PROLOG 2: PETS AND THE BEST LAID PLANS

I often refer to Murphy in my posts and it was pointed out to me by a family member that some of you might not know who Murphy is.  He’s from Murphy’s  Law http://www.murphys-laws.com/murphy/murphy-true.html/  you know if something can go wrong it will go wrong.  The hyperlink above will take you to an interesting explanation of how the phrase came about.

Since the first of the year Murphy has been trying to move in with us.  From big expenses like the truck repair to petty annoyances.  Our Murphy hit just prior to the trip fell somewhere in between those two extremes and threatened to nearly cancel our trip.

While Disney now welcomes pets in their campground there was no way I was traveling in a pick-up truck 2400 miles round trip with two large dogs, six cats a dozen geese, one Musovey and assorted guinea fowl.  

We thought we had the details all worked out last year.  Our normal pet sitter and her children would be asked to do the job, but then she got pregnant and was due about the time we were to leave.  

So we went to plan B and found a good friend that was willing to come by two to three times a week to refill all the auto feeders and such we planned on using.  Just before we were ready to leave she had to have emergency surgery. I am delighted to say the surgery went well and she is now recovered.

But at the time we were looking around for plan C, which turned out to be a combination of Plan A and Plan B.

Our usual pet sitter delivered over two weeks early and with the help of her husband and two older children felt she could handle most of the animals without any trouble.  However the geese might be a problem.  Not to worry we already had that all figured out.

We had created our own version of automatic feeders and waterers for them and the normally free ranging geese would be penned for the entirety of our trip.  

Because many who follow my blogs are farmers/homesteaders who often find they cannot leave even for a weekend because they aren’t blessed with agreeable pet sitters.  like we are,  here’s what we did.

For feeders for both the geese and the other birds we used plastic trash barrels that the guys had cut holes out near the bottom of the barrel just big enough for grain to come out of it by gravitational flow as needed.  

When making these we recommend you start with a fairly small hole every 6-8 inches because as time goes on the birds will increase the size of the hole.  

This type of feeder also works well for dog food, cat food and any other type of pelleted or seed food.  Just make your openings a free flowing size.

Then fill the barrel with feed and put the lid on.  Our 50 gallon trash barrels hold three 50# bags of scratch each easily. We left the birds with 12 bags of feed, almost twice what they would normally eat in that time frame when free ranging.

The outside of the pen birds had large tubs of water that only occasionally needed refilled so we left a hose stretched to those where all she had to do was turn on the hose to refill.

Geese are different however, they need to wash their bills when eating a lot, they cool off by sitting in water and of course they need it to drink.

Our solution was to purchase two large wading pools, the rigid plastic type Wal-Mart sells.  These we put next to the fence of the pen on the inside with the birds.

Before we left the pools, along with several of their normal watering tubs were filled. 

Above the two pools dh zip tied a water hose to the fence above each pool, where the water would go into the pool, but where the birds could not knock it out.

The hoses were attached to a double hose automatic timer that was set to run for five minutes every two days, one hose at a time.  This was attached to a splitter at the faucet and the faucet was left on.

Because the timer has shut off valves there was never any pressure on the hoses that might possible cause a burst hose. 

We decided upon the time and when by field testing the set up before we left.  It worked perfectly both in the test and the entire time we were gone.  She never had to set foot in the pen with the geese, and in fact there was still plenty of water and feed for the geese when we got home.

Inside we have four cats in one section of the house and two in the another.  We normally use the Tidy Cat Breeze system for the two cats and a combo of Breeze system and clumping cat litter boxes for the other four and the boxes are scooped on a regular basis all the way around.

However, the four are indoor/outdoor cats and therefore do a lot of their business outside.  This had us concerned because we would be gone 19 days and really hate to ask someone to scoop the boxes that often.

So another wading pool was purchased, the smallest size this time.  Two of the Breeze boxes from there, and a spare one we had were put in for the two cats (4 boxes for 19 days should be plenty right?) 

Where those boxes had been previously we placed the small wading pool with four buckets of clumping cat litter in it.  

While the pet sitter did have to scoop some still, the overall mess was well taken care of and in fact we had far fewer “accidents” then we normally have when we are home.

Our dogs are outside dogs, so they were easy to set up auto feeder and lots of water for.

The cats already had automatic feeders, so it was just a matter of adding extra bowls of water for them because C was going to visit regularly to hand out moist food to the dogs and cats.

The day before we left I also contacted my vet and told them we would be out of town and that C., a regular customer of theirs, would be caring for our critters.  That she had permission to authorize emergency treatment up to X amount of dollars.  Anything past that we would need to be contacted.  Luckily she never had to call the vet.

So all our preps worked out well, and Murphy got a knock out blow on this one.

Jan who loves her critters, but has way too many to travel with them in OK

WE’RE GOING BACK!!!! Prolog 1

Walt Disney World here we come, well of course by the time you read this we will be back from there.  Sorry, about that, but I find it’s better to run posts about when we are traveling after the fact for safety’s sake. 

Anyway, I’m actually typing this post on 4/4/2014.  We are 48 days out from our departure date for WDW and I’ve got so much going on I’m starting to get really excited.

While we’ve always traveled on a shoestring budget to WDW, and everywhere else, this trip we are traveling strictly on a cash basis, so it’s exciting, but a little scary too.

We made our reservations MONTHS ago for Ft. Wilderness campground starting on Memorial Day 2014.   

Every other time we’ve ever gone I’ve done all the leg work on trying to get the best deals, making reservations and such, but this time I decided to let Naomi- Maclearn-at the Magic for Less Travel agency do it for me.  Why this time?  Because now I can get my “room only” reservations I prefer through them, where before I had to book them directly through Disney.  A vast improvement for certain.

Naomi is a gem, and should you want to book, please give her my name, Charolett Jan Patterson –yes I do get a reward for recommendations—honest disclosure here.  But that’s not why I say use Naomi.  She found a discount on our campsite for us I would have probably missed and it cut our 10 day trip cost down by over $400. 

Not only that but she was very, very good at keeping us up to date for ADR dates (Advanced Dining Reservations), Fast Pass + and Magic Band information, refurbishment dates, park hours and so much more.  Things I normally would have had to spend hours and hours doing, she took care of.  She was also VERY patient with me.

So if you decide to book a trip, please consider The Magic For Less Travel Agency and especially Naomi.  BTW they charge no fee to do all this work for you.

So when we first chose our dates we chose that time for specific reasons.

The first was we were suppose to be credit card debt free by then.  That has not came to pass, while we are close Murphy has hit us with over $7000 worth of truck repairs, some vision issues and other little things like the IRS wanting a chunk of money for the 2013 taxes, so our snowball has slowed way down, but it is still rolling.  In fact by the time you read this we should be 1-2 debts closer to being debt free.  So life is still good in that category. 

The second was a way to get MORE vacation time for our vacation.  My guys had rolled over their vacation from the previous year to some extent and would need to take that rolled over time by a certain date.  By taking those hours on to the Memorial Weekend we got an extra day for vacation.  Who couldn’t use an extra day at Walt Disney World?

Since they only work half days on Fridays normally we decided that would be our first day of vacation, so that combined with weekends and holiday time would give us 19 days to enjoy ourselves.  How sweet is that?  Even better it left us more time to go back between this Memorial Day and 2015 Memorial Day to take full advantage of our annual passes. 

So back in the July of 2013 we booked this vacation and despite all Murphy threw at us we persevered on to a tremendous vacation to Walt Disney World for the first time in eight years!  It’s been a looooong wait.

As soon as we decided we were going I started my lists of lists.  I was determined this trip would be well organized, fun, and completely paid for in cash, at the lowest possible cost, without spoiling the fun. 

One of my lists was on things we wanted to do/buy before the trip.  Things like the truck repair—which went way past the $1,000 we had budgeted for, to new shoes all the way around purchased early enough we could break them in and walk comfortably at the park, two pairs each.

Then we started watching the sales, picking up non-perishable items like paper plates and plastic silverware (no one wants to do dishes on vacation) after holidays.  It doesn’t matter that we are going on Memorial weekend and we will be drinking out of Christmas disposable cups that were purchased at 75% off in January, it is like Christmas in May/June to us going on the trip right?

As time grew closer I watched sales for foods for the camper, bug spray, sunblocker etc.   Stocking up as I went for the trip.

We each evaluated our wardrobes and determined exactly what we would need to dress comfortably and nicely.  We were strict in our evaluations and only purchased what we really needed as inexpensively as possible.  We finished that shopping up today.  I’m pretty proud of us for being that prepared this far out.

Another thing I’ve been doing in the winter months is DEEP cleaning the house.  The plan is to leave it clean so we can come home to it truly clean.  It also helps me not be so tired when we leave because all the hard stuff will already been done before that last week of packing.

Since we are now just under 7 weeks out from our departure date preparation for the trip is really kicking into high gear.  Thus the reason for starting this series of posts. 

Like I said today we finished up our clothing shopping.  We also got the part in to fix our ECV (Electric Convenience Vehicle) while none of us are dependent on the ECV I have developed knee and back problems that make long periods of walking almost impossible for me without a lot of pain.  My men suggested we get the ECV out of storage recently for a short trip to Silver Dollar City and we discovered the scooter had problems, as you have already read about (if not, go here).

Even that repair turned out to be done on a shoestring.  It needed two new rear caster wheels and all the quotes I got locally were for nearly $60 a wheel plus another $10-$15 each for shipping, plus of course the labor by the shop.  

By scouring the web we found a company Monster Mobility, that sold the exact wheels we needed for $56 for the pair and only $10 for shipping!  We ordered them on Monday and had them by Friday.  Great service, original parts and a perfect fit.

The wheels came today and it took my husband less than 10 minutes to install them.  So my horse has new shoes.  We’ll test run it later this weekend most likely. 

The first of the WDW trip food was packed today too.  Just a box of Rice Krispie Treats, but they are a traditional item for our trips.  Many times I will make them myself, but our local Sam’s Club had them on a great special and they were individually wrapped.  The expiration date is far past our trip date.  So a box was purchased and packed. 

Once at the park a few of those treats will go into either my belt bag or the backpack we will put on the back of the ECV, for the pennies I paid for them today we will have a good treat, that would have cost a high price in the parks.  Granted they won’t look like Mickey Mouse heads, but they will taste just as good. We’d rather save the cash on something like that to spend on other things while there.

I have spent the last couple of days working on a countdown calendar that is just a little bit different and I will post on it complete with what materials I used and how it was made in the next installment of this saga.

In the meantime, here are some articles I've written in the past on traveling to Walt Disney World and other places on a shoestring.  Please note, while I may mention saving cash back bonuses on credit cards in these old posts, we don't do it.  We stopped using credit cards in 2009 and have never regretted it.  We've saved far more in interest than the cash back rewards ever gave us.

 

HOW TO PLAN A FRUGAL TRIP TO WALT DISNEY WORLD  http://cjpattersonontheranch.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-to-plan-frugal-trip-to-walt-disney.html

PAYING FOR YOUR MAGICAL TRIP http://cjpattersonontheranch.blogspot.com/2012/01/paying-for-your-magical-trip.html

SAVING MONEY ON THE TRIP, GETTING THERE http://cjpattersonontheranch.blogspot.com/2012/04/saving-money-while-on-trip-getting.html

SAVOMG MONEY ON THE TRIP, AT THE PARKS http://cjpattersonontheranch.blogspot.com/2012/04/saving-money-while-on-tripat-parksfood.html

SAVING MONEY ON THE TRIP, SOUVENIRS AND OTHER THINGS http://cjpattersonontheranch.blogspot.com/2012/04/saving-money-while-on-tripsouvenirs-and.html

Jan who is so excited to be headed to Walt Disney World again after eight long years in OK

MY HORSE THREW A SHOE, PART 2

I don’t advertise this a lot, but I have bad knees.  Generally I will just tough through an uncomfortable day, but since I took a couple of spills this last winter one knee in particular gives me a lot of trouble when I am very active.

My darling husband was concerned about the walking at Silver Dollar City for two full days and what it might do to my knees.  

For those of you who have never been to Silver Dollar City to say there are a few hills there would be an understatement.  Everything in that park is uphill both ways and we aren’t talking a slight grade we are talking 7% or more grades.  In my younger years the park gave me no trouble at all. 

In fact our very first trip nearly 40 years ago we had a 3 year old in the backpack and a 6 month old in a stroller and we even went into Marvel Cave, which is gorgeous, carrying both kids and the stroller!  Anyone that has ever been in Marvel Cave will tell you we must have been insane to consider doing that because it is a very strenuous cave to visit, but I digress.

We like Silver Dollar City due to its good clean Christian atmosphere, lively entertainment, demonstrations, cleanliness, and decent amusement park style food.  We didn’t want that dampened by me being in pain. 

Dh suggested we take my grandmother’s electric wheel chair out of our storage trailer there on the property and see if the batteries were still good on it.  He did this on Wednesday evening, and due to some minor mishaps that happened he barely got it on the charger to check it out before it was bedtime.  In fact we discovered the next morning the charger had not been completely connected.  So we decided to take the chair with us anyway and chance it.

 

Once we had parked our rig, see part 1, he hooked the chair up again to charge over night.  We were delighted the next morning to find that it was fully charged, even though the gauge on the arm rest suggested differently.

He suggested I drive it around the campground a bit, because I had never used it, but I only did so for a very short time because I didn’t want to run the batteries down. 

We headed up to the shuttle in plenty of time and I boarded it easily with the assistance of the cheerful bus driver.  As we rode over to the park we noticed we had tracked a little “mud” into the bus with the rear tires. We apologized to the driver as we exited the bus.

We had discovered on our way to the campground the day before that dh had left his annual pass at home, but luckily I had two free 1 day tickets with me, along with my annual pass, so we used those to enter the gate and start up the hill toward the entrance when we heard a man behind me going “lady, lady your tires are falling apart!”  

Quick inspection showed my horse was indeed throwing a shoe!  The 15+ year old anti-tip rear tires were crumbling as I rolled along.  Diligently behind me a Silver Dollar City employee was sweeping up the crumbs as we went, not saying a word, just sweeping quietly.  I told you it was a clean and friendly park.

Apparently being stored in the metal trailer in last summer’s heat had caused the solid rubber tires to disintegrate.  We sat there a moment trying to figure out what to do.  The shuttle had left, we had no transportation back to the campground to put the scooter into the camper or truck and we had already used our pass for the day.  The employee suggested we go to guest relations to see if they could help us.

I apologized for leaving a trail as I went and he just smiled and said, “I’ll follow you.”

Back at the base of the hill dh thought the disintegration had stopped because it appeared no more was falling off so he suggested I do a few donuts in the chair to see if it was going to start again or if perhaps we could go back up the hill and try it again.  After a few loops it was apparent the self destruction was going to continue. So we went to Guest Relations back outside the gate telling the gate keeper where we were going and why.  She said she would let us back in, so that solved that problem.

Somewhere along the way we lost our sweeper.  Perhaps he was still cutting donuts on the other side of the gate.

While my husband was in guest relations I set in the chair outside and after a bit I heard the familiar swish of the street sweeper slowly coming down the walkway.  I again apologized to him and he laughed and said “I thought I had lost you.”

I replied “Well I left you a bread crumb trail, I knew you would find me.”  Then we both laughed.

Guest relations allowed us to park our scooter in the safety of their building and suggested we get a rental, however, no discount was offered on the rental.  Dh convinced me to pay the $36 for the one day rental, calling it my anniversary gift.

We had a good time in the park, despite 2/3’s of the shops and shows being closed until after April 5.  The weather was perfect, the three shows we saw were good and the staff was helpful everywhere we went.  Our annual pass discounts for food were 10% on everything we purchased over $4 and let me say the strawberries and ice cream were divine for our afternoon treat on that warm spring afternoon.

On our way out we picked up my lame horse and went to wait for the 6 pm shuttle that finally arrived at nearly 6:30 pm.  

While our cable connection was good at the campground the wi-fi was horrible and we both gave up trying to find scooter replacement wheels early on because we could not stay connected.

Saturday I chanced my knees and walked the park, very slowly.  We were careful with the routes we took, did some minor window shopping repeated watching one show, Mike…can’t remember his last name.  Who did a variety show that included unicycle riding, juggling, comedy and magic.  We had seen him on America’s Got Talent a few years ago and knew the show would be a little hokey, but fun.  We had seen his show on Friday, but decided it was worth seeing again on Saturday.  It was the same show, but it changes ever so slightly because he does audience participation and you never know what a four year old is going to say or do.  Both times watching it was fun.

That day I had one of their “skillets” for lunch.  Fried taters, both white and sweet, veggies, and smoked sausage, very good. 

A word about their refillable mugs.  They are definitely worth the price.  Our refills for our 32 ounce mugs we purchased years ago, were $1.93 each, far cheaper than the cost of a new drink every time. The cups are good indefinitely, we in fact have glass ones from our first trip in 1975 they will still honor, although we opted to purchase new lighter weight insulated ones many years ago.  We use them once maybe twice each day we are in the park so they have more than paid for themselves.

 We took carry straps in with us and so the cups were not the least bit inconvenient to tote.  Especially the first day when we had the scooter, which had a basket on it. 

Many people ask about food prices at amusement parks and we find they run close to the same at various parks across the nation.  However, we found the food at Silver Dollar City this year to be slightly higher than the food costs we had been shopping for a trip later this year to Walt Disney World.While we love SDC, we have found that is in actuality more expensive to go to when all things are considered than Walt Disney World.  I thought I had done how I calculated this cost comparison before for the blogs, but I can't seem to find it.  Thus a subject for another post in the near future. 

The shuttle back to the campground arrived about 6:05 pm the second day, for which we were thankful, because the cold front was arriving nearly a full day early.

Back at the campsite we were glad we had already packed our lame horse in the trailer and went to get fuel.  For those of you going to the area we have found, over the years, that the cheapest fuel is at West Branson, our diesel there was $3.79 per gallon, and nearly $4 elsewhere. 

A quick bite at Taco Bell there in West Branson, then back to the camper to get ready to leave on Sunday morning.

Sunday morning started with a rather lively discussion with me wanting to stay until the next day because a steady rain had fallen all night and the temperatures were plummeting.  Remember I am fearful of sliding off a mountain.  Dh wanted to leave immediately because they were predicting 3-4 inches of snow in the area by nightfall and he needed to be back to work the next day.  Even though it was predicted to be 50 by mid afternoon on Monday at Branson and he had more vacation time he could have taken. There was a project he was working on that he needed to complete.  He felt that if we left shortly the roads would be fine due to the two previous days of 70 degrees.

It took us less than 30 minutes to eat a cold breakfast and pack up. 

 My poor husband got soaked to the skin as the wintery mix started to fall as he was dumping the sewer and disconnecting as I sat in the warmth of the truck.

To say the next few hours were pleasant would be a lie.  Before we were out of Branson large wet snowflakes were hitting our windshield and the temperature was down to 31 from the 70 the day before.  

The constant fear of the “low coolant light” nagged at us as well.  One quick note here, it turned out to be a true concern because after we had replaced the water pump and hoses on the truck that caused pressure to build up and show up problems elsewhere.  Unbeknown to us the head gasket had blown.  We are lucky the whole engine did not lock up on us.  I am certainly thankful we made it home safely.

By the time we reached the Joplin area we were looking for a campsite because we were hitting near white out conditions.  We finally decided we would ride it out at the Flying J at exit 11A there in Joplin because we knew we could camp there free of charge and there was no guarantee we would find an open campground anywhere nearby. It is after all just mid March, hardly peak camping season.

We decided to fuel up before we parked because the pump area was clear at that point. If you travel with an RV I recommend getting the Pilot/Flying J FREE RV loyalty card.  It gets you discounts on your fuel, and you accumulate points for free items. You can get one at any Fly J or Pilot travel plaza. This trip we saved roughly $2 every time we filled up.

 While paying for the fuel I asked if anyone was coming in from the Tulsa area and how the road conditions were.

A kindly trucker informed me that this was the worst of the storm coming through right now and that the turnpike to Tulsa was in good shape.  I repeated this to my husband and then he went to change out of his wet clothes while I called our son to see what the weather was like at home.  

Clear, windy and cold, no snow, no ice was his report.  He said later that right after we got off the phone there had been some light snow, but nothing serious.

Gary and I decided that we needed to have lunch and decide what to do next.  We went into the Denny’s there at the Flying J knowing that the service would be slow because they cook your meal after you order it. We took advantage of this delay to use it to our benefit.

We both pulled out our cell phones and started checking various weather reports, they all agreed with what the trucker had told me.  In fact the minute by minute said the snow would cease in 39 minutes.  

We ordered what turned out to be the best meal, in our opinions, we had the entire weekend.  I ordered their senior’s turkey club sandwich with seasonal fruit and dh had their chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes, gravy, toast and corn.

We both were delighted with our meals.  My seasonal fruit turned out to be red grapes, sliced bananas and blueberries (red, white and blue—just like the current theme at Silver Dollar City). The fruit was the perfect ripeness and blended well with each other.  The sandwich was probably the best turkey club I had eaten in years.  

Dh said there was no toughness at all in his chicken fried steak and the seasoning on the corn was extremely good.  We would both recommend the meals we got at this Denny’s.  

The service was great, and we were given a discount on top of my senior meal by our wonderful server.  The only drawback to the meal was they need a better ventilation system over their smoking area because you could definitely still smell the cigarette smoke in the non-smoking section.  

We understand that many truckers smoke and that is why they need a smoking section there, but they do need to improve that a bit.  Other than that the meal was exactly what we needed I would give this Denny’s an A+ for the food and service we got there on Sunday. With a slight downgrade because we do not care for the smell of cigarette smoke. 

Relaxed from our meal we checked all our sources again and decided to chance it on for home rather than sleep in an unheated camper at 29 degrees or lower over night.  I don’t care to be cold either.  Did I mention I am spoiled?—See the intro to my Princess Plan blog if you have any doubts.

By the time we left the snow was nearly stopped and the roads were drying quickly.  By the time we hit the Oklahoma border the lack of sleep the night before and stress of the earlier driving combined with my full tummy and the warmth of the truck soon had me drowsy.  Luckily dh was not.  I napped most of the rest of the way home.

As soon as we were parked at home and unpacking was started we realized the three of us were very hungry so it was out for pizza to finish celebrating our anniversary.

So both our horses all pulled up lame this trip.  The repair on the dually is going to run close to $5,000 for everything, but considering the overall good condition of the truck, and the fact we just put $2,200 in it for other repairs  it is still much cheaper than trying to replace the truck with one of equal accessories in this day and age.   The scooter repair should be under $100, so our simple little cheap getaway ended up costing us a bundle, but now we will be all in good shape before our big trip later in the year to Walt Disney World.  

Being the Pollyanna I am, I feel that it was a good thing we took this trip now rather than making the WDW trip our only trip for the year.  What if we didn’t find out about any of these problems until we were part way to Florida?  Far better now, so we can adjust budget and work it all out, than to get high centered hundreds of miles from home.

Jan who enjoyed herself despite it all in OK