[Mr.Grumpy]

Date: March 22 – April 2, 2002
Adventurers: Grumpy (Joel) [img]graemlins/puter.gif[/img] & Pooh (Jeanne)
Resort/Hotel: Boardwalk Villas & Walt Disney World Swan
Celebration: Spring 2002, Easter, Grumpy’s Birthday (34)

For those that know us, you’ll know how we love to drive to WDW. Well that is not entirely true. However, we would rather save the money from airfare on fun when we arrive at WDW.

So, it is Friday, March 22, 2002, we had to work all day and now we are ready to make the trek down south. Just in time, too. It was 30 degrees when we left New York. We drove via route 84W into the sunset and snowflakes that were coming in over the Pennsylvania horizon. The thought of snow at this point was exciting as we had had enough of winter and knew that we would be in sunny Florida early the next evening. We found the drive out of NY to be uneventful we hit I-81 in record time.

Now, we needed to get psyched up for the long and arduous journey through the mountains of PA. While driving we both realized that it was still lent and of course Friday. This meant that we could not just drop into a local Burger King for a quick bite. We decided that we would look for a pizza establishment along the way and take a break from driving. This sounds easier than it actually was. There are no pizza places listed on the highway signs until you reach Mechanicsburg, which is almost to the southern end of PA. Finally, a Pizza Hut. Now although we do not usually get too excited over the thought of Pizza Hut, this was an awesome find. Actually, to make our dining pleasure better for the evening, we found a local pizza shop in the plaza on the way to Pizza Hut. We thought that this would be a better alternative [img]graemlins/yuma.gif[/img] . We could just get a few slices and be on our way. Of course, they did not have any pies ready when we got there. We waited a few minutes for them to bake a fresh one and we killed time looking at the atlas at one of the tables. This was a great find. The locals that came in were very friendly and gave us a few laughs. One man came in with a Disney coat on, which of course gave me the permission that I needed to strike up conversation with him. While we laughed and compared favorite things to do in WDW, while another (drunk?) [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] couple kept chiming in that they just loved Disneyland (they of course meant World but we did not correct them). They told us about the lane closures up ahead on I-81 and told us that we should make an alternative plan to go south on I-95. We listened and thanked them and then went on I-81 anyway…knowing we had a reservation in Harrisonburg, VA, we had no choice to take our chances.

Luck was with us again. The lane closures were very short and there was no traffic so it was smooth sailing. We stayed at the Four Points by Sheraton that we booked online and earned mucho points on our Starwood Preferred Card (if you do not have one of these, I recommend it highly. You get points from stays at the Swan and Dolphin as well as other Sheraton, Westin and FourPoints properties…which lead to free nights). The hotel was pretty nice other than the fact that our room overlooked the enclosed pool which was being cleaned at midnight?!? With one call to the front desk the noise subsided and we were off to NeverNeverland in preparation for the final leg of the trip in the morning.

Saturday, March 23, 2002 - 5AM the alarm sounded with some God Awful Twangy Radio Station. We sprang from the bed and turned off the tunes and opted for the Weather Channel so we could find out what was in store for us for the rest of the day. As DW showered, I wrote my notes for this trip on some hotel stationary…..and of course I had to take the pen (you will see that this will become a regular thing of mine throughout our trip.) We were on the road by 6:30 (I can’t believe it took us this long to get out of there…but that is what the notes say so who am I to change history).

We made great time on I-81 to I-77 through the mountains of southern VA. If you ever get the chance to travel I-77 in VA you will be in awe at the beauty of the mountains and the steeeep cliffs. Not to mention the runaway truck ramps that line the side of the mountain. Off to NC. We just love driving through NC on I-77. We especially love the Lake Norman/Charlotte area. We even talked about moving there some day to be closer to WDW (this will become a topic of conversation as we come upon other towns as well.) The drive was uneventful through NC and to I-26 in SC to I-95…….Guess what happens next.

You guessed it…traffic [img]images/icons/mad.gif[/img] . Of course, it is I-95, we would expect nothing else. This was stand still traffic for almost two hours (20 miles). Once we got to the end of the jam we noticed the cause. I told DW to keep her eyes on the road and I would scope out the cause. It was a horrible accident. The frame of a rig was smoking on the side of the road and the remains of a Toyota 4Runner were on the flatbed of a tow truck. We prayed that everyone was ok but would be amazed if anyone could’ve made it out of that mess.

Upon my calculations, we had 349 miles left to go. We took off to the GA border. We noticed that many of the cars from VA that were passing us had large American flags [img]graemlins/usa.gif[/img] posted on the backs of their cars. We felt left out and wanted to buy one for our car but could not find any while we were down there. We arrived in GA at 4PM. They are creating a new welcoming sign with lots of nicely arranged palm trees in SC. We’ll look to see how much they get done while we are in FL for the week. THREE lanes!!! Yipppeeee [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] . We were sailing now. We of course asked each other why more interstates along the way could not be three lanes. We then noticed that the GA exit signs have changed and do not correspond to those in our 2000 atlas. This was also the first time through GA without the swamp smell! Don’t take offense if you are from GA but this smell is more offensive than the cow manure smell that we put up with in NY in the summer.

DW is telling me now to stop babbling and get to the good stuff. Skip ahead to our arrival at Downtown Disney.

We pull up to the Marketplace and find a prime spot directly across the street from the World of Disney store. We walked through the store on our way to eat and noticed some cool things that we would have to come back to buy later in the trip. But now it was fueling time so off to the Portobello Yacht Club [img]graemlins/yuma.gif[/img] for dinner. They seated us pretty quickly in Monika’s section. She was very friendly and Disney-like. What a nice way to start off our trip. Our food was outstanding.

We headed back to the car, as we were now full and ready for some shut-eye. We arrived at the Farifield Inn in Lake Buena Vista (also accepts the Marriott Reward Card for points toward free nights). This was very close to the MarketPlace and extremely clean.

Well off to sleep… be back at 6AM on Sunday morning to move over to the Boardwalk Villas [img]graemlins/wavin.gif[/img] See you then!!!