recap #1: the to-ing and fro-ing

Driving any significant distance to go on a relaxing vacation is crazy

unless you are one of those people who just love travel for travel's sake

and a full day of puttering around in the car sounds like fun.

I don't happen to be one of those people.

I want to get the 'getting there' over with, so I can begin having fun immediately.

It doesn't help that Bart and I aren't really compatable travelers. We often start out fine, and then wind up like those bickering couples on The Amazing Race who threaten to kill each other. It's not pretty.

Knowing all this, we planned to drive to Ft. Lauderdale anyway.

It was either that or stay home. And we always do that. Stupid airlines have made flying way too expensive for a family of four.

The to-ing:

We left Thursday afternoon at 5:15. Our destination was Lexington, KY. Comfort Inn. Recommened by fellow travelers.

The ride to Lexington was great-not nearly as much traffic as we expected. Everyone was still pretty happy to be on the road; The kids were getting along great.

And then we stopped for dinner.

Nothing fancy-we decided to hit Wendy's as it was the first thing we all agreed on.

We got in line behind 2 women in scrubs who were purchasing meals for everyone they worked with. And it toook forever. And the kid behind the register stopped taking orders until every last item they ordered was ready. It was excruciating. By the time we decided to leave, we had almost been there 30 minutes, so we stuck it out, unhappily.

This was a sign of all stops to come.

We got to the hotel at about 11:15 and were estatic to discover a STARBUX right across the street! SWEET! (always a good thing for drivers). The hotel was nice, but the kids were too wound up to sleep right away. Why is that? We are ready to pass out and they are jumping from bed to bed.

We hit the road by 7:30, BUX in hand. The drive was great (and we were making excellent time) until we got about 50 miles outside of Atlanta. At this point, traffic was at a stand still for no apparent reason. Little bits of construction, but nothing that should have caused us to go 100 miles in 3 hours.

The plan was to stop in Lady Lakes to visit Bart's Aunt & Uncle at the Villages, and then continue on down to Lauderdale. The longer we sat in traffic, we knew our plan was shot to hell.

We rolled into the Villages at 10:30. If you haven't heard of the Villages before, it's an enormous retirement village that has 70,000 residents. And every restaurant, bank, store, doctor, amenty imaginable. 35 golf courses. It's that big.

We visited until we were too tired to visit, and they kindly put us up for the night. And made us breakfast. And gave us a tour of the Villages. It was lovely.

Bart & the kids with Aunt Gwen

The rest of our trip down was uneventful. And rainy. The kids were carefully tracking the GPS and how many minutes it should take us to get to our destination.

Side note: we all hate Georgia. From now on, every threat will include a drive thru the state that never ends.

The fro-ing:

began much the way the to-ing did. Uneventful, low traffic volume. We left on Friday at 5:15, after the most gorgeous day we had seen. Loaded with WMPC & Jamba Juice, we were ready to go North.Bart was feeling so good we pressed on past Jacksonville into Georgia (AHHHH!) Armed with a new route and Dad's trusty maps, we were going to outsmart Georgia by only going thru a little bit of it! HA! The thought alone made us giddy. And we were going to see some mountains and stuff. Way cool.

We stopped at 12:30 am, both kids sleeping (mainly why we kept driving) at a Super 8. It was packed! We got the last room with queen beds and hurried upstairs, excited to sleep. Bart inserted the key into the door and cautiously opened it, because the lights were on & so was the air conditioning. One of the beds was unmade. It was like Goldilocks and the three bears. Who's been sleeping in my bed? The room had been cleaned, but I guess the maid forgot to make the bed. It was just bizarre. They sent someone to make it up, which the kids found fascinating. She was fast. But still. It's a friggin' hotel. Make the damn bed.

Saturday morning crusing along after finding another Starbux (!) Until just before Virginia. Dead stop. For a long time. Go some, stop some. And we are running out of gas. We barely made it thru before we hit another one of these fun stops at the V/WV border. Another 2 hours passes. We watch in dismay as our arrival home time goes from 7 hours to 26 hours.

The absolute worst part is that went we finally make it thru the 'construction' there was nothing. Nothing! Not a cone, or a barrel. Nothing. Just one lane of hell for 2 hours.

We didn't stop for dinner until 8:00, and every place was packed. We ended up at Bob Evan's which just took forever.

I drove thru the wind-y, pitch black mountainous roads with white knuckles. I hated it. It was worse than driving thru Georgia, with it's flat terrain and unnecessary stopping. I couldn't wait to get our butts out of there.

I slept on & Off while Bart pushed us thru the night, getting us home at 3:30 in the morning.

I left out lots of stuff, because this story is already way too long and boring, but an important part of the vacation. Suffice to say,while it wasn't horrible, I don't want to do it again anytime soon. 

We need ruby slippers, so we can click our heels together three times and say "There's no place like home". That would be the best way to travel!