"We can do that...", or How This All Started - Part II
Trip #3 – I was a senior in high school in 1991. The first Gulf War was also, coincidentally, in 1991. Historically, in our small Christian school, high school seniors took their senior trips to Washington, D.C. & New York City. However, since there was a war, many of the typical tourist destinations in those two cities had been closed to the public. Which was fine with us. Not the war. But, rather, the Washington Monument being closed. Seniors were required to raise the money needed for their senior trips. Let’s just say that the traditional trip to Washington, D.C. & New York City was an expensive one, and our class was not that talented when it came to raising money. We had used all our money on the previous year’s Junior/Senior Banquet. So, during our Senior Year, we needed to both raise all the money needed for our Senior Trip AND the money needed for our Graduation Reception. So our parents consulted with our homeroom sponsor who, in turn, consulted with the school administration and told them that, while we could make the trip to Washington, D.C. & New York City, we wouldn’t really be able to see anything once we got there. And a road trip from Tennessee is kind of a long one to make just to stand and point at the attractions. At some point, Florida was brought up. But there’s swimming in Florida! (We were a Christian school, remember – boys and girls don’t swim together!) And the Senior Trips are supposed to be educational! But, oh, there’s other stuff besides swimming in Florida, and lots of it is educational, our parents and homeroom sponsor countered. In the end, my mom consulted with her
travel agent, and, pretty soon, we were raising funds for a trip to Florida – St. Augustine and the Kennedy Space Center for the educational portions and Disney World for the fun (and educational) portion with a trip to the Okefenokee Swamp thrown in for good measure.
We were all very excited! Who needs Washington, D.C. & New York City when you can have Florida and Disney World!?
In April 1991, we embarked on our journey. And, to this day, it’s still one of my favorite road trips! Not all of our class went on the trip, so we had a rather small group – our sponsor, his wife, 4 girls (including me) and 3 guys. We and our luggage all fit in one of those 15 passenger vans. Jason, who was then “a friend” (but who is now my DH) was one of the guys. So was my then boyfriend who was Jason’s best friend. Confused yet? Jason was, at the time, dating my best friend who was in her 1st year of college. The girl w/ whom I hung around on this trip had a crush on Jason – as did I (but my mine was secret since I had a boyfriend). You know the Taylor Swift song, "You Belong With Me"? That was how I felt about me and Jason, except I was a cheerleader. Oh, the beauty of high school teenaged drama!
Anyway, for the first leg of the journey, we stopped in St. Augustine to eat lunch and to look at the fort (Castillo de San Marcos) and to solemnly ponder the educational benefits of said fort.
Next to Disney World, St. Augustine is my favorite place in the entire world. As I said previously, my mom is a beach person. We took family vacations to the beach every summer. And, when I was in about 6th or 7th grade, we discovered St. Augustine and started going there every summer. After Jason & I got married, I introduced him to the lovely St. Augustine. He fell in love as well, and we have been going almost every year as well. One of my main regrets in life is that we didn’t get married on the beach in St. Augustine. Even when we go to Disney World, we usually stop for a night or two in St. Augustine.
As an aside, I love the beach! And Florida! My wish is for us to move to Florida. Our house is currently decorated in a beach cottage theme. I told our DD and DS that they could decorate their rooms however they wanted as long as it related to the beach – so DD has a mermaid/seaturtle/seashell room, & DS has a shark room. My mom’s family is from northern Alabama, & my dad’s family is from northern Georgia. But, somehow, there’s Florida in my blood. I love the salty tang in the air and how it sticks to your skin. I love the palm trees and the sand on the side of the roads. I love the heavy heat that makes you feel like you’re in an oven. I adore sitting in my beach chair with a good book while the waves gently lap at my feet. I love the pelicans and the alligators. And the Spanish moss that spookily hangs from the trees. There is something about the ocean waves crashing on the shore that sings in my heart.
And, yes, while I’m from Tennessee and root for the Tennessee Volunteers, I also, much to the chagrin of my DH, root for the Florida Gators. They’re Florida!
Anyway, by the time I was a senior in high school, I felt like an expert on St. Augustine and the beach. So, when we stopped at the ocean on our way to Central Florida, that’s why I almost drowned. Because I thought I knew what I was doing. (Isn’t that the way most things work?)
On our way out of town, we stopped to “wade” in the ocean. Remember – the “boys & girls don’t swim together” thing. Well, our homeroom sponsor and his wife were not as strict as some of the other teachers, so they had a tendency to let us have our fun – as long we were behaving reasonably. Due to the “no swimming” clause, we had shorts and shirts over our swimsuits. And, eventually, the “wading” became “swimming”. And, eventually, I was trying to body-surf. I boogie-boarded every summer, so I thought I knew what I was doing. Of course, my mom wasn’t there to do the mom thing – “You’re getting too far out!” And I didn’t have a boogie board because we were supposed to be just wading. So, eventually, I was about chest-deep without a boogie board to keep me afloat. I’m about 5 foot, and, back then, I weighed 98 lbs. So, when a wave came, it was over my head. And it was high tide.
And, then I found myself in my first riptide.
With every wave that came in, the further out I got. While I had boogie-boarded and could swim, I wasn’t what one would call a strong swimmer by any stretch of the imagination. I was both literally and figuratively in over my head. Jason, who again was then just a friend (but whom I secretly adored) was on the shore watching me drown. My then boyfriend was in the water w/ me. He was not quite caught up in the riptide and knew I was in trouble, so he reached out his hand to me and said, “Take my hand.”
That was against the rules.
There was to be no “contact” between boys and girls. It was the rule. And I was good girl who always followed the rules. (In fact, as I tell my own children proudly, I managed to graduate from high school both as the valedictorian and as someone who never received any demerits in all 6 years of junior and high school.)
So, when he said, “Take my hand.” I replied while choking on the saltwater, “I can’t!”
He swam closer to me, reached out his hand AGAIN, and yelled, “Get my hand!”
Every time a wave came, I was underwater. And floundering. In between the waves crashing over my head, I tried to explain to him, “It’s..” [wave over my head] “… against…” [wave over my head] “… the…” [wave over my head] “… rules!”
In the midst of our danger, he laughed!
I could see our sponsor and his wife standing on the shore yelling something to us. In my weird, befuddled state of mind, I thought they were saying, “Get away from him!” (The sponsor and his wife also happened to be the parents of my boyfriend.)
I later learned they were actually yelling, “Grab his hand!”
By this time, my boyfriend was in almost as much trouble as me, & I had managed to swallow half of the ocean. (That comes into play later.) A rather ferocious wave slapped me in the side of the head and knocked some sense back into me, and I finally (desperately) reached for his hand. Forget the rules!
And we eventually made our way out of the riptide and back to shore, gasping and choking and dripping. Where Jason promptly scolds me, “What were you thinking?” ‘Cause even then, ya’ll, he cared.
20 years later, whenever we all get together, everyone laughs at me almost drowning because I was afraid to break the rules.
I guess that was all to say, you’ll never see me reusing my refillable mug!
Later that day, we stopped at a Dairy Queen where, standing in the parking lot behind the restaurant, I promptly threw up all the saltwater I had swallowed.
After we checked into our 3-bedroom condo (the Caribbean Villa Condominiums in Kissimmee), the rest of the class went to supper and to do some shopping. Since I still wasn’t feeling well, my friend and I stayed behind. The next day, we completed the second leg of the educational portion of our trip – Kennedy Space Center. Which was actually kind of cool. I remember the circular movie thing was really cool.
Then the next day… we went to Disney World!
We had a 4-day parkhopper ticket – then costing a total $111.00. Disney Studios (which was then MGM Studios) had just opened, so we planned to spend 1 day at each park and then parkhop on our last day.
And it was here that I caught the fever. And lost my mind.
Upon arriving in the Magic Kingdom and receiving my first park map, something came over me. As I looked through the park brochure, I remember thinking to myself, “We have to see it all.”
All through our high school years, in everyone’s yearbooks, I had always written, “Can’t wait ‘til our Senior Trip!” And, now, here we were… On our Senior Trip. In Disney World.
I was Vice President of our class. My boyfriend was the President, and Jason was the Class Secretary. At that moment on Main Street, I appointed myself “Senior Trip Tour Guide”. I had never heard of
The Unofficial Guide or anything else like it. But, somehow, I knew… there was a right way to do Disney, and there was a wrong way to do Disney.
And we were doing it the right way, so help me, God.
My friend, the three guys, and I were in a group together, and the other two girls went with the sponsor and his wife. So I only had 4 people (besides myself) to convince that there was a “right way” to do Disney.
And, basically, my “right way” was to see everything. Even if it was something as lame as The Swiss Family Robinson Tree. We were doing it. And, yes, everyone was riding the Carrousel. And Dumbo. And It’s a Small World.
Surprisingly, they were inclined to acquiesce to my requests (demands).
So, with park brochures in hand, I proceeded to lead the way through the World. If I felt we were lingering too long at any one thing, I moved us along, helpfully calling out things like, "Next stop - Italy!" Even if we were only going to be able to watch 2 minutes of a show, we had to stop, so I could mark it off our list. I was insufferable. And I'm not sure how anyone put up with me.
Oh, there were some setbacks. My boyfriend and I fought all the way through the World. (It was probably on this trip that I decided that maybe things weren’t going to work out between us… his risking his life to save me from drowning, notwithstanding.) No one liked my idea of visiting every country in the World Showcase just so we could say we did. The picture of us standing in Mexico is hilarious… we all have different looks of frustration on our faces. We didn’t have money for table service restaurants. My boyfriend, who has a crowd phobia, had a panic attack in Frontierland in front of the parade that I insisted we watch for a minute. My friend and I decided that the tour guide on the Backlot Tour in MGM was too cute for just 1 ride, so we had to ride it twice. Three times maybe. And then, because we were sick of the guys, we took off on our own, and she convinced me that it would be fun to ride the monorail around and around the Magic Kingdom loop.
And then there was the ice cream.
On the day we went to EPCOT, the boys got hungry and wanted a snack. A Mickey Bar sounded good. But I had read the brochure! I knew there was an ice cream shop in France, and I thought it would be just lovely to have an ice cream treat in France. So I made us wait until we finally reached France for our ice cream. Only to discover that this particular restaurant was by reservation only. I had neglected to read that portion of the brochure. And, by this time, it was time to meet our sponsor. So we didn’t get ice cream in EPCOT. The next day, we were at MGM. And the line to see the Indiana Jones show was really long. Really, really long. And really, really hot. Somehow, my friend and I convinced the three guys to stand in line while we went and “rested” out of the sun. By “rested”, I mean we went and found a lovely ice cream shop and had a yummy hot fudge sundae. When we were through, we met back up with the guys and only had about 5 minutes to wait. My boyfriend was not pleased and complained while Jason just laughed.
Because we had not budgeted for table service restaurants, every night we ate outside of Disney World. One night it was a buffet (kind of like a Ryan’s), one night a Chinese restaurant, and one night we tried to eat at the Hard Rock Café. Except it was so crowded, we just bought t-shirts, Jason saved our sponsor’s wife from a drunken reveler, and we found somewhere else to eat.
We also took turns swimming in the condo’s pool. One night, when it was the boys’ turn to swim, my friend and I went walking around the complex. The guys finished swimming, and Jason realized we weren’t at the condo. So he came looking for us. After he found us, my friend walked back to the condo with some of the others, and Jason stayed behind to try to explain to me the dangers of walking around by ourselves in an area about which we knew nothing. I'll say it again - even then, he cared. (Of course, then, I was not impressed with what I thought was a very chauvanistic attitude and even asked him,"Why do you care?" to which he replied before stomping off, "I just do!")
However, even though we didn’t eat at any of the WDW restaurants (except for counter service) and stayed off-site, I finally got it.
I found myself completely enamored with the magic of Disney World. Our entire group saw IllumiNations… in the rain, standing in our Mickey ponchos. We rode all the rides. Like the sky-ride over the Magic Kingdom and some ride sponsored by Delta that I remember thinking was really neat. And I finally got to ride Space Mountain and the Haunted Mansion! We rode the monorail and whizzed through the Contemporary Resort. I walked down Main Street at night with all the lights. We met Mickey and Minnie dressed in their futuristic spacegear outside of Spaceship Earth and saw Minnie again at MGM. Jason and the other guy in our group got to be the “extras” on the Backlot Tour show at the beginning of the ride. I bought Minnie Ears, a tissue paper flower from Mexico, a Gone with the Wind Poster from MGM, and my first Mickey watch. There were times throughout each of our days in Walt Disney World where I would stop everyone and say, “Ya’ll, we’re actually in Disney World!”
But my favorite part of Trip #3? On our last day, we parkhopped and visited all three parks. By the time, we got to the Magic Kingdom for the last time, my boyfriend and I were sick of each other. When we came to the Haunted Mansion, my friend suggested that we mix things up a bit and ride with different people – she was hoping to ride with Jason. Jason, on the other hand, did not like her at all. So he arranged things in such a way that I ended up riding Haunted Mansion with him. My boyfriend was mad. My friend was mad. I was on cloud nine.
To this day, Haunted Mansion is my favorite ride.
He also like Buzz Lightyear. And he loves all the thrill rides! His favorite is probably "Tower of Terror". 
This time, I'm really trying to take the time to enjoy all the different baby & toddler stages because I know how fast it goes! He's 1 & will be 2 when we go in September. He's a sweetie! He has a very easygoing personality (a lot like his daddy). He loves to climb. He's cute and funny. And a bit spoiled. And still doesn't sleep through the night! But I adore him. And his baby shampoo scented hair w/ his little curls. He likes books. Both reading them and eating them. And cats (but he doesn't eat them). And macaroni and cheese, which he does eat. His favorite characters are Buzz Lightyear & Woody. He's having a Toy Story birthday party in July.
Subbing! I too enjoy your writing style! What is on those adorable matching T shirts? Is that Tigger?
(Plus, the kids' schoolwork has been tough this week.)
