How Many Days In A Row Will We Wear Tie Dye (or Disney 2009 review): Part 2featured

I hate the “leaving for vacation” days. They’re always so hectic.

Even though we were to leave at 2:00 am-ish, I had to be up bright and early to go with Mom and Stephanie to get the rental car. I should have slept until the early afternoon.

So we got to O’Hare and drove over to the Alamo counter and were faced with 40 minutes of disappointment and wasted time (a theme to continue on later in the week). We rented a full-sized SUV. All they had available at the time were Toyota Rav-4’s (which, if you’ve ever seen the trunk space, can barely fit ANYTHING…while the SUV category we booked promised four full-sized suitcases and two small ones). So we had to wait. And wait. Because Alamo doesn’t keep inventory of what’s being rented and the Alamo at O’Hare has the smallest selection of full-sized SUV’s of any car rental I’ve been to in Illinois or any other state. So there’s a luxury SUV available with leather seats and a huge trunk and one employee says he’ll give it to us free of charge. 10 minutes later, another employee wants to charge us an extra $500. They finally find us a car- a Chevy Traverse. Plenty of trunk room, lower than a Trailblazer (which means it’s easier for grandma to get into), but it’s dirty. Literally. Crumbs everywhere, stained seats and the cleaning Alamo did didn’t help anything. The condition of the cars at Alamo (and selection, too) is slipping while the prices are getting exorbitantly high. I think it’s time to start flying again. We paid more than double for this car what we did a year ago for the same car category for the same number of days for a car that was dirtier and in poorer condition. Step up, Alamo, or we’re moving our business back to Hertz.

The rest of the afternoon is spent packing, doing last-minute shopping and errands and preparing the house for our two-week absence. Mom gets home from work early and instead of letting me pack, I have to go run more errands with her and pick up dinner (we had Noodles and Co.). She had to clean up the car. Stephanie had to pack it up. I had to get everything together. I’ve never felt so unprepared before.

We all headed to bed around 8:00 or 9:00 pm. I figured it would give us a decent amount of sleep. Except I didn’t sleep. I was hot, the timer was on in my room so the light was bathing the room with brightness when I needed dark and I was going to Disney World, which brought my stress and excitement levels up to new highs.

While we were all up and ready to go by 2:00 am, we didn’t actually leave the house until 3:15 am…putting us far behind schedule (in my mind). I didn’t want to approach Atlanta during rush hour. I was expecting a lot of traffic because of construction in N. Indiana, but we encountered no traffic and we didn’t lose any time.

We hate driving through Indiana. As a collective. There’s nothing to look at when you aren’t driving through Indianapolis and it stinks. Literally. Every time we drive through Indiana, a malodorous wave of air fills the car for hours at a time, and everyone’s too tired to make jokes over it. The next time I drive through Pennsylvania, I’ll remind myself that while it’s a black hole, at least it’s pretty and smells clean.

We stopped for gas at a Stuckey’s we always stop at (even though it was closed) and were glad that the sun was starting to rise. And that there was a wind energy farm. That was the only sight for miles.

I could tell we were really far behind because we are usually already in Kentucky when the sun rises and we hadn’t even hit Indianapolis yet. We eventually hit Kentucky around 7:30 am and stopped for breakfast at a McDonalds (Huzzah! We wouldn’t have to settle for Hardee’s this time). Kentucky is a relatively short, but nice, drive. We pass through Louisville and it kind of reminds me of Milwaukee, in that it’s supposed to be a big city, but to us big city Chicago folk, it’s like a cute little mini-city. And Kentucky has some mountains and greenery that’s nice to look at. Not like Indiana and the never-ending cornfields (which isn’t unlike the rest of Illinois south of Chicago…but Illinois doesn’t smell like sulfur).

The nice thing about Kentucky is that it’s a little state and it doesn’t take long to drive through. Before we knew it, Louisville and Dino Land (with dozens of life-sized dinosaur statues…I’ll stop here one day when I also stop at Ruby Falls in Tennessee) were far behind us and we were entering Tennessee. I’m pretty sure I slept through most of Kentucky, too. By the time we hit Tennessee, the drive is more than half over and it goes relatively quickly.

I like Tennessee. It’s very scenic, with the mountains, the lakes and the greenery And it has our Stuckey’s. It’s a dive, but it’s our dive. Mom hates Tennessee because the runaway truck ramp scares the bejesus out of her. I don’t fault her- trucks drive on the right, the ramp is on the left. Therefore, if a truck loses control and necessitates the ramp, it has to cut through traffic.

We stopped at our Stuckey’s, which is in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the mountains, for a bathroom break and to get some snacks. Stephanie made us snack bags of rice crispy treats, hard candy, bubble gum, pretzels and other snackables, but Stuckey’s has pecan logs. I was kind of disappointed that they painted over all of the graffiti in the bathroom because it went back so many years and it was fun to read, but the messages and phone numbers were gone in favor of a uniform shade of powder blue and some doily’s. We took our obligatory Stucky’s picture and got back on the road.

Snack bag

Stuckey’s!!!

We were soon grading downhill and my ears were plugging up and popping like crazy from the changes in elevation. I had a really nasty ear infection the month before that had my right ear plugged for two weeks and I was worried the elevation changes would aggravate my ear drum. And I had a wicked stomachache all morning that wouldn’t go away. I get stomachaches and cramps from excitement and aggravation and this trip was massive amounts of both. I have meds to stop the pain, but they didn’t work and I spent half of Tennessee and what was left of Georgia curled up in a ball in the front seat willing the pain away. I didn’t even get to enjoy the prettiness of the state.

We quickly entered Georgia, and then was back in Tennessee, and then was back in Georgia (that wacky Georgia dips into Tennessee, so you enter it and then leave it before you reenter again, all within the span of, like, 10 minutes). I popped another pill as we approached Atlanta and was feeling much better by the time we reached Buckhead.

I had us booked at the Westin again for our one-night stay. I booked through Hotwire at a rate of $84/night (plus fees and parking). We stayed here in January and I really didn’t like it (the staff wasn’t that friendly and there were pet stains in the hallway). I was pleasantly surprised by our visit this time- the staff was super friendly and the hotel was in much better condition. I’m a Starwood Preferred Guest, so even though I booked through Hotwire, I was placed on a Preferred Guest floor in a room to my preferences (high floor, city view) without having to ask. Snaps for Starwood hotels and the Westin. And there was a complimentary bottle of water waiting for me in the room from the hotel concierge. We parked the car at the underground self-parking garage (which is small, with low ceilings and a bit tricky to navigate) and headed inside to relax for a bit.

Complimentary fruit infused water in the lobby- nice touch.

Our room had two very comfy beds and a view of Buckhead and one of my favorite malls (Lenox Square). Since we weren’t coming in late like we did last time, we had the entire city open to us for dinner. The Palm was in the hotel, there was a Ruth Chris down the street and dozens of little bistros, clubs and upscale dining opportunities, but we ultimately decided to make a reservation at Maggianos for later that night because we’d know what to expect and it wasn’t too fancy.

We rested for a bit and then we all headed over to the Lenox Square mall. Our room in Disney had a large whirlpool so Stephanie and I wanted to head over to Lush to get some bath bombs. The staff at Lush- Lenox Square was phenomenal (as they always are when we stop in) and offered to cut me whatever soap samples I wanted. We talked a bit about mutual friends (I used to work at Lush and the store managers across the country have meetings every year) and products before Mom and grandma got restless and dragged us out. We hadn’t really eaten since that morning so we headed down to the food court for a quick lunch (Checker’s for Stephanie, Sbarro for me and some sort of homestyle food that reminded me of the food at Sunshine Seasons in Epcot for Mom and grandma) and then headed back to the hotel. Grandma was way overtired and decided to nap and Mom stayed in the room to rest while Stephanie and I ran over to Publix to get breakfast for the next morning and some Vitamin Water for the next day’s drive.

It’s kind of odd when I grocery shop on vacation. Everyone around me is just living their regular lives and going through the motions and I’m on vacation amongst them. Anyways. Publix had these gigantor cupcakes that looked amazing, but we never did try one in Buckhead or in Florida, even though we decided we were going to. Oh well. Something for next time.

We headed back to the hotel and grandma was fast asleep, so we got dressed for dinner and left her to sleep. Maggiano’s was crowded as usual and we had to wait a few minutes after our reservation time to be seated. The staff here has always been great to us and this time was no exception. Our server was friendly and helpful and we enjoyed chatting with her. Maggiano’s was having a special throughout the month where if you ordered a half-order of a pasta dish, they’d box you up a half-order of another one to-go for free. Since we always order a half-order of pasta, we had a box of food to take back for grandma. We weren’t that hungry so we forewent appetizers and split a half of a Maggiano’s salad, a half-order of gnocchi with marinara sauce and an order of chicken piccata. Everything was fantastically delicious. We took back a half-order of cheese ravioli for grandma, along with most of the chicken and some gnocchi since even the small portions at Maggiano’s are massively huge. We were debating between a special cannoli cake and our favorite lemon cookies and our lovely server asked us emphatically if we were celebrating anything. I got the hint. Yep! We’re celebrating vacation! So we got the cake and she brought us out a free order of celebration cookies. The cake was sinfully delicious and the cookies were butter soft and tangy. Our server saved us a visit to the carryout shop and brought us plates and silverware for grandma and told us to come back and visit her on the way home.

Grandma was still sleeping when we got back to the Westin but we woke her up to eat and she loved the ravioli (I snuck a taste- it was really good) and chicken. We re-packed a little before heading to sleep. We had another long drive tomorrow, but we’d finally be in Florida and our trip would kick into high gear.

Up next: Peach Farms, Gators and Goofy Pretzel Sticks