The Trip

And we're off!

I need to begin with the fact that we all made in back mostly in one piece. And with all the tragedies in the news this week I am most grateful for this fact! But while I can’t say enough about the really wonderful parents on this trip and how really well the kids on my bus behaved, we did have a few glitches on this trip. Mostly this is a blatant plea for sympathy and pity.

Everyone arrived on time and off we went 3 full buses. It was maybe an hour into the trip before the first bus nearly caught fire. It was throwing some pretty impressive sparks. The compressor for the air conditioner had burn out so no air on the first bus for the trip down.

Sleep was hard to come by on our bus as the bus driver and the travel agent talked loudly until after 4 in the morning. He spent half of his time telling her what a good Christian he was and the other half making derogatory remarks about blacks, Jews, homosexuals, smokers and alcoholics! I wanted to tell him to pick one or the other – good Christian or bigoted jerk – but in the end I decided feinting sleep was the wisest move.

Our day at Epcot was wonderful. The weather was beautiful, low 80. But we saw everything and it was so much fun with Mollie. We did a lot of walking however and between the sleepless night and being extremely tired we were so happy to get to the hotel! First problem there was the fact that they were one room short and they had no more. The air in one room didn’t work and most pleasant, one mother found that their bathroom was covered in shit, literally. When this was reported to the two young men at the desk the responded that they were sorry but that the cleaning staff was gone for the evening. To which I replied “Then which of you is going to clean it?” One of them finally did. So after being up all the night before I finally got into bed after midnight.

The Space center was the next day. All went well there. That night we went to Medieval Times, great food and a show that the kids really get into. I had just gotten my food when a kid came up behind me gasping in great distress with an asthma attack.

He later told us he had severe asthma and he was allergic to horses. His inhaler was at the hotel at least 30 minutes away! I called to the nurse (one of my parents) and we got the boy outside. Asthma scares me badly, there is so little you can do. But the nurse was great. First she got him cooled down with water and then got him coffee because both the steam and the caffeine help. All was well here also and we teachers took turns sitting with him until it was time to go.

We left there at 8:00 so at least we would all get to bed earlier than the night before. And we would have had our bus not hit a car coming around a turn. More of a scrub than a hit but the results was a three hour wait with the kids on the bus for the accident investigator to complete his report.

As we pulled in to the hotel around 11:30 while my children were getting off the bus a drunk came along wanting to start a conversation with them. This would have bothered me enough but he was only wearing a tee-shirt and a diaper! Again we got to bed around midnight.

I woke on the last morning tired but at least my feet were feeling much better a few blister but generally okay. Unfortunately as I was trying to get into the raised tub I slammed my toes into the side. One may be broken but probably not, the shade of purple they all turned is quite lovely however.

I enjoyed Universal as I limped through that last day. My friend and I rode the smaller rides while Mollie and her friends thundered thought the big ones. We got on one gentle ride after 45 minute wait on to go about 15 feet when the power shut down. I don’t mean the power to the ride, oh no, the whole theme park was without power!

They finally brought a ladder to get us down. But during the outage we could ride nothing, they would not let us use the restroom and worst of all we could buy no food!! Yep, rides, flushers, and cash registers were all down. Forty five minutes later power was restored and all was well.

Finally we were headed home and all was mostly well. The bus driver was still talking and two kids were throwing up but at least we were headed in the right direction! Can any of you imagine the joy I felt when I saw Nick at the school to pick me up?!

Well folks that’s how my week went. I survives I hope all of you survived your week too!