First of all, we are in NOLA! It was a fairly easy trip across I-10 from Pensacola, and right now we are in an 11th floor suite at Lowes New Orleans. Because we are in New Orleans, this is going to be a blog big on pictures, short on text. So here goes!
We left Florida this morning, driving west on Interstate 10 through the Panhandle of the state, which looks totally different than the rest of the state. The only Palm Trees we saw were at the Welcome Station for folks heading east on I-10 into Florida!
So, the first of our new states today was Alabama. Susie definitely says she’s never been, I’m thinking I haven’t, but who knows. We saw lots of familiar names on the road signs, but we were headed to NOLA, so there wasn’t time to stop and visit! One neat thing was a tunnel in Mobile, Alabama that I-10 goes through. Here’s interesting picture that Susie took!
Mississippi was our next state and the road signs say, “Birthplace of America’s Music”
The only music we were interested in was Sirius Channel 24 – Radio Margaritaville. That’s because we passed through the birthplace of one, James William Buffett, Pascagoula!
As we crossed the border into Louisiana, we were near our destination, New Orleans, and today’s rendezvous with Twins and Company!! We had tickets for the Steamer Natchez at 2:30, so we had to be sure to be there for that! The GPS took us off Interstate 10, and dumped us directly into the French Quarter. Can you say traffic? Well, we got to the hotel a little after 1, parked the car in the Harrah’s Garage across the street, and checked in at Lowes. Our room wasn’t ready but they took our luggage and off we went to meet the kids! Kenny found us as we walked down the street, and escorted us into the bar they were in, and we FINALLY had our first drink in New Orleans! Then it was off to the Natchez, where a good time was had by all!!
Then it was time to get our room, get our luggage delivered, and have a GDD…..
We’re meeting the 2 younger D’Elias and company in a little bit, and God only knows what tonight will bring!! Perhaps I’ll provide some details later, perhaps what happens in NOLA, stays in NOLA.
Thursday, our last full day in Walt Disney World was dedicated to what Susie and I consider our favorite part of this wonderful place, The Magic Kingdom!! Back when Susie and I first visited WDW, the Magic Kingdom was all it was, and I guess for that, and for a visit I made to Disneyland when I was 10, walking into the Magic Kingdom is, for us, the real Disney experience! So a quick breakfast was eaten, then we were off in the car and did our last traveling by the monorail (another real Disney experience for us) to the entrance of the Magic Kingdom!
Of course, it was required that Chris get a picture of the four of us on Main Street with the castle in the background (I’m still 6 watching the Wonderful World of Disney in my living room every time I see that castle), and this time he lucked out. At Epcot on Tuesday, and Animal Kingdom yesterday, as soon as we got into the park and got to the perfect “photo spot”, Chris asked someone to take our picture. Tuesday he asked someone who spoke broken English, yesterday someone who spoke no English at all! Today he lucked out and asked a lady from North Carolina!! He finally found an English speaking tourist to help!!
She did good I think!
We used today’s Fast Passes for the boys on rides like Space Mountain and Splash Mountain, figuring we’d get in the park in the morning and head right to the older rides and get on when they had shorter wait times. No such luck! Our first ride was again one of Susie and my favorites, the Jungle Cruise. We waited 45 minutes to get on, but honestly it was worth it!
Then it was off to the Pirates of the Caribbean. I was making noises about not standing on line and letting Susie and the boys go, but as with so much that comes out of my mouth, that was BS. It said a 40 minute wait, but in reality, it was more like 30 or less. Don’t we look happy while we’re waiting?
Then we were off to the Haunted Mansion! I can remember when I first went on that ride here with my friend David Cohen. We were in our 20s, so it was in the 70s, and boy did that ride seem High Tech! Still one of our favorites!!
Then we took the boys into a great 3D movie that we enjoyed last year, Mickey’s Phiharmagic! It was fun again, and the boys liked it too! On the way out, we watched the Sword and the Stone presentation by the Carousel in Fantasyland…always fun!
Then it was time to make our way to Tomorrowland. It was time for the boys to use their first Fastness for Space Mountain, Susie and I found a bench and waited for them, and she allegedly took this picture of me!
If there ever was Fake News, that’s it! Like I could fall asleep in Disney World’s Magic Kingdom!!
Then it was time for one of our favorites, and a ride that Chris has never been on…Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress!
Narrated by the one and only Jean Shepherd, I have loved this ride since I first saw it at the 1964/65 New York World’s Fair when I was 14 years old. In case figuring out how long that’s been is higher math for you, I have loved this ride for 53 years! It’s never really crowded, and I fear that one day it’s real estate will be given over to some new adventure, but we do love it and it has to be a part of every Disney visit for the D’Elia Family! Oh, BTW, Chris liked it!!
After we’d traveled through the 20th Century, we headed over to Monsters Inc.’s Laugh Factory. It’s a very cleverly done live animation integrated show, and if that doesn’t make sense to you, all I can say is that you’d have to see it to understand!
When we came out, the boys headed over to Splash Mountain to use their next FastPass and Susie and I headed to see about getting some ice cream. We nixed that Idea because the line was out the door of the Ice Cream Parlor! The park seemed to be incredibly crowded today. Oh, we found out that the Louisiana schools are on vacation this week, so perhaps that explains all the kids we’ve seen the last 3 days! Before heading home, we figured we’d hit the Disney People Movers, a cute ride that was the basis of the Ford Magic Skyway at the New York World’s Fair. Every year we’ve been here, this is a walk on ride, where you just walk through the entrance, go up the ramp, and get in a car. Today it had a 20 minute line!! WTF???? We nixed that, just like the ice cream!
So we headed back to Main Street, bought two sweat shirts in the Emporium (God, I do love the Disney Retiree Cast Member Discount of 35%), hit the bathroom, and took the Monorail back to the Ticket and Transportation Center’s parking lot and the Sonata.
We walked over 10,000 steps today, covering 3.3 miles, so we were happy to return to our room, make and enjoy a couple of drinks in the air conditioning, and when the boys return tonight, we are going to go to the Scat Cat Club, drink some drinks, enjoy some nice food, and have a relaxing evening! Tomorrow morning, the boys will leave early, and drive to New Orleans. Susie and I will leisurely leave Port Orleans, the French Quarter and we will head to our overnight in Pensacola, Florida. Krissi and Mike will fly in from NYC tomorrow and spend the night with Kenny and Chris. Mom and Dad will arrive in NOLA on Saturday, and the family will once again reunite one last time before Kenny and Chris continue their trip to their new home, Los Angeles!
So before I leave you this evening, I have one question. Why if Walt Disney World is the Happiest Place on Earth, are there so many crying kids everywhere you venture??? Just asking!
Happy March and Happy Ash Wednesday! As an aside, we saw absolutely nobody in any part of Disney we’ve been in today with ashes! Seems strange to see absolutely no ashes anywhere!
So, this morning we awoke at 7:30….well, we really awoke at 6 AM, because somehow the cheap little digital alarm that Susie bought for the trip went off, and not knowing how to shut it off, she had to take the batteries out of the clock. Of course, that wasn’t easy, and the clock has a really really annoying alarm tone! First it beeps once for 10 seconds, then twice for 10 second, then 3 times. Luckily, the batteries came out at about the 30 second mark, so we didn’t have to find out what came next!! What a wonderful thing to happen 90 minutes before you have to get up, especially after a night of walking EPCOT and getting to bed about 2 AM!! Yikes!
So we headed to the Sassagoula Floatworks and Food Factory (The French Quarter’s food court) for some breakfast this morning about 8:30. Lots of choices, and some good looking breakfasts were had. When the bill was tallied and it was close to $50, I think the young girl working the cash register was even more thrilled than I was when I handed her my ABC Retiree ID card and said, “Cast Member Discount, Please”!
Then after we came back to the room to grab our “stuff”, it was off to Animal Kingdom! Free parking is another of the perks that Retiree ID gets me, and after securing a nice parking place it was time to enter the park. Not one of the parks we’ve spent a lot of time in, but if you are an animal lover, it’s a great place! While the boys headed off to a thrill ride (Expedition Everest), Susie and I enjoyed the 4D movie, It’s Tough to be a Bug. Not only are there 3D glasses and some great effects, there is the 4th D which includes being sprayed, poked, hit with air, and noxious odors! A lot of fun!
Then it was off to Finding Nemo, The Musical, a 40 minute Broadway style stage show, which was very well done. As we were waiting on the FastPass line, Kenny reminded us that he’d auditioned for the part of Nemo’s Father in this production, and been called back numerous times, but never got the part. He’s really just as glad!
One thing we’ve noticed is that the Parks are filled with kids! Why aren’t they in school, and why do they have to start crying in shows all the time? We seemed to be surrounded in Finding Nemo by young people , who really didn’t want to be there! Not always the most pleasant way to pass your time.
After the show, Kenny and Chris went on the ride Dinosaur (another thrill ride that Susie and I passed on), and then decided to walk around the Tree of Life and look at the animals. Susie and I found a shady place to sit, and watched and commented about the many interesting and indeed strangely dressed people you see. Honestly, we may have had a better time than the boys!
Having walked the better part of 3 miles, we were all ready to head back to the resort and relax a little bit. The boys headed to the pool, Susie and I grabbed a late lunch, and then enjoyed a drink in the cool air-conditioning of our room! A wonderful afternoon!
This evening the boys are off to the Hollywood Studios and then to meet up with a Liberty of the Seas friend at Disney Springs, while Susie and I are going to get together with my cousin Jeanne and her husband Walt!
Time to get ready for our evenings….will update and post this blog later tonight!
So..we left a bit before 6, dropped Kenny and Chris off at Disney Studios, and headed out to one of the many Miller’s Ale Houses in Orlando. Ran into a little construction in Disney, and traffic on the I-4, but made it about 6:30 and rendezvoused with Jeanne and Walt! A great time was had by all, and as usual, we talked well into the night. No, when I say we talked well into the night, I mean we talked wellllllllll into the night! We sat down at the table at 6:30, and got up from the table at 11:30! We had a great waitress ,Tina, who had no problem letting us sit and talk, especially when it was discovered that she and my cousin Jeanne grew up blocks away from each other in Chicago…just decades apart!
Jeanne and Walt are going on a huge road trip starting in May, and we talked about that, about genealogy (which they are both into in a huge way), about family, and just about anything and everything! We reconnected with them just a couple of years ago, and are so glad we did before it was too late!! We will next see them in Ocean City in late August or September, and look forward to many more nights of too much talking in our future!
Safe trip Jeanne and Walt…see you in September!
And that’s it…day two at WDW comes to a close! It’s already after midnight, and 7:30 AM comes early, so goodnight from the D’Elia’s in Florida…see you all tomorrow!!
Welcome to day one in Disney World. As I write this, it is 12:24 in the AM of March 1st. We just finished up in the Scat Cat Jazz Club in Port Orleans, French Quarter (our resort) and are ready to crash. This evening, we traveled the world by drinking and eating our way through Epcot before returning to our resort for the night. Not going to write much tonight, but will share our day in pictures!!
Shortly after entering Florida, what do we enter but Nassau County! Hey, we drove this far to be back in Nassau County????
Welcome to Walt Disney World and to Port Orleans, The French Quarter! The funny thing is that when we leave here, we travel to the real French Quarter and New Orleans!
This evening it was off to EPCOT we go! We walked a total of 3.8 miles, so I know we saw a lot of stuff. I know we drank and ate around the world. Did we have fun? Yes we did!!
Fat Tuesday was called Carnevale in my house, and it was the day to eat everything in sight before Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent. That always meant a fabulous Italian dinner, and we found ourselves in Italy and Tutto Italia, and that served nicely!!
Of course, why stop there, so we found ourselves in the Rose and Crown in England, for some nice cold beers and a taste of Fish and Chips!
After hoofing it back to the car, and driving back to our resort, a night cap was in order!
Two rounds of Long Island Ice Teas (come on…we had to) and a few muchies at the Scat Cat Club completed day one at WDW!
Sorry, but it’s past my bed time! See you tomorrow when we head to Animal Kingdom and then meet up with my cousins Jeanne and Walt!!
Day forty of our journey finds us waking up on the Texas Gulf Coast in Corpus Christi. It also finds us waking up on the morning of our 37th Wedding Anniversary! We’re pretty sure we’ve never celebrated a wedding anniversary in Texas before, so something new for us!! As I said in the blog post I wrote about our anniversary, we may call this trip Our Big Adventure, but that really started on the afternoon of September 29, 1979 at the Interfaith Chapel on the C.W. Post Campus where we’d both gone to school! It certainly has been an adventure, and it still continues!!
So, forty days on the road, huh? We are well into our 5th week, and have stayed in God knows how many hotels, had so many room numbers I wonder how we keep remembering where to go when we return at night, and let’s not even talk about my adventures getting ice every night! The good news is we are still having fun, still enjoying seeing new things, places, and people, and still talking! So many great memories we’ve made so far, and so much more to go. At the very minimum we’ve got the 14 days of the cruise that starts this Sunday (10/2), and Susie and I have been talking, and I have a feeling that when we get back to Texas on October 16th, the trip will continue a little longer! As long as we are back in New York for Henry’s First Birthday on October 28th, we are going to be good!!
So, breakfast today at the Best Western Marina is on the 11th floor on the opposite side of the building we ended last night at the Grandview Lounge. You can see by the sign on the door, these folks are not Kenny Chesney fans, as they have somewhat changed the lyrics of his famous beach song!
After breakfast, we headed out on a mini adventure…finding a car wash! If you remember yesterday’s blog, and the tale of the Monarch Butterfly’s migration, you will remember that the grill, hood, and especially the windshield of the Sonata were the final resting place of many of the poor creatures! With the hot Texas Gulf sun (it’s 4:45 PM now, sunny, and the temperature is 90 degrees, feeling like 92), I didn’t want them baking into the paint, and really like a cleaner windshield, so we were off to find a car wash. I looked up a couple on Google, but couldn’t tell if they were self service or not, but we headed off to what I thought was the closest one. Well, close is obviously a relative term, and this one was related to just about nothing! We drove for blocks and blocks, only to ultimately find it, and have it turn out to be a full service car wash! Damn! So we continued our hunt, trying to stay in populated commercial areas, and even getting ourselves trapped in Del Mar Community College, as students were looking for parking places so they could make it to class. Fun!
Ultimately, we were about to give up, as we saw an Interstate in the distance, and low and behold, there was a self service car wash just on the corner! We ducked in, and with Susie pointing at the more resistive bug smears from the inside of the car, I power washed off the windshield, the grill, and the hood. Finally we had a cleaner car! Now, we had no idea where we were in relation to our hotel, so we punched up the GPS and headed back to the hotel. As we got back to Ocean Drive (but it’s a bay, not an ocean?) Susie said, “Oh, I need a Post Office to mail a couple of things.” She needed a Post Office because we hadn’t seen a mail box in days. Perhaps they only exist in the NY/NJ Area? So we plugged in Post Office in the GPS, and you know what it said? “Make a U-Turn in 400 feet” Yep, we went back to almost where the car wash was to mail 2 cards! The good thing was we did pass a Walgreens, and Susie was able to bop in and pick up a couple of things she needed!
Our main stop for the day was the USS Lexington Aircraft Carrier, which is docked in Corpus Christi Bay. It’s one of those funny things, that you can see from everywhere, but just can’t get to. We had to avail ourselves on the GPS’s assistance again, and considering the convoluted set of turns we had to make, thank God we had one! The Lexington was commissioned in 1943, set more records than any other Essex Class carrier in the history of Naval Aviation, and she was the oldest working carrier in the USN when she was decommissioned in 1991. During WWII, the Japanese reported the Lexington sunk 4 times, but each time she came back to fight again. This caused Tokyo Rose to nickname her, “The Blue Ghost”.
The Lexington came to Corpus Christi in June of 1992, and within months, was opened as the USS Lexington Naval Aviation Museum. We started our tour on the Hanger Deck, and just based on it’s size, it is an impressive space. There are several planes on display, as well as many other Naval Aviation items, and several places for photo ops. At the bow of the ship, there is a theater where they show a 30 minute 3D movie about the job of the aircraft carrier. The displays and the movie were very interesting, and just being there, and imagining what the hanger deck was like during operations was amazing.
Then it was time to head up to the flight deck. Lots of planes there, lots to read. and in the Texas Gulf sun, the walk from the bow to the stern of the carrier seemed about a mile. Disappointedly, we only walked about a mile during our visit, so I guess it only seemed that long! Luckily for us, some person (I’m betting an older employee) put a bench at the stern of the flight deck, in the shade of one plane’s wing, making for a delightful place to rest for a few minutes, out of the sun, and enjoying the bay breezes! We really enjoyed looking at the displays, and having watched so many World War II Navy movies, just imagined being there as things we’d seen in movies (Midway, Tora,Tora,Tora, In Harms Way, etc) happened.
After touring, we decided to hit the head before leaving…okay the sign did say rest rooms, but it’s a ship, right? The Men’s and Ladies Room were both down a deck, but you went down different stairs to get there. We agreed to meet at a bench by the gift shop, and when Susie came back she said, “Boy, that was interesting?” “Interesting”, I replied? “Yes, lots to look at.” Well apparently they gave the ladies a treat, because the men’s room didn’t look like they’d done a lot since the ship was decommissioned, but here are some pictures that Susie took as she went down to the Lady’s Room!
We were hot, thirsty, and just a little hungry, and since we were in this lovely setting on Corpus Christi Bay, I said, “Let’s find a bar on the water, and have a drink and a snack.” Susie agreed, and once we found our way though the convoluted directions back to the bay (yes, we had to depend on our GPS girl again), we ended up at the floating Tiki Bar at Harrison’s Landing, just down the road from our hotel! We had a couple of Texas Ice Teas (they could get you in trouble) and a delicious warm cheese and shrimp dip, served with tortilla chips! Exactly what we needed!
Then we decided to come back to the room, and crash for a couple of hours, until it was time for dinner. For I think the third time in our travels, we came back to the room a little before 4PM and it hadn’t been made up. When the maid tried getting in after 5PM, we said never mind. I really don’t blame the maids, but I think some hotels seem to be trying to save money, by not having enough staff to take care of the rooms they rent. Not a big deal at all as we don’t use a towel once at home and throw it in the laundry, but it kind of makes you wonder what you’re paying for.
After being so pleased by our dinner last night at Landry’s Seafood House, right on the water, we decided that rather than go to another seafood restaurant, and have no view, and perhaps be disappointed with the dinner, we’d return. So we made a 6:45 reservation, and left the room at 6:30, to head across Shoreline Blvd, and up the pier to the marina where the “boat” was docked. I didn’t mention it last night, but Landry’s Seafood House is a very big, two story restaurant, built on a barge! Yes, you actually have to walk over a gangplank to get to the front door, so for the second time today, we ate (and drank) on a “vessel” that was tied to a dock!
We asked for the waiter we had last night (Richard), but he was not working today. So we got a lovely table on the second deck, and had Ashley for our server. Although we started with the same two specialty martinis we’d had last night, the rest of our dinner was totally different! Two beautiful Shrimp Cocktails were the way we started tonight. 6 Jumbo shrimp, served over ice with cocktail sauce in a radicchio lettuce cup! Wonderful! Oh, I lied, we did have their house salad again. Then Susie had their Fish and Chips and I had Southern Fried Fish…basically a variation on the theme of each other, and both good and very bountiful! We accompanied that with a bottle of one of our favorites, Prosecco. Then the Manager came over, asked us if everything was good, and said in honor of our anniversary, he’d like to buy us dessert! So Susie had Key Lime Pie and I had one of my favorites, Creme Brûlée. A very nice gesture, and a very nice ending to a great meal. Take a look at the pictures below to see our wonderful meal.
Oh wait. Sorry, but the food came, and we ate it, and after we were finished, with every course, we both said, “Pictures!” To be honest, the above picture was of our last glass, that we enjoyed while relaxing after dinner. Ashley was great and just told us to stay as long as we wanted to and enjoy the wine. We asked, and she is another really nice native Texan we’ve met. Another day in Texas interacting with just nice people!
Tomorrow we will be sorry to say good-bye to Corpus Christi, because we’ve had a great time, but it’s on to Galveston and preparation for the cruise! On Sunday morning we will be back with Kenny and Chris, spending two weeks on the high seas, and getting to know the rest of their Liberty of the Seas Family! Having not seen Kenny since March, it will be good to get to hug him in person. FaceTime is great, and we’ve been in contact 2 or 3 times a week since he’s been gone, but actual person-to-person hugging is different!
So that’s the end of our 37th Anniversary, the end of our two nights in Corpus Christi, and the end of our 40th day on the road. If you have been with us even through part of this journey, thank you! If you’ve spent every day of the past 40 in the backseat of the Sonata, I hope our driving has’t scared you, and you’ve enjoyed the ride as much as we have! I appreciate your continued involvement in this blog, and your comments that let me know somebody besides Susie and I are reading this! If we’re related, know I love you a little bit more! If we’re just friends, know that we are more like family now. After all, how can you spend 40 days in a car with someone, and not think of them as family!
You know, we keep calling this trip we are on, “Our Big Adventure”, but in reality, Our Big Adventure started on the afternoon of September 29, 1979, at the Interfaith Chapel on the C.W. Post Campus. You see, it was on that day, before our family and friends, that Susie and I took the vows that cemented our lives together as one!
Through the last 37 years, we have weathered the storm of life, dealing with 3 kids, jobs, different houses, paying the bills, going on vacation, stretching the budget, and just spending time together! She is still my best friend, the single most important person in my life, and the one person, above all others, that I like spending time with (haven’t we proved that the last 7,500 miles????).
So on the occasion of the 37th Anniversary of the day we tied the knot, thank you Susan Lynn Johnson D’Elia for giving me the greatest life anyone could ever desire! It has truly been Our Big Adventure, and it ain’t close to being over!!
As we crossed the border into Louisiana, we were near our destination, New Orleans, and today’s rendezvous with Twins and Company!! We had tickets for the Steamer Natchez at 2:30, so we had to be sure to be there for that! The GPS took us off Interstate 10, and dumped us directly into the French Quarter. Can you say traffic? Well, we got to the hotel a little after 1, parked the car in the Harrah’s Garage across the street, and checked in at Lowes. Our room wasn’t ready but they took our luggage and off we went to meet the kids! Kenny found us as we walked down the street, and escorted us into the bar they were in, and we FINALLY had our first drink in New Orleans! Then it was off to the Natchez, where a good time was had by all!!
R New Adventures 