The Road to Vacation

Began another gloomy and humid morning with Garfield In the Rough while eating breakfast. Garfield is thrilled to be going on vacation, until Jon announces they're going camping. He'd rather be anywhere else but sleeping outside, especially after they learn that there's a bloodthirsty panther loose in the area!

Switched to the first season of Get Smart while getting my laundry together. Max finds himself "Aboard the Orient Express" with 99 after he accidentally handcuffs his wrist to a briefcase filled with money. All of the previous agents who tried to get the money to their people in Eastern Europe were gassed to death. Max has to figure out who's the double agent who has been killing off their men, before he's the next victim.

It wasn't raining when I headed to the laundromat, just cloudy. You'd never know that from the way Channel 10's newscast was carrying on. It sounds like Hurricane Florence will mostly impact the Carolinas and the south and not do a whole lot here besides a little rain and wind. The weather must have scared folks off. The laundromat wasn't busy except for a few older men messing around with their cell phones. Good thing. I had a fair-sized load to do, including the summer sheets. I worked on story notes and ignored most everything else.

Put everything away when I got home, then began packing. Loaded up anything I won't need for the next two days, including shirts, shorts, underthings, travel toiletries, a sweater for cool nights, hair clips and rubber bands, my walking sandals, socks, and pajamas. I finished most of the packing, but not all of it. Some things, like my brush and comb, laptop, cell phone, and journal, won't be packed until tomorrow night or Friday morning.

Put on a first season episode of Moonlighting set on a train while I had leftovers for lunch. In "Next Stop Murder," Agnes DiPesto is ecstatic when she wins a big essay contest for her favorite mystery writer and gets to spend 24 hours on a private train solving a mystery. Her bosses Maddie Hayes and David Addison board to see her off, but get accidentally stuck on board with Agnes and the writer's sarcastic entourage. When the writer ends up being the one who's murdered, Maddie and David have to figure out who did it, before the train stops...and Agnes is blamed.

It was still pretty early at that point, only around 2. I'm tired of sitting around all day. Since it still wasn't raining (and in fact, the sun tried to peek out at one point), I decided to head out for a short walk around Oaklyn. My first stop was the House of Fun. I browsed there briefly, but they were a disaster area, especially in the main room. There were so many boxes of action figures and toys scattered on the floor, I couldn't get anywhere near the wrestling figures. I eventually moved on to WaWa to use the bathroom and try their Pumpkin Maple Smoothie. Not bad. I can taste the pumpkin in this one, though the maple syrup is a tad too sweet.

It started to rain hard as I rushed home. I'd just gotten in the doorway when it started to pick up a bit. It rained for at least an hour or so, but as far as I can tell, it hasn't rained since.

Worked on writing when I got in. Harry agrees to drive the truck that will take them all to the digging site, to Leia's delight. He admits that he now needs a real job...but besides that, he is genuinely curious about all this Latin American history everyone's been talking about. Besides, he can't bring himself to leave Leia now. Charel and a reluctant Clarence also agree to join them, as do Luke, Yoda, and Artie when they arrive from the Los Angeles Star offices. Luke wants the rights to the full story on the finding of the Sword of Strength. Yoda will help translate the ancient Alderaanian maps and texts.

Broke for dinner around quarter of 6. I had leftovers while watching the 1997 animated musical Anastasia. I go into more detail on this old favorite of mine at my Musical Dreams Reviews blog.

Anastasia

Moved on to something a tad more comic after that ended. Bing Crosby and Bob Hope are off on The Road to Zanzibar, this time as entertainers Chuck Reardon (Crosby) and Hubert "Fearless" Fraiser (Hope). Chuck is perpetually coming up with wacky get-rich-quick schemes that has Fearless performing a crazy stunt that occasionally burns down a circus or lands him in the hospital. Fearless is ready to go home when Chuck buys a diamond mine from an eccentric millionaire (Eric Blore). The mine turns out to be worthless, and they hop a boat for Africa after Fearless sells it to a local. Even after they do arrive on the Dark Continent, they're easily duped by con-women Julia (Una Merkel) and Donna (Dorothy Lamour) into taking them to see Donna's "trader father"...actually, her rich boyfriend, whom Julia is determined she'll marry. Donna is having second thoughts after getting serenaded by Chuck. When they find out what's really going on, both guys take off in a huff, only to land with a group of natives who want Fearless to wrestle a gorilla!

I love most of the Road movies, and this one is no exception. Hilarious spoof of jungle capers, with Hope especially in fine form as Crosby keeps tossing him into increasingly more dangerous acts. My only complaint is it ends a tad abruptly after the guys leave the natives, and the girls suddenly turning up feels more like it had to happen for a happy ending than anything. Othewise, if you love the rest of the Road series, you'll want to give this one a look as well.

Ended the night with a third season episode of the original 70's Wonder Woman. Diana Prince visits a friend who lives in a small Southern California town, hoping for a nice, quiet vacation. She's called into action when it turns out that several property owners in town are being threatened by a gangster who wants to turn it into the next Las Vegas. A "Skateboard Whiz" teen girl with a photographic memory accidentally sees one of their hidden casinos. They move it, but the kid is still in danger. Diana will have to grab a board and a helmet and pull of a few gnarly moves herself to save her and keep the gangsters from causing more damage.