April 2--Driving . . .

I woke up around 6:30am—or rather, that’s when Puck woke me up. The cats tend to let me sleep a whole half hour longer on the weekends, before they let me know that they are about to starve to death. I fed them, watched a bit of TV with Puck on my chest, got online to check my classes (dear student: you’re doing poorly because you can’t put a noun and verb together to save your life, and if you do manage that you spell at least one of them wrong), then loaded up the car, which didn’t take long. I hated to leave the cats (I always do), but I’m sure they’ll be fine.

I stopped for breakfast at McDonalds, and headed north into the fog. Not bad fog, granted, and it was actually nice to keep the sun out of my eyes. I stopped in Blountstown to buy a gallon of water, then again south of Tallahassee (I cut down on 267 to catch 98 south of Wakulla) to pee. I bought lunch east of Perry, since I decided to head over instead of taking the rest of the scenic route, which I should have done.

I got a bit lost in High Springs and then finally got to I-75 at Gainesville, ready to get away from the stoplights and speed limits of the small towns I drove through, and then I ran into traffic.

I don’t know why I didn’t think that driving through Orlando on Good Friday might be a bit heavy traffic-wise, but I ran into nasty nasty traffic between Gainesville and Ocala. Normally it’s a really busy stretch of road (I mean, everything headed west of Atlanta drains out of South Florida this way—not just Orlando but Miami and Tampa as well), but this was ridiculous. Stop-and-go with three lanes of traffic; it took about 40 minutes to go 15 miles. I escaped off as soon as I could, got gas, and headed around east of Ocala to catch the Turnpike. Well, here there wasn’t as much traffic, but there was construction. And then I went by The Villages, where I think the median age is 82 and everyone drives well under the speed limit, and basically I spent about two hours being really unhappy.

Once I hit the turnpike, all was well. The traffic moved quickly, it wasn’t too heavy, and I got through the construction/rush hour in Orlando with little problems. In the empty stretch around Yeehaw Junction (no, really, that’s the name—look it up!) I almost hit a bald eagle that was eating roadkill (well, no, I didn’t almost hit him, but he did startle me when he took off), and happily exited at Ft. Pierce.

Where I couldn’t find the Motel 6. I mean, usually, you trip over the damn things, but I turned onto the road I was supposed to, which dead-ended into the sun. I turned around, pulled into another place’s parking lot, and called the motel. I managed to dial the fax number first, then I made a mistake and got “this number has been disconnected”, which made me really cheerful, then redialed and found I was supposed to turn right onto a side road that looked more like an access road to an abandoned strip mall, but which eventually led to the Motel 6 (which was quite visible from the Interstate—just not the Turnpike).

The first room I was given looked like it had been through the war. Clean, but VERY well-used. I went back to the office to pay for WiFi, and found that they had to move me to another room, since the WiFi only works in select rooms. The good news is, this room was in much better shape, with the possible exception of the bed, which has all the support of a hammock. Luckily I have a good back!