My wife celebrated her birthday this weekend. The highlights of this weekend included:
A very nice weekend, I think. Now that I think about it, I actually want the same weekend for myself in April!
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Land’s End Men’s Kenosha Snow Boots
I haven’t good boots in a long while. I used to have some decent boots, but the cats urinated on them about two years ago, so yeah, I threw those away. Whenever I had to shovel snow, I just wore sneakers. With all of the snow that we’ve been having these past two seasons, wearing sneakers seemed to less and less of a good idea. After some perusing, my wife and I found these Land’s End Kenosha snow boots online, but I couldn’t tell if size 11 or 12 would good. Shoes and/or my feet are a little weird — I almost always really need to try them on in person, as feet seem to be varying sizes. 11, 11.5, 11 wide, 11.5 wide, 12. I used to wear size 13 sneakers growing up, so um, did my feet shrink?
I bought size 12s, but they were too big. Sent them back, and got them now in size 11. Still seem a smidge too big, but I’m not sending them back. I’ll just wear thicker socks (or double up) if I have to. Maybe Land’s End boots run a little big? Dunno. Here’s the official description of them:
This durable and rugged snow boot features 400-gram Thermolite insulation for warmth and a waterproof shell to help keep feet dry through slush and snow. With a gussetted tongue for added coverage and lugged rubber sole for sturdy, wear-resistant traction.
I found them to be warm, didn’t leak, look spiffy in brown, black, and orange. I like them.
My new Land’s End Kenosha Snow Boots
I mentioned earlier that I need a socket wrench or ratchet tool kit. I never really thought socket wrenches or ratchet tools were useful unless one was working on a car. Last summer, when I had to put together our Weber grill, one of our acquaintances not only recommended that I use a socket wrench, he actually lent me his ratchet tool kit. Worked out great, and very handy. Who knew?
Fast forward to when I was trying to put together the snow thrower and adjust the skid shoes. They were secured with hex bolts, and neither of my trusty wrenches would budge it. In fast, I was beginning to strip the bolt! More fast forwarding to this weekend and our most recent snow fall. I had recently picked up a Husky mechanic tool set from Home Depot, and it worked like a charm to loosen the hex bolt. And now I have a new set of tools to add to my collection. I hope I can get the Joel Ipe workshop started this year, so I can have a proper place for all this stuff.
A ha! Made some changes to our Verizon FiOS services yesterday, removed some channels, and used part of the savings to bump up our internet to from 50/50 to 75 Mbps up, 75 Mbps down. This will be a big help, because now really do have multiple people in the house watching videos (both online and from the home video library) simultaneously. Next project starting soon is to wire the house for Gigabit Ethernet! Ah, finally getting the home network fully operational.
I find it a bit ironic that once we purchased a snow thrower, we’ve had little to no snow accumulation this winter. I’m not asking for a lot of snow exactly, but I’ve been sitting prepared for a storm that hasn’t come.
We had one storm come through that resulted in about 4 inches of snow, so I fired up the Vortex to make sure it worked in an actual storm.
The first problem I encountered was not being able to lower the front of the machine. FYI, Troy Bilt shipped it raised in the front, which is the same height you would use if one had a gravel driveway. If you have a paved driveway (like we do), then you need to unscrew the bolts securing the skid shoes, lower them, then tighten again.
Except I couldn’t lower one side. No matter what I did, the bolt wouldn’t budge. So with one side lowered, and the other side higher than I wanted, I fired it up and drove it around. It wasn’t has hard to use as I initially imagined. There seems to be only one task – You need a strategy or plan on how you’re gonna push it around the driveway.
Clearing the sidewalk? Easy. Keep the snow chute aimed toward the yard, and downwind. Otherwise the snow just blows back in your face. Driveway? Not as clear cut. This first time out, I kept having to clear out some prior sections as I ended up throwing snow back on them. Still, it was faster than shoveling.
Except that I still had to shovel some areas! Why? Because the right side was too high, and left snow on the driveway. After that particular storm, I’ve since gone to Home Depot to purchase a socket set, which I hope will be more effective to loosen that bolt.
Hanging out with the Horanas at Animal Kingdom
Here’s the 2nd half of the photos from Animal Kingdom. After lunch at the Tusker House, we went to see a Lion King show, which was well done. We then met up with the Horana family, who were also visiting the Disney parks around the same time. We took the African Safari ride, then took the kids to Dinosaurland for some time to play.
We left the park after 5 PM, and drove to the hotel to change once again, as well as check in online for our flight. We picked up some McDonald’s apple pies for the kids, gassed up (and returned) the rental car. Unfortunately, there was a winter storm hitting the Northeast, and flights were cancelled all over. Our flight was slightly delayed, but we had to stand around in various lines of confused people as we tried to get our bags ticketed and dropped off. I’ll take delayed vs cancelled anytime.
We had some Southwest Moe’s for dinner at the food court, and watched the flight status. Still on! We eventually made it to Philadelphia, picked up the car, and drove home in a lot of snow and bad weather. We reached home exhausted at almost 2:30 AM. I was thankful that we made it home no worse for wear, especially after driving home late in a snowstorm.
Part 2 of the photos at Animal Kingdom is below.
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Lunch at the Tusker House with Disney characters
We spent our last vacation day at Animal Kingdom. I’ve never been, so I didn’t know what to expect. We couldn’t stay the whole day, as we had a 9:40 PM flight home to catch. We also needed to budget some time to buy a cheap duffel bag to take home souvenirs, and to change clothes.
The park turned out to be really nice. There are all of these lands, with lots of seemingly good food for consumption. We had three Fast Passes for the day: Expedition Everest (a roller coaster), this Lion King show, and the African Safari. We also had lunch reservations at the Tusker House. As a treat, friends and neighbors the Horanas were also vacationing here, and we would be hitting up the Safari with them.
To summarize, Animal Kingdom is really nice. We enjoyed the park, but we barely had time for everything we really wanted to check out. We did squeeze in some time at Dinosaurland, but plenty more to do. Expedition Everest was a blast, and the Ipes highly recommend it.
Part 1 of the photos at Animal Kingdom is below. I’ll publish Part 2 in the next post. Lots of photos in Animal Kingdom!
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The Ipes at the Magic Kingdom
With our vacation more than halfway over, everyone is tired. It helps that we aren’t attempting to create a jam packed itinerary. After breakfast and a quick load of laundry in the morning, we were off to the Magic Kingdom.
I didn’t recall the park being so expansive. We parked at the “Scar” lot (one of the Villain lots), and then took a tram to the Transportation Center. From there, one can take the monorail or a boat to the park itself. That’s a long way.
Once there, we entered via Magic Bands, then hit up our itinerary for the day. It was the weekend, and the lines were longer, but we actively managed our Fast Passes (and got directions) through the My Disney Experience mobile app. We were all over Main Street, Adventureland, Frontier Land, Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, and Liberty Square.
Here’s what we did (and didn’t do), in no particular order:
Main Street
Adventureland
Frontierland
Liberty Square
Tomorrowland
Fantasyland
It was a full day, as we soldiered on until the park closed at midnight. By the time we took the ferry, and a tram, and drove back to the hotel, it was after 1:30 AM. Long day, but we were lucky to get so much in. Disney really knows how to entertain.
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The Ipes at EPCOT
After a decent night’s sleep, we were up early for breakfast downstairs, included with our stay at the Homewood Suites. We then spent an entire morning devoted to listening to the benefits of the Hilton Grand Vacation Club. By the time we finally got underway and arrived at EPCOT, it was nearly 2 PM. After speaking to a very nice woman at the ticket office who was originally from nearby New Brunswick NJ, she advised us that purchasing ticket for the other days now would save us some money, instead of buying them new every day. We ended up buying our remaining tickets for Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom, and Disney Magic Bands for ourselves.
We finally got into a Disney park, and wow, so much to do. We went through our list, and did a lot. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to experience much of the World Showcase, but we’ll put it on the top of the list next time. In no special order, here’s a list of just some of the things we did:
EPCOT was nice, but there was so much that we didn’t get to experience before the park closed at 9 AM. Next time, I hope we’ll have more of the day to experience everything.
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The Ipes at Universal’s Islands of Adventure
The Ipes decided to go on our first family trip in about a year. We decided to take the whole family to Orlando to enjoy the good weather and hit up some theme parks. Our plan was to visit one of the Universal Studios theme parks, then 2-3 of the Disney parks. Day 1 was all about our early morning flight to Florida, then visiting Universal’s Islands of Adventure theme park.
Thursday would be longest day in a long time. We started packing our bags Tuesday, in order to avoid as much last minute packing before a trip that typically occurs around here. There would be no way we could stay up all night, then fly to Florida, then stay awake at a theme all day and night. No way, no how. We were mostly packed on Tuesday. After I got home a bit late from work on Wednesday night, we packed a few more things, then eventually got on the road to my sister’s house after 10 PM. We arrived, had a quick home-cooked dinner, then slept in their family room for 2+ hours.
We were up and out the door a little after 3 AM, and driving to the airport in Philadelphia. We parked at The Parking Spot, an off-airport parking facility, and made our flight. After some brief napping, we arrived in Orlando. We picked up our rental car, drove to the hotel, and took turns to change and otherwise freshen up in the hotel lobby restrooms. We then grabbed a quick breakfast at a nearby Wawa, then drove to Universal Studios.
This was our first time ever at a Universal Studios theme park. We had no expectation to try to hit it all. We prepped for all parks with a hit list of required attractions and events, and then try to hit as many of the “It would be nice to do” rides. Thursday was all about Universal’s Islands of Adventure. We hit up the Harry Potter area, Dr. Seuss, Marvel, and Jurassic Park. It was a full day. The key attractions that we wanted to hit, plus the ones we were also able to squeeze in were:
On the way home, we had a pit stop at a local Walmart, picked up dinner at a nearby Boston Market, checked into our Homewood Suites properly, then had dinner in the hotel room before going to bed.
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