My motorhome, my family, my adventures, my life.
Copyright 2003-5 Randy Charles Morin
Summer Vacation, Day 10.
Day 10 was a lot of fun. First of all, check out where my odometer is. We'll likely break 100,000 miles when we leave Disney.
We started the day at Blizzard Beach.
Check out this humongo bug we found in the parking lot at Blizzard Beach.
After Blizzard Beach, we hit Super Target for some necessary groceries.
Then it was a late dinner at Olive Garden.
Still not enough fun? Magic Kingdom was open till 2AM, so we jumped on the boat and enjoyed the Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean and Aladdin's Magic Carpet (a couple times).
How do we keep this up? Way too much fun!
Summer Vacation, Day 9.
Day 9 will go down in history for our family. Our 3rd flat tire 4 months. In fact, it was one of the new tires that went flat. We had planned on going shopping and to Olive Garden. Before we left, I checked the tires, as I almost always do and found this.
My daughter produced a video.
Summer Vacation, Day 8.
Day 8 we went to Downtown Disney. Spending some cash on expensive Disney junk, food and a movie. We watched Toy Story 3 in 3D. Popcorn.
After the movie, we went to the House of Blues. $2 beers. WOOT! I had the wings. Very good.
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Then Disney Quest. My son and I played NASCAR racing a couple times. I finished 2nd and 3rd.
My teen daughter went to the drawing academy. She's awesome!
She blew a few bucks on this necklace.
A new thing in Downtown Disney is this build a car thingy. Nice display cars inside, but we weren't interested in buying.
We had supper at T-Rex. An amazing themed restaurant. It's basically Rainforest Cafe themed for dinasaurs.
Summer Vacation, Day 7.
Day 7 was EPCOT time. Time for beer and food. We ate at the San Angel Inn in the Mexican pavillion.
XX beer. I wanted to get the Tequila flight, but I was in charge of three kids and thought better.
Awesome food. Chicken enchilada.
Even the kid meals look great.
And it's not EPCOT unless you plan Kim Possible. The kids love it. A lot of adult play too.
A lot of great shows all around the World Showcase. Here's the Japanese drummers.
The best ride? Test track. I'll post a video sometime.
The following image was generated by Disney while I was on the Spaceship Earth ride. Too funn!
Summer Vacation, Day 6.
Day 6 was Hollywood Studios time. My teen girl loves to draw, so we headed straight to Magic of Disney Animation. They have a 20 minute drawing class. I played on the What Disney Character are you game.
I got Gaston. Only because I answered "I like to eat nice people" instead of "I like to east with nice people."
We had reservations at the Sci-Fi diner.
We went really late and missed Lights, Motor, Action!
We hit the classic rides. The Star Wars and Indiana Jones.
And we can't go to Hollywood Studios without going to the American Idol finale.
I bought myself a Mad Hatter's hat. It's awesome.
Disney now has a band playing outside on a large stage.
Another fun day with the kids.
Summer Vacation, Day 5.
Day 5, we decided to take it easy. The teenager bumped her head and didn't feel like doing much. So we went swimming at the campground. Fort Wilderness likely has one of the best swimming pools of any campground. A water slide. A splash park. And beer.
You can see the water slide in the back.
Later that night, we watched Disney's classic cartoon Robin Hood on the outside theatre. Well, almost. It's started raining. Then lightning. They cancelled the movie. We walked home in the drenching rain. Fun!
We didn't let a bump in the head or rain ruin anything. We had a blast.
Summer Vacation, Day 4.
Day 4 we arrived at Disney. Parked the RV at the Fort Wilderness Campground and took the boat over to Magic Kingdom.
Micky and Minnie's house. A couple playground. Goofy's coaster. Peter Pan ride. And of course the parade. Kinda. Same theme. Slightly different floats.
We end it off with fireworks. Better than ever. The fireworks at Magic Kingdom was always the best I've seen and this year they were even better. Prior years, the fireworks were around the castle and the north end of the park. Now, the fireworks are 180 degrees surrounding the park. I'll post some video later.
Summer Vacation, Day 3.
On Sunday night, we stayed at the Valdosta KOA. Sorry, didn't take any pics of the campground. The campground was nice, but the service less than good. We did the night check-in. The night check told us to pick a site from the list on the board, but there was no sites listed on the board. I had to find a spot and park my RV and then return to the night check-in. In the morning, when I returned to the office, they didn't seem very interested in serving me. We bought a small breakfast from their breakfast kitchen. The french toast was burnt. Coffee was horrible.
We did stop a couple great places on Sunday. This Sunoco gas station in north Georgia had a lot NASCAR gear and a Dale Jr car out front.
We also stopped south of Macon at an Applebees and watched the soccer game. Turns out, you can't buy beer on Sunday in Georgia.
Summer Vacation, Day 2.
Day 2, we made it to South Chattanooga KOA. We've stayed there before and it was not pleasant. Nothing has changed. The place was half empty on a summer Saturday.
Their store hours are till 6PM. They stayed open a bit past 7PM, but we're closed by 8PM. On a Saturday? During the summer?
Even the swimming pool was closed and we still had two hours of sunlight left.
There wasn't a firepit at our campsite!? Didn't matter anyway. The store was closed before we settled in, so I couldn't buy would anyway.
The playground? No better. The tire swing was broken, as well as all the swings.
Somehow, this KOA won awards 5 years ago. Something must've changed.
In the morning, this place empties out. Can't be too many seasonals. No activities for kids. Basically, they survive off of people like me who are too dumb to realize their is 3 other KOA campgrounds in the area. I picked the one that was just off the highway. And regretted it. I rate this campground, 5 sucks!
Summer Vacation, Day 1.
For the next month, I'll blog almost exclusive about our month long trip to Disney and Ponoco. It's the first long trip (more than a weekend) without mom. Just me and the three kids.
The first day, we drove to Detroit and straight down the I-75. We made it to Dayton. I already had booked a site for the Friday night, so we stopped early, played baseball, played in the park. This is a really nice campground and it would've been a perfect stay had they not screwed up my reservation. I reserved a site near the playground and with Wifi. Instead, they gave us a spot as far from the playground as possible and with bad Wifi signal. I had a small discussion with the manager and she quickly switched us to a better spot.
We (my kids and I) stayed at the Port Huron KOA for the July 1st-4th long weekend. My brother, sister, their spouses and kids all joined us.
Of course, the worst part of Port Huron is crossing the damn border. As we approched Modeland, more than 2 miles from the border, traffic started to back-up. WTF!? I immediately pulled off and bought the kids lunch at Dairy Queen. I downed a couple pints at Boston Pizza to avoid an anxiety attack caused by slow border guards. My brother didn't know to get off at Modeland and he drove right into the 3 and a half hour border lineup. I drove to Christina St onramp and skipped 3 hours of the lineup. I felt like a genius. How come everybody doesn't do that? Below is the view from the Blue Water Bridge of Lake Huron.
These bridge signs are sure confusing. I think it says that CDNians are goofs in some asian language. Not sure.
Day 1 campfire. We did the campfire all three nights.
Mmmmmm! Baked beans.
Me, about to lap the field on the go-kart track at Sawmill City. Sawmill City is a small amusement park attached to the campground.
That's my motorhome. My brother's popup to the right. My sisters trailer behind my RV.
I prefer to charcoal now-a-days.
Random stupidity from me on the mechanical (kiddy) bull at Angry Bull across the street. A great bar-restaurant. We watched the NASCAR race there till midnight.
Sunday, we all hit Chili's on the return trip.
There's so much to do at Port Huron KOA and never enough time to get it all done.
In late June, my wife and I went to Frankenmuth for our 16th anniversary. We left the kids with their cousin. We stayed at the Fairfield Inn on the main strip in Frankenmuth. The hotel was very nice and not too expensive. They had a swimming pool, whirlpool and workout room (which I visited daily). The Internet was great too. BTW, the WiFi password is their street address.
We arrived Thursday night and the only thing that was open was Tiffany's. We had a late snack and beer. I found out that Michigan, just recently, passed some major anti-smoking laws.
Friday lunch, we ate at the Frankenmuth Brewery. I've never been here before. What a treasure. A patio overlooking the river and great beer.
We've never taken the boat ride up and down the river. Hmmmm! Didn't.
The covered bridge is pretty awesome. Well, Frankenmuth is slow. Not for the adventurous. More the romantic. For slow, the bridge is awesome!
We ate at the Bavarian Inn. I resolved not to kill myself by eating at both Zehnders and the Bavarian Inn on back to back days, so we picked only on. BTW, those are my two fav restaurants in the whole wide universe.
There's an outside stage in from of the Inn where you can listen to live Polka, drink beer and taste a brat. I consider it a must to have a brat, beer and listen, whenever I visit Frankenmuth.
That's me, with my Bavarian Dark beer inside the Bavarian Inn.
Another great find this weekend is the Frankenmuth Kaffee Haus. Great coffee for a dollar.
After some shopping in Birch Run, we hit the Sonic drive-in. Usually when in the states, we have the motorhome, which makes Sonic pointless. This time, with the van, it was a must. I had a chili dog. Awesomeness!
And of course, comedy at the border. Check out the French translation of "Ahead Left".
Pics of the flowers in my wife's yard.
It rained almost all the time I was at the motorhome the first week of June. The campsite was turning into small creeks and ponds.
None of my kids have every expressed an interest in Lego until this last week, my youngest (7 yrs old) built her 1st. It took her a few days, but she did it all by herself.
Last weekend, I had the kids over to the RV for a couple nights. We had smores and a campfire. Watched a movie; Princess and the Frog.
My current bumper sticker collection.
I'm always adding new ones and removing old ones.
Sticker map of where our RV has been in Canada and the U.S. I'm not currently planning on hitting any new states or provinces.
Last Monday night, I stayed at the Toronto West KOA with a bottle of Whiskey.
The campground is under new management. This campground has always been one we've avoided because it was usually empty. It's still quite empty, but it sounds like they are trying harder.
I started a campfire early because it was suppose to rain.
Here's a pic of he girlfriend that joined me for the night.
We end most trips with a late lunch at Tunnel Bar-B-Q in Windsor, Ontario. And we did again on Monday. My wife and I met at the University of Windsor and dated there for 5 years. We went to TBQ at least once every month.
Back then, TBQ didn't have beer. Now they have beer on tap and a bar. That's a Sleeman's Honey Brown. Check out the selection of BBQ sauces; hot (red), sweet and regular.
We always get a plate of their onion rings.
The rings were better than ever. The best rings I ever had.
There's an old pic on the wall of how the place looked when they first opened some 50 years ago.
We are here for the ribs. I don't eat ribs anymore, except at TBQ. After you have TBQ, other ribs just don't match up. Check out that plate.
There fries are delicious also.
And you have to dip everything in their sauces. That's the hot sauce.
End it all with their great desserts.
TBQ is one of my fav restaurants. I've been going since the late 80s.
Only five days after my first tire blowout, I experienced my second tire blowout. This time it was the passenger side rear inside tire. It blew only 8 miles from the Canadian border and less than 4 hours from home.
The blowout, pulled the metal mud flap into the outside right-rear tire. This ruined the 2nd tire and I required 2 new tires. Unfortunately, it was just a matter of changing the tires. The mud flaps needed to be pushed back in place.
You can see the damaged mud flaps better with the tires off. The technician didn't have the equipment to help us.
Our road-side service screwed us around for 5 hours after the 1st technician finished his job. We sat in the RV for 5 hours waiting for secondary help, which never arrived. Eventually, I got pissed at them and told them that I was gonna simply drive the RV to a hotel for the night. They sent a tow truck to tow us to a hotel. The tow eventually arrived 7 hours after our breakdown and after dark. We already knew a tow would only cause more damage. We needed a flatbed. I drove the RV 10-20 MPHs to a hotel.
There was also some frame damage.
Here's the RV on the corner of Dix and London in Lincoln Park, just south of Detroit.
In the morning, the road-side service sent another tow. Morons. The tow didn't work the night before, why did they think it would work in the morning. I told the tow drive to leave and thanked the road-side service for sucking. I drove the RV myself 20-40 MPHs to a local RV dealer who patched up my RV. I still need to fix it, but it was patched up well enough that I could drive 70 MPH home.
Saturday night we stayed at the Stoney Ridge KOA, south-east of Toledo. This is the second time we've stayed here, but last time was several years ago. It's now under new ownership.
The WiFi worked great the first night, but was horrible in the morning. The coffee was complete crap, but complimentary.
There's a great KOA on the north-end of Toledo. The only reason we went to this KOA is because the north-side KOA isn't open yet. If the other KOA was open, then we'd go there, it's great and the Stoney Ridge KOA is below average.