A Disney Thanksgiving
A few days back, a compatriot from my long-ago Fresno High days sent me a message on Facebook. She asked: “Do you guys ever stay home?”
Another former FHS classroom companion commented, via Facebook: “No moss on you!”
They both were responding to recent postings about Sharon and my latest sojourn, this one to Walt’s Place — Disney World — where we’re spending this Thanksgiving week and a bit more.
This is just the latest trip in what’s truly been a wild and crazy Year of Grace 2021 for us. It started in January, when we sold our home in Paso Robles and found ourselves with no place to live. So we high-tailed it to Clovis — where we proceeded to stay in an Airbnb for the next five months while our new home was being built in Madera County.
That, we were led to believe, would be finished sometime early this past summer. So we spent the ensuing months in our rental, and we traveled to and from the nearby Sierra several times — visiting old haunts like Bass and Shaver lakes, North Fork and Oakhurst. We also traversed the Blossom Trail down near Sanger and got back to some sense of “normal” post-coronavirus (we thought) life by having lunch and dinner outings with friends at Fig Garden Village and Gazebo Gardens.
Then when our Madera place was not completed by June, we headed to our usual summer spot — our condo in Ames, Iowa. We planned to stay perhaps three months. We ended up leaving five months after we arrived — by which time it already was getting a bit chilly in that part of the Midwest.
And when we arrived back in Clovis — at yet another Airbnb — we only had a short wait until we made our first, and final, inspection of our just-completed new home — the culmination, we thought, (after 11 months) of our four-to-six month buildout.
And we immediately pulled out of that house deal and asked for our money back. You see, the completed project had a fatal flaw — a design change that we had no knowledge of, had not approved of, and would never have given the green light to, had we known about it. I won’t bore you with details, but if you really want to know, feel free to email me and I’ll give you a personal response.
Well, we already had this holiday trip to Disney World planned, so — just three days after turning our backs on what would have been our new place — we flew here and have been having a fine time since. The weather has been mostly superb (sunny with daytime temps in the 70’s), the food has been excellent and plentiful, and the various “lands” that make up this gigantic complex have, as always, delighted.
We have done much sight-seeing, and we have used every mode of Disney transportation available to get to and from Epcot and Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios and the Magic Kingdom — yes, the buses, but also the ferry and the Monorail and the Skyliner. And, of course, I’ve been out walking. There is so much green space and so many lakes, each day has been a new adventure.
And then there are the parking lots. Now what, you may well ask, is of interest in parking lots here at Disney World? Why, the license plates, of course.
I’ve always thought that Disney World is for folks east of the Mississippi River, and Disneyland is for those of us who live Way Out West. So let me tell you that my highly unscientific survey of vehicle license plates during my jaunts through several of our resort’s parking lots seems to bear that out.
I saw plates from numerous Eastern states. Florida, of course. But also Georgia. Alabama. South Carolina. New York. New Jersey. Michigan. And many more. All east of the Mississippi — and only one — one — from the West. A California plate was on a big, red truck. Yes, someone had come all this way — more than 2,500 miles from the Golden State — in a red pick-up. Go figure.
But those plates told much more than a story of location. They held cultural and economic messages. Did you know, for example, that North Carolina license plates carry the message, “First in Flight”? A tribute, of course, to the Wright Brothers. But then how, you may well ask, can Ohio’s plates read “Birthplace of Aviation”? Well, because Orville and Wilbur were from Dayton, Ohio. See what you can learn from license plates?
There were more plates, of course, and more information to be had from them. Bet you didn’t know that Alabama plates feature the phrase “Farming Feeds Alabama.” You probably knew that Georgia is the “peach state,” that Tennessee is the “volunteer state” and that New Jersey is the “garden state.” And you likely even knew that New York is the “empire state.”
But try to convince me you knew that “Virginia is for lovers,” as that state’s plates proclaim. Or that Arkansas is the “natural state.” Or South Carolina’s license plates seemingly shout out, “While I breathe, I hope.”
And then there were plates from Kentucky and Maryland. They had no visible slogans, which could mean any such slogans might have been hidden underneath the license plate holders, or that neither state feels it has anything to boast about.
Okay, okay. Now back to the main topic — our trip to Walt’s Place. We’ll be here awhile longer, after which we’ll head back to Clovis once again. See, we have another “first and final” house inspection in Madera in mid-December.
Yes, the builder of what would have been our new home — the one we turned our backs on — was so — what, embarrassed? — that a representative called us a few days after we arrived here and offered us another nearly finished home — same style, but in a different and better neighborhood in the same subdivision — and for the same price. We’ve tentatively okayed that, but we still have to look it over.
And maybe, if all is well, we actually will be closer to settling in — yes, at one place — after this crazy and totally exciting year that has seen us trek to a dozen states plus the District of Columbia. We’ve driven about 8,000 miles and flown another 8,000.
And — counting Airbnb’s, hotel rooms and our condo in Ames — we’ve stayed at 28 — count ’em, 28! — different places in these great United States.
So, old Fresno High friends — apparently we don’t stay home, and there is, indeed, no moss on us. We certainly never expected to do any of this at our age –but because we have, we’ve made some good memories.
Some really, really good ones.