5 posts tagged “florida”

Traveling I-65 South

First, the money:

First Leg Total: $216

In-Rensselaer Stay: $350

Second Leg Totals: Fuel $85, $59, Food $26, Total: $170

Total Trip Total: $736  

Yikes. There were some extras that I had to buy, like medicine and a CF card reader.

What's that on my car?

The weather was awful on Day 3. It wasn't the morning's snow that was the problem but the low visibility fog that consumed I-65 from Rensselaer to Lafayette. We arrived in Bardstown in the late evening but had a good, relaxing break with friends. I was able to make it to Cave City and, by choosing the Best Western, spent $30 less on a bigger, cleaner room, than previous accommodations on a previous trip.

Boys at I-65 Rest stop

I had promised the boys a Cracker Barrel breakfast so we had a great breakfast and then got moving. I was determined to get home so, at 2am on Tuesday, December 2nd, we pulled into the driveway. It was 64°F.

After taking Bailey to school, making sure there was milk at home, and delivering Mike's Social Studies project, we officially set off at 9am.

Travel was overall uneventful. I missed the Atlanta Bypass so we went through Atlanta, which was cool until a five-car accident happened right in front of me. In addition to praying for those poor people and their families who were involved in that accident, we also praised God for us being able to continue our trip. It was really remarkable that we weren't involved.

Michael is sick with Eddie and me. So we're all sick on this trip. Even sick, these kids are taking photos of everything. I haven't taken a single one. I've been focused on driving.

It took 4 hours to go from North Port to the Florida/Georgia border. It took 6 hours to get through Georgia. We're 30 miles south of Nashville, which is 2 hours into Tennessee. This means there's 6 hours of travel left to this thing.

Daily Costs: Fuel $53, Hotel $59, Food $18, Total: $130

Jasper County Courthouse and Bell

We ran two hours behind schedule since my ex-husband decided to play games to an extent where the police had to help return the boys. It's both fortunate and unfortunate that this happens so often that the boys aren't intimidated by the police. It's just a regular thing for them. I thank God that the police in my ex-husband's town have always been very helpful and concerned.

We left at 5:30pm Eastern time. We stopped in Murfreesboro, Tennessee at 11pm at the Days Inn. I had a heck of a time trying to find a hotel with a double room. A Holiday Inn north of Nashville tried to sell me the same suite we ended up in at the Days Inn for over $100 (before tax). The room we had was still expensive and over-budget but I got it for $80 so hey.

We left the southern Nashville suburbs around 10am and got home at 11:30pm with an eighth of a tank left. It rained from southern Georgia all the way down to North Port. Traffic ran smoothly, for the most part, and we didn't have any of the delays that we had traveling north.

Fuel was more expensive. In northern Florida, it cost me $3.55/gal. That's the most I've ever paid in my life.

Food costs for the return trip total $25; Hotel cost: $92; Fuel: $160; Total Return Trip: $277

Total Travel Expenses: $497

Total Trip cost with expenses during the week, including top-up cards: $902

If I didn't have to top-up my phone twice to deal with the problems my ex-husband caused, I would have been below $850.

Tom's taken Michael and Eddie to the Florida International Air Show again this year. They'll be gone all day as long as the weather cooperates.

Beer tree

The Beer Tree is a phenomenon of the Southern mind. I can't picture anyone in the North getting the twine out of the garage with the brilliant idea of fixing the empty beer cans to the tree across the street.

Poor Rudy. He'd put all his eggs in a Florida basket, only to have Florida Republicans abandon him. Guiliani will be dropping out of the race and throwing his support behind McCain, who won Florida 5% over Romney. Huckabee doesn't seem like a factor anymore and did anyone sane really take Ron Paul seriously? The votes don't seem to reflect any consideration for the candidate that I started to refer to as Huckabee Lite.

The media reports that Romney has enough money in the bank to keep himself in the race, which is an interesting idea to me. If most of Romney's campaign is funded by himself and he's only in the race because of his own money, that's a good indication that the votes won't culminate for him as much as they will for McCain, for whom many people are giving him their money. This makes me feel better about the GOP, because Romney does still scare the hell out of me. Between Romney and McCain, McCain is the lesser evil.

Don't think for a moment that we missed the classless, smug celebration of Governor Charlie Crist when McCain referred to last night as "an entirely Republican Primary." We saw what you did there, Crist. Crist had put his support behind McCain, which isn't surprising since both Republicans are huge on unnecessary, permanent, damaging tax cuts.

Clinton took Florida with 50%, which means nothing more than show because Florida has no delegates thanks to Crist. She vows to make the delegates count at the Nomination but I can't figure why she would put up such a fuss against the DNC now when she fully complied with all their requests to ignore Florida before the primary... oh, right, it's because she won.

I feel a bit disconnected from Obama after this primary due to his lack of response in Florida. If there was a response equal to or greater than the fantastic, eloquent, articulate and poignant responses he's been delivering this entire campaign, I haven't seen any evidence of it. I have caught coverage of a response to some idiotic idea that while at the State of the Union Address, Clinton and Obama were snubbing each other, or one was snubbing the other, or whatever it was. In the past 18 hours, I've heard much ado about nothing and nothing about what matters.

I have heard that Edwards will be dropping out of the race. My response is, "Was he still running?"