Yes, I said I'd stop doing oldies, but I don't do Facebook, and I don't know how long my dear wife has to work tonight, and I'd like to leave her something fun to read,
especially since things haven't exactly gone too spiffy for us lately.
She doesn't read the old reports, but she will if I post an oldie here.
Just trying to give you a couple laughs honey, thinking of you.
Really, at first I thought, not one of my best chapters I don't think, but since it wasn't just one incident to write about, better than I thiought it was.
It does cover some ground.
And do not miss the absolutely gorgeous picture at the end of Wishes that I took with my new cheapo 7meg Kodak digital.
enjoy
Have you ever noticed how some pharases can have different meanings sometimes? Depending on the context?
Ok, crap, great start. Not pharases, PHRASES! geesh
"Ramses, I don't love Moses any longer, we just met for a couple of drinks!"
"Fine, but if I ever hear you say once more, "So it is written,,,"
"Then so you shall be done!"
Anyway, I hate when I interrupt myself,,, for example...A split stay can mean either 3 nights at Pop, followed by 4 nights at Riverside,,,,, or , Morning at MK, and after some pool time, either back to MK, or evening at Epcot. Well tonight we are doing a split stay.
Remember all those pictures I told yoiu I took when I got my first digital cam on the Feb trip? Well, I'm a gonna slip some in here first, before we retutn to the KTTK day where I believe I left off.
In February, we busted up our trip in the middle for a couple of nights in Kissemmee, so we could check out different places we might want to eventually live. I had booked in advance a place called America's Best Value Inn.
Did you know that Best, and Value, combined together are oxymorons?
O yes, the pictures on line looked just great, inner courtyard, big pool, hot tub, and "Join us at night by our poolside Tiki Bar!"
37 a night with AAA.
When we pulled up on 192, we couldn't believe the lobby. HUGE, very fancy, lobby bar, restaurant with another bar, gift shop, clerks wearing vests! Unbelievable, all for 37 a night.
Smoking rooms were second floor, I didn't care, so I dragged that cooler up, one step at a time. We had an inner courtyard room, and getting to it was when we stepped back into reality.
I knew this was going to be a downer after checking out of Coronado, but the first impression gave me a little hope. Well hope doesn't float, it sinks, unless you're Pennywise the Clown, "We all float down here!"
After using the key and her hip, Diane got the door open, and first thought was "Well, this is different".
IT! was a sideways room, not the door at one end like most, but the door right smack in the middle, with the beds facing the doorway. After we brought in all our crap, that's when we started noticing, um, defects, yeah, that'l work. And I got my new, trusty Kodak out.
Shall we start with the smoke detector?
Then she looked on the desk and half the phone was hanging off the rest of it. In the drawer, I found the missing part of the smoke alarm, took that out, and put it next to the phone.
Fine, no problem, Smidgy asked me what bed I want, I picked the one on the right.
Then she laughed.
"Look at the headboard, whatever you do, don't touch it!"
Yep, the whole thing was on a 40 degree angle, looked like the whole thing was going to let go any minute.
And, of course I had to touch it, try to make it better.
WHUMP!
Headboard ALLLLL GONNNNE!
As you can plainly see, the headboard was just a false cover to hide the bullet holes that surely the old headboard suffered from.
So, we have the busted smoke alarm, the busted phone, and the busted headboard. Since the whole reason we are here and not still staying in Disney is because WE are busted too, I took one of the busted Diane.
She immediately called the lobby, not to bother to have anything fixed but just so they didn't think it was us that did it. They said they can have somebody come up to fix it in a couple of hours, but Smidgy told them "Oh no, please don't, I think it will just make these things mad."
It turned out it did make the smoke alarm angry. I tried to put the cover back on, and thought I had fixed it. Then five minutes later, it beeped.
Once.
Then five minutes later, it beeped.
Once. And kept doing it. So I took it off again, "Ok, that's why the dang thing is in the drawer.
It stopped beeping.
For ten minutes.
Then it beeped once.
Again.
THis will definately drive us nuts during the night, so I climbed back up again and took it off the wall, but it can only go so far cuz it's hard wired in.
No problem, it has a battery, which I remove, problem solved!
Ten minutes later, ,,
It beeped.
It was a demonic smoke alarm!!
And it kept on beeping every five minutes as if to mock me.
Now, I'm ticked, and this is turning into a VENDETTA!
I climb back up there again, Diane has been watching all this and now even she is getting scared, "Steve, maybe some holy water?" She's trying to make the sign of the cross with her hands.
"Can't honey, it's electrical."
I pull it off as far as I can, and back in the wall I see some wire nuts. I have already searched for breaker switches to turn off the juice to no avail, so since it's live, I'm scared poopyless to touch the wires. Very carefully I unscrew one of the nuts, then just touching one of the insulated wires, I manage to separate it from the wall wireing. "Hah!"
"Go ahead, make my day!"
This time, Regan the Smoke Alarm had no answer. And it's head didn't spin around or shoot our green juice.
I WIN!
Now it's time to check out the pool and the Tiki bar.
It was quite a bit of a walk, even though it was also in the courtyard, but this was a really longly laid out motel. With drinks in hand, we found the pool, which actually looked fairly well kept up.
ANd that was all that was kept up. The tiki bar was closed, didn't look like it had been used in months judging the size of the spider webs, and then we found the hot tub.
Oy Vey!
It looked like the pool at the campground in National Lampoon's Vacation. Even Aunt Edna would have turned up her nose.
The water was a lovely shade of forest green, with two ducks floating on top of it.
But that's not what got me,
it was the old guy sitting there with the fishing pole that did it.
"Any luck?" I had to ask.
"Na, bin trine fer 6 munts now to nab "Ol Duke", but eez a cagy one, 'at one is."
I walked away thinking the only thing he could catch in the pool was typhoid, diptheria or dysentery, ,,,,
Ok, the last part didn't happen, but there was a green hot tub with ducks in it. I did find the switch on a post next to it that had the warning signs posted below it, but the switch did nothing.
Don't you just hate it when you flip an electrical switch, and nothing happens? At least as far as you can see?
I flipped it a couple of times, then suddenly I had the thought that maybe I'm turning on the smoke alarm again, and I left it alone.
Well, not a great place to stay, but it served it's purpose.
Hey, like I said, I was going to sneak in some of the feb trip pictures before the end of this report.
And now that I have you all hopelessly confused, let us return to December, friday, KTTK day.
After saying goodbye to Colleen and Adrian, we headed to the exit to get back to the resort. And once again, I'm doing it again.
You know, IT! The IT that happens at or near the end of a trip!
I sometimes have a problem when I am down there and we near the end of the vacation.
Ok, Ok, I USUALLY have a problem when we near the end of the vacation, especially when there isn't another one in the works, (which we didn't have in December), and toss in the fact that I am also out of work,, well, you get the idea.
Now I want to live two weeks worth of vacations in the day and a half we have left. It's December, friday, and Magic Kingdom has the "Not so Scary Christmas Party" thing going on again tonight at seven o'clock, which means we don't have much time.
Back at French Quarter, we changed, and shot down to the pool.
I'm like, "Hurry, hurry, C'mon, we have to relax, relax, thengetback to MagicKingdom!"
This would have been our last night, should have been, but remember, I was able to add that extra day when we got there?
Now, you know what I do most when I am in Disney? Or Universal for that matter?
I look at the sky.
There wasn't a freakin cloud in the sky when we left MK, now they are forming.
Down by the pool, we got the same seats we've had last time, a bit out of the way but with a decent view of the pool, for all that's worth at the French Quarter. Yes, you got that right, I'm still not a fan of the pool there.
I just couldn't believe how fast the clouds were growing. It wasn't like they were moving in from the west, like they do here, in Carpentersville, they were forming and growing right before my very eyes. Getting huge! Like the oil companies profits, or Barry Bond's head.
Or Dolly Parton's .....
hits.
While I am staring at the clouds, lying in my lawn chair, some bugs started bugging me. Not mosquitos, I have never been bitten by one in Disney yet, as far as I can remember, or even love bugs, only saw a couple of them this trip.
Then one took a bite out of my thigh and flew off as I made an "Ow!" sound. Diane saw it and said, "yeah, they're bugging me too, what are they?"
"Not sure, Desparate Housflies, I think."
(don't feel bad, she thinks my jokes get annoying too)
You know what happened fifteen minutes later?
It started raining.
Raining for real, and we took off.
"OkOk, minordetail, we'll change andgetbackto thepark!"
I did, she did, and we did.
And armed, baby!
Our last remaining little airplane bottles came with, two each, umbrellas, vikes for me, immodium for her,,,,,
,,,
Hey, everyone has their vice,,,
, and we were back on the bus in a jiffy.
Then it stopped raining.
From the window in the bus I could see the clouds open up. The sun came out.
Angels were flying down from the sky!
By the Time we got to the MK, there was BARELY A CLOUD IN THE SKY!
It was almost 4 o'clock now, Wishes is at six, they evict us at seven, and we didn't know what we wanted to do.
So we got Dole Whips.
There is a smoking section right across from the stand, and after we ate a bit of it, it was time to say bye bye to the first rum airplane bottles.
Then we just walked along, enjoying the emptyness of the park, most of the day guests were already leaving, and the NSSCP guests had yet to arrive.
I wasn't sure if Colleen and Adrian were still there so I kept my eye out for them, but we never saw them. We were pretty much done with the drinks by the time we got to Big Thunder Mountain, and I dumped my second bottle in it. Hey, I'm not proud, just honest. Plus, I didn't want to have to buy something else to mix it in.
Besides,,,,,,
I needed something to wash down the vikes.
tee hee
crap, I just said that outloud too, didn't I?
We had less than a fifteen minute wait for BTMR, and it was time for our favorite smoking area again.
Here we go again, yes, I've already posted the favorite smoking area pics from this trip, so this is a great time to slip in the ones from the february trip.
Hey, same people, same spot, just happens to be a different day.
Ok, month!
Like I said, it should be mandatory that everyone has their picture taken in the rocker on their next trip.
By now, my double bottle Dole Whip has hit me, along with the vikes, and I'm fingering Diane's last bottle in my pocket.
"Don't even think about IT!"
Dang, she's good, how'd she know? Must have ESPN or something.
She then went straight over to Pecos Bill's for a coke, I just tagged along with, and it wasn't crowded at all. But it did seem strange that the people that were there were all Oriental. Must have been a tour group or something.
Smidgy noticed it too, "How come everyone here is Oriental?"
"Oh, you know how those Chinese love that take-out American food."
It's a wonder she ever talks to me at all.
Then, of all things, we rode the Riverboat. Have only done it once before, and it was a very nice end to the day at the park. Time for taking up our Main street spot for Wishes. Once again, let's end it here tonight with a Feb trip picture on my dig. cam. of Wishes, when I had no idea what I was doing with the camera.
good night everyone, and a happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there.
Happy Mother's Day, Diane ,,,,,love you bunches!
Just send me a note on FB
!
