Who Knew Choking Each Other Would Earn Us Fastpasses? We were just kidding!

Hello there and welcome to my trip report.

I guess I'll start out with the introductions of the cast and crew.

My name is Lisa (a/k/aTinkerbell as my boss likes to call me) and I am a 44 year old paralegal, wife to John and mother to Hunter and Lacey (who didn't join us on this trip 'cause she's attending missionary college). My husband, John, also 44, owns and operates a cabinet shop which is good because I can always talk his boss into letting him off work to go to Disney.

John acts all nonchalant about going to Disney but when somebody asks him a question, he immediately starts chattering away.

Since I am still uploading pictures and can't seem to find a picture of John and I from this year's trip, I guess I'll just use a picture from last year's trip.

Hunter is our son and he turned 13 just 3 days before we arrived in Disney. We couldn't think of a better way to celebrate becoming a teenager than by partying hard with Mickey and the gang. Hunter is a multi-talented little dude. He can play the acoustic guitar, electric guitar, keyboard and viola. Magical illusions and cup stacking are his newest tricks and he's pretty darn good at both. When he's not playing an instrument or trying to trick you, he's playing football or singing in the honor choir. See....I told you he was multi-talented.

Also along for the ride this year was my Mama, Edna. She's 76 years old and dotes on John and Hunter like they were her little babies. Mama has been to Disney with us once at Thanksgiving, 2000. That was back in the day when we stayed offsite 'cause we didn't know any better.

We were anxious to see how Mama would do with all the walking, heat, humidity, conveyor belts, etc.

Again, I don't have all of my pictures uploaded so I'll just use a picture of Hunter and Mama riding the clamshells into The Seas with Nemo and Friends. Not the best of pictures but a picture nevertheless:

We are a pretty silly fun loving family that always seems to attract.......hum.......let's just say,we always seem to have an "incident" happen during each of our trips. Over the years:

1) We got stuck on Test Track in the cold section and I almost tinkled myself;

2) My tooth (temporary crown) fell out while eating lunch at the Electric Umbrella and I had to super glue it in;

3) John got his toe broken after being run over in a drive-by scooter incident;

4) Hunter boogied with every character we ran into;

5) My wonderful, beautiful, loving family pedaled off on the surrey bike without me when my shoe hit the pedal and flew over my shoulder;

6) Lacey and Hunter jumped for joy in front of the Epcot ball;

7) We laughed so much during the trips that I caught myself saying "stop making me laugh or......" every 30 minutes.

And so forth and so on. We love spending time together and there's no better place than Walt Disney World to act silly and have a good time. Our goofiness paid off during the trip and that same goofiness inspired the title of this report.

This was our 15th trip to Disney in 13 years and our 5th stay at the Caribbean Beach Resort. We spent 9 1/2 glorious days at Walt Disney World and I could have stayed longer had my boss not insisted that I return to "the real world".

I have people ask me all the time why we go to Disney World year after year after year. I've tried to explain it to them but, unless you are a Disney fan like myself, you just can't understand. Remember those old Lay's potato chips commercials? You know, the ones that said something like "Lay's potato chips...so good you can't eat just one!" I liken Disney to a Lay's potato chip....."Walt Disney World is so fun you can't go just once!"

Now that the introductions have been made, I guess I'll get busy working on the next installment.

Oh....I hope that everybody feels free to post replies/comments 'cause I really like chatting.

 

[mickeystoontown]

I had to work on Wednesday, May 26th. As soon as I got off work, we were to hit the road. The following is one of the last entries I made in my notes before leaving:

It's a little after 3:30 and I am waiting on a client to come by to review and sign a document. She was supposed to be here this morning but called to say it would be after 3:30 p.m. before she could get here. She better not wait until 4:30 before she shows up. Hum....this sounds quite a bit like my last day at work before last year's trip.

Right after lunch, my boss made one last look at the calendar to make sure we hadn't missed any deadlines. Nope, no deadlines missed. EXCEPT......we thought a custody case had been settled last Friday but found out, this morning, that it wasn't going to settle. Guess that means that we have to get a 7 page Affidavit out by the end of the day. Man, I grabbed that file off my boss' desk before he could blink an eye. I had the Affidavit done in no time at all. But, you guessed it, I couldn't get hold of the client to confirm two things on it. After about an hour with no return call, I left the blanks (nothing major at all) and got the Affidavit out priority mail. Done and done!

My boss' 2 p.m. appointment which was supposed to be just an hour long didn't leave until 5 minutes ago. Now, he's running at least 35 minutes behind. From what I can hear through the wall, his 3:00 appointment is going to be asking all sorts of questions and probably won't get out of here until way after his hour is up.

I don't mean to sound fussy about this next thing but it is a little bit of a pain in my behind. My boss has an account that is just for payroll. Payroll meaning....ME. He only deposits money into the account on the 1st of the month. Just a few minutes before lunch, he asked me if I want to go ahead and get my June 1st check today. Of course, I wasn't going to tell him no. But, the bad thing is, I have to stop by the bank and make the payroll deposit on my way home and then stop at my bank and deposit my check. I REALLY didn't want to have to make any stops on my way home. Oh well, I can't complain about getting my paycheck early. There are worse things.

I almost forgot to print out mousekeeping envelopes. I remembered about 30 minutes ago and printed those from my office computer. They aren't in color but at least they are cute.

Let's see....what else? I brought the camera battery charger with me so I could charge up the camera so it'd be ready for me to snap pictures of our road trip.

The girl who is going to answer phones for the office came in this morning and stayed for a couple of hours just to get a feel for the office. She's a client's wife so she's pretty familiar with everything already.

Hunter has texted me two times today saying he is excited about leaving. I know how he feels! I am about to burst at the seams to hit the road. He said Mama has come to the house only once today. I figured she would have been over there two or three times by now.

I couldn't find my piece of paper where I wrote down our Cape May Breakfast ADR info. I knew what day it was on but I couldn't remember the time. So, I called Disney Dining at lunch and got the info. Of course, after looking through my trusty notebook, I found the original note. It was there all along.

When I get home all we have to do is put the small ice chest, the portable DVD player, Hunter's backpack and the two overnight bags in the car. Oh, and the snack box. Can't forget the snack box!

If I don't get to say BYE again today.....I hope that everybody has a good Memorial Day holiday! I'll take lots of pictures and lots of notes so I can come back and write another trip report.

I got out of the office early! Don't go getting all excited about me leaving early 'cause it was only 2 minutes early!

I live in a town called West Monroe. I work in Monroe. There are three bridges that separate the two towns and those bridges can back up like the dickens. If you don't hit the road straight up 5:00 p.m., you have to wait forever to cross into West Monroe. My goal was to beat the traffic and get across the river. Once I was across, I should be able to get to both banks quickly and be on my way home.

Well, I stepped outside the office to a loud clap of thunder and a big fat drop of rain. No! No! No! No! No! It's not supposed to rain on our driving day. I could have sworn I added that to my prayer list last night.

I popped in my fresh smelling car (I had cleaned it up to the hilt a day or two before....even shampooing the seats and carpet and added an air freshener.) to see just a few fat drops of rain on the windshield. Maybe the brewing storm would work it's way around me. As I looked in my rearview mirror, I could see all of the courthouse employees (the courthouse is just down the block from our law office) streaming out and to their cars. Yea! I had beat a bunch of the traffic. Now, I just had to beat the employees coming out of the State Office Building and the downtown traffic. I pulled out onto the street and was happy to see a green light up ahead. I quickly turned onto the bridge and felt like a prisoner who had been set free from jail. I had made it over the river.

As luck would have it, there was only one other car in the bank drive-through so I was in and out of there in a flash. I called John and told him I was stopping at our bank and would be there soon. I asked if Mama was there yet and she wasn't. I told him to call her and tell her that I was on my way. When I got to our bank, I deposited my check through the ATM so I wouldn't have to wait in any line. All total, my two errands took me just 10 minutes.

Thank you dear Lord for getting me across that bridge before everybody else.

The closer I got to home, the worse the skies looked.

Just as I pull into our carport, the bottom fell out of the sky. It was raining cats and dogs and pigs and cows. I had to pull in as far as I could so we wouldn't get wet trying to get the last few things in the trunk. Thankfully, Mama had walked over before the rain started. We put the overnight bags as well as the small soft sided cooler in the trunk. Hunter grabbed the snack bag and his backpack full of games and movies and put them in the backseat. In just 10 minutes, the car was packed.

We did the usual "anybody gotta go the bathroom before we leave?" call and the "did anybody forget anything?" call. I made that one last potty stop and grabbed my extra sunglasses. Oh and we almost forgot to write a note to my sister telling her how to feed Oddball and water the plants but remembered just as we were walking out the door.

According to my notes, we were in the car at 5:40 p.m. It was still raining like crazy and the wind was blowing hecka decka! I hate driving in the rain.

Oh well, at least I was driving in the rain while on my way to Walt Disney World!

 

[mickeystoontown]

It took Hunter all of four minutes to start pulling out the portable DVD player and his movies. I didn't expect him to last that long. We hit the interstate and were finally, officially on our way! I handed John the camera and told him to take a few pictures so I could let everyone how it looks in our neck of the woods. The first one is what it looked like when we pulled onto the interstate.

After about 10 or 12 miles, the rain had pretty much stopped and we could see trees down all over the side of the road. I don't know if a tornado came through or if it was just a hard wind that had knocked them down. They were pretty big trees too.

A few pictures John snapped. You can see the corn growing alongside the road in some of them.

Somewhere between Monroe and Vicksburg, Mississippi, my mother started wondering whether or not she had locked her front door. She said she remembered trying to hurry and get out the door and over to our house (she lives right beside us and we, literally, share a driveway) before the rain started but she didn't remember if she locked the door. So, she called my sister and asked her to go by and check the door.

We looked up and saw that we were almost in Mississippi and would be crossing the Mississippi River. Again, I had John snapping pictures:

Continued in next post.

 

[mickeystoontown]

You can kinda see one of the casinos in this picture:

And this is the Mississippi River......Old Man River. Or as Clark Griswold likes to sing (as does John each and every time we cross) "deep rither....my home is over Jordan".

Soon we saw the Welcome to Mississippi sign. One State down, two to go!

It's a tradition that we stop at the Vicksburg, Mississippi McDonald's. I know! I know! What kind of tradition is that? A McBride one, thank you very much.

Normally, we just get our food through the drive through and get back on the road. This trip would be different because Mama was along for the ride. We knew that we would have to make more frequent stops so that she could get out and walk around a bit. Our goal, though, was to not let her know we were stopping just for her benefit. Instead of driving through, we went inside and placed our order and made a potty stop. I mean, hey, I had gone almost two hours without one.

We got the food to go and were back on the road in about 20 minutes.

For the next three or four hours, we chatted about anything and everything. Mama and John talked about a show called Pawn Stars or something like that. I have never watched it but from the way they were describing it, it sounded like I may need to tune in to it. My sister never called my Mama back about whether or not the door was locked so she called her to see. My sister had forgotten all about going over and told her she'd call her back in a little bit. This freaked my Mama out. She locks her door even when she's at home. For you city folks, that might not sound like anything out of the ordinary but we never lock our doors while at home. The only time we lock them is at night and when we are away. Anyway, my sister called back and said the door was locked which relieved my mother.

We stopped once for gas and a potty break but were back on the highway in no time.

Sometime or the other, we crossed the Alabama State line. Just one more to go......Florida. As we approached Mobile, Alabama, Hunter said he wanted us to take a picture of the tunnel so we could tell one of our friends that we had gone through her hometown.

Ooooh....you can see all of the smooshed bugs on my windshield. Yuck!

The plan was to either stop in Pensacola, Florida or Crestview, Florida for the night. If it were just John, Hunter and I, we would have gone on to Crestview. But, we didn't know how tired Mama would be at this point. When we got to the first Florida rest area, we stopped and walked around.

 

[mickeystoontown]

It was pretty late by this time and we were all looking a bit road weary:

It's amazing what a little walking around and a pit stop will do for your body (and they say "milk does a body good"

) We all got a second wind and it was decided that we'd get back on the interstate and go on to Crestview. Before leaving, Hunter wanted to see the footprints display in front of the rest area.

We got some drinks from the cooler in the trunk and were off again. By this time, it was pitch black dark and we had talked about all sorts of stuff. We had just about gotten to that "silly" stage. You know that stage where you laugh about the littlest thing? I forgot what it was that Hunter said but we all started laughing and we couldn't stop. We all had tears running down our face and all I could think was what great memories we were making.

At 1:02 a.m., we pulled into the Jameson Inn in Crestview, Florida. I don't know if any of you remember the movie "Bird on a Wire" where Goldie Hawn is so tired, she tells Mel Gibson to get them a motel room and to just get it even if he had to "sell my body". That's about how tired we were at that point. We didn't care how much the room was....just so we had a room. John was the designated "you go in and get the room" person. He came back and said the room was only $80.00 which wasn't bad since we had a third adult in the room. We weren't going to let Mama pay for an extra room. She was going to stay with us that night.

We took out just our overnight bag, Hunter's backpack and the cooler. Our room was nice size and really clean. I took pictures:

Even though we were dog tired, Hunter turned on the television to see what was on. Don't worry, we made him turn the volume down really low. He found one of those shows where they show video clips from things that go wrong. Lo and behold, they had our hometown on the show. There was video clip of someone running their truck into a gas station pump and it exploding. Who would have thunk it?

Finally, everybody fell asleep and it was time to get up. We went to the continental breakfast and got cereal, toast, bagels and juice. They also had waffles and biscuits with gravy. After breakfast, we made the round through the room to make sure we had gotten everything. We all had so it was time to check-out.

A couple of pics I took outside the Jameson Inn:

No, you aren't seeing things....John is posing in the above picture. He said he was "putting out the vibe". Silly man!

I'd definitely recommend the Jameson Inn as it is easy on and off the interstate and it's clean. This makes our third or fourth stay there.

Up next: More road trip and our arrival at the Caribbean Beach Resort!

 

[Southern_Tink]

What a great start! I absolutely love your TR so far...you capture so many details and pictures...makes me feel like I'm reading a story! I can't wait to read more!

 

[mickeystoontown]

What a great start! I absolutely love your TR so far...you capture so many details and pictures...makes me feel like I'm reading a story! I can't wait to read more!

Welcome to my trip report! I am a very detail, picture taking person so you can rest assured that there will be tons more to come.

 

[accord99cutie]

I'm really enjoying your report so far! Can't wait for more!!

 

[clee687]

Yaaaaay!!! I have not read a word of this report yet but i had to reply the minute i saw your first picture! I was on another site following a trip report of yours and anxiously awaiting an update when my computer crashed...the minute it got out of the shop, i hurried it home to see if you had an update. I looked and searched and searched and looked and it had DISAPPEARED! I was sooooo distraught! Your trip report had been hilarious! I laughed and laughed and laughed and went to work and retold your stories and laughed with my coworkers. I am so glad you are here now and must shut up now so I can get to your report!

 

[mickeystoontown]

I'm really enjoying your report so far! Can't wait for more!!

Thank you so much for reading. There's lots more to come since we stayed in Disney for 10 days.

Yaaaaay!!! I have not read a word of this report yet but i had to reply the minute i saw your first picture! I was on another site following a trip report of yours and anxiously awaiting an update when my computer crashed...the minute it got out of the shop, i hurried it home to see if you had an update. I looked and searched and searched and looked and it had DISAPPEARED! I was sooooo distraught! Your trip report had been hilarious! I laughed and laughed and laughed and went to work and retold your stories and laughed with my coworkers. I am so glad you are here now and must shut up now so I can get to your report!

So glad that you found me (again).:lol: I am happy that I have provided you and your coworker wish a laugh or two. As you can tell from the trip report title, we had a few laughs along the way on this trip too.

 

[Raven66]

Great report so far. I can't wait to see more pictures and read more about your trip.

 

[mrtyoung]

Really enjoying your trip report! Looking forward to reading some more.

 

[kcs]

I am enjoying your TR. I am anxious to here how your mom does as I am planning on taking my 80 year old mother with my family next November or December.

 

[stefan74]

I almost forgot to print out mousekeeping envelopes. I remembered about 30 minutes ago and printed those from my office computer. They aren't in color but at least they are cute.

I leave Mousekeeping tips everyday while I am at Disney, I used to work in the hospitality industry and know they work hard. Do you use an envelope per day and put your tip in it or what do you use the mousekeeping envelopes for?

 

[mickeystoontown]

Great report so far. I can't wait to see more pictures and read more about your trip.

Welcome aboard! I took so many pictures and lots of notes so, rest assured, there's plenty more to come.

Really enjoying your trip report! Looking forward to reading some more.

Thanks for reading. I hope to get another installment up soon.

I am enjoying your TR. I am anxious to here how your mom does as I am planning on taking my 80 year old mother with my family next November or December.

Thanks for joining in. As you read along, you'll see that my mother did really really well.

I leave Mousekeeping tips everyday while I am at Disney, I used to work in the hospitality industry and know they work hard. Do you use an envelope per day and put your tip in it or what do you use the mousekeeping envelopes for?

I appreciate your coming aboard! I tip every day we are in Disney World. Usually, I tip $1 per person per day. We are pretty neat travelers and mostly clean up after ourselves but mousekeeping does have a hard job. I know that the mousekeepers can change during the stay so I leave the envelopes daily.

 

[unkadug]

WHAT??? Only one picture from Alabama? And from inside a tunnel at that? :lol:

Oh well :shrug:

Can't wait for the choking each other part!

 

[sweetpee_1993]

Oh Boy! Yep! I started following your report a little on that other site but, geez mannelli, that site is so huge and moves so fast I lose threads all the freakin' time. I only go there when I feel like I've exhausted the threads over here. I don't post there so much.

Love that you documented the road trip. That's what I plan to do in the not-so-distant future. This is our first time road-tripping it since moving to Texas in '07. Yeehaw!

So what route do y'all drive down? 59 to 10 or down 65 to 10? From St. Tammany Parish in LA all the way over thru Mobile to Pensacola and towards Crestview & Holt, FL is pretty well "home" for us. Looooots of family all over thru that part of the country. We lived in St. Tammany for something like 7 years or so. Lived in Mobile once, Pensacola a couple times, etc. We used to try to get our boys to try to hold their breath thru the tunnel in Mobile. And isn't that Welcome Center just over the FL state line the best??? We've stopped there a few times. Usually if we make it that far we try to keep on movin' since it's only another maybe 15-20 minutes to my grandmother's house. LOL!

Can't wait to see the rest! :sohappy:

 

[sweetpee_1993]

WHAT??? Only one picture from Alabama? And from inside a tunnel at that? :lol:

Oh well :shrug:

Can't wait for the choking each other part!

Any requests, Unk? I'll be passin' thru that way in 2 weeks! :wave:

 

[mickeystoontown]

WHAT??? Only one picture from Alabama? And from inside a tunnel at that? :lol:

Oh well :shrug:

Can't wait for the choking each other part!

Welcome! Yep, just one picture from Alabama because it was pitch black dark when we went through the area. Sorry!

Oh Boy! Yep! I started following your report a little on that other site but, geez mannelli, that site is so huge and moves so fast I lose threads all the freakin' time. I only go there when I feel like I've exhausted the threads over here. I don't post there so much.

Love that you documented the road trip. That's what I plan to do in the not-so-distant future. This is our first time road-tripping it since moving to Texas in '07. Yeehaw!

So what route do y'all drive down? 59 to 10 or down 65 to 10? From St. Tammany Parish in LA all the way over thru Mobile to Pensacola and towards Crestview & Holt, FL is pretty well "home" for us. Looooots of family all over thru that part of the country. We lived in St. Tammany for something like 7 years or so. Lived in Mobile once, Pensacola a couple times, etc. We used to try to get our boys to try to hold their breath thru the tunnel in Mobile. And isn't that Welcome Center just over the FL state line the best??? We've stopped there a few times. Usually if we make it that far we try to keep on movin' since it's only another maybe 15-20 minutes to my grandmother's house. LOL!

Can't wait to see the rest! :sohappy:

Thanks for joining in! It really is a small world after all. We are up at the top of Louisiana so we drive over to Jackson, Mississippi and then go down through Hattiesburg and then on to Mobile. After Mobile, we stay on I-10 until we get to Lake City. That's when we start our way down down down the State of Florida.

I love that Welcome Center. It's always clean, has lots of vending machine and, best of all, it has security.

 

[MouseDreaming]

Love the trip report, so far. It is really nice to see more of the south. We usually fly in. I think my kids may think Florida consists of an airport, and WDW! Gotta try and find the time to explre a little more, I suppose.

Can't wait to see more!