"Getting There....

“Getting there is half the fun” is an old adage which is readily subscribed to by most folks who love to travel (by any means other than flying) and RV-ers will sign on to the idea right up front every time. So no wonder when “The Gang” got together to visit Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede in Orlando one night, that “getting there” and back did, in fact, turn out to be about half the fun….
To protect the savvy nature of intrepid RV navigators and to spare the feelings of all involved, let’s discuss this in terms of vehicles and not personalities.
To start with, let’s float another old adage: better late than never! Here in Florida in the middle of January, Dolly and cast are still celebrating Christmas, and as it turns out our tickets are booked for the last night of the Christmas show. Emotionally I am closer to the 4th of July at this point than I am to Merry Christmas, but I digress. The show itself was quite good- real snow falling on the horses, chicken chasing, pig races, ostrich riding, horse relays, a re-enactment of the Civil War featuring the North Pole vs. the South Pole, and, as they say, when they wish to move the topic along, much, much more. It’s a dinner theater experience by classification and dinner was also pretty good, although eating a whole chicken with your fingers and washing it down with a beer out of a glass jar while the living manger scene is descending on a platform from the ceiling and ice skaters on a Teflon sheet weave their way in and out of a goat herd is a bit of a stretch for me. But while the show was good, the company was great, and “half” of a good time was had by all.
Now to the other half of the fun- getting there and back. We are a high tech crew, we are! So when we ventured forth from the campground, the lead car was boasting a spiffy GPS on the dashboard. The follow vehicle had the tourist maps with the address and the illustration of how to reach the destination. Shouldn’t be a problem. All of us have been here a week and a half or so and have driven by the Stampede a dozen or more times on Route 4 en route and return from other venues like Sea World, Camping World, Bargain World, Disney World, and you get the idea- Small World! Problem is the lead car with the GPS, unbeknownst to the chase car, did not have the destination entered into the GPS, nor did it HAVE the address. And the chase car, unbeknownst to the lead car, did have the address and the maps but not the GPS into which to enter the destination. It’s only maddening to circle a destination which is large enough to be clearly visible from the road for a few times “around the block.” After that it starts to get funny pretty darn fast. And what is funny the first full “circle the wagons”, to use a Dolly phrase, gets to be down right hysterical on ensuing circumferences. But, high tech to the rescue, we hold a while-driving cell phone conference and eventually reach the Stampede- and not late at all. Even if it was a Christmas show! We find a table to seat ourselves, but decide, in light of the ride there, we should circle the tables a few times before sitting down. We do. We laugh. We have our picture taken, still laughing from the ride, riding reindeer. The laughter is so contagious that the hat on my reindeer’s head falls front and covers his eyes- don’t believe me; check it out!
That should be the end of the story. But it’s not. Turns out things look a little different in the dark and with road construction that closes the off ramp to route 192 after dark, so once again we are “lost” (not really, we know where we are , we just don’t know quite where we are going). Who would think you need a GPS setting to get back to the campground from 15 miles away. Reminds me of the directions given by Mainers to tourists who ask,
“How do I get to Bangor?”
Answer, “You can’t get there from here.”
So around and around we went. This time around the Magic Kingdom and Downtown Disney. Which is good, because Marilyn wanted to go there this trip and now she can say she did!
Not too much later we arrived back at the campground. It was late enough for quiet hours to be in force, however that did not stop the six of us from singing a rousing chorus or two of “Have a holly, jolly, Christmas” before drifting off to our coaches and disappearing once again into the night.
It was a good show. But as it turned out it was the perfect evening to go for a ride….