Orland or Bust!

As you read this we’ve probably been driving for several hours on day two to Orlando. I hope this trip is uneventful. Nothing like last time… Here’s an entry I wrote two years ago on our road trip to Disney World.

Day 1 Monday, May 2005

We woke up early and drove all day. A couple hours into the trip the kids wanted to know when we would get there. Little did they know, we had a long, long way to go.

Day 2 Tuesday

We spent the night in Birmingham, Alabama. Though we had about a six or seven hour drive, I decided to get up early so the kids would have time to relax at the resort. Well, it was a good thing we left early because we had car trouble in Georgia. Inside the car was very noisy with the TV and gameboys all making noise, but DH (Darling Hubby) thought he heard some beeping. I couldn’t hear anything so I ignored it. Then he heard it again, and it got quieter and I heard faint beeping…then DH looked at the temperature gauge and it was on HOT.

He went into panic mode and turned on the HEAT though it was already hot outside…but no heat was coming out…then he got really worried and pulled over on the side of the road. Good thing DH used to fix cars, I probably would have kept on driving and would have taken the next exit. But instead we sat on the side of the road with Semis and cars whizzing by. I was quite paranoid of getting hit by a speeding car, but we couldn’t spend all our time in the car. There was a dirt/grassy/rocky area on the side of the road and then the woods. So we got out.

While DH tried to fix the car, I tried to occupy four kids. I decided to explore the woods hoping there was a clearing where the kids could play, but it was hard to get into the woods with the fallen trees and the ground was soft and felt like we were going to fall through. There was no clearing, just a small area near a fence. I was never a fan of the woods having grown up by the ocean, so I was extremely paranoid and anxious, searching for poison ivy and praying we wouldn’t see any.

I made the kids stand still near a log filled with red ants. We tried singing and playing eye spy, but I couldn’t take the rambunctious Grace anymore so we tried to find our way out by a different route. Chris insisted he knew which way to go and really made me mad. I know he needs to extert his independence, but there are times he just needs to obey and he refuses to obey without an argument. Well, I let him go his own way and he returned to my side, unsuccessful.

A helpful stranger showed up and tried to assist. DH said he needed a certain tool to get the serpentine belt on. He was a retried policeman and left to get the tool from a friend of his who owned a garage. In the meantime DH debated whether to call roadside service. By this time I would have called and he did, but he changed his mind thinking he could get the belt on and not knowing how long a tow would take. In the meantime the highway patrol showed up and the helpful stranger, and officer stood over the engine watching DH struggle to fix the belt. On the side of the road, I fretted and yelled and pulled kids out of the bush and stood as a barrier between the road and my kids and hunted rocks and made bracelets from weeds. I was getting very frustrated and finally DH decided to get a tow.

So everyone except DH piled into the police car…we did however use car seats, though two of our kids had to share a seat belt. It was fun listening to cop lingo. He said he had a “White Caucasian with four juveniles needing a… then he said some number which I figured to be “a ride”. He took us to the mechanics where hours later they fixed our car. Though we had the car serviced before we left to insure no breakdowns and we even got four knew tires, the water pump had broken which knocked the belts off and caused the entire mess. In all, it was a five hour breakdown, and I was very mad because I thought I could have shortened the time down by at least two hours by calling the tow truck right away. But DH still thinks it wouldn’t have been any faster.

Anyway, we arrived at the resort in Orlando in the dark…about 10:30 pm and drove around a while trying to find the right building to get our keys to the room. Three out of four of the kids had already fallen asleep and by the time we unloaded everything and turned out our lights it was midnight…Oh well, so much for my planning. We still had to get up early in the morning to make our breakfast with Pooh and friends and just finding the right person to have our Disney tickets ready for us at 7:00 was a phone tag nightmare. But we found someone who said they’d have our tickets ready for us…we’ll see!!!

I sure hope things go better this time around.