Day Three

August 23, 2016 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / Leave a comment

So the highlight of today was our visit to the Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota. What else is there to say, after you’ve seen the Spam Museum?? So, see you tomorrow!

Oh, you want more? Ok, if you insist!

We stayed last night at a great Comfort Inn in De Forest, Wisconsin. Great room, wonderful lobby, incredible free breakfast this morning, what could be better? A wifi system that worked! Strange but true in the year 2016, but the average time you could stay on the internet with any device was about 45 seconds! Just as you got to where you wanted to be, you got a NOT CONNECTED message! Can you say frustrating????

We left De Forest and headed onto the interstate about 9 AM. We knew that today would not be as mileage intensive a day as the past two were, and of course we were rewarded with near perfect highway conditions. In other words, NO CONSTRUCTION!!! So much nicer to drive at the speed limit (or slightly above) and not have to spend miles in single file traffic!! We started this morning in Wisconsin, and are ending our day in Minnesota, so only 2 states today! Right now we are in a very nice Super 8 motel in Jackson. We might have pushed our travels a little further but for two factors. #1 is that we have reservations tomorrow night in Murdo, South Dakota (the first of our pre-planned reservations) and didn’t want to get too far ahead of the plan we made before leaving home. #2 is that the longer we drove this afternoon, the darker it got and the closer we got to rain. Susie looked at the radar on her iPhone and it didn’t look friendly, so we figured what better place to wait out the storm, but a nice dry motel with a Sailor Jerry Rum and Diet Coke in our hand. There’s a Burger King right down the road and in a couple of hours we’ll decide what’s for dinner, but for now, we are happy to be out of the storm. This is Tornado country, isn’t it? Total mileage today, 324 miles and we pulled in at about 4 PM Central time.

So, lets get back to today’s highlight, the Spam Museum! Austin, Minnesota is the headquarters of the Hormel Company, the makers of Spam. The lady we signed in with told us that this was a brand new Spam Museum that just opened in April of this year, and we enjoyed spending about an hour wandering around the various exhibits. There was Spam in the World, Spam and the Military, a look at the history of the Hormel Company, and lots and lots of Spam memorabilia! In addition there were hundreds of Spam cans, including several walls made of cans, showing the various flavors of Spam…even more than we saw a couple of years ago in Hawaii! They even have a Spam Gift Shop! There you could buy everything from Spam Clothes (no thanks Susie, I really don’t need a Spam Hoodie) to Spam Mouse Pads, to Spam Key Chains, to a case of Mixed Spam! We left with only a post card (to send to a restauranteur friend at home), a couple of presents for the Grandkids, and a can of Spam Spread we wanted to try! It was a cool place, and downtown Austin looked like a very typical Midwest small town! What can I tell you. It was our first “tourist” thing we did on the trip, and we enjoyed it…just like we enjoy Spam!!

After Austin, our next stop on today’s tour was in Blue Earth, Minnesota. Blue Earth has a couple of memorable things it hangs it’s hat on. First, the east and west crews working on Interstate 90 in the 70s met up near Blue Earth. There is a Golden Stripe on the highway there, kind of like the Golden Spike on the Trans-Continental Railway. Second, it is the home of the Jolly Green Giant. No, not the frozen vegetable company, they used to have a canning plant there, but it now has new owners. No, I’m talking about the 55 foot tall Green Giant Statue that has stood in Blue Earth since 1979! Turns out it was the idea of the guy that owned the local radio station (of course it was), and the statue has spawned a Giant Museum and a Giant Days Festival. All I can say, is that winters are long and hard in this section of the country, and they have lots of time to plan!

Susie said that between our visit to the Spam Museum and the Jolly Green Giant, we’d had our protein and vegetables for the day! I guess we would have had to venture south into Iowa to get our carbs, but who knows what form their potato worship might take???

There you have the highlights of day three of our Big Adventure. We are still having fun and seeing interesting parts of the country. Like acres and acres for miles and miles of fields of corn on the sides of Interstate 90 today! We also ran into a couple of wind farms, with windmills on both sides of the highway, as far as you could see. Very interesting and much more like the wind farms we saw around Palm Springs, California a couple of years ago, rather than the 5 windmills we see in Atlantic City back home.

Our plan for tomorrow is to head out of Minnesota, and enter South Dakota. Either tomorrow or the next day, we will enter the first of many National Parks we will be visiting (Black Hills National Park) and then we will see one of my Bucket List attractions…Mount Rushmore! Our days ahead will be filled with visits to Rushmore, Devils Tower (remember Close Encounters?), Little Big Horn Battle Site, Yellowstone Park, and the Grand Tetons. Much more sightseeing, and less mileage. We will end week one of the trip in Yellowstone!

Oh and before we leave you for today, guess who we ran into again today! The house we passed yesterday in Illinois, we passed again today in Wisconsin! We are not sure if we’re following it, or it’s following us!!

See you tomorrow!

Day Two

August 23, 2016 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / 2 Comments

Good evening and welcome to the Comfort Inn and Suites in DeForest, Wisconsin. We left our hotel in Streetsboro, Ohio this morning a little after 8:30. During the course of the day we traveled from Ohio, to Indiana, to Illinois, to Wisconsin…another 4 state day for us. We pulled into the hotel tonight right around 4:45 PM. Not bad for a 503 mile day! Oh, if you’re trying to do the math on that, and came up with an average speed for us of like 98 MPH, you need one more piece of information. As we crossed from Indiana into Illinois, we also crossed from the Eastern time zone to the Central time zone. Our 4:45 arrival was really 5:45 in our former time zone!

Today we also left our old friend Route 80 and transitioned to Interstate 90, which will be our home for the next several days. We left the hotel without partaking in their free “Continental Breakfast” this morning, and during one of our driver switches/bathroom breaks, Susie dug out our usual beach snack, cheese crackers. It was only then that she discovered that she bought the wrong ones for herself. Rather than peanut butter on cheese crackers, we had cheese on cheese crackers. Oh well, next purchase we’ll get it right! Lunch was at a rest area and was one of our staples on any road trip…ham and cheese rollups and Ritz crackers. Snacks were very nice Strawberry Twizzlers..one of our favorite car snacks!

A couple of words on the roads we traveled today. The first is that obviously the word for today is CONSTRUCTION. Well, really it’s two words, Road Construction! It appears that most of the roads in the Midwest are getting repaired or totally rebuilt! From the Ohio Turnpike, to the Indiana Toll Road, right through Illinois and Wisconsin. Mile after mile of “Road Work Ahead” signs. Even some that were just feet after an “End Roadwork” sign! Oh my God!!!

The second thing we must say about our travels today is that the state of Indiana should be ashamed for what they laughingly call the Indiana Toll Road! What a horrible mess!! Mile after mile under construction with only one lane open and with a 45 MPH speed limit. (Which ultimately became 35-40 MPH due to trucks driving uphill!). Then the rest areas…two out of the four don’t exist! Signs that say “Rest Area Closed” as you come to the exit for the alleged rest area. Roads going off and coming back on, but then nothing. They apparently just obliterated any trace of the rest area…buildings, gas stations, parking places. Don’t know if this is the way Indiana “re-builds”, but it really puts a crimp in your plans if you want to switch drivers or God forbid, need to go to the bathroom!!!! The real stick in the eye is that even though this is Interstate 80, YOU PAY TO DRIVE ON THIS ROAD!!! We ended up adding close to an hour to our travels today thanks to the condition of this road! We really should have known what was ahead when the “Welcome to Indiana” sign was missing, and we were greeted by two naked poles as we entered the state!

So today Susie ended up driving through Chicago, thanks to the fact that the last rest area on the Indiana Toll Road was CLOSED!! The last time we were in Chicago was a couple of years ago when youngest son Kenny was working at the Wagon Wheel Theater in Warsaw, Indiana doing the Jean Shepard show, Christmas Story, the Musical. That was the time we stupidly attempted to see the house my Grandparents lived in on the South Side of Chicago, and thought we were going to die for our efforts. Today we just went through the city on the Interstate and kept on going…as well as we could with the road construction!!!

Today was real Kenny day, because just before our day ended we drove by another one of Kenny’s stops, Janesville, Wisconsin. A couple of years ago, Kenny did two shows at the Armory Theater in Janesville, Wedding Singer and Miracle on 34th Street. That year. the whole family (Krissi, Billy and Lori…there were no little D’Elias yet) traveled to see him in Wedding Singer in October, and then just Susie and I came back in December to see him in Miracle on 34th Street. So between those trips, and a trip Susie and I made before we even had kids, to the Midwest and the Wisconsin Dells, we’ve been here before!

As we left the state of Illinois and entered Wisconsin, we also left EzPass territory. As of tomorrow, any tolls we come across until we are back on the East Coast will be paid in hard cash! Tomorrow we enter new territory, and if plans go right, tomorrow night you can read about our visit to the Spam Museum!!!

Dinner tonight was at a place called Norske Nook Restaurant and Bakery. Since we are in Wisconsin, we had to start with Fried Cheese Curds! We both had great looking sandwiches on bread that they make right on the premises. The list of pies (as you can see above) is extensive. A couple of to-go pieces somehow ended up in the car. We will report tomorrow!

Two pictures before we leave you tonight. It was Boat Day on Interstate 80 today. Here are both ends of the spectrum!

Oh, and we came across a house on the road, when Susie was driving today!!!

See you tomorrow!!

Our Big Adventure, Day One

August 22, 2016 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / 7 Comments

So, the end of day one on the road finds us in the Econo Lodge in Streetsboro, Ohio! We left the house in Mineola at 8:20 this morning, made a stop in Astoria to drop off our daughter Krissi (she came on Friday night to spend the last weekend with us), and then it was over the Triboro Bridge (or the RFK if you choose to use it’s new name), up the Major Deegan Expressway to the George Washington Bridge, and onto Interstate 80, where we spent the entire day. We drove up to the hotel at about 5:10, so not a bad day of driving at all. We went from New York, to New Jersey, to Pennsylvania, and now Ohio. Four states in day one and we drove a total of 451 miles and are are still on our first tank of gas!

The weather was sunny when we left Long Island this morning, and there were occasional sprinkles all through New Jersey, but when we got to Pennsylvania, boy did it start raining! We stopped at a rest area to use the bathroom, and took a shower at the same time. I felt bad because Susie was driving through a lot of it, and on a couple of occasions, it was almost like a switch was flipped as we went from showers to torrential rain in the blink of an eye! Not fun to drive through! Then we came upon an accident in one of the more mountainous regions of Pennsylvania. Some yahoo in a pickup truck was sideways off the road (I say yahoo, because rain or shine, we see folks driving like they are late for their wedding and not giving a damn about safety). There were Police and a wrecker already there, but as we were 3 cars from the accident, they stopped all traffic so that the wrecker could pull the truck back on the road. We sat there for better than 15 minutes…in the rain…such fun!

Some highlights of today…First breakfast. We chose to stop at a place we have eaten at more times than we can count, the Landmark Diner just off exit 309 of I-80 in Pennsylvania. This place has a lot of history in our family, and in Susie’s family before there was an us. For years and years, Sue’s Mom and Dad would spend a week at a golf resort in Marshall’s Creek, PA called Mountain Manor. Over the years, they made good friends who also vacationed there during the same week and who lived near them on Long Island. The Landmark Diner was about 2 hours from Long Island, and they would all rendezvous there on the morning they checked in, and have breakfast. Year after year, more folks would join in the group, and eventually we were part of the group who would have breakfast at the Landmark. The summer of 1983, we took a very young Billy there and Frank’s folks even joined the group! When Kenny and Krissi joined our family, we would still head up to that area and always stop there, Turn the clock ahead a few years to when Billy was going to Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY. We discovered the best way to get there was to head out Route 80 to Pennsylvania and then go north back into New York State, and yes, then too we would pull off 80 as soon as we crossed the Delaware Water Gap Bridge and have breakfast. Susie thinks that the last time we were there was about 4 or 5 years ago, and we were thrilled to find this morning that it was just as good as we remember! Susie had Creamed Chipped Beef over toast (probably the last time we see that on a menu) and I had a Pulled Pork Omelette! Oh, and don’t forget the home fries….they are still wonderful! The restaurant is a little bigger, the counter is gone (where you could watch them cook the food) and the bathrooms are no longer behind the building, but enough is the same to still make it a special stop off!

Then we were back onto Interstate 80 West heading towards our adventure! At mile marker 111(FYI..at the NJ/Penn border on 80 you are at mile marker 310 and at the Penn/Ohio border you are at mile marker 0) we came across an interesting sign. It said, “You are now at the highest point on Route 80 east of the Mississippi – Elevation 2,250 Feet”. Impressive for Pennsylvania, but not where we are going. Forget the Rocky Mountains or even Pikes Peak, when we are at Mount Rushmore this Friday we will be at 4000 + feet already! Start storing oxygen now!!

So dinner tonight was at Ruby Tuesdays, a place we haven’t been to for years. Even though there is one less than 2 miles from our house in Mineola, we traveled 450+ miles for their salad bar tonight! Then we filled the car up with gas (Sheetz Gas…I kid you not) at $1.95 a gallon, headed back to the hotel and are relaxing with some vodka on the rocks (in our travel plastic cups!)! Tomorrow we hope to cover just under 500 miles and stop near Janesville, Wisconsin…a place we’ve visited before when Kenny was performing at the Armory Theater there.

Oh, The Big Adventure tip of the day has to do with an App that my cousins, Jeanne and Walt Pratt shared with us called iExit. It cost me 99 cents at the iTunes store, and Jeanne and Walt said it was useful finding what kinds of food, gas, hotels, etc. are at every exit on the interstates. In addition, it gives you the latest prices for gas at the various stations so you always know what you are getting into. When we started trying it out today, Susie started talking about a little hand held digital gadget we had way back in the 90s. After you told it what road you were on, what mile marker you were near, and what direction you were heading, it would tell you how close the next rest stop was and what services they had there. She said it’s too bad they don’t make an App for that. Well, I hit a couple of buttons on iExit and discovered it will also search for rest areas! It was perfect, and we made use of it several times today looking for places to switch drivers. Thanks Jeanne and Walt…welcome along!

On the Road Again…….https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvwojnLeMH4

Our Trip is Over

March 13, 2016 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / 2 Comments

Welcome home to the LIE

At 4:10 PM Daylight Savings Time, we pulled into our driveway in Mineola, and officially ended our 11 day road trip to Florida and back. It was a wonderful trip, as you know, if you have been following along, and while it’s good to be home, we’re both a little sad that it’s over! There was a lot of traffic today as we skirted Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, and got into the Philly/New York area, but it moved, so it wasn’t bad at all. Frankly, once we hit exit 11 on the NJ Turnpike, we were in familiar territory from 4 or 5 hundred weekend trips back from Ocean City, and we have had a lot worse traffic than we had today!

If you remember, our big plan today was a slight detour to Total Wine in Claymont, Delaware to see if the stories our friends told us about the great wine prices were true. Well, they were definitely true, as we saw and bought a lot of great deals! For example, we found 14 Hands Cabernet that Krissi and Kenny like for $8.97, when the best prices we find for that locally is $13.99. Also, their Red Blend for $7.47, when we think $9.99 is a good price here. It’s only about an hour and a half trip from Ocean City, so we definitely will be heading there again. I’d say we got about $400 of wine for $225! Thanks to our OC Family members Doc and Denise for telling us about it. Can we get you anything there?

So we pulled into the driveway, having traveled 2439.2 miles since we pulled out of the same driveway on Thursday morning, March 3rd. We had lots of fun along the way, loved being in Florida spring weather for a week, and verified that we do love road trips and all that’s involved in them. It’s fine to hop on a plane and rent a car at the other end, but there is something so connected about driving from place to place, sampling local customs, foods, and scenery, and the thrill of reaching your destination is great. Perhaps Frank has read John Steinbeck’s Travels With Charlie too many times, or perhaps Mr. Steinbeck was right when he talked about the wanderlust that exists in all Americans. Like those who went before us on the Oregon Trail, perhaps its our destiny as Americans to explore our country.

So, we are home, we are unpacked, we have started on our “Welcome Home” Martinis, and the Chinese food has been ordered and is on it’s way! What a wonderful way to end a wonderful vacation. Back to work tomorrow…well, yes and no…that means we have laundry to do, bills to pay, and need to get back to Ocean City! Great work, if you can get it!!

Last Night on the Road

March 13, 2016 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / Leave a comment

Well, this is it…our last night on the road for our first big Retirement Adventure. Tonight finds us in an EconoLodge in Fredericksburg, VA. Today we traveled 488 miles from Ridgeland, South Carolina, through North Carolina, and into Virginia. We are now about 6 hours from getting home, and we probably could have done it today, but for the fact that we want to stop off at Total Wines and More in Delaware tomorrow before heading home.

So some highlights of today’s travels. In a rest area in North Carolina, we were approached by a man trying the “I lost my wallet and have no money. Can you give me some” scam. Sorry, but need we remind you that someone already bought the cleaning products (if you don’t know about that, see blog post https://rnewadventures.com/2016/03/06/day-three-wdw/). Then, as we got into Virginia and filled up with gas (it’s some 20 cents cheaper in Virginia as compared to North Carolina) we not only got a full tank of gas, BUT we also got the Sonata washed! It is now red again rather than the bilious green of Florida tree pollen it’s been for the last week!

Other than that, just another day on the road. We still like our lunches in the car, spending the day driving together, and our nightly hotel rituals as we unwind from the road! All in all, another good day! The only downside is that the temperature is going down (dropped almost 20 degrees from this morning to this evening), and as we get to the more urban area of the East Coast, traffic volume picks up! New Jersey tomorrow, so for all practical purposes, we will be home!

Our plan for tomorrow is to leave here about 9 AM, stop at Total Wine and More, and then get home to Mineola in the afternoon, in time for our living room couch, take out Chinese food, an extensive session with our DVR, including watching the last ever Downton Abbey and then sleep in our bed! Simple Pleasures…

On the Road Again

March 12, 2016March 12, 2016 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / Leave a comment

So, just to update everyone, we are once again on the road heading north on I-95. As we write this, we are in a Quality Inn in Ridgeland, South Carolina. We left our home for 5 days, Disney’s Port Orleans, French Quarter, yesterday morning. Our first stop was Tradition Field in Port St. Lucie to watch our second NY Mets Spring Training game. Yesterday they played the St Louis Cardinals, and our seats just to the first base side of home plate, put us squarely in Cardinals’ territory, but the fans were nice, and we had a good time. Of course, it didn’t hurt that the Mets won the game 7-2, so our Spring Training record is 1-1! It was fun to see the Mets play at their home Spring Training venue, but we have to admit that Disney does do it better (big surprise), as the stadium and everything else was better at the Braves Walt Disney World/ESPN home base.

Once we finally got out of the parking lot…no offense, but there were 6000 people there yesterday, about half of them left before the game was over, and we have less trouble getting out of Citifield when there are 40,000 fans in attendance…we headed up the coast, to visit with Frank’s cousin Jeanne and her husband Walt. Jeanne is the daughter of Frank’s Mom’s younger brother Bill, and she is just a couple of years older than him. But, because she grew up in Chicago and Frank in New York, they were not really close cousins. But, thanks to the Internet, they re-connected and continued a relationship that really hadn’t been active since Jeanne and Walt came to our wedding 36+ years ago. Honestly, we think the GPS was getting back at us for ignoring some of the directions she’d given us during the previous week, but eventually she did route us in the right direction, and we got to their house in Bare Foot Bay, Florida. Can you think a better name for a town in Florida? Sounds very Jimmy Buffettish to us, and a perfect name!

We had a great evening with them, just talking and exchanging ideas and thoughts, and had a great home cooked steak dinner, which is always nice in the middle of a road trip. We all sat around the dinner table talking way into the night, but with some drinks, and good food, and the feeling of family, it was a wonderful night. Frankly, we got up this morning, and just continued the gab fest, and didn’t leave till almost noon. It was a great visit (thanks Jeanne and Walt) and we can’t wait to see them again, but next time in Ocean City! That will be after they take their own road trip, as they are going to their home base in Connetecuit, via Texas and Route 66 starting in May.

So here we are, about 21 miles into South Carolina, and we figure about 12 hours from Mineola. We just had a really great Southern dinner on the back porch of restaurant just across the parking lot called Jasper’s Porch (now we can say we have had collard greens), and it was a great night. We will have a couple of vodkas now, as we watch a little TV, and then it will be off to bed. Tomorrow is another day, and we will travel through South and North Carolina, and up into Virginia. We figure one more night on the road, then it’s Chinese take out, Grey Goose Vodka, the last episode of Downton Abbey, and our couch in Mineola!

Its been a great trip, and we’ve relearned some things that we will definitely use again on our big road trip of the USA this summer. One thing we’ve definitely learned, we still love being together 24/7, and love car trips! Let the adventures continue!!!

5 Days in Walt Disney World

March 10, 2016March 10, 2016 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / 1 Comment

So here we are. After 11 PM on our 5th and last night this go around in Florida’s Walt Disney World. So, let’s look back and analyze our trip.

First, where we stayed. This time around, it was Port Orleans, the French Quarter. This is what Disney calls a “Moderate” resort, and one of the smallest. The theme is the French Quarter of New Orleans, and we think they do a very good job with the building style and landscaping of making you believe you are in Louisiana, and not Florida. We have a corner king bedroom, which faces the Sassagoula River (Disney made of course), and the room is very comfortable, quiet, and in a great location. This is what is called a Disney Springs Resort because you can take a boat to Disney Springs (more on that in a bit), and is the sister resort to Port Orleans, Riverside, which is just a bit farther up river, but much bigger. The resort has a lovely pool, a very nice fast food restaurant, gift shop and other amenities. Because of our Disney Retiree benefits, our room is costing us about $150 a night, which is a great rate. We start every morning at the Sassagoula Floatworks and Food Factory (the fast food place) and have a nice breakfast for two for about $20. We have ended each of our 5 nights here at the Scat Cat’s Club, the “jazz” venue in the resort. There, for the last 4 nights, we have sat at the same table, had the same great waitress (thank you Laura for truly making us feel at home) had a variety of great drinks and “bar snacks” that we have used as dinner. The Mardi Gras Fritters are especially not to be missed if you like pimento cheese and pepper jelly! They also make a very good Long Island Iced Tea, our drink of choice the last two days! From Saturday through Tuesday, they have live music, and that has been a nice way to end the evening. I heard the bartender tonight tell someone that Port Orleans, the French Quarter, has the highest return visitor rate of any resort…from our experience, I can believe that.

So, night one, we took the boat ride to Disney Springs. This used to be called Downtown Disney, and on many of our visits has been many different things, but now it seems mostly to be a shopping and dining venue. We managed to get a 6:15 reservation at Wolfgang Pucks, and considered ourselves lucky because dinner reservations go very fast. Note for next visit…make those dining reservations as far out as you can, as the closer you get to your vacation, the less is to be had! We had a couple of drinks at the House of Blues before dinner, and then a wonderful dinner at Wolfgang’s with a great waitress, great service, wonderful ambiance, and superb food. It was a great night, but for the fact that we walked our asses off getting from the boat to the restaurant and back! More of that later.

On Sunday, we headed to Epcot with the plan to drink our way through the World Showcase. Let’s just say, we may be too old for that kind of a plan! We had a huge (too huge) lunch at the German Pavilion, including a gallon of beer for Frank! Other drinks we had at Mexico, China, and Japan. Epcot is one of the few places in WDW that booze flows, but the World Showcase also had a lot of wonderful ethnic food stalls that we will definitely try next time. As to rides, we had a Fast Pass for Test Track and got knocked around a bit, and went through Spaceship Earth twice….mostly because the first time we went through, our cart got stuck in German and we didn’t understand anything that was happening. Talk about a waste of a Fast Pass!

Oh, speaking about Fast Pass… great invention. Using the My Disney Experience web site, or the Walt Disney World iPhone app, we were able to schedule 3 rides each day that we basically got right in without waiting on line. You get an hour window, show up anytime during that hour, and get ushered into the ride. I mean 5 minutes from start to being on the ride…when the standby time may be 50 minutes! Great system. Once you use your 3 pre-programmed Fast Passes, you can go to kiosks in the parks and get more!

As children of the 50s, our favorite park by far is the Magic Kingdom. We are old enough to remember when that was all there was…even here in Florida! We love it, and both of us would list the Carousel of Progress and Haunted Mansion as our favorite rides. In two days at the Magic Kingdom, we saw all our favorites, including our top two, plus Pirates of the Caribbean, the Tiki Birds, It’s a Small World, the WED People Movers, Peter Pan’s Ride, and many others. Always fun to just walk around that park as so much is so familiar! We really liked something new to us, Mickey’s PhilharMagic, a neat 3D movie with some great effects, and taking in so much that is Disney Familiar! Another new attraction to us was, Monsters, Inc Laugh Floor where animation interacts with a live studio audience. Well done and very clever! What can we say…we are not roller coaster folks (well Frank ain’t), and we know what we like!

On Tuesday, we didn’t go to any parks, but something totally new for us. We went to ESPN World’s Champion Stadium, and watched out first ever Spring Training game! The Mets took on the Atlanta Braves, and although our beloved Mets lost, we got to see Matt Harvey pitch 3 innings, and experience Spring Training Baseball for the first time! Something different, and a lot of fun!

Now, as to food, we kept it simple. Our mornings were at our resort fast food venue. Nothing fancy, but a lot of choices and a good way to start the day. Our day in Epcot we ate at the Beirgarden in Germany. A very nice German buffet , with all the usual choices, but this was our third time there, and we think our last. There just was too much good looking small plate kind of food we saw, that we’d like to sample next time. In addition to our Saturday meal at Wolfgang Puck’s, we had one other reservation meal, and that was last night at Boatwright’s Dining Hall at our sister resort, Port Orleans Riverside. While not as elegant as Wofgang Puck’s, we had perhaps the best meal of our trip there! From soup to dessert, every course was excellent, and we enjoyed every part of it. With the exception of those 3 meals, everything else was either eaten on the fly in the parks, was a “Slaw Dog” at the ball game, or our nighttime snacks with drinks and music at the Scat Cat’s Club!

Oh, and we mentioned walking before…well, here are the totals for the last five days. Saturday (at Disney Springs) 4.08 miles, Sunday (Epcot) 4.67 miles, Monday (Magic Kingdom #1) 4.69 miles, Tuesday (baseball) only 2.7 miles, and the top of the heap, today (Magic Kingdom #2) 5.86 miles. So just know, if your are going to do Disney World under your own power, you are going to walk!

So that’s it, five wonderful nights in Walt Disney World. It may not be for everyone, but we loved it. We didn’t run constantly, chase all over the parks for rides, get there early and stay late, or do anything we didn’t want to do. In fact, every evening, we made sure we were back at our resort between 5 and 6, and enjoyed at least an hour or so on a bench on the beautiful green just outside our room, with a drink, and our books relaxing. It was our perfect trip, and I think that’s what everyone’s got to learn on vacation. Have the vacation YOU want, because when it’s all done and said, you are the only person who needs to be happy!!

Our first full day at WDW….Epcot

March 6, 2016 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / Leave a comment

So, our first night in Walt Disney World was wonderful. We love the Port Orleans French Quarter Resort, we have a great room, and we had an incredible first dinner at Wolfgang Puck’s Dining Room at Disney Springs. A peaceful boat ride to and from dinner, and a night cap in the resort jazz club listening to some New Orleans Saxaphone player, and it was the perfect day.

We slept great last night, got up this morning and discovered the room has a wonderful shower, and then it was off to breakfast…all in preparation for our first Disney Park of the trip…Epcot!

A number of years ago, when we were at Disney with the kids, we had a horrible experience waiting for the bus at Typhoon Lagoon to take us back to Fort Wilderness, and we vowed to never rely on the buses again. So we drove over, Frank showed his retiree pass for free parking, and in we went. We had one Fast Pass for this morning on the Test Track ride, and as it was our first time using Fast Pass with the Magic Band digital bracelets, we were amazed how easy and quickly we were on the ride. Then the ride started…oh boy did it start! Up and around a test track in an automated car up to speeds to 70 miles an hour, over bumps, around curves, up and down hills, until finally you stop…on a dime!! Great way to start the day!

Then, it was off to World Showcase where we had a lunch reservation at Biergarten Restaurant in Germany! Let us back up a bit, a give a little background before we continue. A number of years ago, we were in Disney with our friends Pat and Steve Grosskopf and Pat’s brother Jamie. It was our first time in years at Epcot, we were in the World Showcase, it was St. Patrick’s Day (and we were the only non-Irish of the group), and we hatched the plan to have a drink at every country in the World Showcase to celebrate St. Patrick, and a tradition was born!

So after the Test Track ride, we journeyed over the bridge, into the Epcot World Showcase, and ran smack into Mexico! As the saying goes, “When in Rome”, and since the first venue we came to was a little margarita stand, the first order of the day was a pair of flavorful, fruity margaritas! It was after noon, we were in Mexico, and the challenge had begun! Drink one in our World Showcase quest!

After a quick boat ride in the Mexico Pavilion with Donald Duck and friends, a brief visit to some of the shops of the pavilion, it was time to move on to our next country, China! By this time, it was well after noon, lunch crowds were starting to gather, so our drink line was a little longer. Never the less, we stood the test of line time, and achieved our goal! Two Mango Peach coolers with vodka were our “Chinese” drinks of choice! Not sure what made these drinks Chinese, but we bought them at the same stand folks were getting egg rolls, and rice, and the like, so Chinese they were! Country number two, drink number two of the day.

The hour of our lunch reservation was fast approaching, so off we headed to Germany and the Beer Garden! We’ve been there before, and they have a great buffet, with lots of German specialities, a German floor show, and did we mention, lots and lots of good German food? The great German food, and Frank’s drink choice were our downfall however. When in a German Beer Garden, what does one have to drink? Well, the answer for Frank was beer…a really, really big glass of beer! Sue, being the smarter of the two, also stayed in the German mode, but had a human sized glass of reisling, rather than a huge glass of beer! As the old commercial went, “I can’t believe I ate (and drank) the whole thing”!

So, with the gallon of beer as drink number 3 (it probably should have been 3,4,5,6,7,8,9, & 10), and due to the influence of a lot of sausage, sauerkraut, not to mention spaetzle, we realized we were probably about at the end of our liquid refreshment for the day, but fear not! As we walked around the rest of the World Showcase, what should we spot but the country of Japan, and an interesting little drink called a Plum Wine Slushy, served in a tall stem glass. How could we resist!

So, the count ends at a lowly 4, but we vow to return again someday, make better plans, and try again! Tomorrow it’s off to the Magic Kingdom where we already have Fast Passes to ride Haunted Mansion, the Jungle Cruise, and Pirates of the Caribbean! Sleep well…we know we will!

Day Three—WDW

March 6, 2016 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / 1 Comment

Well, day three finds us at Port Orleans, the French Quarter, in Walt Disney World. We arrived about three, and it has been a wonderful day since. After checking in, unloading the car, and changing clothes, we took the water taxi down the Sassagoula River to Disney Springs. After a couple of drinks at the House of Blues, we arrived at Wolfgang Puck’s for our 6 o’clock dinner reservation. We were seated by the imagewindow, had a lovely waitress, Lindsay, as our server, and had a fabulous dinner from soup to nuts! Great meal, great

Green drinks at HOB pre dinner

location, great server, and great food, and even a 20% Disney Retiree discount. A perfect evening! But, today’s story is not about Walt Disney World, about the sweat shirt I bought at Disney Springs with my 35% Disney Retiree benefits, about the great sax player we listened to in the Scat Cat’s Club, or about the great discussion we had with Kay, formerly from Long Island, and now a memeber of the Disney reception staff. No, today’s story goes back a state.

My snow bird cousin, Jeannie’s husband Walt, suggested that before we left Georgia, we stop at exit 3 on I-95 and gas up at a cheaper rate, and that’s exactly what we did this morning. Gas was $1.69 a gallon, and a whole tank for the Sonata cost about $20. My tale starts after I was done, when a gentleman walked up to me and asked what part of New York we were from. When I said, Long Island, he asked where, and when I said, Mineola, he said, “so if I go down Jericho Turnpike it will become Jamacia Avenue, and I’ll be in Queens”. He was allegedly from Brooklyn.

Before I knew what was happening, he was spraying some cleaning product on Susie’s car, showing me what a great job it did on the paint, on the windows, the chrome, and even the wheels. He cleaned off Love Bugs from the front bumper, shined the grill, and made the headlights sparkle! The pitch was that buying the product supported Breast Cancer Reasearch, but beside that, the products seemed to really do a good job. Well, one thing led to another, and he showed me a product for tires, cloth, leather, and for all I know, cleaning the toilet! The bottom line, I am now the owner of $107 worth of excellent car cleaning products! Need any cleaning help? (Susie said she was sorry she forgot to pack my tee shirt with the “S” on the front…Sucker!)

Day Two….Sunny Afternoon in Georgia!

March 4, 2016 / Sue and Frank D'Elia / 4 Comments

So, the end of day two finds us in Darien, Georgia at a very nice Comfort Inn. Our room tonight is much nicer than the Days Inn was last night. Lesson learned……You get what you pay for! Today we traveled from Virginia, through North Carolina, South Carolina, and into Georgia. Driving was good, but if some of the folks we’ve encountered on the road today, did what they did on the Garden State Parkway or the New Jersey Turnpike, I think they’d be dead. Lets just say, interesting drivers. We’ve spotted license plates from 21 states, the District of Columbia, Official US Government, Quebec, Ontario, and a bunch of US Army Humvees in full battle gear, with no license plates. We drove by Paris Island, Pope Army Air Base, and saw huge GI helicopters come in low over I-95.

This morning, when we crossed from North Carolina into South Carolina, we passed South of the Border. We’ve heard from friends that it’s a shell of what it used to be, and although we didn’t stop, it did bring to mind a story from one of our very early trips to Florida with the kids.

I guess we were nuts, or perhaps just didn’t know any better, but we loaded up our 1986 full size Ford van with two 18 month old twins, our almost 6 year old son, our baby sitter, and started down I-95. Among the things loaded into the van were two porta cribs, which we unloaded and set up at every hotel. Nuts, or what?

So, as we leave our first night’s motel, I notice that one of the tires on the van needed a little air. I filled it before leaving, and when we got to the North/South Carolina border, we decided to stop at South of the Border to check the tire. Once again it was low, so I decided to see if I could get it looked at. The guy at the gas station in South of the Border said he had no empty lifts, but if I brought him the tire, he could fix it.

I went back to the car, got Susie, Eileen our baby sitter, Krissi, Kenny, and Billy out of the car, and started to jack up the van. The way to jack up that generation van, was to slide the jack way under the frame, and then lift it off the ground. Just as I was getting the jack under the frame, two Air Force fighter jets buzzed South of the Border at about 100 feet! From that time on, Susie loved telling the story of how, when the planes flew over, I dove under the van, totally abandoning my wife and my 3 young children to protect myself!

So that’s my South of the Border story for today. Tomorrow we have about 4 hours to Walt Disney World, and our reservations at Disney’s Port Orleans, French Quarter. Tonight we are in 60 degree temperatures, tomorrow we’re hoping for the 70s! Also, looking forward to using my ABC/Disney Retiree discounts! Ah, retirement!!

R New Adventures

Come with us as we journey through our next chapter

On the Road Again!