Well, we made it to "sunny" South Florida in one piece... Barely. LOL This trip had highs and lows. It might have been the plot to one of those stupid "road trip" comedies.
It starts the night before; the dogs knew something was afoot. Beezer kept trying to sleep in the bed with us. He does not usually do that when we are both there. But we get loaded and on the way with no big issues. Around the Maryland line I suggest to Tanya that we play the "State license plate game." Being Canadian she has no idea what I am talking about. LOL I explain to her that we try to spot a license plate from all 50 states.... She was WAY into it. Developing strategies and whatnot... Such as noticing that there was a greater chance of finding hard to find ones on transports and U-Hauls. LOL It got to the point where she was going "BOOOOOOO", verbally, when we would see a U-Haul with one we already got. EXTRA BOOOOS for the U-Hauls we saw in Florida, with Florida tags.
But, I am getting ahead of myself. In typical North East fashion, we run into the parking lot that is I-95 South between DC and Richmond. I start thinking to myself, "who lives in this mess???" (Sorry Lilavati and other.....LOL) We stop for a break and here is where Penelope (our GPS unit) pays for herself, right? Yeah, only if I listened to her. She gets us detoured out onto Route 1 only for me to think that it would be better to get back on 95. JUST as we are getting back on 95 the stupid radio traffic chick comes on to say, "95 is a mess put Route 1 is still a bail out". After much cursing, we end up Route 1 which is indeed clear sailing. Penelope wants us to get back on 95, but I keep on going. All the while the radio chick still telling us that 95 is a parking lot. I smirk at this one jay-hole we saw earlier (he was weaving in and out on 95, cutting a lot of people off, in a van....) turn off Rt 1 and back to 95... Obviously listening to the cries of HIS GPS. Sucker.... Have fun sitting in traffic, butthole. We get close to 295 and there is a bit of traffic now. We "run" a yellow and a transport follows us through the red. He ends up getting pulled over by cop who was right there. (Props to the big dog upstairs on this one.)
We get on 295 and its smooth sailing from there. We see somebody else get pulled over by a Trooper. He broked that "9 MPH over" rule. Once we got past Richmond it was a smooth trip, more or less, after that for Day 1. Tanya was raking in the plates and Hannah was as wonderful as she always is. We stop in Florence, South Carolina for the night and pick a NICE Country Inn and Suites to stay at. We also eat a great meal at Ruby Tuesday. The best I've ever had at that chain. During that meal we notice a couple of things about the South... On the plus, everybody is so polite in that southern way. LOVE IT. But also that nobody is ever in a hurry to do anything. I reckon that is a good thing in some ways, but stop fussing with the scratch off cards and check me out so I can get on the road, please? LOL Anyhoo, coming back to the hotel from dinner we are fussing over finding a parking spot. Tanya wants to go to the end, so we are closer to the room. Makes sense and was a good call. We found RHODE ISLAND!! A toughie, no doubt. LOL Good call babe.
We get up early to get the trip over with. As I am loading the van, a fist fight nearly breaks out amongst the "Rhode Island" sisters. It gets to the point where I have to say something to them... I hate doing that but I can't let these two people come to blows. LOL They don't say anything to me, but stop with the nonsense. 2nd trip out, their parents are now there and one of the sisters has a very gloomy look on her face as she sits, pouting, on the curb....
We get on the road and make great time. Really not a thing to complain about at all. I even find North Dakota for Tanya while she was snoozing. Then it happened. We stopped for lunch in St. Augustine, Florida....
Lunch was fine. That was the last good part of the travels. LOL As is typical for Florida in the summer, around 2:45 it starts to rain. The rain turns into a mini-hurricane. We pull off at a rest stop. I get SOAKED running from the van to the restroom. I decide its OK to head out again. Only to have to pull off the road, 2 miles down, as we entered the eye of the storm. Folks, I was going 10 MPH, wipers full blast and could not see a THING. Tanya is using my phone to pull up a weather page and she finds that we are right in the middle of it. It then lets up enough for us to get moving, slowly. We finally emerge at a point, a certain LINE. One side is Hades, the other looks as if not a drop fell. Florida weather.... LOL
Think its over? HA! Traffic gets nuts and we have the normal jack-holes weaving in and out, rather than just waiting for the truck to pull back over. One fine young man dang near runs me off the road. Squeezes in, just BARELY fitting, with no signal or anything. The idiot could barely see over the dash. SIT UP! Your "street cred" goes WAY down when you get killed on 95 by a family in a mini-van. Lets just say that he is lucky my family was with me and I was not armed. LOL
Think its over? HA! MORE rain, the kind where we can't see again. We are only like 30 miles from the target by this point. We start to ask God why He sees fit to pour it on? LOL We finally get there. As we are meandering down the windy road to my parents community, we see some awesome lightning. This prompts my wife to muse, "ya know...i'll be pissed if God put us through all of this, only to kill us with lightning once we got here." I love you Tanya. LOL
We arrive... Dad is outside and motions for us to park in the garage. After barely fitting in... We get Hannah out, who by the way was forced to become NOT herself. She was just as grumpy as we were, due to a soaking wet bum. We were not stopping for anything that last stretch. LOL SO there we are, at the garage door, Hannah with soaking wet bum... Dad knocks, Mom answers. SURPRISE!
Her face was worth it all.
