Kilted Yank's Sept. 2002 trip report Pt. 1

[Kilted_Yank]

Pre-Trip

Adventurers: Susan, 45, wife, mom, historian, our “Rock of Gibraltar”. Bill, 38, husband, father, patient driver. He of the way-cool kilts. Olivia: Nearly 4, and as sweet as can be (when she isn’t being the spawn of the devil.... she gets that from her grandmother)

25 September, 2002

I am sitting in our dining room, unable to fathom the fact that
we have been back from wdw for over a week. A week and a half, to be precise. Where did the time go? what happened to that rested feeling? What am I doing here? Hmmmm, maybe I’d better start at the beginning... the very beginning.

When Susan and I began planning this trip, last April, we knew that this would be, if I may be permitted to paraphrase The Bard, “the summer of our discontent”... We weren’t wrong. Susan, as some of you may know, is a Diplomatic Historian at the US Department of State, and she has been VERY busy this summer, producing a video about terrorism. This video was primarily aimed at high school audiences. Without belaboring the point, all of her hard work was coming to fruition in the week or so immediately prior to our trip. She expected that the video with all of it’s attendant duties would be finished the week of, or at least several days prior to our departure. This was important, as that target date for completion and distribution was September 11. Well, it didn’t get finished. Management buffoons
and lunkheads decided to interject themselves into her project and caused no few problems in the late stages of production, requiring insane and frenzied editorial changes at th
e last minute, even two days before we left, Susan was working
late evenings trying to finish.

Her situation was bad, but when added to mine, it was really ugly. For those of you that don’t know, I am a senior firearms instructor for a federal law enforcement agency. I spent my summer alternately teaching submachine gun classes to veteran officers and agents, and teaching newly hired officers which is the dangerous end of their service weapons. I also spent a lot of time on the edge of my seat, waiting for my two obstructionist bosses to retire. I call them obstructionist because neither of them has had a new thought since the dawn of the 1970’s. To make a long story short, neither of them retired when they were supposed to, but one of them went on what I can best describe as “mental health” leave. This left my other boss in charge... but he was due to retire on July 30th, which would leave your humble correspondent in charge of the Training section. No problem, right? If my immediate supervisor retires, at least I have a good chance at getting his job, right? Well, thats what I thought until just a week and a half before he was to retire, the SOB was enticed to stay by yet another set of bosses! Aaaarrrrgghhhhh!

Now I am really mad! Neither one of them is going to be leaving!
Now I know that I must go to my laughing place... and soon! God only knows what sort of mayhem I could create when you consider that I have one of the sets of keys that allows access to our rather extensive armory.

One of the last things we did this summer, was to go to Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Susan’s hometown) in mid-august. I had to go out there to attend an armorer’s course, and since her evil harpy of a mother still lives there, Susan and Olivia went with me. So... we’ve been busy and our summer has been somewhat stressful... we needed this trip!

Finally, our day is approaching. Two days before departure, We
picked up the minivan in order to get it ready for the drive. Things were still rather helter-skelter in my office, so after supper that evening, while Susan packed and made ready, I had to drive back to Washington (30 miles) and completely revamp the training schedule that I had just completed the day before. When I staggered in the door, later that night, my beloved had done so much that I was ashamed that I hadn’t been there to help her. As it turns out, it was just as well that I wasn’t there, because I would have just been in the way.

The next day, the day before departure, I was off of work. I had
lots to do So I wasted no time. I cleaned the bathrooms, did the
vacuuming, then loaded Duncan (our greyhound) into the van for the drive to the home of the couple that boards him while we are away. Kathe and Paul have been doing greyhound rescue for years. There is a special place in heaven for people like them. After that, I started loading the van. Storage boxes with pool equipment, another box with kitchen/grill stuff, put in the 12 volt power strip so that the telephone, cd player and TV/DVD could be plugged in etc..., Susan prepared yummy trail mix for the drive down... it was a godsend on our last trip so she made it again. This was to prove VERY valuable the next day. My second to last task of the evening was to gas up the van and get a few bags of ice for the cooler. Once that was done, I could relax... and by relax, I meant to say that I could start doing the heavy lifting around the house. I got the last things in the van; the cooler, the TV/DVD, Olivia’s car seat (the same one she barfed all over last year (remember that?). Once all of that was done, we were able to crawl into bed at about 11 pm. Not too shabby, eh? We were aiming to be ready
for bed at 9, but... well, you know how it goes.

Next: Vroooom Vroooom!




Susan, Bill, & Olivia do Disney, Sept. 2002

Adventurers: Susan, 40-something, wife, mom, historian, co-driver, and soul of patience. Bill, 38, husband, father, driver, kilted warrior. Olivia: Nearly 4, and as sweet as can be, patient traveler

Day one, 5 September, 2002: Vroooom! Vroooom!

0330: The alarm goes off, and I am out of the bed like a shot.
Things to do! Places to go! Ev’rybody up an’ at ‘em! Ok, maybe
it wasn’t EXACTLY like that, but it was sort of like that. Much
like last year, Susan and I did everything that we possibly could
the night before, so all we really had to do was get dressed and
head out. Once we were dressed, we did a last look around the house to make sure we turned off the Air conditioning (it was still very hot in northern Virginia, but no sense in cooling the place if we aren’t here, eh?). We made sure all of the doors were locked and so forth and so on. We started the van and Susan got in. I went to Olivia’s room and snatched the sleeping cherub out of her bed and whisked her into her car seat, covered her with her favorite fleece car blanket... and we were off as smoothly as you please at 0415! We drove through the neighborhood in the dark, when we heard a sleepy voice say: “Daddy?, are we there yet?” “Good lord!”, I thought to myself, as I contemplated how many more times we might hear that over the next twelve hours. A scant 5 or 6 minutes later, we were on I-95 south. We were on our way.

Last year, as you may remember, my co-driver went soundly to sleep shortly after we entered the highway, but this year, she was a real champ, staying awake and chatting with me as we drove through the pre-dawn hours with our little one, having gone straight back to sleep after her earlier query, lightly (?) snoring in the back seat.

We accomplished out first objective easily, which was to be through Richmond, Virginia before rush hour traffic started. We were wasting no time, and made it into North Carolina shortly before daybreak. I started to get a little sleepy, but Susan was ready for this and knew that what I needed was an immediate influx of calories! She broke out a bag of her high-energy (and tasty) Trail-Mix, and I was good for another stretch of highway.

We finally stopped near the town of Wilson, North Carolina (check
your maps, folks) so that I could stretch my legs for a few minutes. A side note: Wilson, North Carolina is the hometown of the musical group, The Occasions. The Occasions recorded a VERY popular song called: “I’m a girlwatcher” in the 1960’s. We were really doing well on time, and were in no danger of running afoul of our schedule (ok, MY schedule). I walked around for a few minutes and bought a couple of the local newspapers. Shortly after getting back onto the highway, it became clear to me that I really needed to rest my eyes for a few minutes, so I turned the bridge of the minivan “Enterprise” over to my first officer, Commander Susan, just outside of Fayetteville, home of the 82nd Airborne Division. I immediately fell into a deep sleep and awoke around 0815, as we pulled into our next objective, the McDonald’s in the town of Lumberton, North
Carolina. In the McDonald’s parking lot, Susan changed Ol
ivia out of her nightgown, into a loose fitting dress, that should
be comfortable for the rest of the ride. After we ate breakfast,
which was VERY welcome for all parties, I drove to the nearby gas station while Susan and Olivia walked to stretch their legs. After gassing up we wasted no time in getting back on the road, by this time it was 0920, and we were doing great on time!

I want to take a moment to add for you easterners that drive to
wdw on I-95, that the construction that has been going on for so
long on the highway in NC is finally coming to an end (mostly).

With yours truly back in the driver’s seat, we finished the rest
of NC and breezed into South Carolina. Did you know that South
Carolina was one of the most operational theaters during the American Revolution? read the histories some time, it may just blow your mind! Why do we never learn that in school? Reaching the town of Manning, we were halfway to Disney World!... It was all downhill from there! As a side note, Manning is also my American ancestral home. All of my African, French, Scots, Irish and English ancestors (on my dad’s side) arrived/settled in the Untied States in that area, beginning with a French Hugenot immigrant in the late 1600’s and began to fill the genetic pool that, nearly 300 years later, produced me.

We arrived at our next stop of Brunswick, Georgia at 1330, and
had lunch at the super Wal-Mart. While there, we also bought a
big ol’ jug of Livingston Merlot! (only $11 and change). We spent
an hour and a half in Brunswick before getting on the road again for the last leg of our trip.

If you have noticed, I haven’t said much about Miss Olivia so far.
well, there is a reason for that. Miss Olivia (also known as “SheWho-Must-Be-Obeyed”) quietly watching DVD’s that we had brought with us to keep her entertained. She watched “Return To Neverland” and “Thumbelina”and a few other things as we drove along... she really was well
behaved. Isn’t new technology a wonderful thing? Olivia stays
happy, Susan isn’t always having to try to entertain her, and the
driver stays calm because he doesn’t have to endure too many repeats of: “Are we there yet?” and “Mommy, are we at my becation yet?” (she hasn’t quite mastered vacation yet).

At 4 pm, somewhere in Florida, I had to have another nap, so Susan took the helm for a while. I woke up and took the wheel somewhere along I-4 at around 1730. We arrived in Orlando around 1800, arriving at Fort Wilderness at 1830. Whew! Not too shabby, eh? Fourteen hours with a few substantial stops along the way.

Check-in at Fort wilderness was a breeze. Helpful CM Maria was
all about business and got us in, in nothing flat! It turns out
that Maria is from Columbia, Maryland, which is only about 45 minutes from where we live. Maria is one of God’s people, she is a teacher in the Polk County, Florida public schools.

We got to our cabin in the 2600 loop (number 2603) and instantly
fell in love with the place. If you haven’t tried the cabins, I
suggest that you do so! True to their advertisements, the cabins
could sleep 6, and for our family of three, the place was quite spacious.

Enough about that... i’m hungry! anyone else want to eat? Great! Let’s go to Perkin’s! We went to the Perkin’s at Crossroads, Where Susan and I tucked into our meals with a vengeance... Olivia decided she wasn’t very hungry and just picked at her food. I wasn’t really surprised, she was tired, the poor soul. After we ate, and rolled ourselves back to the van, we drove to the back side of Epcot and watched the Illuminations fireworks, which Olivia really loved (no, I don’t call that cheating... it was just too late to drag her into the park just for that short amount of time).

We were back in the cabin by 2130, just in time to tuck-in my sleepy child. Olivia has been SUCH a good girl today. I shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose, after all, wdw is HER laughing place too.

Susan, God bless her, has a SIP of wine and falls asleep on the
couch, while I half-watch “Back to the future II” while reading
the last chapters of Vince Flynn’s “Separation of Powers” ( a nice, if somewhat predictable read).

By 2330, Susan had toddled off to bed, while I attempted to start
my main vacation book: Harry Turtledove’s: “American Empire, The Center Cannot Hold”. By midnight I was through. I had to go to sleep. As always, a very tiring, but satisfying first day.

Next: The Magic Kingdom!




Susan, Bill, & Olivia do Disney, Sept. 2002

Adventurers: Susan, 40-something, wife, mom, director of touring operations, and my best pal. Bill, 38, husband, father, cook, kilted warrior. Olivia: Nearly 4, and as sweet as can be (when she isn’t being the spawn of the devil), Space Ranger-in-training.

Day two, 6 September, 2002: The Magic Kingdom

I awake at 0630, look at my watch and mutter: “no way!” and go right back to sleep, until we all wake again around 0800.

We started the day by unpacking and putting away the things that we didn’t do last night. While Susan was doing that, I took an iron to my kilts (can’t go about looking messy, can I?). While
all this was going on, Olivia alternated between playing and cheerfully “helping” Susan. By 10 am, we were on our way! Destination: the Magic Kingdom! (Woooooooo hooooooo!)

As we drove towards the Fort Wilderness exit, we took note of the great scenery and realized how close our cabin is to the pool and the laundry room.

We parked in Minnie 36 at the TTC, and took the ferry to the Magic Kingdom. We always take the ferry for the first ride to MK because of the great view, and the feelings of excitement that creep up as you approach. The ferry wasn’t terribly crowded... I love the low season, don’t you?

Getting into the park was a breeze, and we headed for the train
station, where I bought a bottle of sunscreen for Olivia, because
I hadn’t thought to bring any. Silly daddy!, as Olivia likes to
say. Sunscreen applied, and Mickey ears on my head, we headed for main street. First stop, the pin station.

Now, don’t ask me how it started, but, I can’t pass a place that
sells pins without stopping to look... those of you who are like-minded souls know what I mean. It isn’t as if I trade the pins, because I don’t. I guess the simple truth is that I buy them because I like them. In between trips, we sometimes pull out a particular pin to look at it or talk about it, where we got it and on what trip, etc... Whatever... we do it because we like to. I don’t think any excuse is required.

On this first pass, I bought three pins (we hadn’t been in the park 15 minutes yet!), one of which was from Fantasia 2000 (We aren’t the only ones that liked that movie, are we?). This pin was a depiction of the ballerina with the one-legged wooden soldier. Anyway, pins in hand, we proceeded into the shops. We always follow the same formula when entering the park... up Mainstreet on the confectionary side of the street, and down Mainstreet on the emporium side.

After browsing the shops, we headed for Cosmic Ray’s for lunch.
We wanted to eat before we tackled the attractions. Let me tell
you, Cosmic Ray’s was nearly empty, none of the lines had any sort of wait to speak of. So it was chicken strips all-around for the three of us, while we listened to, and even laughed at Sonny Eclipse’s jokes. yes, I realize that they are not terribly funny, but I was sort of giddy at just being there, in my favorite place.

OK, caloric requirements taken care of, we headed for Tomorrowland, to take care of some important business. That business was to do Buzz’s SpaceRanger spin, and prove once and for all who the All-Time, master Zurg hunter really is. The crowds were light enough that were able to ride twice in a row with the only wait time, being the time that it took for us to walk from the exit back to the entrance.

After going on Buzz the second time, it was time for us to go on
one of our favorite attractions, the Tomorrowland Transit Authority. Riding TTA is always fun, and has the added benefit of being a good way to cool off for awhile. Despite the “mostly cloudy forecast, the weather (at least so far) was sunny and hot. Olivia is being a wee bit cranky, this afternoon. I think this is a combination of excitement, left-over fatigue, and a bit of overstimulation. Either way, she will settle soon, she usually does.

After a walk through Mickey’s Star Traders, we went into Toon Town, where Olivia had her first discovery of the trip. ROLLERCOASTERS! She had never been on any sort ofrollercoaster before for two reasons. First: Susan and I are not thrill ride people, and second, because she was too darned small! Well, this wasn’t the case in
Toon Town. Susan and Olivia rode the “Barnstormer” while I waited outside for them to finish... it gave me a chance to take some notes (and sweat). After what seemed and unreasonably long time, my girls returned and told me that they had gone on the ride twice, at Olivias insistance. It was so much fun, Olivia demanded to go AGAIN, and dutiful mom did as she was bidden and took her back for round three.. Sheesh, who is in charge here?

Next up was the “Storybook” character meet/greet/photo opportunity thing. Cinderella and her two mouse friends were the characters of the moment, but... hey! where is the camera? In the stroller? Great. Clearly, this was my fault, I just plain forgot.

We didn’t stay in Toon town very long, as we wanted to go through all of the other areas on this first pass through the park. So off we went to Fantasyland so we could ride Pooh and Peter Pan. These two rides are favorites for our family, but in truth, I’m
not sure who gets the most out of them, Susan or Olivia. Personally, while I enjoy them both, I happen to be partial to the part of the Pooh ride where Tigger sings his song and the ride car bounces along with it. My favorite part of the Peter Pan ride is sort of odd. I especially like the part where your ship “flies” over London.

I like seeing the bridges over the Thames. It reminds me of not
only having been in London many years ago, but also reminds me of the opening segment of the BBC television drama, “McCallum”. Have any of you ever seen that show? It starred Scots actor John Hannah, whom you may remember from “Four Weddings and a Funeral”. Anyway, we did both of these rides, and although we did have to wait for them, the waits weren’t too long to be borne.

It was nearing 3pm and Olivia is getting a bit punchy. We put her
in her stroller and took a slow walk around. It is almost parade
time so we duck into the christmas shop near Liberty Square, which puts Olivia down for the count. After getting a few small things, we left the christmas shop and dashed off to get our official “Olivia’s nap-time snack” the Dole Whip! After savoring the cold pineapple goodness that is the Dole Whip, Susan headed off to do some shopping while I took notes, watched the people pass, and read some more of my book. Do any of you folks take a book to the park just in case an opportunity to read becomes available? We always do, just because you never know when you are going to get stuck somewhere.

After Susan finished shopping, we went off to the Emporium to browse. Susan found a coffee mug that she had to have, Donald Duck in his usual feisty mood, with a logo that said “Cranky to The Last Drop” I thought it was pretty funny. I got a mug too, a white mug that had a picture of Mickey Mouse that said: “An American Tradition since 1928”. We also got some stickers for Olivia (who was still asleep at the time), and my favorite souvenier from this trip: A “Cobra Bubbles” pin. Why Cobra Bubbles? Because he is big, bald, serious about his work, but is a real softy at heart. OK, Bill, enough of this shopping stuff, we’ll be back. It is time to head for EPCOT!!!

We headed towards the exit and apparently, one of my internet bulletin board chums spotted me but was afraid to come say hello (Teri, are you reading this?). We boarded the ferry and crossed Bay Lake, and as we stepped down the ramp to exit the ferry, Olivia wakes up and says, without preamble: “Time to go to EPCOT!” As we headed for the car, A couple walks up to us and started asking me about my kilt. They were from Scotland and had never seen a kilt like the one I had on (it is black, and has pockets). We talked for a few minutes and then parted company. We walked to the van because unless we park waaaaay out in the boondocks, it is just easier to walk than it is to fold the stroller and haul all of our stuff onto and off of the tram.

We got to EPCOT in short order and as soon as we made it through security and got inside, we rode Spaceship Earth. Olivia gets more and more excited every time she goes on this ride, it certainly doesn’t hurt that it is my favorite and one of Susan’s favorites as well. At the end of the ride, she enjoys going into AT&T’s sponsorship area, and using the electronic “finegerpainting” screens.

After S/E and fingerpainting, we had an abortive trip to Ice Station Cool. I say abortive because although it was quite cool going through the tunnel to the drink tasting area, there was no snow! Bummer! To make matters worse, at the drink stations, there was none of that great tasting and refreshing “Krest” ginger ale from Mozambique.

I asked a CM if the snowmakers were on the fritz, and she told
me that they were working fine, but the water levels had been low for a while and that there would be snow when there was more water available. I suppose that makes sense. Onward.

Next we made a bee-line to Famous Fish & Chips in the UK section of World Showcase. we eat there several times during each trip... it has become part of our family tradition. A tradition that we may soon be forced to change. Alas the fish portions were smaller than they have been in the last year or so, which dind’t make me terribly happy. That said, it wasn’t enough to make us gloomy. We had lots more ground to cover, and many more places to get food. After all, this is World Showcase.

We pressed on and browsed very briefly through France, and then moved on to Japan, and it’s wonderful Mitsukoshi department store. What do I tell you about this place? We love it so much. There are always new things to see smell, read, and experience in this store. Wonderful perfumes and incense, interesting anime, tasty snacks (ok, who else likes the Wasabi peas?) , interesting cookbooks, books on Zen and the Japanese martial arts. All sorts of things. We were pacing ourselves, and although we had already purchased several pins and other small items, we wanted to wait a while before making any major purposes... can’t spend all of our money the first day, you know.

As we passed the American experience, we bought a Princess Dot pin for Olivia., before pressing on to Italy. It may surprise some of you to learn that Italy has replaced the UK as our favorite place in World Showcase. We have always enjoyed interacting with the Italian CM’s, they always seem so nice, and so eager to chat. What made this so special is the interaction that the CM’s had with Olivia. Those that have been to EPCOT/WS lately know that the Italy section has CM’s in carnival costumes and masks throughout the pavillion at various times throughout the day. These nice people, while not speaking, always made it a point to play with or dance with Olivia, even when she was doing her best shy routine. One nice young lady in a beautiful costume tried and tried to get Olivia to dance with her, but was unsuccessful, but she did give olivia the beautiful red Carnation that she was carrying. Even now that we have been home for two weeks, Olivia still says: “Daddy, that is
the flower I got from the nice lady.” While at Italy, we also
did a wee bit of browsing in the shop. Susan immediately took a
liking to one of the masks she saw, and debated buying it. While
she was looking at the masks, I saw a cookbook: “Savuer Italia”
that I knew that I was just going to HAVE to own. We knew that
we would be coming back, and so excercised some restraint. I could go on about Italy,and believe me, later in this report, I will,
but for now, suffice it to say we had a wonderful time there.

It was almost 8 o’clock and the CM’s were starting to cordon off
the routes for the Tapestry of Dreams parade. Although we are used to it, we weren’t in the mood to be corralled (SP?) before we could make it to the Mexican Cantina. Why? Because it was Margarita time! Thats right, friends. Time for one of those magical margaritas that are so fitting towards the end of a long day of touring. I left susan and Olivia at the end of the parade route by the Mexican temple and secured our drinks, a Mango margarita for Susan, and the standard lime margartia for me. Since there were no handicapped folks in the section that was marked off for their use, we stood there and had a fine parade view while we sipped our fabulous (and needed) drinks. Ummm just in case I need to say this, Olivia didn’t have a Margarita, she had hawaiian punch instead. Mmmmmmmm tasty! (good lord, I’m actually salivating as I type!). Allow me a moment to tell
you, once again, that I think that Tapestry of Nations was a million times better than Tapestry of Dreams. The new parade pales in comparison.

After the parade (and our Margaritas) we did a little shopping at
Mousegears, where Olivia got a pressed quarter, and “a bugs life”
DVD (as it turned out, we already had this on DVD!). We exited
the park shortly after this, arriving back at our cabin at 2100.
After giving Olivia a bath and putting her in her pj’s, we gave
her a little time to play before tucking her in for the night.
She had quite a day AND evening, as she normally goes to bed around 2030, but what the heck, this is vacation!

Susan and I had showers and settled in to have a glass of wine and talk about our day. we also talked about changing our plans for 2003 and possibly having our family christmas, complete with lights decorations and tree here at the Fort Wilderness cabins.

susan went off to bed at 2300, while I lasted until midnight, when I read the same paragraph in my book, three or four times. What a day!

Next: A little local flavor

 

[KayleeUK]

Wow Bill what a busy 1st day you had. I love my pins too

 

[Kilted_Yank]

Kaylee,

We were rather busy, weren't we? Sometimes I think that I wouldn't remember half of the things we did if I was writing them down.

 

[Minniespal]

Thanks for sharing - You sure packed alot into one day!!!