DJ's Crazy Amazing Evil Lazer Trip (Knoebels 2009) About This Page:

[Chrissi]

I don't think I need to tell you - I let DJ choose this year's trip report title. We'll see how that works out.

Destination: Knoebels Amusement Resort, Elysburg, PA.
Date: August 15 - 23, 2009.
Adventurers: Walt, Chrissi, DJ (friends also visiting during our stay: Dani, Haden, Trent, and Elle, as well as Steph, Gerry, and Evan).
Resort/Hotel: Our cottage.
Celebration: Summer R&R, DJ's 7th birthday, our 10th wedding anniversary (early celebration as our anni. isn't until October).
The cast of characters at Ye Olde Revolving Door Inne and their respective dates:
Aug. 15th - 22nd: Walt, Chrissi, and DJ
Aug. 15th - 16th: Dani, Haden, Trent, and Elle.
Aug. 17th - 18th: Steph, Gerry, and Evan.

I'm tempted to call this the 'I Will Finish This Knoebels TR This Time TR', but I'm hoping telling you all that will keep me honest and make me finish before the upcoming Wildwood trip in September.

This trip officially started last summer when we made the first payment on the cottage for the year, but the excitement really began just this past Monday and Tuesday.

Monday afternoon, I got a call from a local area code on my cell phone, but it wasn't a number I immediately recognized. I thought it might be the aforementioned friend, Steph, calling from an unknown number. I checked my messages just to be sure and instead I discovered it was the lady who runs Knoebels reservations office. She'd left two messages - one the week before asking if we were still interested in the cottage because she hadn't received our final payment and another saying they were going to release the cottage if possible if they hadn't heard from me in another day or two. Now I knew I had made the final payment 2 1/2 weeks earlier, so something smelled poopy here. After I calmed down and recovered from my near fatal HEART ATTACK , I logged into my online banking system and checked to be sure - yes, the payment had cleared and was clearly marked "Knoebels" along with the date they ran it and the date it posted to my account.

So I called the rental extension number and insisted I had a payment posted to my account in the amount of more than $500, so someone had lost my payment. Rental Lady ran off to check her records with the promise to call back. I waited...and waited...and waited. I called Dani (also on the cast of characters) and went over all this with her and she tried to calm me down again. It wasn't going well, though. More than half an hour had passed since I'd called the rental office and I was starting to sweat as the end of the business day was coming up and I was worried I'd have to call my bank and get someone to fax some sort of assurance or copy of the debit from my account. Dani got sick of my stress and told me to just call the rental office again and keeping calling every ten minutes until I got an answer. Good idea. So I called the rental office again, got put on hold, and when Rental Lady finally picked up, I was glad to hear she was a little breathless from sprinting to the phone from whatever storage space she'd gone to to review their records. She assured me she'd found the payment and it looked like she had just forgotten to WRITE IT DOWN!!! Her excuse for nearly giving away my accomodations and ruining my family's vacation is "oops, looks like I had my hands full that day and just forgot to write it down"?!?! Needless to say...not pleased. Then she offered to mail me the receipt as proof. I was like...uh, I'll be there Saturday. Just keep it until I come to get the keys. I swear, I think she could have used a map and a flashlight to get through her day...

Tuesday morning, to top off my week, my mother woke us up at the buttcrack of dawn to pick up some clothes she was going to mend for us and she had to check DJ's waist size so we couldn't just leave it on the porch...nope, she had to wake us up on her way home from work at 8 am. I love her, but I was NOT feeling the love Tuesday morning. Since we were up, we figured it was a good day/time to head over to AAA to pick up some discounted Knoebels tickets. They changed their pricing over the winter from 10 cent increments to 25 cent increments and all we had were the old tickets which would be useless without at least some of the new 25 cent-ers. We got to AAA and all they had were the old tickets - and no clue that there WERE new tickets or what we were talking about. Oh so not good...They had to call Knoebels' main park office to straighten it out. It seems they're using up the old ticket stock they have and printing 5 cent tickets in the mean time that can only be picked up at the park. D'oh! So when I get there, I still have to spend an hour and a half waiting in line for $3 worth of 5 cent tickets to avoid over-paying on every ride. Awesome. Knoebels is going to have to go a long way to redeem itself this year as this whole experience has not gotten off to a great start...

Coming up: Intro Part 2: Dropping off Nugga and Intro Part 3: We're only going for 8 days! Why do we need a bike, a wagon, and a partridge in a pear tree? The only thing missing is the kitchen sink!

[chezp]

Oh my goodness - not the sort of scare you need just before a vacation! :

[lauren-roxy]

Sounds like a rough start to your trip, but I'm sure it will improve greatly!!!

[christiejay]

I don't know, maybe DJ's title will work after all! I see crazy and evil so far ... now all you need is the amazing. And I'm sure that will happen! Oh and the lazer, don't know about that one. Looking forward to reading more!

[Chrissi]

The park has an attraction called Lazer Runner (basically, a warehouse to play Laser Tag in), so that may be why he spelled Lazer that way. He's been begging to do it for years and this may be his year.

[Colexis Mom]

Sorry for the rough start!

[Chrissi]

Intro Part 2: Dropping off Nugga

The message board gods hate me. I just typed up an entire update and lost it.

Short, short version of what I just typed and lost and learned my lesson from: We dropped Lola off today. It was very hard to leave her, but she's in good hands with my best friend, Brielle. Lola tried to sneak out behind us, but I caught on to her little step when I step game as we came down the stairs and Brielle nabbed her in time for us to make a quick, painless getaway. Walt gave me the stinkeye about calling Brielle for an update on Lola an hour after I dropped her off, so Brielle is posting photo updates to her facebook page for me.



Lola, chillin' in Brielle's living room just after we left.



Lola napping on Hank's blanket next to Hank; Brielle's pitbull mix, and Lane Myer; Brielle's Tuxedo cat. Brielle's other cat, O'Reilly Red (a birthday gift from me when she turned 16) had to be put to sleep just last week and everyone there is out of sorts. Lola has an amazing ability to turn a frown upside-down, so I know Lola was just called to be in the right home at the right time when she can't be with us this week.

Coming up next: Intro Part 3: We're only going for 8 days! Why do we need a bike, a wagon, and a partridge in a pear tree? The only thing missing is the kitchen sink!

[Disneybine]

OMG, that's the cutest dog picture ever! The two doggies look at each other like they're having some deep conversation going

[chezp]

I was just thinking the same thing - it does look like there's some deep and meaningful conversation going on there!

[Chrissi]

If the two of them weren't both spayed/neutered, I suspect they'd already have puppies on the way. There's much love between the two of them and some gentle nipping play when they're feeling frisky. They're a riot!

[Chrissi]

Got another Lola update just now:



This is what Brielle woke up to this morning.

[Disneybine]

Awww, Lola is just so darn CUTE!!!

[chezp]

Too cute!

[christiejay]

Glad to hear that your dog has a nice friendly place to stay, and how neat that you can get updates on her!

[bsblady01]

more please