The Home Strech: Last Hurrah at YC/Mark’s Corner, Small World After All- Airport Edition
We left EPCOT and returned to the Yacht Club, but since we were leaving that night, we no longer had a room to go back to. However, since our stay was club level, we were able to use the lounge for the rest of that day. We went up and had some snacks and drinks.
Earlier that morning we had used the Resort Airline Checkin, so our bags were on the way to the airport. I had stashed a bathing suit in my carry-on, along with a plastic bag for wet clothing so I was all set for a final dip in Stormalong Bay.
Mark didn’t want to swim, so he decided to take advantage of my absence to catch up on some email. But where?
I had an idea. There is a hallway on the second floor of the Yacht Club with comfortable chairs that looks like it doesn’t get much traffic. We went to check it out and there was an outlet next to the chair, convenient for Mark to plug in his Surface laptop and to charge my phone while I was swimming.
I now present… “Mark’s Corner”
Meanwhile, at the pool…
I took a few spins around the lazy river. On a previous trip, I had timed how long it took to do one lap around using only the pools propulsion (no paddling except if I got stuck on the side)- 7 minutes. I asked one of the lifeguards to guess how long it would take. He said “5 minutes”. He checked his watch, I started floating and 7 ½ minutes later I passed by.
Mission accomplished, I took a ride on the slide.
When it was time to meet back up with Mark, I realized the dry clothes I needed were with him. I threw my (only pair of) shorts over my swim suit.
The bad news: My shorts got wet and even when I changed out of my swimsuit, there was a bit of an embarrassing spot remaining, as you can kind of see in this shot of me steering the ship
The good news- this gave me a reason to check out the laundry room at the quiet pool.
Once that fun was over, and my shorts had run through a cycle in the dryer, it was time to leave
Total Steps on this 6 day trip: 121,602 (=58 miles, I believe)
It’s A Small World After All- Airport Addition
While sitting at the gate waiting to board our plane home, I heard someone call my name.
It was a woman who is in a local walking group with me. She had been in Florida for several weeks, some of the time at her son’s home and some at Old Key West as she is a DVC owner.
Mark and I had paid for the early boarding privilege on our flight.
Apparently, when after we found seats near the front of the plane, my fellow travelers annoyed me. So much so that I drew this seating chart:
Row in front of us:
There was one woman who took the middle seat and kept telling everyone that the window seat next to her was taken. Finally a woman came onto the plane and the woman let her in. We had seen both of them while waiting at the gate- they met there. Pretty sure you are not supposed to be saving seats (that is the whole thing about Southwest) and to have someone do it for a stranger, disregarding other strangers passing by, rubbed me the wrong way.
The woman who EVENTUALLY sat on the aisle in front of us was blocking the aisle for an EXTREMELY long time. Part of it was her carryon, I don’t remember why else it was taking so long but it got so bad that a flight attendant had to ask her to sit down. Then, for the rest of the time pre-take off she was speaking loudly on her cell phone to her son, complaining about her bad back and complaining that we were going to be late returning home. (We were delayed due to a very bad storm, I believe.
Our row:
We are the two hearts, obviously.
Next to us was a “bottle cruncher”
Behind us was a “squeaky-voiced narrator”
I have no recollection what “annoying sandwich” meant.
ETA: annie170 figured it out!!! Mark and I were the filling in an annoying sandwich. Everyone around us was getting on our nerves.
We survived the flight and landed in Manchester NH around 10:30 pm.
On our way out of the airport, we ended up getting lost and the GPS on Mark’s phone was not really helpful. We were probably off track for 30-40 minutes on the backroads of NH and at one point a large animal even crossed in front of my van.
This was not the return home I had hoped for.
At some point, we got back on track and made our way home.
But the bumps on the road did not diminish our amazing experiences from this trip.
Our pride and trust in Ben were confirmed as he held down the fort admirably while we were away.
We had some much-needed alone time AND
We spent some time with an awesome group of friends throughout the week.
At the end of the trip, Mark told me “Now I understand why you want to spend time with these people”
I’m glad that he appreciates the importance of my Disney friends. In fact, a few months later he suggested that I get away from the daily grind by going on a trip my friends. Little did he know that would result in a cruise with my buddy Teena and a Food & Wine trip with my gal pals- both within a few weeks’ time.
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Thank you so much for being a part of our anniversary trip, which is soon approaching its own anniversary!
I hope to see you on the next adventure which I am sure will involve antics, capers and stories worth telling!
It's so much fun to vicariously live through each other's trips. Not only do we all get to know each other, but it somewhat holds us over until our next trip. 
