The Wrong Side (A Day Of Bummers)
Today we got up on the wrong side of the bed, drove on the wrong side of the road and went to sleep the wrong side of midnight! Let me explain…
Since we had jumped off the Disney treadmill, we all took a breather and had a good sleep in. All except Ross that is, who somehow found the energy to get up early and hit the gym. He and Toby left soon after that to go and pick up the hire car at the airport, only to find upon arrival that, even though they had our booking, the car wasn’t there! Bummer. What followed was a wild goose chase ending in a dead end when the car they offered wasn’t big enough for us all to fit in! Eventually they managed to find us a van and while they were driving it back to our hotel, the sleepy bunch was just rising, a bit too late it seems to catch breakfast! Bummer number 2.
We were planning to drive to Miami today which would take around 3 hours and it just so happened we found an outlet shopping centre just 5 minutes down the road in Orlando. What was going to be a quick look around ended up being a four-hour shopping extravaganza! There were plenty of bargains to be had and it really is amazing how cheap things are over here. We were getting t-shirts 2 for $20 and shoes for $20 (even though Sam said it would be cheaper at K-Mart!). It was hard to resist! After all, we were just doing our bit to boost the American economy!
One of the guys in the Information Booth at the shopping Centre said hi to us and asked us if we’d been to Disney World. Somehow from briefly chatting with us, he’d ascertained that we had bought our tickets online and had paid for 3 days plus a bonus day. At the time of buying them, it was actually cheaper than buying a straight 3 day ticket and we were never sure whether we might’ve had a burning desire to visit this morning. He seemed elated that we still had a day left on the tickets and offered to buy them from us. We were only going to discard them anyway. We found ourselves agreeing to the plan before thinking too much about it and arranged to meet him back at the booth later in the day. As we were pondering later, Molly said “it’s not the black market is it?” and then we started to doubt. He hadn’t even told us how much he’d give us! Was he a really shady character? He seemed nice enough but don’t they all? What to do…? He was true to his word and met us at the agreed place and time and we handed over the tickets, feeling like some sort of criminals. He gave us $10 for each ticket, which was an absolute bargain for him and he said he was going to use them for his own kids. What a good racquet he has going, eh? $10 a day Disney World tickets. We asked him about the security issues (you do have to give your fingerprints at the entry each day) and he revealed the fact that he has a friend “on the inside” who can “fix things up in that regard”. Oh my goodness! He was a crook! We high-tailed out of there as fast as we could, hoping not to see any flashing lights in our rear-vision mirror!
We were victims again today of the super size mentality of this fair land. We ordered small drinks with our lunch and they were as big as milkshakes! Sam ordered a “combo meal” from Taco Bell and it was $6.90 but he got a huge box of nachos, a full-sized burrito and a full-sized taco, complete with sour cream and guacamole and a massive drink! Cheap but so excessive!
Now our track record of driving through America is not exactly incident free. We’ve certainly had our dramas along the way. Setting off today, with the Hertz GPS, on the freeway, with tolls, in the hire car, on the wrong side of the road, already a little grumpy and tired, we knew a storm was a-brewing (and we’re not talking about the weather!) The start of the trip went quite well but soon Ross began to get a tad weary and asked if Sam or I could take a shift at the wheel. Sam was quite eager but I thought it was such a huge responsibility for him to drive on the wrong side of the road with the whole family in the car, speeding along the freeway when he’d never done it before. I didn’t think my nerves could take it. The only alternative was for ME to take the wheel and I was even surer my nerves couldn’t take that. I’ve never driven on the wrong side of the road so to take on the TEN LANE Florida Turnpike for my debut was definitely a baptism of fire! I was terrified to say the least and I think it’s very fair to say, so were the rest of the family. There were backseat drivers coming out of the woodwork! Apparently I was skewing a long way over to the right. This was also an issue when I had to overtake on the left-hand side! Ross and Sam were on the edge of their seats, repeatedly telling (no, urging) me to get over to the left. It’s just so weird to be sitting on the other side of the car! The tension in the car was so thick you would’ve needed a chainsaw to cut it. Ross, who only 15 minutes before had been ready for a Karl Kruszelnicki micro sleep was now WIDE awake, blood pumping and urging me to pull over to the right so he could resume driving! I was more than happy to oblige and won’t be in a hurry to do that again! Ross will have to be well rested for the next leg of the tour!
Our GPS (“Flo”) had a pretty cruisy time while we were on the turnpike. We were speeding through Indian River Country with the swamps of the Everglades out the window. We knew we were in Florida by the alligator roadkill we saw! It was one long straight road for about 200kms so it was pretty uneventful. Nature was calling for Maisy, Molly and Toby all needing a pitstop at once but there wasn’t an exit in sight for as far as we could see. We asked Flo to take us to the nearest “gas station”, (aptly named for why Toby needed to visit) and she directed us to a little town in the absolute middle of nowhere called Yeehaw! It is actually pronounced Yeehah! (just up the road from Okeechobee!)
Listening to the local radio stations along the way we heard that Hurricane Arthur was still breathing down our necks but would hopefully head off in a different direction in a few days. We heard a plea from Target on the local news asking people to please refrain from shopping with their firearms as they didn’t want to tarnish their family-friendly reputation. Apparently this was causing controversy amongst the locals! Doesn’t it make perfect sense to take your gun shopping?
Just as we were approaching Miami, the kids started getting a bit (extremely) excited and were singing and giggling and taking video of each other. Flo could barely be heard over the buzz of excitement in the car and her instructions were now coming thick and fast. Poor Ross wasn’t sure which exit to take, which way to veer or which lane to be in and it all got so confusing! After winding around in circles for a good half hour (it was now well after 9pm!) we finally ended up in a back street somewhere very dark in a seedy kind of neighbourhood, with Flo announcing triumphantly, “You have reached your destination!” What? Where’s the hotel? Ohhhh! I forgot, I was supposed to look up the hotel address and program that in once we were closer to Miami. Oops. Ross was not my greatest fan at that moment. Simultaneous to the tension in the front half of the car, the riotous giggling and singing was escalating in the back seat, our grumpiness, for some reason, also a great source of amusement to the kids. Maisy was singing “I’m the Man” and giggling hysterically when she suddenly changed the lyrics to “I need to pee”. I turned around, making sure I’d heard her right and she was nodding her head, still in fits of laughter, dangerous –as anyone knows – when you have a full bladder! Toby just happened to be filming her right at the moment when her jaw dropped, a considerable look of disbelief suddenly appearing on her face as well as the others, as a veritable river flowed forth from her, all over the car seat, the copious contents of her bladder now flooding down onto the floor. Another bummer! Oh my goodness. What is it with Maisy and her bodily fluids and USA hire cars!? The kids thought it was the grossest but funniest thing they’d ever seen, re-watching the footage over and over. Maisy managed to have a good giggle too. Ross and I couldn’t yet share in the mirth. It was just too soon. We reprogrammed Flo, told them to turn the video off and proceeded in forced silence (punctuated by fits of under-the-breath laughter from the kids) to our hotel.
By the time we got there it was nearing 10pm and you can imagine how thrilled we were to be told that the adjoining rooms we’d booked months before weren’t ready for us. Bummer! “Would it be OK to be just a couple of floors apart Ma’am?” NO! I was finding a modicum of difficulty keeping my composure. Ross was out in the carpark with a sodden Maisy, trying as best he could do mop up the deluge. To cut a long story short, we were checked into one room and they had the cleaners come and get the other room ready for us while we looked around for a restaurant to get some dinner. They were all closed. Bummer. It was looking like room service. We rang and ordered some burgers and were then told it would be a 45 – 60 minute wait. Aaaghhh! It was fast approaching midnight. Major bummer.The only consolation was that the hotel is really nice and the dinner was delicious – appreciated more through the wait. Tomorrow can only get better…right?!
