After leaving the home of Uncle Charlie and Aunt Linda (even though they were not my aunt and uncle, they treated the Acrees like we were) we loaded up the truck and excitedly began the final leg on the way to Disney World. Our band of intrepid travelors just knew it would all go smoothly.

Someone forgot to tell Atlanta highway contruction workers we were on our way. Otherwise I’m sure they would have cleared the path for us, instead of preparing a forty-five minute delay. But, no matter, we passed the bottle neck and for the rest of the way to Orlando, we encountered no problems.

Well, except another delay at Wendy’s. We found one right off the exit, but ended up standing in line for over a half hour. Guess it got us ready for how things would be at Disney. But other than that, it went really well.

We had a wonderful check in at the House of the Mouse, walked down the French Quarter themed pathway to our room and unloaded the Ford. Mission accomplished. Well. Almost. While the family and neighbors went off to the pool for some fun and relaxation, I took off for the local Publix.

The store was only seven minutes away. The time proved accurate for the trip there. On the way back, it took me an hour to go one mile. Yep. An hour. One mile of Orlando back streets took more time than Atlanta highway construction professionals.

No worries. I finally made it back in time to join the family for a late night dinner. That went smoothly. Well, until I through away our garbage. And our Disney passes along with them. After digging through the piled on leftovers (thank you oh so much whoever dumped all of the spaghetti and meat sauce in the trash right after I did) we only found two of the three cards, which lead me to re-visit the front desk and explain what an idiot I am.

Then we headed off to Down Town Disney for some early shopping. We wanted to get into a shopping groove, after all, my wife and kids would be doing it a lot over the next few days.

Then we returned to our fantastically cold room (thanks to Dad making it to the thermostat before we left) and in short order, hopped into bed. Except I wasn’t able to go to sleep because the mask to my sleep apnea machine decided to pick that moment to fall a part. Normally, the fix is around thirty seconds. But this time? You guessed it, over fifteen minutes.

With the clock hitting around 1 a.m. I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep, knowing my alarm would bang me awake around 6:45 a.m.  But that was O.K. Tomorrow would be a new day. And it would all go smoothly on the morrow. Right?