What a wild ride!
Longest Post... Longest vacation haha
A timeshare exchange to Williamsburgs' Marriott Manor Club Sequel + cheap tickets thanks to Delta miles and a companion pass got us to Richmond VA late on July 12th.
Our only mishap on the flights going was losing this travel chess board. oops ;)
When we landed... that's when our car rental fun started.
It was late, just before midnight.
We headed to the Hertz lot, got in our car (thanks to the status that told us to pick what we wanted in a certain section) and started driving out... only to find that the gates were blocked and apparently Hertz was CLOSED.
We had prepaid...
So while the girls and I stayed in the running Hertz car... (it was a stifling hot, humid parking lot haha) Shane went to find us another car rental... which LOTS of people were also doing.
We then paid for the second car.
An hour later we were on the road for our 1 hour drive to Williamsburg.
We arrived around 2 am under the assumption that we'd have to drive BACK to the Richmond airport to exchange the Budget car for the Hertz prepaid car the next day. Thankfully, Shane got it all worked out over the phone the next morning. Hertz refunded us totally... which they did not have to do... and budget let us extend our rental for the week. Phew
We were at the Williamsburg Plantation by 8:30 am so we didn't miss anytime haha.
Lots of history, lots of tours... first was the Governor's Palace...
a speech from Thomas Jefferson himself...
Lots of shops and information about what Williamsburg was like back in the mid to late 1700's
Lydia served on the "court" during our tour.
We stayed til about 4... PS Virginia is HOT in July.
But honestly not AS hot and humid as it COULD have been for July.
Although there were definitely days we were anxious for the air conditioning!
A yummy Italian dinner that night...
I'm not sure the exact order of everything... since this trip turned into a blur... but somewhere along the way we fit a little "back to school' shopping in.
The next morning we headed to Church in the AM, then back to Williamsburg for a 1/2 day.
A short drive to Jamestown from Williamsburg and we were back in the early 1600's.
The weird thing about all of the sites back here was that there was a "Federal site" and a "State site"... and different paid tickets for both. Which really added up + didn't make sense... you could go to both Jamestown and Yorktown where there were "recreations" of the site... or you could go to the sites where there were also "recreations" of the site.
And at both the Federal and State Visitor Centers the workers at the "help desk" would say... well it depends on what you want to see... when we'd ask them which we SHOULD see.
So then we'd drive to the one designated on GPS... and they'd tell us that we didn't have tickets for that site. Basically we don't know what we missed, but we all learned lots and we can probably only remember 20% of it now.... so I don't think it really mattered which "site" we actually saw... haha
After Jamestown we took the FREE HIGHWAY ferry from Jamestown to Scotland VA it was an adventure... but also a little bit lame cuz when we got over there we didn't have anything to do... so we just got back on the exact same ferry going the other way haha.
The pool was great, we visited it a few times... usually when it was dark cuz it was still like 85 degrees when the sun had gone down.
The next day, Monday we headed out early on a 2.5 hour drive to the Outer Banks of North Carolina... Kitty Hawk to be exact. I'd never really looked at the geography of the Outer Banks, but it's pretty fascinating that there are 200 miles of barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina. It was beautiful! We had a great day at the beach getting pummelled by the waves. I have a QUITE embarrassing video of getting knocked down over and over again. haha
But I'm not posting it...
After our fun at the beach we headed to the Wright Brothers Museum in Kitty Hawk... home of the first flight. Super interesting but we only had about 45 minutes there... we were having too much fun at the beach! I listened to a book about the Wright's lives/flight attempts by David McCullough when I got home, it was nice to get the whole grasp of the area/experience after being there.
It really doesn't look like it, (cuz we took this on the way out) but it was stormy and there was lightning... so the lady at the pay station REALLY didn't want us walking up to the highest point around for 10 miles. I agreed... we all know Shane would have gone if I wasn't there though. haha
It took us a lot longer to get back due to rush hour but we stopped at a yummy crab boil that our girls hated... they walked into the mall and got Panda Express that they brought back to eat instead. LAME... but also cheaper ;)
The next morning was our day at Water Country USA... we had done this when we were here 13 years ago and the kids loved it. We spent the whole day riding waterslides and having fun + we had bought the food package for both Busch Gardens and here and it was WELL worth it! We paid $40 per day per person for only 2 of us. (Because paying for 4 didn't make sense!!) That meant every 90 minutes we could get 2 drinks, 2 snacks and 2 meals. We made good use of it... especially since the food was RIDICULOUSLY expensive... like it would ring up to $75 every time for just the 2 meals, drinks snacks. I bet we would have paid $260 for what we ate that day... It was crazy!!
Such a fun day... that's quite a stink eye Lydia is giving Jadyn for beating her on Nitro Racer haha
That night we went to the Movie Tavern to watch the new Quiet Place.
On our way home Lydia realized she had left her new Hydrojug .. after a few tears + prodding from me Shane turned around and although the theater was closed by then... she was able to sneak in when someone was leaving and she found it.
Which made her a happy girl.
It wouldn't be the ONLY time she lost her Hydrojug this week. haha
The next morning we were off to Yorktown for more history lessons.
Not sure what else we did that day... but I'm POSITIVE SOMETHING haha
The next morning was our Busch Gardens Day.
It was overcast and humid but felt so much better than the sun beating on us!
The park was virtually empty and we walked on ALMOST every ride.
Busch Gardens does NOT mess around with it's rollercoasters.
They're fast and wild and fun.
Honestly it took me a minute to enjoy it... and really I was just glad when they were over. haha
But the other three LOVED it!
Jadyn was TERRIFIED of ELMO last time we were here so a little reenactment of that haha
This was the first ride they went on without me...
I was JUST fine with that, I mean it looks SERIOUSLY TERRIFYING + I'd already freaked out on the last one thinking I was going to die... btw it wasn't that bad... I think if I'd had time to think about it I'd have been ok but it was a walk right on ride and I got out of line haha
Later in the day I did it...
TWICE.
It was smooth... and TERRIFYING both times but I did it and I hope I never have to do it again...
This huge swing was the only ride I didn't end up going on.
These three loved it of course.
This ride...
WOW!!
Another one I didn't go on the first time but then did the 2nd.
I'm glad I did cuz I'd be sad to say I hadn't.
We had a blast.
Ate delicious food all day... with our good deal on food... (same as Water Country USA)
But then we were bugged.
It started to rain at about 3, so all the roller coasters shut down for about an hour... that made sense of course...
But after the rain stopped and they FINALLY opened, they made an announcement over the loud speaker that the park would be closing an hour early at 6... Why? the rain had stopped!
+ they failed to mention that the food would shut down an hour before that so at 5... which meant that we didn't end up getting the dinner meal we had planned on.
It was all good + we had really fit everything in that we wanted to.
Without question I had definitely had my fill of roller coasters ;) but the other three wanted that extra hour... and Shane wanted that FOOD!! haha
It did give us time for a night swim though ;)
The next morning was Friday the 19th, we'd been 7 nights at our resort so it was time to check out and head back to Richmond Virginia where our flight was booked out of for the following day.
When booking flights back in May, mile redemptions were better on the Saturday than the Friday so I opted to have us stay ONE extra day. haha
That day we drove an hour past Richmond to Monticello VA to tour Thomas Jefferson's home.
It was interesting, history filled and beautiful...on our way back to Richmond from Monticello... we all decided that we were "Historied Out" we had taken A LOT in, over that past week and had thoroughly enjoyed it... but we'd had enough for a bit.
Our Lydia had enough several days ago... she has a strong theory that she does NOT want to be learning in the summer. Ahhhh Lydia... ironic since she had to take two summer school classes due to not having enough time for all of her other academic classes she'd need this next year because of her 8 ELECTIVE classes (drill, chinese, golf and seminary) poor girl probably spent 30+ hours on this trip doing homework to catch up from not doing it the rest of the summer. haha
We had an appointment for baptisms at the Richmond Temple at 7:30 PM.
We thought we'd try to go a couple hours early since we were passing by before getting to our hotel.
haha not that easy.
They acted really funny about it.
Made us wait forever, while waiting Lydia realized her recommend was expired.
So she and Shane went out and called our Bishop who gave her an interview over the phone and issued her a new one electronically.
All before they came back to get us.
It was funny. ;)
Mainly funny cuz they were so nervous about fitting us in but there were only 5 other people in the whole baptistry.
We were so happy we got to add the beautiful Richmond Temple to our list, it was dedicated last year.
We were just getting into bed at our hotel near the Richmond airport when we got the notice that our flight had been cancelled for the following morning...
Now Andy had given us warning about that possibility earlier in the day.
He'd told us about the problems happening with the IT crash...
We'd seen the news stories about all of the cancelled flights...
But we hadn't heard anything about ours.
No delays for OUR flight were showing, so we felt like everything would be fine...
until it wasn't...
We IMMEDIATELY called Delta... the wait was like 5 hours... we sat on hold for 2 hours, finally got through with the chat online that kept telling us that our flight was NOT cancelled and that we SHOULD go to the airport... decided at 2:30 AM that we would each stay up for an hour on hold waiting to talk to a live person and rotate through the night.
Uggggghhhh.... Finally at 2:50 they offered to call US back so we went to sleep.
It's all a big jumble really, but we had taken the car back the night before because it saved us a day of rental to not keep it til the morning.
I had booked a one way ticket home on Southwest in the middle of that night for Sunday afternoon out of one of the airports in DC but it was like $2000 and Delta was saying they wouldn't reimburse it. So I was SOOOO hesitant about it....the great thing about Southwest is that you can cancel up to like an hour before, so it's definitely a great option in these situations.
But since the flight was cancelled we would need another car. Shane went over to the airport first thing in the morning and OF COURSE it was CRAZY. The car rental lines were horrendous, the delta lines were horrendous. He FINALLY got us a car, we packed up and started driving to DC (because we'd decided that we might as well make the most of our time + I'd booked the Southwest flight there) when Delta finally called us back saying that our flight was NOT cancelled.
WHAT???!!! Now Andy tells us that it actually did go, but that our flight out of Atlanta didn't so....who knows what would have happened there... it was all so confusing. Basically the Delta agent finally booked us on a flight for Monday at 7 AM out of Baltimore. After a long conversation about pros and cons (there were many) we decided that we could drop Shane off at his Taylorsville Temple job by 12PM and his guys could get started + we could get Lydia to FSY by 2:30 PM, so it really wasn't worth it to spend $2000 that we wouldn't get reimbursed for, to get home Sunday... so unfortunately I cancelled the Southwest flights.
In the meantime... Saturday was spent in DC taking in all of the HISTORY sites haha
The Smithsonians...
The National Archives...
The Washington Monument
The Holocaust Museum...
World War I and II Memorials
The Korean War Memorial
The Lincoln Memorial
The Vietnam War Memorial
Then we checked into a hyatt in Arlington VA, had a delicious dinner at the melting pot...
Sunday we woke up bright and early and walked to the Arlington Cemetery... which was MUCH further than I told everyone it was going to be. OOPS
So we Metroed it for the rest of the morning!
I had made an appt for the Ford Theater, planned on lunch at "Lincoln Waffles" and then we were checking out of the hotel by 2.
In the meantime we had car rental problems again. When we rented the car Saturday AM, we said we were returning it Sunday at 12 PM as per the Southwest flight we had booked. When we tried to extend because we were now taken the Delta flight, they said it would be an additional $40/hour so we were in a mess trying to get it back to a different airport to try to get another car that they said they didn't have.
We were frantically getting back to the hotel, the girls and I ran up to the room to pack up and Shane went to get the car. We loaded everything up on a luggage cart only to have Shane call and say that the car wouldn't start... at all...
Oh my heck.
He was POSITIVE it was the battery in the key fob, I was positive it was the battery to the car, (which it was) but I ran over to the target near us and bought a key fob battery anyway (+ a 12 pack of Baja Blast to try to calm him down) and after trying for forever to figure out how to open the stupid key fob we found out that was not the problem. Long story short... FIVE HOURS and 20 phone calls later Shane finally got back from picking up our FOURTH rental car. Meanwhile the tow truck that came to get the third one couldn't get down into the parking garage because it was so narrow + five floors down... so Budget told us to just leave the keys in the car. We have no idea what happened to that car. But as of yet we were never charged anything for it at all... I think???
Sure enough... when the alarm went off at 4:30 AM... our flight had been cancelled... we ALL had notices, emails, texts... but it was still not showing cancelled online or on the chat bot.
WHAT???!!!
We drove to the Baltimore airport... returned the car... is this a joke???
So we sat at the airport with the other thousand people, looking for ANYTHING!! They kept telling us it WASN'T cancelled. We THOUGHT we had finally found a flight to Denver and from there we would rent a car and drive home, but it was on United and by the time we got to United they said it wasn't available... The soonest Delta could get us to SLC on ANYTHING within 500 miles of DC was Thursday AM... 72 hours from then!
So, we booked it...
Then I found a flight on Southwest out of Dulles for Tuesday afternoon for $2800 ouch!!
We bit the bullet, cancelled the Delta flight and booked the Southwest one.
Enough was enough.
We rented our FIFTH car...
Drove back to the hotel for the free breakfast + went back to sleep in our room just cuzwe COULD haha
The rest of the day neither Jadyn or I can actually remember what we did??
I know I had decided we should knock two more states off of the girls lists and drive up to see the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, stay overnight there, stop at the Nemours Estate in Delaware on the way back down the next day and catch our flight out of Dulles.
We started driving to do that... it should have taken 2 hours from Baltimore to get to Philly, but because of the IT crash and everyone driving instead of flying, traffic was TERRIBLE. When we looked at GPS once we started going it was going to take over four hours to get there. We started getting nervous about getting back, or getting stuck on the road, missing the flight etc. So we basically just decided to drive to the next hotel with just a stop for a picture at the DC Temple first.
Funny memory at this hotel was that due to the IT crash the key card system was shutdown... so if you left your room... the front desk staff had to come and unlock the door for you. haha
The next morning we drove back into DC and hurried to the Washington Monument to try to get tickets... unfortunately traffic was bad and we were MAYBE 5 minutes too late to get the time that would work for us... so we quickly changed gears and walked the mile down to the Capitol for a tour.
As a side note... the day after this... the Washington Mall was overrun with THOUSANDS of people there to protest Netanyahu's speech to Congress. That must have been why there was this HUGE fenced perimeter set up around the Capitol the day before!
After the Capitol, a quick stop at the Library of Congress.
We were more than happy to call it a day after this... it was the hottest day so far!!!
We got to the Dulles airport early... dropped off the car... relaxed in the brand new Capital One Lounge and headed to our gate.
Where Lydia realized she had lost her HydroFlask again.
She was SOOO upset.
I wanted to go back for it.
Shane, understandably was not letting me chance missing the flight.
He offered to pay an airport worker $50 if he'd go back to the lounge for us and mail it to us.
I contacted lost and found, put in reports etc.
One week later it showed up in the mail with a note from the guy saying he didn't want anything just pass the kindness on to someone else. What a sweet tender mercy!
A delay on the tarmac that had us all worried.
Then finally we took off... we'd never been so happy to finally be in the air.
See how sad our Lydia was.
I think it was also mixed with all the emotions of missing two days of FSY and feeling like she was letting her friend/roommate down. etc.
I can't remember now if it was a direct flight?
But I know that we got home REALLY late... like probably close to 2 am?
I ran a load of laundry for Lydia while she got packed up for FSY and at 6:45 am I drove her up to join her group. PS... she had a fabulous time...
What an adventure!!
Yet what a blessing! It could have been so much worse... inconveniences yes, but nothing terrible. It's scary how easily things can snowball with our technology systems that we rely so heavily on! For the most part we all kept good attitudes and tried our best to appreciate our extra time. I had taken Jadyn on a trip to DC when we went to get our China visas back in 2019, I'd thought about taking Lydia... and now we've done that. CHECK ;)
In the end Delta reimbursed EVERYTHING!
Our miles and companion fare from the cancelled flight
Our $2800 Southwest flights.
All our extra car rentals, hotels, gas, food expenses etc.
So, it was a totally free bonus 4 days... minus 4 days of income of course haha
But it's one we won't ever forget.... that is FOR SURE!!
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