THE LAST DAY AT MYRTLE BEACH

The last day it actually warmed up into the 70's and was very enjoyable. The Meyers  came over,  each wearing a different one of the Disney shirts I had made them. It was so nice to see them in them and so sad to remember that we should have been wearing them at Disney.  😭 Maybe one day we'll get to do that.

The Meyers had a chance to play mini golf with the kids at a mini golf course in Myrtle Beach. There seemed to be mini golf courses on every corner. This town is just full of things to do with the kids. They have Pirate Adventures, Amusement Parks, go carts and lots of other things for kids and adults.

                                  It was a fun day, relaxing and yet fun things to do.

I had been trying to make Emma some Barbie clothes for her Barbie and I brought them along  to give them to her. These were my first attempts at sewing something so tiny. I had planned to take out my sewing machine and make some more outfits while we were together, but never did. I guess I just wasn't in the mood and by the time I got everything set up to cut and sew it would be time  to put it away for dinner. So, I'll just do that at home and send them to her. These are a few things I've made for her. I'm still learning which fabrics work well and which do not.

   A tee shirt and denim skirt (like Najla likes to wear). I also made a pair of denim shorts, but never took a picture. I made another T shirt in a hot pink (no picture).

I had a few others, but forgot to take pictures.

Emma had a good time playing with them since she brought her Barbie's  along with her.

After dinner we had a great time playing bingo. The last time we were together we had a  Lucy Hammett Nature Bingo game and we had so much fun I ordered a couple more, We played several rounds of Camping Bingo and Bug Bingo. Trevor was so funny. Every time someone else won or he didn't have the item called on his card he yelled "OH--COME ON!!!!" We were all yelling it by the end. Trevor is so funny and we had a fun time.

The Meyers left the afternoon of the next day so they could be back home the following day. With the coronvirus thing heating up and the animal hospital they needed to get back to their business. It was sad to see them go, but we were so glad we could spent time with them.

David and I decided to stay an extra day since we weren't scheduled to be home for a few more days  and the weather was nice enough to stay outside. 

We put Bentley in Finnegan's "cat in a bag carrier" and took him for a walk on the beach. Other than the fact that the wind was blowing 16 mph it was a nice walk..He was very leery of the ocean since it made such a loud sound.

He's such a sweet boy.

We left Myrtle Beach and headed for home the next  day stopping over night at The Barnyard campground in Georgia. It was uneventful and the boys were so good. They all got along so well in the MH this trip.

It wouldn't be a blog post without kitty pictures.

We arrived home safely and once we cleaned everything out of the motor home, it was back to work--------------quilting as usual.

HEADING TO MYRTLE BEACH, SC

Our goal was to leave at 6AM for Myrtle Beach. It was over a 500 mile drive and in the MH it always takes longer because we don't drive over 63 mph. We returned the golf cart before we went to the fireworks the night before so that we could get an early start----but we didn't actually leave until about 7:15. Oh well, we tried.

The Meyers were supposed to leave St Augustine at 8 AM and they had to drive about 400 miles. But they didn't leave until about 9 AM. We were both going up I-95 so we figured we'd see each other somewhere on the road. The Meyers passed us and we both got there about the same time.

We were headed to Ocean Lakes Family Campground which is right on the beach. As a matter of fact it has about a mile long on beach with 859 campsites and 2569 beach houses on 310 acres. This place is huge, like a little village. The beach houses are all very tight, but the campsites are spacious. Ours was 45 x 47 feet and a short walk to the beach.

There is so much at this campground:    the beach, a water slide, splash zone, indoor and outdoor pools, a mini golf course, a rec center with arcade games, a skateboard area, 2 playgrounds, a Mart with food, clothes, beach items, a laundromat will over 100 machines, a snack bar, entertainment area, a nature center, a RV service center, golf cart rentals and sales, and a storage facility for your RV. The amenities are unlimited unfortunately it was too early in the season and none of the pools were open or the min golf. Going north had it's disadvantages.

We were in site I 20 and The Meyers were in beach house M67. They had a nice 2 bedroom, 2 bath beach house on a lake so Trevor could fish in the back yard. All of the properties are very small, but very nice.

Our site was in the smaller orange section  on the left nearer the beach and the Meyers are 2 sections away on the left side of the lake. We weren't too far from each other, but we both got golf carts to travel around.

The Meyers came over and Ryan helped us put up the screen house for over the picnic table.  It was a long drive and none of us felt like cooking so we decided to go out to Lu Lu's Margaritaville for dinner. The place was almost empty with only one other table of people. That was good because everyone was practicing social distancing. The food was very good and we all retired to our places to unwind.

The next morning The Meyers came over for a big breakfast- early lunch. Eggs, potatoes, sausage and toast. That was enough to last us until dinner time. The kids had a great time riding bikes and drawing with chalk. It was still damp and cold, but we went for a walk to the playground, the tower and the skateboard park by the beach.

 Not too many people on the beach today.  Too cold !!!

The view of the campground from the tower.

The kids had a great  time on the golf carts. Trevor was so funny wearing the hat I made him a couple of Christmases ago. It has a fox on the top that just bobbles up and down.
He even tried to put his bicycle helmet on over the hat. Funny!!!

We had hamburgers on the griddle  for dinner and had a nice night chatting while the kids used the sidewalk chalk for drawing in the driveway. It was cold--about 58 outside and we had only brought summer clothes for Orlando. Outside was a bit too chilly for us to sit and enjoy.

We slept with the windows open and listening to the beach sounds. It was pretty chilly, buy we kept the fireplace on all night.

The next morning The Meyers came over  for a bit and then they decided to take the kids to the aquarium and to do a few other things in Myrtle Beach. Najla had never been there before and under normal conditions there is a lot to do here and a lot of restaurants. It was a good chance for them to check out the area. We decided to hang out at the campground and do some laundry.

We cooked a stir fry on the griddle with fried rice and had a great dinner. Hopefully tomorrow would be a better day temperature wise.

The next day The Meyers came over for pancakes, waffles and bacon for breakfast. another fun day of riding around on golf carts and bikes. In the afternoon they all went to the beach. It was warm enough for us to sit outside with the kitties for a bit. We even took Bentley for a stroll around the campground.

                                         Then Emma took Nickie for a ride around.

The weather was warming up and becoming enjoyable.--Finally !!!

OUR LAST DAY AT THE FORT

I don't know what it is, but we always sleep so good in the MH. Since it was in the high 70s and low 80s during the day in Orlando we slept with the bedroom window open at night and woke up to birds chirping and cool morning air. It was so nice in the morning that we decided to sit outside and have our morning coffee while enjoying nature.. We even brought Bentley out in his stroller to enjoy the morning.

The nice thing about camping during this coronavirus thing is that in this campground you are pretty isolated from other people. The closet campsites are 50 to 60 feet away and  your exit door of the RVs are always on the passenger side so that you never come face to face with other campers unless to walk over to meet them. We could see and hear others cooking breakfast outside and smell the bacon, eggs, onions and potatoes on the griddle, but we were content to drink our coffee and feed the squirrels and plan our day of laziness.

I forgot to mention that the day before I had remembered a nature trail that went behind our loop. It was only for walking with no golf carts allowed, so I took Bentley for a walk on the trail at about dusk. David decided not to go. As we came around a curve in the trail and into a clearing there was a deer that walked right in front of me. As we walked further there were 2 more just grazing and looking at me. None of them ran away as I got closer.

There was another couple walking their dog on the trail and they referred to the deer as cast members. I guess the deer are pretty used to people. We also saw a wild turkey as we were driving through the campground. Farther down there were several people fishing on the canal near the dam. Bentley and I headed back home to share the pictures and videos with David. He was sorry he hadn't gone with us and we decided to try it again tonight.

We spent most of the day looping through the other areas of the campground and checking out all the amenities TF has to offer. We drove by the horse stables where you could go horseback riding, past the huge recreation area at The Meadows and tried to figure our how we could drop off our golf cart early in the morning so we could get on the road as early as possible.

When The Meyers cancelled we needed a back up plan for Spring Break. They were supposed to join us at TF the next day and they had a cabin reserved there. With WDW closing the parks we decided to cancel the rest of the time at TF and go somewhere else that had something for the kids to do. Also, we needed a place with cabins for them and a campground for us. I had heard good things about a CG in Myrtle Beach, SC that people loved AND they had beach houses that you could rent. I texted R & N and asked them to look at it and let me know of this place. If it wasn't too far away for them we could try and get reservations. At least it wasn't in Florida and they might have availability. They did and we both made reservations and had a place to go for tomorrow. YEA. That was a relief.

I had spent so much time planning our Spring Break at TF and WDW. I ordered blank, matching  shirts for us to wear to the various parks and made the designs for the front of the shirts. It took a long time to cut out the designs by hand,  (since I didn't have one of those fancy cutting machines) but it was much more affordable that buying that many shirts. The matching shirts would be easier to locate each other if we got separated and easier to keep an eye on the kids in a crowed park. I made each of us one of each of these shirts and I made Najla 2 extra tank tops  since that's what she likes to wear.

The Running with The Force was for Hollywood Studios. How could you miss that orange?

I didn't put names on these for security reasons, but David and I had one that said "Ya Ya" and Pepere"

Sorry these are rotated. These said "Best Day Ever 2020" with sparkles even though it wasn't the best day  😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

                                            And these were for Animal Kingdom.

                                 Maybe if we can make it there another time we can wear them.  We had gone to Sams Club to buy snacks so we could take them with us to the WDW parks for snacking and not have to spend a lot of $$$$ on food.  Oh well, it will get eaten eventually.

We had a great last day in TF and knew that we wanted to come back again. I understand now why people love it so much there. Our campsite came with a BBQ grill and a picnic table so we decided to cook out on their grill rather than pulling our griddle out of the MH to cook one meal.

  This was the grill at TF.  Spotless, just like the picnic table. We couldn't believe how clean it was. It looked brand new. There is nothing more disgusting than having to cook on an old rusted out dirty grill that who knows what has been cooked on it or what had pooped on it. Before each new camper arrives the campsite is totally cleaned, including the grill.

Our meal was great and after dinner we took a walk along the nature trail with Bentley. Unfortunately, it was too early in the evening and the deer were somewhere else.

Every night at 9PM WDW has a wonderful fireworks display over Cinderella's castle. If you are at  TF you can go down to the beach and watch them from there. The music from the fireworks is also piped in so you can hear the Disney music in the background. I took lot of videos of these fireworks and they were GREAT. They videos are too big to post here so I will try to post on my YouTube page later. If you go to YouTube and look up Tails from Tennessee it will show the videos.

Also, at 10:30 they have a Disney Water Parade out on Bay Lake that you can see from the beach/marina area. That's just too late for us to stay up, so we passed on that one.

Would we come back to The Fort? Absolutely !!! We are so sorry The Meyers couldn't join us and we couldn't stay longer. The original plan for us was 8 nights here, but without the parks being open  and The Meyers not being here it just didn't make sense.

                                                       We LOVE The Fort !!

EXPLORING THE FORT

It didn't take us long to get set up and settled in.The site was extremely clean. All campers are invited to do chalk drawing on the concrete at your site and others staying there will invite you over to draw on their sites. After the camper leaves, the cast members will hose down your site before the next guest arrives making it looking brand new, as if you are the first guests to stay there. The sewer hook up even has a sink like stainless steel pan around it to make sure any sewage gets drained and cleaned up easily. And our garbage can is right next to our campsite.

We had reserved a golf cart to get around The Fort because IT IS HUGE. There are 850+ campsites and 400 cabins, but it is woodsy so you really only see one loop at a time (the one you're on) while you are there. You feel like you are in the middle of the woods.

There is so much to do at TF. If you bring a bike you can ride where ever you want to go. It's just too big to walk every where, but they have free bus transportation throughout the CG and to the WDW theme parks. If you stay in the CG the parking is free.If you decide to leave the CG in your car, you just swipe the Mickey on your magic band to get back in. But because there is no car parking other than your own campsite, you cannot drive your car around TF. That's where the golf carts come in. A favorite past time is "looping". You drive your golf cart all throughout the loops to look at the other RVs, loops, decorations and chalk drawings. There is so much to explore and it's so much fun.

Near the 100, 200 and 300 loop is the Settlement. It has a store for necessary items, snacks  and souvenirs.

It is near the beach and the marina where the boat takes you to the Magic Kingdom, The Contemporary Hotel and Wilderness Lodge.

Across from this area is the Trail's End Restaurant which is a buffet for breakfast lunch and dinner.

Next to that is P& J's Southern takeout, Crockett's Tavern & the Hoop Dee Doo  Review dinner show.

I had prepaid for all of us to go to the Hoop Dee Doo, but  when The Meyers cancelled and the sit down dinning restaurants closed due to the coronavirus Disney refunded my money. It is a silly dinner show with foot stomping and singing. The kids would  have loved it and the food was all you can eat and drink.

We walked over to P & J's and picked up some lunch for take out. All we had to do was swipe our Magic Bands to charge our lunch. Then we went to the golf cart pick up to get our golf cart. We had a great time looping through the campground  on the way back to the campsite.

There are so many activities at TF. There are 2 pools which are heated year round, Playgrounds, walking trails, archery, fishing, you can rent a boat, pontoon, canoes, kayaks, horseback riding, pony rides, segway tours, tennis courts, and shuffleboard. Every night after dark there is a Campfire Sing a Long with live entertainment and an appearance by Chip & Dale. You can make S'more over the campfire and after there is a free Disney movie to watch under the stars. Without The Meyers we decided not to do any of these activities. It's just no fun without them 😭😭😭😭.

We spent a lot of time exploring all the loops and we even took Bentley for a ride in the golf cart. His little head was swiveling all over looking under the trees and bushes for animals. Our golf cart was fancy with a phone charger, a windshield, LED lights and a backup mirror. LOL

                                                            Riding in the golf cart.

Before we left the KOA CG we had the MH washed and waxed. It was pretty dirty and it was  years over due. The guys  from Hotties Detailing did a great job.

   After looping we went back to the MH and sat outside enjoying the peace and quiet while feeding peanuts to the squirrels until bed time.

More--- later about our second day at The Fort.

FT WILDERNESS HERE WE COME!!!!!!!!!!!!

Even thought we were staying at The Fort for just 2 days we needed  it as a place to stay until we could make other arrangements with The Meyers. It would also give us a chance to see if FW was worth coming back to.

We pulled out of the KOA and hooked up our car in their drive way and away we went. It was about a half hour drive across town. The check in time at FW is 3PM and this was 9:30 in the morning. I had requested on-line check in where they will notify you when your site is ready. That could be any time. As soon as you site is empty the crew (cast members) come in and clean up the site so that it is ready for the next campers. You never know when that will be and as soon as it is ready you can check in no matter how early in the day, so we wanted to get there as early as possible to make the most of our time there.

 When you make reservations you can reserve by area and not a specific site. We reserved a site in the preferred section which is close to the restaurants, marina, beach and little store. There are only 3 loops  in this section, (100, 200 and 300). Each loop has between 25 to 60 sites. Although you can't be guaranteed a specific site you can "request" a specific site. I had called Disney and requested either site 105, 108 or 114 in the 100 loop. These were deeper sites with a large area in the back  for a tent, screen house or just a play area for kids. Here's a map of The Fort.

The 100, 200 and 300 loops are the ones to the far left near the water. The are the  oldest and smallest  loops and sites at The Fort because they are the original loops when TF was first openend in the 1970s.

As we were driving to The Fort (TF) I received a text saying that our site was ready. AND it was site 105, the first on my list. Wonderful!!!!!. We could ask for another one if it didn't fit our needs, but it was perfect.

We haven't been to Disney since we lived there in the 1980s, and they have grown quite a bit since them. The signage looked familiar, but there was a lot more of it. Along the way we had picked up these 2 hitch hikers. I'm not sure they could be trusted, but they looked pretty innocent so we took a chance. 

And there it was. The sign into WDW, the most Magical Place on Earth . "Where Dreams Come True" Even though we aren't kids, it was still exciting to see that sign because you knew there was something special ahead.

                         We even passed the monorail on it's way to another area of WDW.

                                      And the sign saying where to turn for  Ft. Wilderness.

After the turn off it was a nice woodsy road.

And there is was--- the entrance to The Fort.

We drove to the gate and the cast member took our name and gave us the site number and away we went to loop 100 (Bay Tree Lane). All of the loop  roads are very narrow and all the sites are back in only. One of the reasons I chose 105 was because the concrete pad was 65 feet deep and it was an easier back in.

This was  the map of loop 100 and our site 105. 

All of the sites at TF are good, but this one was perfect.

                                                 Next up is----------exploring The Fort.

SPRING BREAK VACATION 2020

This was to be the best vacation ever!!!!! For nine months we planned a trip to Walt Disney World with the Meyers during Spring Break when the kids were out of school. It took 9 months to plan because that how long it took to get reservations at Ft. Wilderness campground. I have been hearing for so long how much people love that CG and how they would come back year after year and stay for so long. Many just come for the CG and never go to the parks. Everyone loves it with the spacious campsites, woods, wildlife and activities what was not to love? There are special Holidays that get booked up far in advance like Halloween and Christmas. The CG goes all out for holidays and campers decorate their campsites very extravagantly. I have been on FT Wilderness FB pages. forums and website reading and learning as much as I can to take advantage of everything that is there. The Meyers juggled their life and schedule to be there too. Excitement was in the air. We all purchased tickets to Disney and coordinated our Fast Passes to take advantage of the shorter lines and I booked us a dinner show for the Hoop Dee Doo Review right in the CG. It was an exciting day when our Magic bands arrived. 

                                                            Everything was going great.

We loaded up the MH over Saturday and Sunday so we were ready to go by Monday. We left early on Monday the 9th. after putting the kitties in their backpacks and driving over to the MH. We decided to drive to Tifton, GA and stop for the night at the KOA which is one of our favorite CGs, We always seem to get the same site number which is a nice pull thru with good wifi. That is important since we ended up using a lot of our data time at home because our internet carrier has been down a lot.  It was a nice stop for overnight.

The next day  our plan was to drive to Ocala for an overnight stop. We arrive early in the afternoon which gave us a little time to drive by Mary Ann's and Dad's house. The new owners have done a great job keeping up the outside.

When I sold the house it had a huge oak tree in the front yard. The new owners, The Coles had it removed and had the lawn repaired so that you couldn't tell that it was ever there. They also trimmed all the big trees in the back. Mary Ann would be so happy to know they are taking such good care of it.

David and I made a trip to Bealls to shop as they were having a great sale and they only have these stores in Florida. David found a new pair of walking shoes and I found a new top and a pair of summer pants for Disney. We went to Carrabbas for an early dinner and back to the CG.

The next day we were headed to Orlando and the KOA CG for 3 days so that we could be ready early on the 14th to check in to Ft Wilderness.  The KOA CG was easy to get to, but it was a very tight CG with you neighbor being very close. We were careful to not be in crowded areas and to wash our hands often and use sanitizers  whenever we touched anything else. 

Our campsite was a back-in which was tricky due to the closeness of the other RVs. Once we got in we were good to go and we were right in front of the lake.

Since we were here for 3 nights it gave us a chance to drive around Orlando and go by our old house and a few other familiar areas. The house we lived in was new at the time and the trees in the neighborhood have now filled out  and grown over the street. It certainly looked different than when we lived there. I think the same people that bought it from me still live there.

We had time to drive past Ryan's old school and daycare as well as the Cancer Center where I worked. It was amazing that it was all still there. It still looked pretty good too. The traffic in Orlando

was horrible and it was nice not to live there any more. We had planned to buy our groceries for Ft Wilderness in Orlando and with the corona-virus situation building I thought i'd better head to Publix. When I got there they did have toilet paper, so I picked up one package just in case. Luckily, I already had sanitizers and wipes long before we left so we were all set. In Publix the shelves were empty of rice and in the meat dept, chicken. Must be those Cubans getting ready for lots of chicken and rice.

We had a nice, quiet time at the KOA. It was in the 80s, so it was good that I had some summer clothes to wear.

It was here than we received word that  Disney World was shutting down on Monday. This was Saturday and we texted Ryan and Najla. Najla was worried that the kids wouldn't have a place for Spring break and that Disney might also close Ft Wilderness. I couldn't find another place in Orlando or St Augustine that we could go. We decided to go ahead to Ft Wilderness until we could make other plans. It was a sad and scary day. All that planning and money for tickets. 

 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭  So so sad.