Grandson of Anarchy Day 1 Travel Day

[rummy63]

Time flies by in the yellow and green stick around and you’ll see what I mean.
It was 5 am on a Sunday Morning and the text came.
The Knotts are ready and so is Johnny.
Johnnies throne had been placed in our car the night before.

I went into their house to talk to Christine whilst Johnnie and the luggage was loaded. Christine was doing her last-minute cleaning - wax on, wax off, wax on, wax off.

With the car loaded I went out and opened the back door and there he was reigning supreme like this miniature Kim John Un staring up at me with a malevolent expression.

“Don’t you get in yet” he mumbled “Because my Grandma is sitting next to me”.

Well. Well. Well I have met my Nemesis
There may be trouble ahead.

Anyway, just how did we end up here those of you who read my trippies will be wondering
Last year we did the works and I didn’t do a trippy.

We flew to Orlando spent one night at the Rosen, had a fab night in the sports bar on International Drive.
The next day we drove to St Augustine and hired the most divine holiday home.

(Even though it did take took us two hours to work out the lock box and get in)

The blokes drove up to Sawgrass for the All Player Championship. A day later they turned back up looking like a couple of Swan Vestas

On the Tuesday, we drove back to Orlando and flew to Baltimore on a plane that was so ancient I had to sit next to the rear gunner and I’m pretty sure I booked Al on as a passenger and not the bloody co-pilot.
I had reserved a house for three days in Baltimore it was reasonable and very luxurious, but it had clearly been used as a party house such a shame.

We drove from there and had a day in Washington and did a free tour of the Pentagon I had applied for this about 8 weeks earlier
We then drove to Lancaster for a couple of days to visit the Amish Mafia.
Three days were spent in wonderful Philly in a lovely hotel on the 5th floor and the one and only lift broke down.
We Left the car at Newark and taxied into Manhattan and then took up residence in someone’s cellar for five days.

The cellar was classy it smelt damp and had a slight whiff of urine.
I so should have done a trippy
We then flew back from New York.
Anyway, I digress how did we finish up here?

The bingo money wasn’t that great, and the discussion came what are we going to do about a holiday.

It was going to be a fortnight in Portugal a bit of a relax and golf.
It worked out cheaper to go to Florida because the green fees are far more expensive in Portugal.
A holiday for four of us with Virgin came to 880 each that included the flight, villa and an upgraded car.

The Knotties like a lot of grandparents look after Johnny so the problem was who was going to mind Johnny?

He turned four years old three days before we left so he wasn’t at full time school my solution was simple just take him with us.

I’d met him a couple of times he seemed a pleasant enough kid, bonkers about Spiderman it seemed a good idea.

I have absolutely no experience of 4-year olds but they’re not that difficult, are they?

After all aren't they people just a bit smaller than us?

Not a lot smaller his last measurements on his 4th birthday were 47 inches tall 54 pounds weight and a 13 shoe.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the night before we went, Al asked me to tidy his hair up a bit. A quick blade two all-round, he had it cut about three weeks before, but it had already grown.

He didn’t put the blade on the clippers, and I zipped a line straight up the back of his head.

Of course, it was all my fault, welcome to fight club.

I had to do it all on no blade, but he insisted I leave the top on blade one.

Well I’m no Vidal Sassoon and he finished up looking like one of those Peaky Blinders.

Anyway, off we set to Manchester, King John and his precious Spiderman rucksack splayed across one and a half seats and Christine and I crammed up in the remaining one and a half seats.

The journey was eventful because Johnnie knows the lyrics of every Oasis hit.

Err what happened to Jack and Jill that went up the hill?

Apparently “they were getting high, in this champagne super nova in the sky”.
Then there was one about “a girl called Elsa who was into Alka Seltzer and sniffed it through a cane on a supersonic train”.

Has Old Macdonald given up his farm or did he just get lost in the

“Four and twenty million doors on life’s endless corridor”?

Johnnie’s grandparents are quite proud of his “gift”, so they actively encourage him.

At last, we arrived at the airport and squeezed him into the pushchair.
The pushchair cost a £1.00 from eBay. The woman I bought it off had used it for the same thing taking her children to Florida. I promised to donate it on.

Security was easy and because we had a pushchair with an oversize kid in it, we went through the fast track lane. Or it might have been because we had a Peaky Blinder in our party.

I never feel like eating on travel morning but once the suitcases have gone and security cleared, I can settle and eat.

Johnnie had already eaten porridge for breakfast, and he wanted fish fingers and fries from Burgher King for lunch.

Of course, his Highness had spoken so that is where we went.

King Johns lunch was ordered immediately but then Maizee or whatever her name was glared at us and demanded to know if we wanted effing else.

Ten seconds went by and Maizee gave a huge sigh

” effing else”

There was a deal on tea and a bacon roll 6.39 and because we felt rushed, we just ordered 4 of those.

All seated, Al opened his “deal” first, well it was the tiniest sliver of blubber on an insignificant, worn out bun.

Bravely he bit into it, it was cold.

Christine and I looked at each other stood up in unison and took ours back to the counter and demanded a refund.

Maizee didn’t say a word she just shrugged her shoulders and disappeared round the back.

We were stood there for quite a while, I did hold the offering up to the picture of the meal deal and started singing Go Compare.

I did a great job and even looked the part because I had forgotten to de fuzz my top lip that morning.

Believe me that sandwich looked nothing like it's picture.

Zak the team leader who had all the leadership qualities of a telly tubby appeared he didn’t speak he just refunded our meals.

I asked him if he wanted the tea back, but he waved at me with the back of his hand and did a tubby bye-bye.

No apology or offer of anything else I think they were used to it.
Johnnies fish fingers were hot and looked lush and to make sure he ate them Christine didn’t get the fries out of the bag. I am full of admiration at her parenting skills.

He ate the fingers and hey presto there were no fries in the bag.

Christine went back to the counter Maizee handed her a portion of fries; Wow there was at least ten and they were cold.

Christine decided not to bother taking them back we couldn’t have faced another audience with Tinky Winky.

We allowed Johnny to load the fries with ketchup because that’s what you do right?

It pretty much guaranteed that he would have a sugar overload and start running around annoying the hell out of everybody.

We did buy some coffee and sandwiches from a stand ear the gate and they were very fresh and tasty

We took off on time alas I forgot to note the name of the plane.

Johnnies window seat didn’t have a window. He was still on his ketchup overload so very upset.

I asked him if he wanted AL’s seat, we were two rows behind them in a two row. I was quite surprised when he said yes.

There were loads of empty seats in the middle, so I moved across the aisle and had four seats to myself. In fact, I was surrounded by fourteen empty seats.
It was Johnnies first flight and he declared take off to be awesome.

Yes, he used that word.

The drinks service came around, guess what?

I ordered water and even my liver went into a state of shock.

We’ve got a four-year-old with us, so we must remain reasonably sober.
The food came next and there was nothing for Johnnie.

I didn’t order him a kid’s meal because I have seen enough photos on here of the swill, they churn out disguised as kids’ meals I knew he wouldn’t eat it. I thought they would just give him an adult meal after all his flight cost was the same as an adult.

They did give him an adult chicken meal but insisted Christine book him a child’s meal for the return journey. I really wish I had been part of that conversation.

As I never write about the journey home, I will report now they gave him inedible gloop and named it pasta. Which is bloody outrageous considering his flight cost.
I made a note that once I was back home, I would go back to tweeting Mr Branson.

I wonder if he ever fed his own kids on that that slop?

These questions will be asked.

I didn’t bother with the entertainment I had a sleep and then took a turn entertaining Johnnie. This consisted of walking around the plane about 30 times. Then I took two of every playing card from 2 to 6 plus an odd one and sort of taught him how to play fish. He soon cottoned on how to cheat and since I always cheat it wasn’t very successful.

We already knew that there was a possibility of a storm lurking over Orlando at 3.00pm. our landing time.

Oh yes it was a Biggy. We had to circle for 30 minutes because MCO had closed due to the storm.

The pilot mumbled something about taking us to Tampa, so we were pretty peed off by that point.
I think they do that on purpose because then one is that grateful to land at their designated airport all thoughts of the delay and circling are immediately cast from the brain.

I knew we were going to land in Orlando because we wouldn’t have been circling for all that time.

There was a huge queue at immigration because once the airport had opened back up, they landed quite a few planes.

Not that anybody is bothered they are just happy they have not landed in Tampa.

For those of you that know MCO it stretched right back to the entrance after you have done the walkway from the plane and they had made six horizontal rows.

Yes, six bloody rows.

Sixty-five minutes later going through immigration they didn’t scan our fingers and eyes.

They didn’t do the Knotts either, but they did ask Johnny who Christine was.

He gave the right answer then the officer asked him why he was there Johnny told him he had been invited by Mickey and Spidey he then gave Christine a nudge and demanded that Christine

“Show him it”.

Christine had to root the card out of the Spiderman rucksack and give it to the officer.
He studied it and kept glancing at Johnnie.

He handed the card back to Johnnie and declared it sure was an invitation.

(Pixie Dust Postcards) Thank you Mrs Gryff.

Considering the length of the queues and the pressure they were under our officer was pleasant as well.

He nearly wet himself laughing when I told him I had brought a jar of instant coffee because I didn’t like their ground up percolated carry on. I also had a couple of Andrex because I find their toilet paper a tad harsh.
Hey, we are “allocation on arrival” they are hardly going to leave luxury bathroom tissue we just need a couple to get us through the first day.

Before collecting the car, we had to call to an office near the Alamo where we were given the address of the villa.
It was Southern Dunes I had expected this because last time we did allocation on arrival we were given Southern Dunes.
The last villa we had on Southern Dunes was an absolute shed and it took me 9 months to get our money back. Plus, the shed didn’t have a walk-in shower and we had two disabled with us.
I told the woman if the villa was a shed we would be camping in their office until allocated something else.

I find Southern Dunes slightly too far out however its horses for courses, originally the holiday was golf and relax so Southern Dunes being on a decent golf course is ideal. The other bonus being a Walmart on site and a 24-hour manned gated community.

On entering the garage, we selected Johnnie’s seat from the racks.

Because I had done the Alamo save no time, we could choose any car.

King John demanded a black car I couldn’t see one, so his highness had to have a silver one.

We were all shattered, and I expected Johnnie to have a bit of a meltdown but no we loaded the car up whilst he sat in the front singing,

“I’ll be riding shotgun”.

No, you won’t mate you’ll be riding 5th base right beside your suitcase and that’s by order of the Peaky Blinder.
We put the car seat in the middle on the very back seat.
He accepted this demotion without a murmur.

The villa was standard but good for us because of the layout. There were three bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs and a bedroom and bathroom downstairs.
It had a massive telly. I think it says a lot about someone. An incomplete dinner set, barely any pans, sod all cutlery but a 65-inch telly. We call it all fur coat and no knickers.
It looked freshly painted and the carpets had obviously been renewed during the last couple of months.

All in all, we were satisfied with what we got, the main thing being it was spotless.
Leaving Johnnie and grandad in the pool we slipped back to Walmart for a few provisions there was also an Aldi about five minutes further up the road, but I prefer Walmart. I know where everything is.
We bought the usual chicken salads pizzas beer, beer, and beer.
Plus, Christine’s cleaning stuff and more cleaning stuff.

Apologies for the lack of photographs it’s not fair to post photographs of Johnnie and my x-rays look far better than some of my photographs.

[Mary A]

Cant wait to read the rest of your TR, DH is giving me funny looks for laughing out loud! Thank you for cheering me up 🤣

[Carolynmf]

Looking forward to the rest I always enjoy your reports.

[lindylou46]

Great read yet again, love your trippies.

[DizzyDisneyMum]

This has cheered me right up, I sense this trip may be a little different with young Johnny along for the ride!

[jools1302]

This is very funny... will be following along 😀😂

[Pussycat Doll]

Reading along inbetween writing my own!

[katebush95]

So pleased you’re writing another trippie 😀

[disneypars]

Hilarious 😂 can't wait for the rest.

[Ivegottadream]

I love your writing style, can't wait for the rest of it!