hockeyplayer
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2003
- Messages
- 90
Cast of Characters:
Me - the Mom with the plans (which mostly consist of "winging it")
"J" DD13 future movie director or cruise director, aka "The Boss"
"T" DD11 aka "The Phobia Kid"
DH - will join us later in the trip; not a Disney fanatic, but willing to indulge the rest of us (not that he has a choice)
August, 2003
Well the original plan was to drive from Pa. to Orlando, see the mouse, then head to Key West to visit my
Dad and Stepmom. But we all know that into each life, a little crap must fall, and fell it did. My stepmother had
back surgery in Pa. in mid-July, and was still not feeling up to a drive back to Key West (Like me, she and my
Dad do not fly.) Then it "hit the fan" where DH works, and due to a take over of his division, he could not take
all of his vacation days consecutively - just in one week increments spread out throughout the year. But I had
the whole month of August off and was just itching to go somewhere and do something. So Plan B was put into
action. I would take the kids myself and drive to Atlanta (I can already hear some of you snickering at my insanity),
spend some time visiting with friends and sightseeing, then head to Florida. DH would fly to Orlando the following
week and meet us.
We don't have large cars - no SUV's, no vans, not even a station wagon. We do have a motorhome, but I won't
drive it, so the trip would be made in my Toyota Camry. (Cue taunts of "sucker", "crazy woman," etc.) Now this
actually worked out fine because without DH in the car, J, who is the size of a typical adult, can sit in the front, while
T can sit in the back (out of arm's reach of J). The first day of driving actually passed quite uneventfully, except for
some turmoil regarding control of the CD player - Mom (easy listening, country/western) vs. kids (pop). I finally had
to invoke "parental rule of ownership #126" - she who owns the car also owns and controls all components within
the car. Two sulky kids had to settle for their personal CD players, but they soon fell asleep, and dozed on and off through
Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. We finally stopped for the evening in North Carolina. I would've kept
driving straight through to Atlanta, but murmurs from the children about contacting Children & Youth with complaints
of cruel and unusual punishment caused me to re-think this plan.
We found a Holiday Inn in Dunn, then set off to find a bite to eat. I wanted fast food so we could get back to
the hotel and relax. I pulled into a place that I had never heard of, looking for a drive-through lane, which didn't
exist. I then realized there were individual lanes where you were supposed to park, each with a menu board.
"Cool," I said to the kids. "An old-fashioned drive-in." "What is that?" asked T. "You'll see," I answered. So we pulled
into a lane, ordered our food, and it was soon delivered by a woman on roller skates. You've probably seen those
movies where the characters have some sort of revelation, and there's loud church-type music playing in the
background as a huge rainbow appears overhead. Well, this would describe the feelings of my kids. "You mean, if
we want more food, or want to order dessert, all we have to do is push the button again and tell them, and they'll
skate it out to us?" asks T. "Sure," I answer. "Awesome!" says J. "I love this place."
Those of you who live in the South are probably ROTFL at this point, because I'm sure you know where we found
such "culinary delights" - yep, good old Sonic. In our defense, we don't have such a place in our neck of the woods,
so my kids declared this to be one of the highlights of the trip. (Maybe next summer, we'll take a tour of the South,
stopping at all of the Sonics we can find, instead of going to WDW -it'll certainly save me some money!)
The next morning we continued our journey to Atlanta. The kids had a competition going to see who could spot
each "South of the Border" sign first. At some point during this leg of the trip, they also discovered some signs
advertising an "Adult Cafe." This sparked a brief but interesting discussion, which I will not detail here, other than
to say that kids sure grow up a lot faster these days than when I was a kid. As subsequent signs appeared, the
two of them would look at each other and smirk, but nothing more was mentioned.
Our friends live north of the city, in Dacula, so we got a hotel about 25 minutes away from them near a large mall
whose name I forgot to write down. We weren't expected at our friends' house until the next day, so we spent the
rest of the day swimming at the hotel, hanging out at the mall, and at the movies seeing "Freaky Friday."
We visited with our friends, whom we hadn't seen in six years, the next day, then went to
Stone Mountain the
day after that. We thoroughly enjoyed this, except for one little "episode" involving the phobia kid. T does not like
3-D movies, because almost all of the ones she's ever seen involve some sort of bugs or reptiles coming out of the
screen. T does not like bugs, reptiles, along with sharks, large fish, and so many other things that I would need a
separate post just to list them all. Well at
Stone Mountain, there is a re-creation of an old-time village, and one of the
features is a 3-D movie. Normally, if DH is with us, we'll take turns waiting outside with T so that everyone else
can see the show. So here's the problem. DH isn't here, J wants to see the movie but doesn't want to go alone, and T does
not want to see it, but will not wait outside of the theater alone. After much coaxing, cajoling, (and a little bribery),
we convince T to give it a try. She's doing fine, until we're waiting in the pre-show area, and an announcement
comes on warning that if you're afraid of critters and things that come out in the dark, you might not want to
see the show. Then the doors open and we're herded into the theater. At this point, the movie hasn't even started, and T
has her feet tucked under her (She learned from Honey I Shrunk the Audience that these kinds of movies often
involve things brushing against your legs) and she's starting to tremble. She managed to get through the movie
by keeping her eyes shut and her hands over her ears throughout the entire show. Afterwards, we told her that
it really didn't have any scary parts, but she was having none of that and refused to go in again.
A big thank you to those on the boards who gave us Atlanta advice and mentioned Stone Mountain. We would
like to visit this area again with DH, who enjoys history.
We still had a couple more days to go before it was time to head to the World. Details to come in the next
report, entitled "Where's the Beverly?"
Me - the Mom with the plans (which mostly consist of "winging it")
"J" DD13 future movie director or cruise director, aka "The Boss"
"T" DD11 aka "The Phobia Kid"
DH - will join us later in the trip; not a Disney fanatic, but willing to indulge the rest of us (not that he has a choice)
August, 2003
Well the original plan was to drive from Pa. to Orlando, see the mouse, then head to Key West to visit my
Dad and Stepmom. But we all know that into each life, a little crap must fall, and fell it did. My stepmother had
back surgery in Pa. in mid-July, and was still not feeling up to a drive back to Key West (Like me, she and my
Dad do not fly.) Then it "hit the fan" where DH works, and due to a take over of his division, he could not take
all of his vacation days consecutively - just in one week increments spread out throughout the year. But I had
the whole month of August off and was just itching to go somewhere and do something. So Plan B was put into
action. I would take the kids myself and drive to Atlanta (I can already hear some of you snickering at my insanity),
spend some time visiting with friends and sightseeing, then head to Florida. DH would fly to Orlando the following
week and meet us.
We don't have large cars - no SUV's, no vans, not even a station wagon. We do have a motorhome, but I won't
drive it, so the trip would be made in my Toyota Camry. (Cue taunts of "sucker", "crazy woman," etc.) Now this
actually worked out fine because without DH in the car, J, who is the size of a typical adult, can sit in the front, while
T can sit in the back (out of arm's reach of J). The first day of driving actually passed quite uneventfully, except for
some turmoil regarding control of the CD player - Mom (easy listening, country/western) vs. kids (pop). I finally had
to invoke "parental rule of ownership #126" - she who owns the car also owns and controls all components within
the car. Two sulky kids had to settle for their personal CD players, but they soon fell asleep, and dozed on and off through
Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. We finally stopped for the evening in North Carolina. I would've kept
driving straight through to Atlanta, but murmurs from the children about contacting Children & Youth with complaints
of cruel and unusual punishment caused me to re-think this plan.
We found a Holiday Inn in Dunn, then set off to find a bite to eat. I wanted fast food so we could get back to
the hotel and relax. I pulled into a place that I had never heard of, looking for a drive-through lane, which didn't
exist. I then realized there were individual lanes where you were supposed to park, each with a menu board.
"Cool," I said to the kids. "An old-fashioned drive-in." "What is that?" asked T. "You'll see," I answered. So we pulled
into a lane, ordered our food, and it was soon delivered by a woman on roller skates. You've probably seen those
movies where the characters have some sort of revelation, and there's loud church-type music playing in the
background as a huge rainbow appears overhead. Well, this would describe the feelings of my kids. "You mean, if
we want more food, or want to order dessert, all we have to do is push the button again and tell them, and they'll
skate it out to us?" asks T. "Sure," I answer. "Awesome!" says J. "I love this place."
Those of you who live in the South are probably ROTFL at this point, because I'm sure you know where we found
such "culinary delights" - yep, good old Sonic. In our defense, we don't have such a place in our neck of the woods,
so my kids declared this to be one of the highlights of the trip. (Maybe next summer, we'll take a tour of the South,
stopping at all of the Sonics we can find, instead of going to WDW -it'll certainly save me some money!)
The next morning we continued our journey to Atlanta. The kids had a competition going to see who could spot
each "South of the Border" sign first. At some point during this leg of the trip, they also discovered some signs
advertising an "Adult Cafe." This sparked a brief but interesting discussion, which I will not detail here, other than
to say that kids sure grow up a lot faster these days than when I was a kid. As subsequent signs appeared, the
two of them would look at each other and smirk, but nothing more was mentioned.
Our friends live north of the city, in Dacula, so we got a hotel about 25 minutes away from them near a large mall
whose name I forgot to write down. We weren't expected at our friends' house until the next day, so we spent the
rest of the day swimming at the hotel, hanging out at the mall, and at the movies seeing "Freaky Friday."
We visited with our friends, whom we hadn't seen in six years, the next day, then went to
Stone Mountain the
day after that. We thoroughly enjoyed this, except for one little "episode" involving the phobia kid. T does not like
3-D movies, because almost all of the ones she's ever seen involve some sort of bugs or reptiles coming out of the
screen. T does not like bugs, reptiles, along with sharks, large fish, and so many other things that I would need a
separate post just to list them all. Well at
Stone Mountain, there is a re-creation of an old-time village, and one of the
features is a 3-D movie. Normally, if DH is with us, we'll take turns waiting outside with T so that everyone else
can see the show. So here's the problem. DH isn't here, J wants to see the movie but doesn't want to go alone, and T does
not want to see it, but will not wait outside of the theater alone. After much coaxing, cajoling, (and a little bribery),
we convince T to give it a try. She's doing fine, until we're waiting in the pre-show area, and an announcement
comes on warning that if you're afraid of critters and things that come out in the dark, you might not want to
see the show. Then the doors open and we're herded into the theater. At this point, the movie hasn't even started, and T
has her feet tucked under her (She learned from Honey I Shrunk the Audience that these kinds of movies often
involve things brushing against your legs) and she's starting to tremble. She managed to get through the movie
by keeping her eyes shut and her hands over her ears throughout the entire show. Afterwards, we told her that
it really didn't have any scary parts, but she was having none of that and refused to go in again.
A big thank you to those on the boards who gave us Atlanta advice and mentioned Stone Mountain. We would
like to visit this area again with DH, who enjoys history.
We still had a couple more days to go before it was time to head to the World. Details to come in the next
report, entitled "Where's the Beverly?"
