We left on Friday morning by 5:30. We had our car and camper all packed up and organized the night before. It didn't stay organized for very long, but at least it started that way. I had small gifts to give to the kids at each big city. We had things like coloring books, travel games, invisible ink books, play dough in balloons to avoid making a mess, and quite a few other things. I let each kid pick out a few movies to watch on the built in DVD player and they picked out their own bag of toys to play with along the way. Along with bags of snacks and water for everyone to keep us happy campers. I made us our own trail mix because I hate when you get the cheep chocolate pieces in store bought trail mix.
Like I said we started very early in the morning and just threw the kids in with PJs on. We didn't have any delusions that they would go back to sleep, but we figured it would keep them more comfortable. The first thing I gave them was the cookie sheet covered with black board paper, some magnetic letters, and chalk. They each had suction cup shower containers to hold random things like chalk and crayons, but because of how big Elizabeth's seat is and how short her arms are she couldn't get to it. The first day passed quickly interchanging toys, movies and leap pads (we got Jason a new LeapPad Ultra for the trip) We tried not to spend too much time on one thing because then they kids started to get bored and whine. For example on that first day they only watched one movie in the morning and one in the afternoon because from experience if we let them watch more than one movie back to back they start asking for things during the second movie. By the end of the day we had made it out of Texas, through Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama and we had a campground reservation near Tallahassee, Florida. We got to the campground right after night had fallen and Jeff found out, in the dark, that there were a couple of dead ends on the campground roads. All's well that ends well and we got parked and to bed at a reasonable hour.
On the second day we had a much later start. I took the kids to get a very cold shower at the comfort station before we headed out for our 4 hour trek to Disney. The kids were a little more restless the second day since they understood we would get there sometime soon, but didn't know when. We got a bit of rain, but were so happy when we pulled up to Fort Wilderness!
We got to our campsite and the road to get into it was narrower than we would have liked. It took quite a bit of maneuvering for Jeff to get it in the spot. We had quite a few gawkers and one woman even posed that Jeff wouldn't make it in. Ahhh ye of little faith, he made it in without a scratch. Unfortunately when he was setting up the camper Jeff discovered that the slide only went 95% of the way out. One side was pivoting while the other wasn't going in or out. The slide was stuck in the out position and would need to be fixed before we headed home, but it would be fine to be in for us to stay in. We would need to call someone during business hours, but until then we decided to explore a bit.
We tried out the bus system to get a feel for it when we didn't have time pressing us to get to a park. We rode down to the settlement and found some ponies to ride. The kids loved that, especially Elizabeth! After that we walked around a bit, we found a playground the kids were happy to enjoy. After we got our bearings we headed back to the camper for some dinner. Then decided to head over to The Meadows where they hosted a s'mores cookout and sing along with Chip and Dale. Elizabeth was very exhausted by the end of all this so we knew we needed to head back to the camper for the big day we had tomorrow.
Check back tomorrow to hear about our first day in the parks!
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