Two Trips back to Florida

 We had been in Missouri for about three weeks and it was time for us to head back to Florida. We were heading to Disneyland to see our Granddaughter,  Isabella play with her High School Band. The plan for more than a year was to rent a VERBO Condo and make it a full Disney visit. The crew going was, Shannon and Brian and Will and Amelia. Kim and I, and we were very excited to spend some time with our son Mark and his wife Callie. Mark and Callie decided to do the full experience and they were staying at the Dolphin on the Disney resort. 

Our plan was to determine if the boat was going to be ready early. The original schedule was June 12th. If it was early, we would drive our own vehicle down and they just go to the boat. Now the problem was that the truck was still in the shop. The boat was not going to be ready early, so we decided to ride down with Shannon, Will and Millie in Shannon's car. We had a fun two day drive down to Orlando. Brian flew both ways to reduce his time away from work.

We got a great deal on the condo, so I was a bit concerned that it would be ok. As it turned out, when we arrived, I was very pleasantly surprised. It was very nice and had a deck overlooking a small lake that had many birds and other wildlife. We even saw an alligator.

We stayed in Orlando for 7 days. Shannon's family did all 4 parks as did Mark and Callie. Kim and I were very happy that we chose to only do two of the parks. After the first day at Epcot, where we walked about 26,000 steps, we needed a couple of days to recover and get ready to do Magic Kingdom. 

Kim at the entrance to Epcot. This is her thing and it was my job to do as I was told.

Kim and Will. We had a fun day with Will at Epcot. He hung out with us most of the day.

Will and I in front of the big golf ball.

Amelia doing a nice pose. She had a great time at the parks, but told me her favorite thing about the trip was the pool at the condo. 

Here is a shot of Kim, Isabella, Shannon, Millie and Will

We only got a quick view of the band, but here they are performing on main street.

My favorite ride inside the parks was the "Tron" motorcycle ride. Will and I got to ride side by side.

The fireworks show was amazing as always. The only problem was by then my legs were toast.

We finished the final day by riding the carousel. Kim loves those and maybe I earned an extra point for that.  

We took hundreds of pictures. I am just selecting the ones from my phone. This is Brian, Mark and Callie with Shannon and Amelia to the right. We were on the train. 

Disney World was an exhausting experience. I am sure everyone had fun and so did I, but it was a physical test. Isabella decided that she wanted to come home with Shannon. That posed a problem that was quickly solved. I rented a car and decided that the girls would go in Shannon's car and Will and I would drive a rent car. Once again the rates for one waying a car from Florida was only $40 per day, going the other direction is a different story. 

Shannon dropped Will and I off at the airport to rent the car. We went through the check out procedure as normal at the counter. We got to our normal mid size car and went to the check out gate. What normally takes a minute or two was taking for ever. As it turned out the car had the wrong license plate on it. I was getting a little miffed as we had a long drive in front of us. Finally, the agent told me to please take the car back to where we got it and go to the "Presidents Island" and pick any car. We chose a jet Black Chevy Camaro.

Will and I had way too much fun driving this car to Missouri. We got zero tickets, that is all I am going to say about that. 

We got back to Missouri on June 1. We now knew we needed to be in Stuart Florida on June 9th to pick up the boat. The biggest problem was that we still did not have the truck ready. I went through a daily issue with the guy working on the truck where he told me it would be ready and then I did not hear from him and then we would start over the next day. He finally texted me on Sunday the 4th and said: "It's Alive". After I clarified what that meant, I went and picked it up. It has run perfectly since then. 

We spent the next few days getting ready to leave. We got the truck packed and then got some more bad news. While the boat was in the yard, we decided to have our dinghy "reconditioned". It probably needed to be replaced, but this company told us they could fix it for around $1000. A new one cost around $5000. It was supposed to take a week, but it was now 5 weeks and it was still not done due to the large number of repairs needed. 

We had one final thing Kim wanted to do. We went to Amelia's cross over ceremony from a Daisy scout to a Brownie. That is a girl scout thing.

I just thought I would include this picture I took in Shannon's front yard of this 4 foot Black Rat Snake.

Shannon on the right and the 5 girls that she has led through Daisy Scouts. Amelia is on the far left.

 I was now ready to make final plans to take the truck to Brunswick, Georgia (where the boat will spend hurricane season) and then drive a rent car to Stuart, Florida. Remember what I said about car rental costs? They wanted around $250 per day to do that from Savannah, GA or any other place I checked. I did some more searching and figured out that we could rent a car inside Florida much cheaper, so we reserved a car just south of Jacksonville, Florida for $80 per day.

We left Missouri on June 8th and drove 14 hours to Valdosta, GA. Then we drove to Florida to get the car and then Kim drove the truck and I drove the rent car 1.5 hours north to Brunswick. The best news is the truck never missed a beat. I then drove back south to Florida and arrived at the Mack Yacht Services yard at about 3pm on the 9th. 

It was at that point that the real fun began. I will write all about getting out of the yard in my next entry.