Anticipation

Off to bed Wednesday night at the usual time: 8:45 p.m. I leafed through Along I-75 for fifteen or twenty minutes: I'm starting to have portions of this book memorized. I can't remember who first suggested we should buy the thing, but I'd like to shout out a thank you to him or her, along with the many people who have echoed the sentiment...and we haven't even made the trip yet. If there is even the slightest possibility of your ever driving to Florida from Ontario or the Midwestern U.S., you owe it to yourself to get this book first. It details everything: all the exits, all the gas, food and lodging available at each; the common radar traps; speed limits; best places to stay and to eat; location of hospitals, vet clinics, and mechanics in case you, your pet, or your car becomes ill en route; and I've barely scratched the asphalt. Most importantly, from this non-driving navigator's point of view, the book tells you exactly when you should move into another lane because the one you're in is gonna piss right off on you. I'd have to say that's my wife's biggest pet peeve with my navigational ski--"Turn here!"...or worse, "uh, we should have turned back there."

In researching this trip--which, you'll glean, I can't wait for--we have determined several things. One, once we get out of Kentucky we're screwed as far as real coffee is concerned. Two, the Cracker Barrel looks as if it might make up for the lack of Tim Horton's all by itself. I found no less than fifteen things on their menu that look succulent. (Why aren't these folks in Canada, damnit?)
Everybody, it seems, has made this trip and has advice for us. About the only thing Dave Hunter missed in his Along I-75 book (although it's certainly implied) is that Mrs. Eva "Leadfoot" Breadner should watch it: them thar forests is full of Smokey Bears with a hankerin' for Canadian speedsters. Unlike our own country, where you can drive for hours on a 400-series highway and forget there ever was such a thing as police.

There's a place in every state we want to stop at, little side trips to break the freeway monotony. Our intention is to take our time: the drive down is very much going to be part of the vacation. We'll arise early each day, have a lovely Cracker Barrel breakfast (okay, maybe we'll try other places too, but, uh, yum) and put in seven or eight hours of driving, finishing up no later than four in the afternoon so we can find and check in to a motel, have a delicious Cracker Barrel dinner (okay, okay, yeah, there are other good places to eat too) and hit the sack early.
The big time shopping that is required of every Canadian when across the border will occur once we arrive Destin: there's also a few places we need to stop at on the way back up.

Gotta say I'm looking forward to the gas prices: as of this writing, the lowest price along our route is US$ 1.73/gallon. At today's exchange rate, that works out to 50.9 cents/litre in Canadian dollars. (The highest price converts to 68.7 cents/litre.) And again unlike in Canada, fuel prices don't go up just because today's payday. The price of gas down at Uncle Sam's has been much less volatile. It goes up, it goes down, but it doesn't fluctuate wildly by fifty cents a gallon overnight, as is perfectly routine here.

(Aside: I wonder why that is. Probably because in Canada, we simply bitch about things like that--it's expected that governments and corporations will screw us. In America there's be an armed uprising. Then again, Enron and Worldcom are American...)

Anyway, I'll quit rambling now...if there's anything more boring than listening to somebody's "how I spent my vacation" story, it's listening to somebody's "how I'm going to spend my vacation" story...