soupy11
Cast Member Wannabe
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2004
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Soupys Tale Part One October 8th, 2004
Your Fired
Cast
Me Soupy (32 year old married guy with no kids, the planner)
Wife Lysa (34 year old married chick, the clumsy one)
Mom Sherry (My mom, widow, the trooper *64 years of age)
See our pretrip report here
See part two here
This report got longer and longer the more time I spent on it. I apologize for the length here and hope you don't sleep through it.
Disney has always held a certain fascination for me. My parents took me there several times as a young kid and I have extremely fond nostalgic feelings for the place. My last trip as a child must have occurred in the early 1980s as I have vague memories of EPCOT and the newness of that special place. From that last trip until my dad died in 1990, I dont think I ever gave Florida or Disneyworld a second thought. All that changed one day in 1994 when my girlfriend at the time (now married to me, poor girl) suggested that we should check out Orlando. Lysa had never been to Disney and always had wanted to check it out. Well to make a long story short, we went in September of 94 and I had a blast sharing it with someone who had never been. To be honest, it was all fairly new to me as the changes to the place were astonishing. All the new resorts, attractions and even Downtown Disney had us giddy. As soon as we got home we planned a trip the very next year. We liked that subsequent trip so much that when we married in 1997 we had to honeymoon there. Well after that last trip in 97 we settled down and bought a house and took on some debts. Disney was something that would have to go to the back burner with other fun things like food and clothing. Owning a house is both lousy and extremely rewarding at the same time. Anyways, with that backstory out of the way, here for posterity and for future generations is an electronic copy of our trip report.
With the exception of our honeymoon, I have always driven to Florida. I dont really enjoy flying and find the cost to literally make my jaw strike my keyboard. Spending 3 hours at 20,000 feet in a flying can is bad. Spending $600 and 3 hours at 20,000 feet in that tincan is LUDICROUS. I can get to Florida on 8 cups of coffee and $76 worth of gas. I find that very appealing. For 13 cents per pound I can get my wife, mother and myself all the way from southern Ontario to central Florida. How can you beat that? You cant thats how.
My wife is the type of person who follows the Boyscout motto of Always be prepared. I think if I shaved her down, somewhere on her scalp she would have a tatoo or birthmark that said this. Its probably behind her ear, just like Damons famous birthmark from the movie The Omen. When she packs she packs with an eye towards the future. She packs for cold weather, warm weather, hot weather, zero gravity space travel, underwater voyages, time travel, hostage situations, fine dining, casual dining, fast food eating, last minute trips that require classic evening wear, desert crossings, and she even prepared for a surprise layover on a planet overrun by superintelligient monkeys. I tried to count the shoes but I got a bit dizzy. Her bathroom bag was bulging with stomache acid remedies, toothpastes (yes thats plural), five different pain remedies, contact lens solutions, scrunchies, body washes, shampoos and conditioners, feet scrubbing appliances, facial kits, ear drops, eye drops and more. I had a bit of a hernia loading the car but I made sure that I cried on the inside only.
My mom on the other hand had a toothbrush and her id. My type of packin!
So after the crying and the cursing I packed my moms toothbrush next to my speedo and we piled in the car, time 6:00 PM Thursday October 7th, 2004. We jumped on the 401 and headed the 280 kilometers to the border at Windsor/Detroit. In our excitement I think we travelled a bit above the posted 100 KM/HR limit as we cruised into Detroit at 8:15 PM. I love getting into the US and always feel like I fooled the border guards when they wave us through. They are always so gruff and grumpy that it gives me a bit of a thrill when I get through without a strip search. Now, I have nothing against strip searches, I just prefer them to happen in dimly lit bars with lots of neon and cheap perfume.
Once we got into Detroit we got a bit messed up finding the Duty Free shop and ended up blowing past it and onto the I-75. Now my mom smokes and only smokes a particular Canadian brand that is seemingly not sold south of the border. With the screw up at the border I thought that my mom was going to go loony. If you are smoker, I think you can appreciate the situation she was in. 10 Days without cigs to a hardened smoker is not a nice way to vacation. I offered to roll back over the Ambassador Bridge to hit the duty free shop but to my surprise she just waved it off and said she would smoke some American brands. Thank god.
I hunkered down in the back and my wife took the shift from Detroit to Cincinatti. I was ordered to sleep as I had the enviable task of the overnight shift. To pass the time, I had purchased the first season DVD set of The Apprentice. The neat thing with this set is that if you open the front flap you get The Donald uttering his famous Your Fired line. Everytime my wife did something a bit sloppy, such as following too close, driving a bit too fast or other discretinary activities that caught my eye I would hold up the DVD set and tell her that The Donald had some news for her as I opened the flap. This had me entertained for hundreds of miles. My wife was a bit meh about it, and in fact she got a bit sore after I had Trump can her for some unbelievably poor DJing skills she showed when she accidentally played some country music.
Once we hit mile marker 29 in Ohio, we pulled off and we stopped at the last available Tim Hortons for some coffee. My mom and I consider ourselves coffee connoisseurs and could not believe the swill we had to drink on this trip. We could count on one finger the cups of coffee that we drank that we found palatable. And this Tim Hortons was not that cup.
I took over in Cincinatti at about 12:30 AM Friday morning and drove straight for about four hours. I always drive this stretch through the mountains and it seems that I always end up with the gas light on and nowhere to fill up. There are stretches here with no exits for 10s of miles. We coasted into a station at last and avoided being stranded in the middle of the night in the smokey mountains for another year. I continued driving until the Georgia border at approximately 6:30 AM. We stopped and ate at a Cracker Barrel and I fell asleep in my toast. When I came to we where approaching Macon, Georgia and sub 70s temperatures.
Once again I took the wheel and got us into the State of Florida at approximately 2 PM Friday October 8th, 2004. The first thing we noticed was the wreckage along the interstate from the horrible hurricane season. It was rare to find a sign that had escaped some type of damage and it was eerie to see these huge trees totally uprooted and lying haphazardly alongside the road. We saw a welcome sign directed at all the aid workers arriving that gave us a happy thought and pushed us on for the final stretch.
We arrived in Orlando at 4:00 PM that Friday and jumped on the I4 and headed west for Walt Disney World. We were staying at the La Quinta Inn Lakeside, which is just west of maingate on Highway 192. I had to show my mom the incredible changes at Walt Disney World so we detoured off of I4 and drove onto Disney property right at Downtown Disney/Pleasure Island. My mom absolutely marveled at the changes. We saw the Swan/Dolphin complex, the boardwalk villas, the monorail and some of MGM Studios. It was so incredible to be back on property and it really is a miraculous place with such incredible attention to detail.
We took the Disney roadway out towards Animal Kingdom and came out on 192 just beside our resort and right near the Dennys. COOL. A private road into Disney? This would prove to be extremely handy.
We were really nervous about seeing our hotel as we had paid so little for it thru Hotwire.com that we were expecting the worst. I had visions that we would have to wait as they scrubbed the previous guests blood and intestines out of the carpets before we were allowed to unpack. To my absolute delight, the resort was incredible. We had a lake, big waterfall, palm tree lined drive and well cared for buildings greeting us as we drove up the entrance and parked. All of this plus nicely appointed rooms, onsite Pizza Hut, a nice buffet breakfast and two huge heated pools were ours for $28/night. I checked us in, got our key and we unpacked into room 449 where we quickly found a safe, fridge, coffee maker, iron and two comfy beds beckoning us to sleep. No blood or crime scene tape anywhere to be seen. I even saw the beefy security guy drive by in his custom gas powered golf cart.
We all showered changed and went poolside for some relaxation and some drinks. It was heaven. I met some English bloke named Jim at the pool bar and we spend a few hours toasting our Commonwealth and getting stinky on the strawberry bannana daiquris. I stumbled back to the room feeling like death warmed over and crawled into bed. It was the end of day one.
Your Fired
Cast
Me Soupy (32 year old married guy with no kids, the planner)
Wife Lysa (34 year old married chick, the clumsy one)
Mom Sherry (My mom, widow, the trooper *64 years of age)
See our pretrip report here
See part two here
This report got longer and longer the more time I spent on it. I apologize for the length here and hope you don't sleep through it.
Disney has always held a certain fascination for me. My parents took me there several times as a young kid and I have extremely fond nostalgic feelings for the place. My last trip as a child must have occurred in the early 1980s as I have vague memories of EPCOT and the newness of that special place. From that last trip until my dad died in 1990, I dont think I ever gave Florida or Disneyworld a second thought. All that changed one day in 1994 when my girlfriend at the time (now married to me, poor girl) suggested that we should check out Orlando. Lysa had never been to Disney and always had wanted to check it out. Well to make a long story short, we went in September of 94 and I had a blast sharing it with someone who had never been. To be honest, it was all fairly new to me as the changes to the place were astonishing. All the new resorts, attractions and even Downtown Disney had us giddy. As soon as we got home we planned a trip the very next year. We liked that subsequent trip so much that when we married in 1997 we had to honeymoon there. Well after that last trip in 97 we settled down and bought a house and took on some debts. Disney was something that would have to go to the back burner with other fun things like food and clothing. Owning a house is both lousy and extremely rewarding at the same time. Anyways, with that backstory out of the way, here for posterity and for future generations is an electronic copy of our trip report.
With the exception of our honeymoon, I have always driven to Florida. I dont really enjoy flying and find the cost to literally make my jaw strike my keyboard. Spending 3 hours at 20,000 feet in a flying can is bad. Spending $600 and 3 hours at 20,000 feet in that tincan is LUDICROUS. I can get to Florida on 8 cups of coffee and $76 worth of gas. I find that very appealing. For 13 cents per pound I can get my wife, mother and myself all the way from southern Ontario to central Florida. How can you beat that? You cant thats how.
My wife is the type of person who follows the Boyscout motto of Always be prepared. I think if I shaved her down, somewhere on her scalp she would have a tatoo or birthmark that said this. Its probably behind her ear, just like Damons famous birthmark from the movie The Omen. When she packs she packs with an eye towards the future. She packs for cold weather, warm weather, hot weather, zero gravity space travel, underwater voyages, time travel, hostage situations, fine dining, casual dining, fast food eating, last minute trips that require classic evening wear, desert crossings, and she even prepared for a surprise layover on a planet overrun by superintelligient monkeys. I tried to count the shoes but I got a bit dizzy. Her bathroom bag was bulging with stomache acid remedies, toothpastes (yes thats plural), five different pain remedies, contact lens solutions, scrunchies, body washes, shampoos and conditioners, feet scrubbing appliances, facial kits, ear drops, eye drops and more. I had a bit of a hernia loading the car but I made sure that I cried on the inside only.
My mom on the other hand had a toothbrush and her id. My type of packin!
So after the crying and the cursing I packed my moms toothbrush next to my speedo and we piled in the car, time 6:00 PM Thursday October 7th, 2004. We jumped on the 401 and headed the 280 kilometers to the border at Windsor/Detroit. In our excitement I think we travelled a bit above the posted 100 KM/HR limit as we cruised into Detroit at 8:15 PM. I love getting into the US and always feel like I fooled the border guards when they wave us through. They are always so gruff and grumpy that it gives me a bit of a thrill when I get through without a strip search. Now, I have nothing against strip searches, I just prefer them to happen in dimly lit bars with lots of neon and cheap perfume.
Once we got into Detroit we got a bit messed up finding the Duty Free shop and ended up blowing past it and onto the I-75. Now my mom smokes and only smokes a particular Canadian brand that is seemingly not sold south of the border. With the screw up at the border I thought that my mom was going to go loony. If you are smoker, I think you can appreciate the situation she was in. 10 Days without cigs to a hardened smoker is not a nice way to vacation. I offered to roll back over the Ambassador Bridge to hit the duty free shop but to my surprise she just waved it off and said she would smoke some American brands. Thank god.
I hunkered down in the back and my wife took the shift from Detroit to Cincinatti. I was ordered to sleep as I had the enviable task of the overnight shift. To pass the time, I had purchased the first season DVD set of The Apprentice. The neat thing with this set is that if you open the front flap you get The Donald uttering his famous Your Fired line. Everytime my wife did something a bit sloppy, such as following too close, driving a bit too fast or other discretinary activities that caught my eye I would hold up the DVD set and tell her that The Donald had some news for her as I opened the flap. This had me entertained for hundreds of miles. My wife was a bit meh about it, and in fact she got a bit sore after I had Trump can her for some unbelievably poor DJing skills she showed when she accidentally played some country music.
Once we hit mile marker 29 in Ohio, we pulled off and we stopped at the last available Tim Hortons for some coffee. My mom and I consider ourselves coffee connoisseurs and could not believe the swill we had to drink on this trip. We could count on one finger the cups of coffee that we drank that we found palatable. And this Tim Hortons was not that cup.
I took over in Cincinatti at about 12:30 AM Friday morning and drove straight for about four hours. I always drive this stretch through the mountains and it seems that I always end up with the gas light on and nowhere to fill up. There are stretches here with no exits for 10s of miles. We coasted into a station at last and avoided being stranded in the middle of the night in the smokey mountains for another year. I continued driving until the Georgia border at approximately 6:30 AM. We stopped and ate at a Cracker Barrel and I fell asleep in my toast. When I came to we where approaching Macon, Georgia and sub 70s temperatures.
Once again I took the wheel and got us into the State of Florida at approximately 2 PM Friday October 8th, 2004. The first thing we noticed was the wreckage along the interstate from the horrible hurricane season. It was rare to find a sign that had escaped some type of damage and it was eerie to see these huge trees totally uprooted and lying haphazardly alongside the road. We saw a welcome sign directed at all the aid workers arriving that gave us a happy thought and pushed us on for the final stretch.
We arrived in Orlando at 4:00 PM that Friday and jumped on the I4 and headed west for Walt Disney World. We were staying at the La Quinta Inn Lakeside, which is just west of maingate on Highway 192. I had to show my mom the incredible changes at Walt Disney World so we detoured off of I4 and drove onto Disney property right at Downtown Disney/Pleasure Island. My mom absolutely marveled at the changes. We saw the Swan/Dolphin complex, the boardwalk villas, the monorail and some of MGM Studios. It was so incredible to be back on property and it really is a miraculous place with such incredible attention to detail.
We took the Disney roadway out towards Animal Kingdom and came out on 192 just beside our resort and right near the Dennys. COOL. A private road into Disney? This would prove to be extremely handy.
We were really nervous about seeing our hotel as we had paid so little for it thru Hotwire.com that we were expecting the worst. I had visions that we would have to wait as they scrubbed the previous guests blood and intestines out of the carpets before we were allowed to unpack. To my absolute delight, the resort was incredible. We had a lake, big waterfall, palm tree lined drive and well cared for buildings greeting us as we drove up the entrance and parked. All of this plus nicely appointed rooms, onsite Pizza Hut, a nice buffet breakfast and two huge heated pools were ours for $28/night. I checked us in, got our key and we unpacked into room 449 where we quickly found a safe, fridge, coffee maker, iron and two comfy beds beckoning us to sleep. No blood or crime scene tape anywhere to be seen. I even saw the beefy security guy drive by in his custom gas powered golf cart.
We all showered changed and went poolside for some relaxation and some drinks. It was heaven. I met some English bloke named Jim at the pool bar and we spend a few hours toasting our Commonwealth and getting stinky on the strawberry bannana daiquris. I stumbled back to the room feeling like death warmed over and crawled into bed. It was the end of day one.
