Enough time has passed and I feel the wounds aren’t fresh anymore. I can now write about this.
It was March and Kate was turning 18. Lisa and I decided that a trip to Disney was warranted for such an occasion. We have that house down there, so Lisa went a week before us and Kate, Charlotte and I would be flying down on a Saturday from the Wilmington Airport with Avelo Airlines.
*sidenote – if you can, use them next time you go to Disney. Parking was $8 a day and you park right beside the terminal. 1 gate, TSA was a breeze – easy in and easy out (Well………)
Before Lisa left, she and I sat down with our Google Calendars to coordinate things. Being I’d be home with the sisters and they have busy schedules, there was a lot to go over. I put our travel plans in, Lisa leaving on Monday (I’d drive her to the airport), Kate Charlotte and I leaving the following Saturday and all flying back on Friday. I also put in all of their appointments for the week I was in charge. WOW – these girls have busy schedules.
The week went by and we missed Mom, and on Saturday, off we went. The flight was quick and easy and Lisa picked us up in Orlando in her rental and we were ready for fun – Fun – FUN !!!
We settled in that night and Lisa and I game planned for the week. There was lots to do for the week we were there and we didn’t need to be at the parks all the time. We love the parks, but we’ve been to the parks. It’s nice that now Kate is 18 and Charlotte is 13 and they can hit the parks by themselves. Lisa had a full checklist of things we needed to do.
Monday – the big 18. We had a wonderful time. We started off at The Magic Kingdom that day, we’d hit the other parks later.
*sidenote – I found another nap hangout. The Tiki Room – OH MY GOD !!! It’s great. It has made my nap rotation. Sometimes, I just need a few minutes, so I have various strategic locations where I can shut my eyes and get a quick cat nap. Also in The Magic Kingdom Nap Rotation is The Laugh Factory. FYI – in Hollywood Studios it’s The Muppet Show – I’ve had some serious naps there.
We had a wonderful Birthday celebration and I’ll tell you – the cast at Disney knows how to put on a show for a birthday girl and they did not disappoint.
Next day, Tuesday and we had stuff to do at the house. Lots of yardwork and few minor things that needed our attention. I’m going over the checklist and Lisa had made a few notes, because she said, “we have to have all this done by Friday because we leave on Saturday.” Um, hang on as I check my phone and my Google Calendar, “Lisa, we’ve leaving on Friday.” “No”, she says, “We leave on Saturday.”
Okay. I’ve been known to make a mistake or two, especially when it comes to entering stuff on my phone. Remember, I am not Moses. So I accepted I had entered it wrong. What are the odds, right?
What a week we had – parks, dinners and lots of quiet time and lots of fun with the sisters.
All good things must end. Saturday morning arrived and we set about packing and cleaning up. Some stuff we packed and other things we packed away to leave there. While the sisters and I were packing and cleaning, Lisa was on her phone trying to do the on-line check-in, but it wasn’t working. Odd. So she tried calling the 800# and was stuck on hold forever. She switched it to speaker phone and went about her business of packing up her things and helping us clean
But no – it was not to be. I forget exactly what I heard, but I heard something to the effect of, “Are we able to get a refund?” – okay – that got my attention.
As it turned out……. Our flight was on Friday and guess what – we weren’t on it.
And the adventure begins…….
Okay – they are no flights to the Wilmington airport. And the prices last minute to Philly or Baltimore for 4 people – WOW – who can afford that? Not us.
We had a rental here in Orlando, but no, we can’t drive that to Philly. It was a local independent operation with only the 1 Orlando location. Lisa gets on line and finds a rental place at the Orlando Airport that has a car we can pick up and return to the Philadelphia Airport.
Okay – a plan was set. Kate and I would return the current rental car to the Orlando rental place, an hour away from our place, take their shuttle to the Airport, pick up the new rental car and then go back to our place and pick up Charlotte and Lisa who needed to pack a bit more and clean. We’d drive to Wilmington, pick our van, follow each other to Philly to drop off the rental car, then head home, about 2 hours south from Philly. Easy-Peasy. We’ve driven to Disney several times – we are pros.
Kate and I drive to the rental place, turn in the car and await the shuttle. But it’s taking a while, and I notice the line for the shuttle is quite long, we’re going to have to take the 2nd shuttle – could be a while. So we decide to Uber to the airport. Uber #1
Uber to airport was okay and drops us off at the curb. Okay – things are going smoothly.
You ever been to the rental car area at the Orlando Airport? It’s about 100 yards long (yes, seriously), with many counters and many many computer terminals to handle what must be 1000s of customers a day. We walk in and the counters are all completely empty. EXCEPT FOR THE ONE RENTAL CAR PLACE WE’RE USING!!!! The line is literally wrapped around the airport for the only rental car place open. You’ve got to be kidding me. I text Lisa and tell her we might be a while. Now mind you, after getting the rental, we have to drive an hour to pick up Lisa and Charlotte, then drive another hour to get back to where we are right now, because the airport is basically on the way north back home.
I tell Lisa the situation and Lisa decides they will uber to us, (Uber #2) and meet us at the airport. 90 minutes in line. We get up to the counter and the poor guy behind the counter was so relieved that we had a reservation. They ran out of cars an hour ago and he has no idea what all these people are in line for, as there are no cars left. We joked about how Uber is going to make a fortune that day.
Okay – car keys in hand. We go to the site to pick up the car, Lisa and Charlotte are now at the airport. We have the rental for 24 hours, must be returned to the Philadelphia Airport by 12 noon on Sunday. NO PROBLEM.
Off we go. I do most of the driving. We got lunch just out of Orlando, something we can eat while driving. I drove until about 4:00, Lisa drove for about an hour and then I drove until we felt like stopping. Maybe 10:00 or 10:30 pm or so. We needed to leave at 4:00am the next morning. That’s no big deal for The Sumstines. We are all seasoned travelers and I have this innate ability to just wake up when I need to. I’ve always been an early riser, I’m up by 5:00 almost every morning, but if I need to wake up at 3:30, I don’t need an alarm, I just wake up
So, our schedule has a bit of extra time, and we decided to leave at 4:00 am. So at 3:30 I wake up, get dressed, get a cup of coffee and then head back to the room to wake up the ladies. OH CRAP!!!! I didn’t realize it was daylight savings weekend – and we lost an hour – the hour we had built in.
Off we go. Have Coffee – Will Travel! Our goal is simple – I’ll drive to Wilmington to pick up our van, and there, Lisa will take the rental to the Philly airport and I’ll be right behind them in the van. We get to Wilmington and pull up to the curb and Charlotte and I get all the luggage which we’ll put in the van making the rental drop off easier.
Lisa and Kate take off to Philly and Charlotte and I lug all the bags to the van, which I parked in the very 1st parking space, right in front. We pay the daily parking fee and as I approach the van I notice something wrong. The lights don’t blink as I hit the unlock button. Uh oh…….
I get to the van and CRAP – nothing. No power at all – battery must be dead. I call AAA and it’s gonna be a while. I let Lisa know what’s going on. No big deal, Lisa and Kate will wait there until I can get there. The maintenance people at the airport are cool and very understanding and helpful. They try to give me a jump – but nothing. The battery is getting absolutely no charge.
As time went on, Lisa decided to get an Uber back to the Wilmington Airport. Good thing she did…… (Uber #3). The rental drop off in Philly went okay – they were understanding and didn’t penalize us for being a little late past the 24-hour rental due to the Daylight Saving Time.
*sidenote – YEAH – SOMETHING WENT OUR WAY
AAA took a while to get to us at the Wilmington airport. They got there and the battery had zero juice. Odd. Okay – let’s replace the battery. We did that – and still – NOTHING!!! So, not the battery – CRAP.
So we called a different AAA service – AAA towing. It’s now close to 4:00 and here comes the AAA Towing. We thought about calling an Uber (Uber #4), but the tow truck driver was super cool and agreed to let the ladies all sit in the back seat area and I’d ride up front. Upon arriving, he took a look under the hood. But he looked another place. This guy looked in the fuse area under the hood by the engine. He said this is some sort of electrical thing.
Loaded up on the tow truck and off we go. YEAH!!! We rolled into Milton, getting in about 7:30 at night and wow, were we tired.
So that’s the tale of the one time Jim was right.
——— in case you were wondering. It was a fuse that burned out. It was a fuse that handled the current going from the starter to the alternator. Best guess is that it spiked sometime while I was driving to the airport.
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