Just before we reach our destination for the night in the town of Midway west of Tallahassee we cross into the Eastern Standard Timezone and our 12.5 hours car trip quickly turns into 13.5 hours. We won’t mind going to bed early but we won’t be our usual chipper selves when 6AM rolls around. But I am getting ahead of myself. First we shall have dinner and we are now in Sonny’s BBQ country. When we are seated the waitress tries to hand us menus and we give her the “do we look like we are fooling around here?” look and she knows she is dealing with professionals. There will be 1 turkey lunch special (yes you can order it for dinner) with Cole slaw, french fries, garlic bread and a giant sweet tea, AND 1 sliced pork lunch special with Cole slaw, french fries, garlic bread and water, oh, and a side of BBQ baked beans to share. In less than 8 minuets the BBQ sauce was applied to the smoked goodness and it was having a medicinal effect.
We had stayed at the Comfort Suites in Midway before but it was in February instead of July. It was a nice enough place, good location, reasonable price. But, we will not be returning, at least not between the months of March and December. This hotel like many Comfort Suites has a “feature” on their air conditioners called “e-save”. It doesn’t matter what temperature you set the thermostat for, it will decide for you when you have had enough. Yup, it just quits and there is no turning it back on. After an hour or so maybe it will give you a little more – maybe – if you’re nice. This is especially handy in the middle of the night when you wake up sweating. This is a major fail for Comfort Suits, it e-sucks.
The first few times we traveled like this, hauling half of what we own in the back of a open pickup truck, I was pretty nervous about people stealing my stuff while we were sleeping. Most things were in tubs except some fishing gear
, 12 packs of soda and of course my kayak but someone could just pop the lid off a tub and make off with my underwear or crunchy peanut butter. Turned out there were fewer people than expected interested in my underwear and all those boy scout knots must make the kayak a less desirable target. I still worry a bit and always check on it when I have to get up in the middle of the night to berate the air conditioner but I am no longer surprised when I find that everything is still there in the morning.
We chose to go south on I-75 then to the turnpike instead of taking I-10 to I-95. Florida has the SunPass for their toll roads. In Texas we have EZ Tag. In Florida we were able to buy a SunPass from a vending machine (right next to the cookies) for $5.40 at the Florida welcome center. Then we activated over the internet with a credit card. The only down side is that you have to go through the toll booths at 25mph. The EZ Tag works at several times that speed.
So we took the turnpike to our exit
, and I am not making this up, Yeehaw Junction. Next we went due east 30 miles into Vero Beach. Destination reached.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6