stefa70

I love those mugs! You can't beat that price for the mug, let alone having it filled with ice cream.
Good call!
At the Fort, with a pre-dinner cocktail, listening to ZBB and catching up on a TCD report. Life is good!

I'm here Mo!

We went to the Thanksgiving Day parade in Philly and a highlight for us was the horse that was like the 3 thing in the parade took a massive, massive dump. It was very entertaining watching people either step in it because they weren't aware of it, walking backwards or didn't want to break formation. Some people where cheering when poop was squished lol

I think you gotta look under their Dee Dums……….
bahahaha
Sorry TCD I seem to cause your TR's to go south a little too often! That wee little Jimmy Johnson fan is rubbing off on me!

Pluto's tongue had to be shortened due to a sexual harassment lawsuit from Lady.

Rudy, you're mother is obviously the smartest member of the family.
I saw that you changed your FB status. Let's go out and pick up some bitches.
Later,
Mason

Having Jordan with us after a year in Afghanistan! :heart:

Having Jordan with us after a year in Afghanistan! :heart:

Having Jordan with us after a year in Afghanistan! :heart:

As an add on, when I was at Shades of Green in November they have a FREE three day pass to Universal Studios. It is for military member only. Good through March. We plan on getting Marilyn a three day ticket and going to see Harry Potter in Feb. Don't tell the Mouse.
Steph tell Jordan "OORAH, Job well done. Thanks."

This is it folks, the fat lady is singing.
Tuesday morning it's time to vacate the premises.
It's December 4th and I have done very minimal Christmas shopping.
My decorations are up, thanks to the kids.
My tree needs ornaments.
I have another BBS concert in two days.
We have family parties and work parties lined up.
I've been at the Fort for 6 days, which means laundry, bookwork, mail and real work.
Time to make like a tree and leave.
Before any packing takes place, Mason gets one last walk around the loop.

The dismantling begins.

Mason occupies himself with a stick. A BIG stick.

Almost there, the fiend tree and Trev's bike are ready to be loaded.

As we're getting more packed up, Mason wants in the truck.

When we were down to the manly details (Chock blocks, sewer and water hoses) I needed to run over to Carol's and say Goodbye.
I know she isn't an early riser, so just in case, I wrote a note. It was around 9:00 am when I pulled into Carol's site and all was quiet. I stuck the note to her golf cart wheel and made my back to finish up.
We pulled out of the 500 loop....almost.


Some fellow campers stopped us to ask how we had the golf cart hooked in and how we got it in there. I sat in the truck waiting, thinking of all the stuff I needed to do when I got home.
Now that I've accepted that vacation is over, I just want to GO.
When we got to the 4-way stop, we had to follow this guy out. UGH! Just prolonging the agony of leaving.

I stuck my tongue out at the folks that would be coming through this gate to claim my site.

And again to all the people inside that had just arrived on their magical vacation.

Being a Tuesday, there was hardly any traffic and we made it home in just over an hour. That was even after a quick "pit stop" at Okahumpka plaza.
As we pulled out of the plaza, we followed this guy out.

Hard to tell in that moving pic but he had a Fort Wilderness tire cover on the back.
If he had also just came from the Fort, I felt his pain.
Thanks for traveling with us. Til the next adventure, I leave you with some Blackberry Smoke wisdom.
I'm lucky as a seven, I dance to my own tune.
I may not get to heaven Lord, for the wicked things I do.
If ya wanna walk in my boots, and take all that I've took,
It ain't as easy as it looks.

Sorry for the brief sabbatical.
After returning from our lunch at MK, we took Mason for a cart ride. Of course, that means I got to ride "b**ch"
While we were riding, I could hear a noise coming from the back of the cart, like a squeaking sound.
Who'd a thought we'd stop, mid looping, to check it out.


We think it's a spring, but have been too busy to dig into it further since we brought it home.
I forgot to mention that Saturday night while Nate and I were at MK, Alabama won the football game against Georgia.
That meant I had to listen to countless people shout "Roll Tide" to Nate, to which he returned the same. UGH!
These folks must have been happy too.

Because we were going home the next morning and our guests were gone, Trevor put the back bunk up and took my Jimmie flag down, which he pinned on Mason.


We took it off before he ripped it off. Mason won't wear anything!
Carol stopped by again for a mid-afternoon chat while we planned our evening. Good to visit again, Carol! :wave1:
By the time we got moving again, we knew we'd never make the first processional. No biggie, we'd shoot for the next one.
We decided to drive over to Epcot. Here's our walk in.

The sky to the right was a beautiful pink color, but a monorail photo bombed me, so you can't see much.

Donald and Goofy rockin their Christmas duds.

One quick shot of the ball

We walked straight over to Test Track, which was still up and running. The line looked pretty long, but I knew Trevor really wanted to ride, so we joined the masses.

A few shots from the queue


A neat futuristic car they have hanging. (Cool, but TINY, even for me)




Call me skeptical, but I'm not buying all the futuristic garbage.
I'm still waiting for our cars to fly like they did in the Jetson's.
The original Test Track also had future cars which never came to fruition.
We're still driving plain old cars on the road.
I'm not going to spoil the ride for those who haven't been on it but make sure to pay attention to this car in the second room you're herded into. I was off in my own world for the first few minutes before I realized what was happening. Very neat.

The third room you go into, puts you on a number spot which corresponds with the computer you will work on in the fourth holding room.
Yes, I said FOURTH. Don't be fooled by the little line you see at the front doors.
You then get to design your own car. This may shock you, but here is ours.

It then rates your car on different things.
You can see that our capability is a 75. That baby will go anywhere.
Our efficiency is 26....not so different from our real life trucks. But it looks cool.

Finally our ride arrives. We ended up waiting about 40 minutes in total, not too bad.


For the record, I loved it! I have always loved test track. Sure there are some things I missed from the first version, but the real ride at the end is all I really ever cared about. I'm not sure if this one is faster, or it just seemed faster because it was dark and it's been so long since we've ridden it, but it was fun.
My favorite memory of Test Track came while we were standing in line. I received a text from Nate, with this pic attached. (sorry for quality, he took it with his phone)

Hmmm, that looks like my house!
Then it dawned on me.
Nathen had put up all of our outside decorations. He recruited 5 of his buddies to help, and they even picked out a tree for the inside, which I decorated when I got home.
That's my boy! :heart:
I cried, right there in the TT queue. DORK!
The TT experience put us about 10 minutes behind schedule but we were sort of hungry. We headed toward the showcase.
Ball and fountain.

More Christmas characters

Epcot Christmas tree.

Shots over the water


Neither one of us were starving after such a huge lunch so we stopped at the cantina.

We shared some nachos, which were delicious! We were planning on a snack later, so this was just enough to hold us over.

We made it to the processional about 10 minutes after it started and were able to stand along the back row, which was fine.
When I get back, I'll share a couple photos from that, our late night snack, and a cool ride back to the Fort.

Just a couple of things to add:
If the tickets are purchased at Shades of Green there will be no Fl sales tax included. If purchased at other locations on property, you will incur the sales tax.
Once the voucher is received it can be activated at any guest relations, including the lesser used water parks. So if you don't want to stand in long lines at major parks, consider using the smaller venues.
This year the rules have been changed that the service member/spouse can purchase only once up to 6 tickets total, so no more multiple purchases of 1-2 tickets at a time.
Stef,
So happy Jordan is going to be able to spend time with his family over the holidays. After he latest tour, he definately deserves it!!

You KNOW if bungees are involved, then Tony is being strapped to the trunk.

OK- I cry uncle!!!
I am from Missouri - but Oklahoma was close. Our family had been in Pizza Planet at DHS when we saw you (my daughter noticing your girls first), everyone had to go to the bathroom to confirm it. We just moved on after and laughed about the fact you were a Disney celeb to us. After we ate, we went to the lights (our first time and they were beautiful), and our daughter saw you guys again and for some reason, it just became funny. We didn't want you and your family to think we were stalking all of you, so I decided just to say something.
It was our first time at WDW during Thanksgiving, It was beautiful but crowded. We ate Thanksgiving dinner in BOG - it was awesome!
There you go - I responded! You can continue with your report now :laugh:

I liked it better when the #2 was black/yellow and being piloted by Rusty.......

TCD, your trip reports are fantastic. Used to lurk and read them on another site (not sure if I can mention names or not, lol). I'm glad I found FF, not least because of your consistently great posts.
The idea of beer at the MK took me a minute to get used to, but thats partially because I'm more of a fruity drink guy (much to my embarrassment). Since it's in a restaurant at dinner I don't have any worries about Princesses Gone Wild or anything...

Dinner is served!!

:rofl2: I have to agree with FP4 on this one, Andrew. Since you can't see the bass in the photo and the guy IS bent over, it's slightly weird.
Now I'm super glad that you didn't get any mens room photos. Wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong idea.
And while we're on the mens room...a double sided trough?! That's funky, strange and possibly messy. Am I the only one picturing a sword fight?
I am all for Halloween decorations, but sometimes less is more. When I first saw it I immediately thought of Norm.
Hope you have a great weekend!!

Darn. I just repacked my referee daisy dukes back in the camper.
The entrance to FL looks great!
I wonder if the carpet is meant to resemble canvas, like a circus tent? Kind of looks like it's tied together.
Great start. Sorry I'm a slacker. Nothing personal. :)

FYI....i just spoke to Kenny who I have absolutelyno reason to doubt because he has been excellent with me at every turn.
The poster was refunded 100% even though they waited to cancel right before the cart wasto be delivered.
Maybe the poster forgot to cancel earlier? Doesnt matter they either got a full refund or the credit card company is processing the card refund/credit. What more could you want?
If it was my company, there would definitely be some sort of cancellation fee if you wait to cancel when I am prepared to deliver the cart.
Anyway, i think it is safe to close the book on this hogwash and Kenny will remain my go to guy for cart rentals! I have one reserved for February and will continue to use his service.

Oops.
My bad.
Sincerely, Mrs. Robinson

Very fair point and a thought that crossed my mind as well.
While I don't personally know of anyone that's had to cancel with Kenny, many people (us included) have sworn by him for many years now. And part of that has been Kenny going above and beyond in the service department, so it does make me skeptical as well.
I also know the GC rental business when it comes to the Fort is ridiculously competitive.
I would like to see where/what Kenny is publishing as his cancellation policy. I'll have to see if we have anything at home from last year's rental. There's nothing posted to his website, but I'd imagine it has to show up somewhere. The information we had on our GC page is probably a couple of years old, but was accurate at the time. Could be that things have changed, but you would think that somewhere in the process of booking the rental, the cancellation policy needs to be presented and agreed to by the person booking the rental - i.e., it's not just some anonymous policy out in the ether.
Only to protect Kenny. If his policy *has* changed (and that's certainly his prerogative) I don't want to cause him headaches by publishing information that isn't 100% accurate.
I had already stopped posting Tee Time rates at Kenny's request. He would rather have people call for this information (for lots of reasons, not the least of which is not wanting to draw attention to himself from the Mouse), so probably safer to do so for cancellation policies as well.
Don't worry - I'm still in the camp of the skeptical on this one.

These are actually postcards of River Country, but they are from our 1st WDW - and Fort trip December of 1980. Pretty tame (or some might say lame?) by today's water park standards, but in 1980 it was pretty impressive. The slides, etc also emptied into the lake - not a heated swimming pool. The water was PAINFULLY cold (even to someone from Milwaukee who grew up swimming in Lake Michigan), but we wanted to get the most out of the trip. It was a blast!!!

Funny!!! Eat one, get one free! This month only!