Day of Departure

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

I woke up at 6:30am, made coffee and finished packing. By 8am, all of the suitcases and other items were ready to go. Suddenly the dogs seemed to know what was going on and went crazy. They started barking, howling and jumping around. I don’t know how they know they are going in the car, but they do.

We got to the kennel at 9am and dropped off the monsters. We dropped off some bags of clothing at the Goodwill. While packing, we had amassed quite a pile of clothing which will not fit this fall, many of the items were brand new. We stopped at my parents and picked up Victoria’s favorite sunglasses she had left there. It was a smooth ride to the park n fly. We were at the airport by 10:45am. We checked in our luggage. I still don’t like the dragging the cases over to two different spots.

Victoria bought us lunch. She insisted. We headed over to the gate with a half an hour to spare. There were many pre-boarding people. The Southwest line situation has changed a bit. No longer do you board by A, B, or C. You have a letter and a number. We were A42. We boarded without problems and Victoria grabbed a seat by the window while I grabbed one on the aisle, leaving a seat between us. No one sat there and we had a bit of a bumpy ride, which was delayed by about 45 minutes.

One of the flight attedants was a big burly dude with a military hair cut. He looked a lot like the Federal Air Marshals except he wore a Southwest uniform. Some of the passengers were really interesting. There was an entire family near us who asked for 3 sodas each, extra snacks, and wanted alcohol and had a fit when they announced no cash. There were several people who used canes to ambulate, who used the flight attendants when using the bathroom. Even after announcing no waiting by the front lavatory, people tried to do it anyway. I don’t remember such demanding passengers.

Because we were seated up front, we were off the plane quickly and went to grab our luggage. We went over to the budget counter, suitcases in hand, and were told to go across the street to the Rapid Check in Counter. We dragged our stuff across the street, and the woman in the kiosk said I had to go back. I patiently explained to her I was told to come here, and I would not be dragging my cases back to the counter. The woman asked who sent us, and Victoria told her his name, what he was wearing and the color of his skin, when asked. She cursed the employee and gave us a Chevy Malibu.

We packed up the car and I noticed the car was not exactly full of gas. That annoyed me because I was not going to walk back for them to put a notation. I connected the GPS and drove to the Coronado Springs Resort. We arrived at around 5pm. It was very humid and cloudy in Orlando. We called Lynn and Mary and agreed to meet them at the Wilderness Lodge Villas for dinner. We were tired and quickly unpacked and drove over to the Lodge by 6pm. We hung around with Lynn and Mary in their one bedroom villa before going to the lounge for dinner at the Whispering Canyon. Dinner was eh – so-so. The kids did not eat their chicken and pasta 18 dollar dish and my herb seafood cakes were a quiche consistency. The girls had a princess cake inside of a treasure box and we called it a night.

We drove back to the Coronado Springs Resort. The resort is huge and very spread out. It’s beautiful at night. We were tired and I fell asleep after watching some Disney television.