The Road Trip from Hell

Frances can blow me.

I survived the Road Trip From Hell a few years back, all due to Hurricane Frances.

Here's the story:

I was in Ft Lauderdale, Florida for an Army conference, staying at a luxurious Marriott hotel in a room with a balcony overlooking a private marina. Like I told my friends, it's a dirty job but someone has to do it.

So, the conference was going very well with lots of people stopping by our booth to see what it was we were selling (and to pick up one of our spiffy baseball hats. I don't know why, but the hats were a big hit.).

Anyway, Hurricane Frances is on her way into town, but not due to stop by until Saturday morning sometime. I'm due to fly out Friday morning, leaving plenty of leeway. No sweat.

Sweat.

The conference managers decide to cancel the last day of the conference, Thursday. I'm thinking that they are over reacting just a little bit. I still do. No prob, I can work out of my hotel room on Thursday and still catch my flight out Friday morning. No sweat.

Sweat some more.

Thursday morning the hotel staff quietly slips a note under my door telling me that I'm being thrown out of the hotel no later than 2:00 p.m. THAT DAY.

Living easy, living free

Then the radio says that I'm being thrown out of the whole town!

Now, I've been thrown out of a few places in my life, but none better than the Marriott in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Okay, not to worry, I have a rental car and I can drive to somewhere safe (north) and catch a flight home. The car is a spiffy Chevy Venture minivan, perfect for a road trip.

Season ticket on a one way ride.

So, the kind travel agent at work calls Avis to make sure that it's okay with them that I don't return their car to the Ft. Lauderdale airport.

Asking nothing, leave me be.

Avis gets pissy.

It seems that their precious car had only 5 miles on the clock when they handed me the keys. Avis doesn't want me to drive their supple, vivacious car north and risk having Venture marry down. They want me to keep the car in the state. Heck, so do I but I didn't start the hurricane season.

I try to make a break for Jacksonville to catch a late flight home, leaving Venture at that airport. Okay with Avis.

There were 2,500,000 (as in millions) people told to evacuate Florida. 850,000 head for Georgia, and I'm following all of them.

I am not making this up.

Northbound I-95 is a parking lot.

The Northbound Florida Turnpike is a parking lot.

(North)Eastbound I-4 is a parking lot and

Northbound I-75 is a parking lot.

Northbound Florida is a parking lot.

There are no longer any airline seats out of Dodge. I'm going to have to drive home.

Taking everything in my stride.

Okay, so the kind young lady at the travel agency works a deal with Avis that I'll swap the Venture at the Gainesville airport for another car that I CAN take out of state. Since Gainesville is off of I-75, I figure I'll just drive up to Cleveland for a family visit that was planned for the holiday weekend anyway.

I have until 10:00 that night to get to Gainesville. No sweat.

I'm on the highway to hell!
.
I'm on the highway to hell!
.
I'm on the highway to hell!
.
I'm on the highway to hell!

Northbound Florida is a gridlock. Nothing is moving. I bail off of I-95 to look for secondary roads. THEY are gridlocked. Finally, I called my parents who live an hour north of Tampa.

I call them because (pick one):

a) I love them

b) I'm concerned about their well being in the face of an approaching hurricane

c) They have a LOT better Florida map than my cheesy Avis map

I make sure they're okay ("Hi, it's Don") and then get into the small talk ("Get out your map, I need help getting out of Florida").

Sure enough, their map shows a little known road, Route 33, that parallels the big northbound roads. Listening to talk radio, I start making my way over to the little known road to bypass everyone. The talk radio is cool. Many people are calling in telling us where we can find gas (the gas stations were running out of fuel and the tanker trucks couldn't get through to refill the gas stations); where to get water and where to get plywood (for the 3 people who decided to stay in Florida to not miss the hurricane party).

I'm sneaking up on the little known Route 33 when all of a sudden some bozo calls into the radio station and says "Hey everyone! Go on over to Route 33 and take it North. There's NO ONE on it and I was hitting fifty miles an hour the whole way!". I'm in my little minivan screaming "SHUT UP! SHUT UP!! SHUT UP!!!!".

Rats.

It doesn't matter. I got lost trying to find Route 33 and ended up on the main secondary roads, facing a seven mile backup to the next town.

By now it's evident that I'm not getting to the Gainesville airport by 10:00 to swap horses, so I personally call Avis. As nicely as I can I try to help them understand that we have two choices:

1) Work with me on making this a one way drop off someplace north of the Mason-Dixon Line, or

2) Let's play Grand Theft Auto

Avis blinks and I keep the car.

According to MapQuest, Ft. Lauderdale to Gainesville is 315 miles and will take five hours to drive.

I leave Ft. Lauderdale at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday and arrive at Gainesville 14.5 hours later at 12:30 Friday morning.

I'm still surrounded by Frightened Floridians heading north, and I am determined to break free of the crowd and keep on truckin' North. I know I can do this. I've ridden a motorcycle over 1,000 miles in a single day many, many times. I rode my motorcycle for 24 hours straight just to see if I could do it. I once rode my motorcycle from Conway, AK to Ashburn, VA in the middle of winter. That's 1,018 miles and it was 22 degrees! And that's AFTER wrecking the bike in Amarillo!!! I sure as heck can drive a cushy minivan long distance and outlast some Frightened Floridians!

According to MapQuest, Ft. Lauderdale to Valdosta, GA is 415 miles and will take seven hours to drive.

I'm on the highway to hell!
.
I'm on the highway to hell!
.
I'm on the highway to hell!
.
I'm on the highway to hell!

I arrive in Valdosta, GA at 3:30 Friday morning. I've been on the road for 17.5 hours and am starting to see double. Literally. I HAVE to pull off to get some sleep, and I-75 is STILL gridlocked with Frightened Floridians.

They have won.

Bastards!

So, I pull off and look for a place to sleep. The radio says that there ARE hotel rooms available in Chattanooga, TN(!) so I know I'm not going to get a room in Valdosta that night.

Now, I much prefer to sleep in the parking lot of say a Marriott or even a Hilton. My favorite parking lot is a Hyatt Regency because of the quality of service. However, beggars can't be choosers so I crash in the parking lot of a Hampton Inn. For the first 1/2 hour of shut eye I'm still driving. The stable car feels like it is still rocking like it's on the road and even with my eyes shut my muscles are still steering, braking and flipping the bird. I finally doze off at around 4:00 a.m, only to be awakened by the trash truck emptying the trash bins up the hill from my cozy parking space.

BEEP, BEEP BEEP, CRASH, CRASH, CRASH, ENGINE ROAR, ENGINE ROAR, ENGINE ROAR: BEEP, BEEP BEEP, CRASH, CRASH, CRASH, ENGINE ROAR, ENGINE ROAR, ENGINE ROAR:BEEP, BEEP BEEP, CRASH, CRASH, CRASH, ENGINE ROAR, ENGINE ROAR, ENGINE ROAR.

There was a LOT of trash to haul that morning.

I finally give up at 7:00 a.m. and hit the road by 7:30 (To those who really know me, the answer is no, I did NOT avail myself of the Hampton Inn's free breakfast.).

I jump onto I-75 and right into gridlock. I swear that I recognized some of the cars from just a few hours before. These people NEVER give up.

Many of the Frightened Floridians peel off at Chattanooga TN. (hotel rooms available!!). I make good time after that until I run into the Labor Day Weekend crowd.

Whatever.

I stop in Cincinnati for the night and finally make it to Cleveland by noon on Saturday to start my holiday weekend.

Good grief.

My compliments to AC/DC for their inspirational song.