointed. Knowing that we had an ocean view, I went to the window to pull back the curtains. Being that the room was on the first floor, much of the view was blocked by the buildings across the street, but between them, we did have a little glimpse of the ocean beyond them. I was tickled with the little view we had, as it was far better than what we had booked would have been, and we didn’t plan on spending too much time in the room.

Grumpy and I quickly unloaded what we needed for the night and were ready to make our way to the beach to show Kiara the ocean for the first time. Kiara, on the other hand, wanted her swim suit. Since we had passed the tiny pool on our way to the room, she was adamant about getting in it. Grumpy and I both had to put our foot down on that idea and we attempted to explain to her that there was something bigger and better waiting for her across the street. Reluctantly, she agreed to give up the pool and we all headed to the beach.

We crossed the street and began the short walk to the shore and it was clear that Kiara was fascinated by the ocean. As I stood by her side, I asked her what she thought. In a quiet voice, which was almost a whisper, and filled with awe, Kiara slowly said “It’s beautiful”. And that it was. In fact, I don’t know what was more beautiful. The glorious, majestic ocean, or the look of wonder I saw in my daughter’s eyes.
　
Sarafina, who loves to comb the beach, took Kiara by the hand and led her across the sand to the water’s edge. Instantly she became obsessed with collecting shells and within minutes, my pockets and hands were filled with the treasures she had found. While she was intrigued by the massive body of water in front of her, she was also a bit apprehensive about it and stuck close to the edge, never getting brave enough to let anything more than the waves barely lick her feet.



As we walked a bit farther up the beach, Kiara found a tidal pool and was smitten with it. Unlike the surf in front of her, this body of water was still, and at that moment, was more her speed. She was completely enthralled with it and had a ball walking in it and exploring every inch of it.




I must admit, I too was fascinated by the tidal pool. I found the pattern the waves had left in the sand, as well as the footprints Kiara and Grumpy left in it, to be quite beautiful.



As the sun set lower in the sky, Grumpy stated that we should probably head out and find a place to eat dinner. He reminded me it was Thanksgiving, and our options were limited because of that.

Thanksgiving. It was Thanksgiving day. I had almost forgotten about that. For the first time in my life, I didn’t spend Thanksgiving day around a table with my extended family. For the first time in my life, I didn’t stuff myself with turkey and all the fixings. There was no pumpkin pie, there were no dishes to clean up, there was no football on TV to watch. It was the most unconventional, nontraditional Thanksgiving I had ever had.

But, as I stood and watched Grumpy and Kiara playing in the tidal pool, and Sarafina walking the beach collecting shells, I knew it was the best Thanksgiving I had ever had. I was with the three people I loved and cherished the most. And as I watched them, I knew I had so much to be thankful for.
　
Up next: Thanksgiving dinner - beach style