A Little Slack, Please

Yes, it’s been over two months since my last entry, and I ask for a bit of understanding for that.  When I last posted, we were eagerly awaiting visitors (Cathi and Louie) so that we could welcome them into our home on wheels, as well as show them a little Disney fun.  Their visit was all we could have hoped for, minus the unseasonably warms temps in the mid-80s.  As with all visits, it was too brief, and left us missing our kids even more.  The time we spent with Cathi and Louie was the best Christmas gift we could ask for, though, so looking at the pictures from their visit is the gift that keeps on giving!

The lead-up to Christmas, as well as the entire Christmas week, was not what we had hoped for.  Tim was scheduled to work five days for the week before, but managed to be infected with the flu by, no doubt, someone’s germy money at Universal.  He called in sick three days in a row.  And, a few days before Christmas, despite my best efforts at avoiding the germs (including a flu shot), I came down with the flu as well.  We missed out on an open house at our friends’ (Joe and Donna) new home on Christmas Eve, as well as the Christmas dinner here at our campground.  Truth be told, I slept at least two-thirds of the day away.  The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day Tim was scheduled to work five days again (peak season for tourists!), so my lack of energy and still being germy wasn’t a problem since I stayed quarantined the whole time.  I rallied in time for a New Year’s Eve dinner at Joe and Donna’s, and then a party at the clubhouse here at the campground.  And then took it easy New Year’s Day.  All told, the flu took about 10 days to run its course.  The Christmas gift that no one ever wants!

A few days after New Year’s Day, we were finally able to go back to the parks, as our holiday blackout period was over on our resident annual passes……..WOOHOO!  We spent four out five weekdays that first full week, just visiting all the parks, checking out the Animal Kingdom Lodge (which we had never seen before), hanging out at Wilderness Lodge for a bit, and (our new favorite thing to do) visiting the Polynesian Resort to get some Kona coffee in the little restaurant downstairs, and then drinking it on the patio overlooking the pool and Bay Lake.  We spent most of our free weekdays during January doing this, and it is the best!  We feel like we’re on vacation all the time, but without the expense of being on an extended Disney vacation AND being able to sleep in our own bed every night!

We’ve also being able to take advantage of watching the fireworks at Epcot and the Magic Kingdom frequently.  We’ve seen more fireworks since we’ve been here than we’ve seen in the last 10 years!  And, truth be told, nobody does fireworks like Disney!  From what we’ve been told, Disney is the second largest consumer of gunpowder, with the US military being number one!  I can believe that!

We’ve definitely gotten much more than our money’s worth from our resident passes to WDW.  As a matter of fact, heading over to the parks during the week is pretty much our routine during the week, at least two or three times per week.  When we were looking at retirement, we had no clue what we would do with our free time.  We had heard about resident passes, but didn’t really give it much thought.  Truth be told, we’re having a blast!  We don’t always go into the parks (as stated previously), but when we do, we do a great deal of people watching.  We also try to do things that we normally would never have bothered with.  Some things have been a waste – time we will never get back! – but other things have been an absolutely pleasant surprise.  We do Fast Passes when we can get them, Stand By when the wait time isn’t ridiculous (over 15 minutes), and oftentimes we just don’t go on anything at all.  Epcot is the perfect place to get in a good walk, with the trip around the lagoon being 1.2 miles.  So, yes, we’re enjoying a bit of a second childhood with this.  Honestly though, we’ve encountered folks our age, and older, who are HUGE Disney fans.  They go more often than we do, and are decorated to the hilt outside their rigs with all manner of Disney characters.  Go figure!

One other reason for not posting more frequently has to do with our Internet access – or lack thereof.  We are not blessed with high speed Internet anymore.  We’re on our own for providing WiFi, and our carrier (Verizon) doesn’t like to let us have enough data at 4 gigs, which slows us down to a crawl once we hit our threshold.  Actually, I wish we had at least a crawl……I’ve seen turtles creep faster than the time it takes to load documents, websites, photos…….  Unfortunately, it severely limits my ability to access the blog, let alone upload photos to it (or, sometimes, download them first from Gmail or Facebook, and then upload them to the blog).  After trying to post for over two hours, I get frustrated and walk away.  And, sometimes I just don’t even try to post.  If there are any regrets I have about our lifestyle, I would saying giving up the convenience of decent Internet access has to be at the top of the list, second only to missing the grandkids!

With the beginning of February comes the start of travel planning once again.  Tim has started mapping out our route for the Spring.  We’re leaving here around March 20^th, and making our way out to western Oklahoma to attend a rally with other DRV owners.  We’ve been building a community on Facebook, and this is an opportunity to get to meet many of them, in person.  There are lots of fun activities planned, and we are looking forward to meeting everyone, seeing new sights, and just having a great time socializing with other DRVers.

From Oklahoma, we’ll be making our way north, through New Mexico, Colorado, and a little sliver of Wyoming, then working our way east to South Dakota for a chance to cross a couple things off the bucket list (The Badlands and Mount Rushmore), and then heading north again to visit Tim’s brother, Rob, and sister-in-law, Ardith, in North Dakota.  We’ll start working our way east after that, with a slight detour into Canada (to avoid traffic in Chicago and Cleveland!), and get to see some sights along the way.  From there, we head south into Upstate New York and the Adirondacks for a brief stay, and then onto Vermont, where we are spending the entire summer.  All told, we will be on the road for a solid two months.  Definitely a test of stamina for us, but also for the cats! 

All in all, though I’ve been absent from my blog since early December, there really hasn’t been a great deal to write about, so I guess that’s ok.  One doesn’t need to read about mindless drivel (unless you consider my usual posts to be such, in which case, why are you reading it?  Just kidding!), so I do try to spare you that much.  With our activities due to pick up in a little over a month, look for things to be a bit more active and interesting.

Until then, sending lots of love for Valentine’s Day, honesty for Presidents’ Day, and clear skies for the remainder of Winter!