Rides, Rainclouds and mishaps....Disney Style About This Page:

[CinderAbby]

Thanks for the updates.

1. So sorry about Gertie
2. I LOVED the pics of Abby at 1900 PF
3. You and Lenny are such easygoing people. While you had your share of monkeywrenchs this trip nothing got you down. You still made sure Abby was having a great trip every moment. What great parents.

Thanks Mary, for all you comments. Disney is just such a magical place that it's easy to be easy going, but I try to be at home too (and most often succeed). Plus, with Abby being Autistic, she always looks on the bright side of things and she's so happy 95% of the time - it's very hard not to be happy along with her. Besides, my dad died on the young side (he was only 60) but becasue he was gone so quick, I decided I'm really not gonna sweat the small stuff anymore. I'm much happier that way now. We went to Disney for a family vacation that we all could enjoy and out of everything that happend, nothing (except Gertie) was that major. The scooter, I knew, would either be fixed or we could get a rental. The rain doesn't make us melt and most things are inside anyway, so why go back to the hotel and stay inside when we could do Small World or Peter Pan inside? And the train cancelling - we still had a truck that could take us wherever we wanted to drive. Why let those things ruin a trip we'd been looking forward to for a year?

[emtpej]

Originally Posted by CinderAbby

Thanks Mary, for all you comments. Disney is just such a magical place that it's easy to be easy going, but I try to be at home too (and most often succeed). Plus, with Abby being Autistic, she always looks on the bright side of things and she's so happy 95% of the time - it's very hard not to be happy along with her. Besides, my dad died on the young side (he was only 60) but becasue he was gone so quick, I decided I'm really not gonna sweat the small stuff anymore. I'm much happier that way now. We went to Disney for a family vacation that we all could enjoy and out of everything that happend, nothing (except Gertie) was that major. The scooter, I knew, would either be fixed or we could get a rental. The rain doesn't make us melt and most things are inside anyway, so why go back to the hotel and stay inside when we could do Small World or Peter Pan inside? And the train cancelling - we still had a truck that could take us wherever we wanted to drive. Why let those things ruin a trip we'd been looking forward to for a year?

Keep on the Sunny Side of Life!

[tinker_me_happy]

Originally Posted by CinderAbby

There was more to the MK than just Fantasyland.

Ok I am just finally getting caught up with trip reports!! TOO many August trips! (including my own I've been trying to work on!) But THAT LINE had me CRACKING UP!! But in my family it was Corey - MK = Tomorrowland. Tomorrowland = Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear.

[tinker_me_happy]

Phew! Just finished reading... SO SORRY about Gertie! I know how sad we were when we lost our bunny Coco. WOW you packed in A LOT!! Can't wait to hear how the rest of your trip home went!

[DyanKJ130]

Originally Posted by CinderAbby

Quote:
Trying to squish the gremlins and get to the next page
Am I missing something because I don't get it.

bout that. The boards have been tempermental. The boards were showing that there was a next page and the previous post I made was not showing up. I made another post to get rid of the gremlins, so we could all get to the next page. Didn't mean to cause confusion!

Nice update. Glad you were able to get a refund and find a place to spend the night. I'm so to hear about Gertie! We lost our guinea pig shortly after our trip in 2006 and it was a lot more difficult than any one of us thought it would be.


Looking forward to more

[CinderAbby]

Keep on the Sunny Side of Life!

I certainly try.

Quote:
Originally Posted by CinderAbby

There was more to the MK than just Fantasyland.

Ok I am just finally getting caught up with trip reports!! TOO many August trips! (including my own I've been trying to work on!) But THAT LINE had me CRACKING UP!! But in my family it was Corey - MK = Tomorrowland. Tomorrowland = Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear

I just read your live report and TR. I did laugh about all the times that SM and BL were done.

Phew! Just finished reading... SO SORRY about Gertie! I know how sad we were when we lost our bunny Coco. WOW you packed in A LOT!! Can't wait to hear how the rest of your trip home went!

Thanks Karen. It is tough, but it happens unfortunately (BTW - if you want another bunny by the name of Coco, there's one in our local shelter. She's not a good fit for our family though so we can't adopt her).

I'll post the rest tonight since it's early enough so you won't have to wait too long.

[CinderAbby]

Wednesday the 20th and Thursday the 21st

Wednesday morning, the alarm went off somewhere around 6:30. I was tired as I didn’t sleep well but I got out of bed. Lenny got up too. This was one morning I wouldn’t be running and getting him coffee since we were in the back building of the hotel. We got ready and put our few things in the truck. I don’t remember if I woke Abby up or if she woke up on her own, but soon after she was ready for the day, we put her pillows, jammies and friends in the truck. Once I did a once over of the room, we got in the truck and headed to the lobby. We all went in as Abby and Lenny were hungry. Abby had her Cheerios (again ours as I don’t think the hotel had them) and I’m not sure what Lenny had. I spent the time at the computer in the lobby printing out AAA directions to our next hotel.

Because we didn’t feel like dealing with all the big cities on 95, we chose to go our planned route home (495 to 270 to 70 to 81) once we got closer to DC. I had all those directions, but I wasn’t thinking that morning. Since the Lorton Train Station is on 95, the directions I had from there would have been enough, but I was thinking I needed different directions to 495 and 270 because we were starting in Florence South Carolina. The only difference between the 2 sets of directions was the miles driven on 95 before we took our exit for 495. So new maps in hand, and Lenny and Abby all set to get going, I checked out and we got back on 95.

This is what we saw of South of the Border

I had trouble keeping my eyes open that morning so I ended up dozing on and off. When I was awake, I used the time to start writing out my trip report by hand. Around 11:30, mom called me since it was her lunchtime. She told me if we wanted to keep away from Richmond Virginia and DC, that we should take I-64 to I-81. It would keep us out of the cities, but she didn’t know what kind of time or miles it would add to our trip. I kept it in mind, but without a good map, I wasn’t sure where we would find I-64 (and please don’t tell me in VA - that much I did know, I just didn’t know the exit number.) I told Lenny about mom’s tip and he said he would think about it. A while later, we stopped at a rest area. There was one building with the bathrooms and another that was an info center. When I went in there, there was a gentleman and I assume his wife. He asked if he could help and I asked if he had a map. He got one out and asked what we were looking for. I told him the route we wanted and why. "This time of the day, you’ll be fine through Richmond, but by the time you get to DC, you’ll spend at least 2 hours in the area. And you don’t want to take 64, it’ll add close to 80 miles to your trip. What you want to take is 17 to 66 to 81." I asked him if 17 was a major route and he said yes, it’s a four lane divided highway. I thanked him for all his help and tips and with map in hand, I went back to the truck where Lenny and Abby were waiting for me.

I told Lenny what I had found out and after he looked at the map, he agreed that we would take the route we were just given. The guy had been right. We got through Richmond with no problem at all.

Not a cloud in sight, nor much traffic for that matter

There was very little traffic and once we passed the exit for 64, there was even less - almost everyone else took that route. I wrote more of my trip report, Lenny kept driving and Abby kept watching tv. As long as I kept my mind busy, I was okay so I tried not to stop and think. After a little while, mom called and I told her we decided not to take 64. She didn’t understand but since it was too late to change our minds, she just wished us luck as we went on. We finally made it to the exit for 17 and we took it. We were hungry and Lenny wanted to get gas, so we figured it was perfect. Until we got to the bottom of the ramp that is.

When we got to the bottom of the ramp, what we encountered wasn’t another divided highway. It was like Route 1. For those not from MA and RI (I know Rte 1 goes from Maine to Florida, but I don’t know how it is in other states), Rte 1 has a traffic light like every hundred feet or so in a lot of sections. That’s exactly what we encountered. I guess the problem with 17 lay in one’s definition of major route. To me, when I’m travelling state to state, it’s a route that keeps moving and doesn’t have traffic lights - basically a divided highway like 95. To this gentleman I talked to, I guess a Rte 1 is a major route even though it has traffic lights. No way were we going to drive on it for any length of time. And according to the map, we would have been on 17 for quite a distance. Where we got on it, the traffic was barely moving. We didn’t know if down the road it got better or worse so after getting some sandwiches from Subway and some gas for the van, Lenny said he had a bad feeling about staying on 17. I told him he was the one driving, so we’d go with what felt better to him - staying on 95, the way we had planned.

Luckily we got back on 95 without any problems. We continued driving and once around DC, even though the traffic picked up and was slow going, it only took a few minutes to get to our exit. Once we got there though, it was heavy traffic and extremely slow going. Part of the problem is the highway would go from 4 lanes to 3, then down to 2 only to go back to 3 then down to 2 again. Had the highway stayed the same width the whole time, there would have been no problems, but with all the traffic trying to get in a smaller number of lanes, it caused huge back ups and constant braking. At one point in time, the traffic started to break up so we could go faster than a crawl, but when it started to back up again, that’s when we knew we had problems. Lenny tried to brake and the truck started swerving. I hadn’t really been paying attention so I thought maybe Lenny purposely swerved around something. I asked him why he had done that and he answered because the brake (only the front left one) was overheating. I of course was concerned and asked what we should do. "We need to cool the brake down somehow" was Lenny’s answer and staying in traffic wasn’t the way to go about it. So driving very carefully and trying to stay back from the cars in front of us, Lenny finally found a somewhat wide area of the break down lane to pull over. He got out and poured a bunch of our water on the brake. This helped for all of maybe 2 minutes.

Lenny didn’t panic, so I was able to stay calm. Luckily, we were within something like 20 miles of the hotel so we knew we didn’t have a huge distance to go. Another thing I think that helped was the fact that it was still early, around 4 or so. Since it was so early, we knew even if we had to pull over for a while, we’d still be at the hotel at a reasonable hour. Since what little water we used didn’t seem to help and he didn’t want to get in the breakdown lane again (he was afraid if a cop came by, he’d make us get the van towed and Lenny didn’t want that), Lenny pulled off the highway at one of the exits - I don’t remember which one. What I do remember though is as soon as we got to the bottom of the ramp, I noticed a self-serve car wash set up on a little hill. I pointed it out to Lenny and that’s where he went. Once we got there, Lenny drove around the building and started to pull into a parking spot. I asked him what he was doing. "The brake won’t cool down if we don’t park for a while." Okay I thought, but my answer was this. "Dear, we’re at a car wash. It has water. Can’t we spray the brake with the water and cool it down quicker? The car wash has a lot more water to use than we do." He hadn’t thought of that, but that’s just what he did. He pulled into the bay, got the self serve hose going and just stood there letting it blast the brake. Once his time was up (he paid for something like 2 or 3 minutes), he got back in and we were on our way again. Within something like 5 minutes, we were back on the highway since we couldn’t get back on in the same spot we got off at. The traffic was still kinda slow so we stayed in the right lane and Lenny used the transmission this time to help with the braking. It was still kinda stressful, so I helped the only way I could. I let Lenny know whenever I saw brake lights go on up ahead. He’s colorblind and has difficulty seeing reds and greens at distances. I think the only thing that really helped, like I said, was knowing we were so close to the hotel.

Once we got to the hotel (a Sleep Inn this time, but still a Choice brand), I went and checked us in while Lenny and Abby parked the truck. We grabbed the few things we needed and headed up to the room. It seemed huge to us and we were just like wow (again, a huge room for a small price). There was even a Jacuzzi tub in the bathroom.


Abby likes her bed pulled out from the couch early so we did that first. It wasn’t made up so we found the sheets, made it up and put her friends in bed. After I took a few pictures, we noticed it was dinner time so we headed to the Cracker Barrel that was in front of the hotel. Abby was sick of sitting in the truck and wanted to walk. It was so close that I couldn’t see getting back in the truck and driving so Lenny grabbed his cane from the truck and we walked over. Besides, like I pointed out to Lenny, "Lets give the brake a rest. We still have a distance to drive tomorrow." He agreed and we just took our time walking - which wasn’t long at all. We got seated right away and looked at the menu. Abby got her usual chicken tenders and fries. I got the chicken dumplings with fries, green beans and corn. Lenny got some sort of sampler plate with the chicken dumplings, meatloaf and something else with corn, green beans and broccoli casserole. The chicken I had was awesome with whatever gravy or broth they cooked it in but I didn’t like the dumplings. They were just too doughy or something. The taste was okay, I just couldn’t take the texture. Lenny enjoyed his meal, and as usual cleaned his plate. Abby enjoyed hers and ate up quickly but since they didn’t give her very many fries, I gave her a bunch of mine.

After dinner, we walked out of the Cracker Barrel without any browsing (a rarity for me) and went back to the hotel. It was now time for the pool. I felt like swimming so I got changed and went down with Lenny and Abby. This pool was so cold that even with just my feet in the pool, my whole body got cold so I pulled my feet out and got in the hot tub they had. Once I warmed up, I got out and just watched Lenny and Abby having a good time. Then I called home and told mom what our agenda for Thursday was - mainly just getting up early and heading home. After swimming, we were all tired so called it a night.

Thursday morning went just like Wednesday morning, getting up and ready, putting the stuff in the truck and taking part in the continental breakfast. This hotel had Express checkout so all I had to do was leave the keys at the front desk. Once all that was done, we were on our way again. Like the previous morning, I just couldn’t keep my eyes open so I dozed here and there. When I was awake, I continued with my trip report. Traffic moved really well and by 11 or so, we were at Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania -where we were suppose to spend the night. Lenny commented on how we were about 3 hours behind schedule. He didn’t know it, but we really weren’t. I had originally planned on us being tired and sleeping in that morning and not checking out until 11. Because we had spent the night in a hotel further south and we wanted to get home, we left there early. The end result was about the same though - in Wilkes-Barre around 11 with only about 4 hours left of driving.

The biggest drawback (and it really can’t be called one because traffic kept moving) to travelling on 84 was the fact that for miles, it was down to one lane, but nothing was going on in the other one. We didn’t quite understand what the purpose was in that. Where there was work being done, okay, but there weren’t workers in the 20+ miles that the lane was closed. The workers were probably only in a 1 mile stretch. Somewhere around 1 or so, we stopped to get gas and some lunch. When we were suppose to stay in Wilkes-Barre, I had wanted to try the Perkins Family restaurant that I had found online. We didn’t stay there but there was one at the exit we took for gas. We found a parking spot and went in. After about 5 or so minutes when nobody came to seat anyone waiting (there were people in front and behind us), we left. Even though we wanted to try the restaurant, we really wanted to get home more so we went next door to a strip mall where there was a Subway. In a couple of minutes, I had our lunches and after I got in the truck, we went to the gas station. After the truck was filled up, Lenny parked in the shade and we took enough time to eat half of our sandwiches. Then it was back on the road.

Everything went smoothly the rest of the afternoon. Up until we got about 20 miles from home that is. We were on I-90 (or the Mass Pike as we call it), about 2 miles from our exit, when Lenny went to pass someone. He wasn’t even in the second lane yet when I heard a really funny noise. I asked Lenny what it was and he said "we just lost a tire." Oh great I was thinking. Luckily (or unluckily depending upon how you look at it), Lenny said that’s happened to him before and he was able to get us off the highway into the breakdown lane without any problems. Abby, envisioning whatever in her head, was starting to panic because she didn’t know that Lenny keeps a full size spare in the back. I managed to calm Abby down very quickly (which isn’t always the case) and we just stayed in the van while Lenny did what he had to do. Within something like 10 minutes, Lenny had the tire changed and everything loaded back in. We got back into traffic, which was moving steadily even though it was 5 PM rush hour, and we were soon at our exit for our last stretch of highway before home - 495. Traffic was moving and before we knew it, we were getting off the highway for the final time this trip. From here, it only took about 20 more minutes to get home. All in all, from the time we had the tire blowout to the time we got home, it only took 1 hour. And once we got home, as much as I wanted to get out of the truck, I was dreading it - it was now time to tell Abby her beloved bunny was gone. Abby didn’t believe me I guess because she ran into the house. When Abby saw the cage was gone, she immediately started crying. When we finally got her calmed down, mom took her out of the house for a little bit so Lenny and I could unpack the truck and the suitcases. Once that was done and our take out Chinese eaten for dinner, I showed mom all our souvenirs. We got all sorts of toys and pressed pennies for Abby, t-shirts, pictures, key chains, and even toys for the dogs (which only lasted about half an hour).

After souvenirs, Abby said good night as did we. Lenny and I couldn’t wait for a good nights sleep in our own bed for the first time in almost 2 weeks. So all in all, we didn’t have an entirely smooth ending to the vacation, but we did have a great vacation and we got home safely. That’s all the matters in the end.

[mcc0313]

I am so sorry about Gertie Darlene....how hard that must have been for your mom (trying to keep it from you so you would enjoy your trip) and then for you having to hold it in as to not upset Abby....

Glad you were able to find accomodations for your way home and that you made it out before those storm clouds could catch up...

[B.M.]

I know that wasn't the ride home that you envisioned, but atleast you made it safely!

[Rainbowy]

I am glad you made it home safe, thanks to Lenny's very handy nature! That was a great TR cinderAbby. Thanks it was fun to read! I have to get going and finish mine too!

[bitterchickey]

The thing about traveling is...years to come you and Lenny will have a good laugh about "remember that trip in 2008, trying to get home from WDW?" And yes, the important thing is that you had a wonderful family trip, and all of you got home safely. And who knows, if you had been home when Gertie died, it may have made it harder for Abby after all. These are the events of life, we bond together and get through them, and it really all is beautiful after all. I have really enjoyed reading your TR, it has helped me through some nerve-wracked days here, and more power to you for traveling in August heat to WDW, you are a stronger woman than I!!!! Much love to you and yours!

[bsblady01]

sounds like you and your family had a great trip

[chezp]

Thank goodness you made it home safe.

[DoraDoug]

I'm really sorry to hear about Gertie . I can't imagine how difficult that drive home must have been knowing you would have to tell Abby when you got there. Thank goodness you made it back safely. Lenny sounds like a really handy fella to have around, especially for long car rides.

[Colexis Mom]

Sorry about all the troubles getting home Thank goodness you made it safely!!