Chapter 1: The Day before Disney or We are on our way...FINALLY!
Date: January 18th, 2009
Time: 630am
Place: Northern Ontario, Canada
Ken and I woke up to the sweet sounds of our favourite radio station and quickly climbed out of bed! We showered and dressed and finished the last minute details. Ken loaded up the car while I gave my sister a quick call to say farewell! (Her children are VERY early risers)
The girls woke themselves up at 7am, were dressed and ready to go by 715! As we are getting ready to head out the door, I suddenly realize that the girls have no shoes to wear! How I missed this detail, I have no idea! Their outdoor runners were all too small! Luckily, they had brought home their indoor shoes from school! I told them to wear those and that we would buy new shoes when we got to Minneapolis and the Mall of America!
Problem solved, we were out the door and in the car at 7:27am! Down the street and around the corner we go to the nearest Tim Horton's to get some coffee and breakfast for the road! Coffee and breakfast sandwiches for me and Ken and chocolate chip muffins for the girls! MMMMM, yummy!
Breakfast and coffee out of the way, we are ready to hit the highway! It was now, 7:46am and we are really on our way! The girls were so excited! They were watching out their windows and calling out all their favourite sights!
Mommy, look, there's our grocery store!
Daddy, there's our McDonald's
Mommy, Daddy, look, there's our Airport!
And on it went for about 10 minutes until we finally got away from the city! Once we were out of the city, it was all white and beautiful as we passed by the rural farm area as we headed south to the American border!
Natalie, as expressive as always, gushed as we passed by a particularly smelly dairy farm,,,,That poo smell makes me think of elephants, and that makes me think of Dumbo! Mommy, I have been waiting for sooo long to ride the Dumbo ride an finally I am going to ride it! Oh Mommy, I am so excited! Fighting back the tears, I said yes, Nat only 2 more sleeps until you get to ride Dumbo!
Silly Me! I forgot to retrieve the camera from the trunk of the car until after we crossed the border!
The border crossing went very well, and very quickly thanks to our lovely new passports! We reached the US border at exactly 825am EST(CST)! We are making great time so far! We went to the border store to fill up our tank with gas and buy my wonderful caffeine addicted husband another Extra large coffee! I think we must have been the first customers of the day because when I asked about buying a coffee, the clerk said I could have some for free! Cool! Gas tank filled, bladders empty and happy hubby with more coffee, we are ready and back on the road by 740am (CST).
The girls, having already finished their muffins, and still claiming hunger, open their snack bags at approximately 8am (CST). I had packed a wide variety of treats for them to snack on as we drove to Minneapolis. Boxes of raisins, fruit snacks, granola bars, trail mix, cereal bars, dried fruit and of course, GUM! They were quite happy to munch away and help Daddy look out for deer!
Ah, Yes, Deer! Along the highways in Northern Ontario and subsequently Northern Minnesota, it is imperative to keep one's eyes wide open for large four legged animals with hooves! Deer and Moose are quite abundant in this part of the world and can be quite oblivious to fast moving vehicles at times! We did have to brake once for a crossing of 3 does who I assume were just out for an early morning meal!
Shortly after 8am, the girls start peeling off their layers! Now let me explain a bit! Leaving behind a very cold climate to head into a much warmer one can be a mite bit tricky! When we left our city that morning, the temperature was -17 degrees celcius! For you folks who measure in Farenheit, that is a big Fat 0! That is not including any wind that might be a blowin'! So, anyway, we had the girls dressed in the following: Fleece pants on the bottom with long sleeved shirt under a fleece sweater under their fleece lined vests! Topped off with hats and gloves, they were warm as toast in the car! After about an hour or so they began to feel a teensy bit too hot! So off come the hat and mitts and vests!
Now, at about 845am, the weather began to get a bit interesting! It started snowing! HARD! This made things a bit interesting to say the least! Something I noticed about drivers in the U.S. - not a whole lot of the vehicles passing us on the other side of the highway had their lights on! That shocked me! Here it is, not even 9am, on a dark and snowy morning and these cars are driving without lights on! I find that to be very dangerous! In Ontario, that is a chargeable offense! It is considered to be dangerous and hazardous driving to drive in poor weather conditions without lights! Needless to say I was a tad bit nervous!
We made it to Duluth, MN at exactly 10:20am. We were exactly on schedule! Even with a snowstorm hounding us! We pulled in to the first halfway decent fast food place we found, which just happened to be my fave WENDY's! I just lurve me some Wendy's Mandarin Chicken Salad! Unfortunately, it being not quite 1030 yet, the place was not yet open for business! No Problem! The parking lot was empty and our legs were definitely due for a bit of a stretch! Out from the car we jumped and did laps around the parking lot until we saw a bemused employee unlocking the doors to let us in! Following the yummy smells inside the restaurant, we placed our orders, used the restrooms and found some tables onto which we placed our food!
Not quite ready to sit down again just yet, Ken and I ate standing while the girls enjoyed their twirly chairs! Ken had the most meat he could get between two buns and a salad! I had my fave aforementioned salad and the girls mowed through their chicken tenders and fries, washed down by lemonade! Lunch break finished, we headed back to our car, buckled in and headed....across the street to Dunn Bros. to get some of the best coffee I have ever tasted! Stopping here on every Duluth trip is an absolute must do!
So, our bellies full, bladders empty and once again, Daddy happy with his coffee, we once again set off. This time to travel the remaining 2.5 hrs to Minneapolis! I have to tell you, my husband has quite the eclectic taste in music! On this particular segment of our voyage, we were listening to the soundtrack to Disney's The Pirates of the Caribbean The Curse of the Black Pearl! Earlier in the day, we had listened to Matrix Reloaded, Rammstien, some Nova Scotian sea Shanty's and some of the soundtrack from Lord of the Rings!
The girls, being warm and full, decided that it would be a good time to have a wee siesta! They both conked out about 20 minutes outside of Duluth and slept practically the rest of the way to Minneapolis! I believe I too had a bit of a nap! By now the snow has cleared and the sun was shining! Driving conditions much improved, no deer in sight and his fave tunes playing on the radio, my hubby was indeed a happy man!
The rest of the drive to Minneapolis was quite uneventful! We had been given some excellent directions from Ken's parents on how to find our way to our hotel and we were quite confident we could get there with little difficulty! The one thing we had kind of forgotten about was our gas tank! Just as we were about to head into the middle of the city, I happened to take a glance at our fuel gauge, it was almost empty!!!! We both watched with bated breath as we frantically searched for a gas station along the freeway! Finally found one, filled up the tank with gas and then proceeded to get almost lost as we then searched for our hotel! We found it indeed! We all heaved a collective sigh and pronounced the first part of our journey to be successful!
We had chosen the Park Plaza in Bloomington on the recommendation of my InLaws who fly out of the states quite often. A nice hotel, great rate and a fine spot to park our car while we fly to warmer conditions! We checked in, found our room, did the basic necessities of unpacking and then headed off to somewhere none of us had ever been before! The Mall of America!
We had missed the 230pm shuttle from the hotel so we decided to drive over! We found our way quite well and parked in Indiana (for those of you who have never been to MOA - the parking building is HUGE! All the different sections of said building are named after one of the states!) We found our way inside and immediately took care of the first order of business! SHOES! Remember, the girls were wearing their indoor school shoes! So we found the nearest Payless shoe store and took care of business! Emily found a great pair of blue and white Tinkerbelle shoes and Natalie found herself some pink and white butterfly runners! A perfect match for each girl!
Next, we found our way to the
Disney store so that I could exchange some of the girls' Christmas money into Disney Dollars! It was a wee bit tricky to remove ourselves from that store as there was a very tempting 70% off sale happening at that very moment! Extract ourselves we did though and went in search of the next important thing! FOOD! We had already decided that we wanted to give BubbaGump Shrimp Co. a try! Shrimp all around, a beer for Dad and a Pina Colada for Momsy! After a lovely meal, we decided to spend the last of our remaining minutes at MOA at the
LEGO store! Fun was had by all as we played and built and raced our little lego cars all over the ramps! Too soon though the closing call was made and we had to head back to our hotel! We weren't too sad though, as we knew that in a few short hours we would be on a plane headed to none other than.....Walt Disney World!
We made it back to the hotel without any further complications and got everybody and everything ready for our departure early the next morning! As I was setting out the girls' clothing for the next morning, I realized that I was beginning to feel a little itchy and twitchy! Did I forget to mention that I have a slight allergy...to seafood? Yup! It isn't normally a problem. I can usually eat shrimp without complication. This night however, my body decided that it was not going to comply with vacation rules! Within 15 minutes, I was covered in hives from head to toe! No antihistamines in sight! The hives looked horrible but actually the itching wasn't too bad. I figured I could handle it without drugs! I proceeded to take a cool bath, slather myself in as much lotion as my skin could absorb and drink as much water as my bladder could hold! It worked, sort of! The itching stopped. The hives did not go away! I soon realized that sleep was near impossible!
I tossed and turned and turned and tossed and finally managed to fall asleep around 1230am! We had crawled into bed at 9pm! Our wake up call was at 330am! I had a grand total of 3 hrs of sleep! I was a wee bit tired, but not itchy! Check. Yup, hives still there!
I reminded my self that today was the day for which I had been waiting so many years and to stop pouting and darn it, be happy! It worked! The happiness and excitement won over and I was ready to go!
I am so pumped to finally be doing this! IT is really helping me get through the "I'm not going to Disney for a very long time" blues! 
I already have chapters 3,4 and 5 witten! Just have to upload some pictures to photobucket! Please hang in there with me! I will do my best to do at least a couple chapters a week! 
I think that if she had a book, Em would have gladly curled up in that "O" for a good long read! She was very comfy! 
I am enjoying yours too! I am excited to hear all about the plans for your upcoming trip too! 
