TravelLog 3

Well, I figured that it might as well be time to post the third and final installment of my TravelLog Series from Florida. So, here it is:

Thursday 23 March 2006, 08:09 ET – N 29º08.7' W 81º06.1' – Daytona Beach, FL

Okay. It's a new day. No one is especially cranky anymore, now they're just tired. Which is sometimes just as bad. Plus there's a garbage can poised under some middle-school girl who feels as though she's about to puke. But I don't blame her. Trying to tack on two final hours of travel after nineteen hours prior and a McDonald's breakfast is hard. I just hope to God she keeps it all down.

We spent the entire night ahead of schedule, and that is carrying into today. We'll get to the park around 09:30 or 09:45 as opposed to 11:00. But traffic's getting a tad heavier now. Oh, well, we're still ahead.

Now, with my GPS, I should always know where we are, right? Well, I left my rechargeable batteries under the bus, so I've been conserving the juice I have left, only firing the thing up on the hour and at stops. Well, since our new bus driver deactivated our personal overhead lights, I had to use the GPS backlight all night. People treated that light as if it were a godsend; an instant answer to the infamous question, "Where are we?", which would immediately be followed by "How much further?", either to Disney or to our next stop.

And don't even get me started on asking for the time. People asked so frequently I didn't even have to look at my watch. I'd just add 3, 5, or however many minutes it was to whatever I told the last person. Oh, well. We're almost there; no one cares what time it is now.

Monday 27 March 2006, 13:26 ET – N 40º15.0' W 80º11.4' – Strabane, PA

Wow. I really don't have much I want to write about. I mean, writing during Disney would be hard enough, but some other things came up besides that which made it next to impossible. And leaving late last night, our southern-leg driver deactivated the lighting (again). I slept a bit extra this morning, and now, all of a sudden, we're in Pennsylvania.

It's not really that cold; it's about the same as the near-record low Florida evenings we had. And since evening was the only time we could wander amongst the fifteen "buildings" of our hotel, we got quite used to how much we needed to bundle up.

It's amazing how bad this stretch of Pennsylvania road is. I'm going to have fun deciphering my handwriting when it comes time to type this. But it wasn't anywhere near so bad as a stretch we came up in southern West Virginia. For about three miles, people were complaining that our bus was "seizuring." Now, we occasionally get a big bump or two, but in West Virginia it was constant. So bad, I might even file a complaint, which is something I wouldn't ordinarily take the time to do.

I take that back. Pennsylvania has "seizure roads," too. Maybe I'll complain to two states. Yeah, we just hit a comparable stretch of road, only this one's been about four miles so far.

Well, I don't have much else to say right now. In upcoming entries, I'll attempt to look back at our four days in Disney World and provide a recap. Yay! Until then, my hand is tired, and the roads are worse.