My motorhome, my family, my adventures, my life.
Copyright 2003-5 Randy Charles Morin
Here's our motorhome parked in site #345 at Disney's Fort Wilderness campground. Everything worked this time. Usually, either the power or Internet doesn't work and we have to call for service. There was three power outlets on our site. The first I tried didn't work (see the fake tree stump aside the RV). Fortunate, the one at the very back of the site (not shown) worked. The Internet worked immediately. I was happy.
March 9th was our 2nd day at Disney with our annual passes. We're gonna go for 40 days at Disney in the next 12 months. We went to Magic Kingdom. The happiest place on Earth. Even if they don't have any beer.
Here's me, Walt blessing me and Mickey. We're hanging out at the castle.
Tomorrowland Speedway is a must.
We're fastpass experts. We got Space Ranger Spin fastpasses, went on other rides until the designated time. Then I got Splash Mountain fastpasses before we went on the Space Ranger ride. Then I got Thunder Mountain fastpasses before we went on Splash Mountain. If you don't optimize your fastpasses, then you'll spend half the day lining up for the best rides. By late afternoon, there's no more fastpasses.
Here's me trying to kiss Jasmin on the Aladin Magic Carpet ride.
Me again, at the top of the Robinson's treehouse. See the castle in the background.
The castle lights up at night.
I had to take this picture of myself. My entire family is incapable of taking a good pick of me. Even this one makes me look overly fat.
We also hit Pirate of the Caribbean, Jungle Cruise, Tiki Room, The Presidents Hall (boring) and much more. We snacked throughout the day, mostly on foods we brought into the park. We didn't have to have one sit-down or counter service meal. Makes for a cheaper vacation.
Yesterday we went to Hollywood Studios as they had extra magic hours (7PM to 10PM) for resort guests. After 7PM when the regular crowd left, the lineups disappeared and the kids went on the Toy Story. This new ride has quickly become our favorite.
The first thing we did at DisneyWorld today was to go eat at the SciFi Diner. We had reservations (we were a bit late). I had a Comet. It looks great. Taste great. But there wasn't as much alcohol in it as advertised :(
We encoutered a couple Armadillo's during our first night at Fort Wilderness Disney. I video taped this guys digging thru the foliage.
Friday night thru Monday morning we spent at the St Petes KOA. Great WiFi. Expensive, $4 extra per kid and starting at $70 per night. Friday dances have $1 beers. Saturday pancake breakfast is $2. Lot's of activities for seniors. I didn't see too many people younger than myself (40). I saw a handful of kids all weekend. Not kid friendly, but great for seniors.
My daughter filming her hamster.
Somewhere along the I75 between Detroit and Knoxville, I stopped at a Buffalo Wild Wings for a beer. I've always wanted to go to one. I was there for a very brief stop. It seemed like an awesome atmosphere. I've gotta watch a game there.
Video of my driving the RV across the Georgia-Florida state line. I was not able to find the embed code. Has YouTube decided to suck?
Embed code is now very much hidden. Found it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbHV3uSRiP0
In November, I started preparing the backyard for the icerink. I put the never used swimming pool away. Actually, we used it one weekend at the Daytona Speedway. I set it up at home in the backyard and they never used it once.
Extra firewood that I stick in the corner for next summer.
Guess where the swimming pool was located. Hopefully the grass grows back in the spring. You can see that I've already laid out the boards for the icerink.
More to come.
On August 31st, we stayed at the Port Huron KOA north of Detroit. We've been there about a dozen times in the last 3 years. It's the best KOA and campground within 4 hours of Toronto. We were going to the Tigers baseball game on the 1st and needed somewhere to spend the night. Best thing is that it's cheaper than most every campground. So, it's good. And it's cheap. Quite a combo.
Port Huron has a great variety of sites from regular tenting to high end executive concrete RV pads. They also have low-end and high-end camping cabins. However you like it, they got it.
The WiFi was awesome, but more on that in a later post. We returned 3 days later for the labor day weekend. Stay tuned for that post.
My second favorite restaurant in the world is Zehnders. We went Monday, August 24th. More later on my favorite restaurant. Shhh! It's across the street.
If you ever go to Frankenmuth, then Zehnders is a must. And don't order anything but the Family Chicken Dinner. The chicken is a little salty. The chicken is good, but the best part is the fixings.
Bread. OK. Kids liked it with the jam.
Green Beans with Dumplings. OK. We didn't finish it.
Butter Noodles are awesome! We had two or three bowls.
Gravy for the mashed potatoes. Jam at the top left.
Stuffing. Good.
Pate and Crackers. Ate it before I took the pic. Couldn't resists.
And of course, beer. That's Hofbräu Oktoberfest.
And there's much more.
Two weeks ago, I added one new bumper sticker, which I picked up when we were at the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona Raceway.
The full collection.
I've had more bumper stickers in the past, but got bored of some and removed them.
One of our favorite campgrounds is Jellystone, Frankenmuth. We been here plenty of time in the last year. It's a short walk to downtown Frankenmuth or you can take the shuttle, which seems to run summer long now-a-days. Birch-Run shopping outlet is a 10 minutes drive.
The campground itself has an indoor pool, miniputt, nightly movies and plenty of activities for the kids, even thru the weekdays. We stayed from Sunday afternoon, August 23rd to Thursday morning, August 27th. WiFi was great and I got a lot of work done.
Here's a pic of me at work at my summer office. The eating table in the RV.
Although we RV most all of the summer months, I still work at least an hour and sometimes as much as eight, seven days a week. We stay almost exclusively at campgrounds with good WiFi to make this possible.
On Saturday August 22nd, we stayed at Emmett KOA in Michigan. This was a great KOA for the kids. Swimming and fishing pond. Wagon ride. Mini-golf. Bouncing pillow. Sunday breakfast.
After the Michigan race, we went to the Flint / Holly KOA (August 16th-17th). Last year, this was a Jellystone campground, but they converted over the winter to KOA.
Since it use to be a Jellystone park, this is an awesome KOA for kids. They had tones of parks, swimming, jumping pads, games, awesome mini-putt. My kids really enjoyed it.
I didn't like the fact that they had no sites with sewage. Neither did I like the fact that their WiFi sucked! I got 1/2 hour free, but then when I went to pay I had all kinds of problems. Basically, their PayPal-based payment option is broken. The lack of sewage and good WiFi is likely enough that I won't be going back much. Still, the kids loved it.
August 14th to the 16th, we stayed at the Monroe/North Toledo KOA. We previously visited this KOA in July and liked it so much that we put it on our list of campgrounds to visit in August. Being only 45 minutes from the Michigan Internation Speedway, it was a perfect stop during our NASCAR weekend.
The kids ate corn dogs and slushies all day at the snack bar.
They have an awesome 1 acre swimming pond with a 200 foot waterslide. We swam twice on Saturday.
They have the cutest little tree houses that you can rent.
On the negative side, they gave us the dumbest firepits. Trying to make a fire in this pit was a challenge. Cutting corners by having ridiculous firepits doesn't seem very business savvy to me.
August 8th and 9th, we went to Santa's Village in Bracebridge, Ontario. This place is a great bang for the buck. Camping and a small amusement park for the family for less than $200. We've been the last two years with my brother and sister's families.
Everytime I go to the show there, I get picked from the audience to participate in the show. Yep, that's me in the pic below. I'll post video later (my sister took it).
There's lots of kids rides and even a small roller coaster. The best ride (for adults) is the boat ride.
If these guys had WiFi, then we'd go all the time. I wish I had better pictures. This place is great for kids 2-10 yrs old.
We left Pocono/Hershey on August 6th. Our plan was to drive past the house and up to Santa's Village in Bracebridge. I took the interstate back (big mistake) and didn't make it to the border. There's only three KOA's in Western New York State. The NASCAR race was at The Glen, so the Watkins Glen KOA was full. We chose the Niagara Falls KOA on Grand Island.
I called them up while driving on the interstate.
One site please.
That'll be $85.
But it's not the weekend.
Yep!
What's your cheapest site?
$65.
I'll take it :(
I wasn't too happy. And the price obviously scared everybody else away. It was almost empty. I suspect they get a great weekend crowd, as they are located immediately next to the Fantasy Island amusement park.
We won't be back at that price.
While on our Pocono vacation, we twice visited Hersheypark. We also went last year and we liked it. I suspect we'll be back annually during our Pocono Raceway excusion.
Before entering Hersheypark, we always hit the Chocolate World. Chocolate World is free and has a free ride. There's also chocolate. We always buy a bucket of small chocolates.
Hersheypark has an awesome waterpark, full of some of the best water slides I've ever seen. Lot's of rides even for the kids. A gigantic wave pool. And wild rides for the teens. Check out this ride.
I think we ate 4 times (or more) in the 2 days at Prairie Dawgs. Our kids loved the Corn Dogs.
Hersheypark also has a lot of high energy roller coasters. My kids were chicken to test most of them, but we did go on one water coaster.
The best show is at their acquarium. Two sea lions save the day from three high diving villains.
The only bad park of Hersheypark was their theatre production. It was a really horrible Beauty and the Beast knock off. Neither my wife, the kids or myself had any idea what was happening.
And don't forget to check ZooAmerican, a small zoo attached to Hersheypark.