My Highway to Hell Florida style
My in laws had never been well travelled people, in fact I
think their first holiday abroad may have been to Malta with my family in 2000.
However they always had a dream of going to Florida to Disney world. So for
their 60th birthday the family chipped in and sent them (I suggested
one way but that idea never took off).They absolutely loved it, and on their
return they were determined that all of us went out with them the next time.
Personally I had never seen the attraction of the states.
The only yanks I had seen were some navy twats in Magaluf being abusive to a
waitress in a back street restaurant.
Caroline was not that bothered either but in the end we
relented and agreed to go and see what all the fuss was about. The in laws
arranged a house to stay in that had 4 bedrooms 2 bathrooms and its own pool
didn’t sound that bad. It was not right next to the Disney parks just a short
drive away. Clearly this meant that someone would be driving!
After the long flight and post 911 rigmarole getting through
passport control we were finally able to go to the rent a car desk. This was
down stairs in the airport, we had booked a car so should just be a case of
picking it up.
So when I get there tiered and fed up I am greeted by the smarmy
“have a nice day brigade”, I was not impressed! Then they hit me with the fact
that the car we had booked was not big enough to take the whole family plus out
luggage! Fuck sake!!!
Another couple of hundred dollars later and a shed load of
additional paperwork the guy behind the desk points to a car park across the
road and sends me to see the attendant with a slip of paper. So off I went
across a road that felt like a duel carriageway to the little hut to see the
Hispanic fella with all the keys.
In a complete contrast to the guy on the counter selling me
a bigger vehicle, this guy was not interested in the slightest. I handed over
my paperwork and he gestured towards the parked up vehicles in what appeared to
me to be a multi story car park. “just take any of the vans over there”. So off
I went tiered, fed up and now confused.
Mistake number 1 was obvious, went to the wrong side of the
car. Yep said it was obvious. Anyway this thing was massive it was a 10 seat
minibus but not like ours in the UK this thing was huge. I felt as if I was
climbing into an articulated lorry. Up I climbs and turns on the engine. This
has steering column gears albeit automatic. But try as I may I could not get
the gear stick to move. I pulled it I pushed it, I tried to push the stick
inwards, then pulled it outwards. All to no avail. I started looking for
buttons but nothing, then just by chance I must have pushed the brake and low
and behold the gear stick was released. What an absolute mong I felt.
So off I head to the exit still rather flustered and
embarrassed but at least I was finally on the move. I pulled up at the exit
barrier and handed over some papers to the young lady sitting in the kiosk. She
asked for the mileage which as I recall was about 100 miles or so, then she
lifted the barrier and with a cheery “have a nice day I was off”.
If you have ever been to Heathrow you will know that when
you come out of the airport car park you simply go around in a loop and you are
back at arrivals. Orlando however is slightly different, which I found out very
quickly.
As I left the car park I found myself pulling onto a huge
motorway (by English standards anyway). Never having driven on the wrong side
of the road before I was rather nervous. This was not helped by the fact that I
had no idea where I needed to go, I was driving some huge vehicle and to top it
all there was cars overtaking me on both sides and sounding their horns for the
sake of it!
I felt totally bemused as I travelled around this motorway
with no idea of how to get back to the airport, finally out of desperation I
pulled into a car park. I stopped for a few minutes to compose myself and then
headed for the exit. Trouble was this was a pay as you exit car park and I had
no money on me at all this was back at the airport with the family.
This was also the days where nobody carried a mobile phone
away with them on holiday and so I was totally on my own in this situation.
Fortunately as I approached the exit there was a woman in a box collecting the
money. I explained to her my situation and she kindly directed me and let me
leave for free. All I needed to do was look out for a specific sign but you
have to be careful because unlike the UK they do not count down to the exit and
they creep up on you very quickly. I found this out the hard way during the
holiday.
Finally I seemed to find my way back to the airport but not
the arrivals! I managed to find my way only to departures. By this time I could
not care less. I pulled the van up in a no stopping area, jumped out locked it
and ran into the airport. I didn’t bother with the lift I just bombed it down
the stairs.
The family were all sitting there with terrified looks on
their faces. I had been gone a long time and they had no idea what had happed
to me. Caroline was having visions of me being shot by a bunch of gang banger
drug dealers (we had watched a lot of American TV shows). So there was a
significant amount of relief on their faces as I approached. Personally I
didn’t notice I just shouted at them that I was upstairs with a van and they
needed to get their arses up there as I was bothered about getting towed. With
that I was like Billy Wizz gone!
The family soon followed and we had this huge van loaded up
and off we set. My father in law was chief navigator, he had instructions from
the person renting the house out to us. We were staying in Clermont which
according to Google is 33 miles away from the airport 34 minute’s drive away.
Unfortunately my navigator was not very good at his job, one of the skills for
the role is the ability to keep your eyes open. Charlie clearly didn’t do that
part of the training as he spent most of the journey switching between sleeping
and saying that I had missed the turn off.
We got so lost at one point that we decided to break the man
code and actually ask for directions! The first time was in a petrol station
where a local man wanted £1 for directions which translated into Dollars much
to my wife and mother in laws confusion. The issue with this was that we had a
big roll of cash on me that I didn’t want to get out of my pocket as I was
worried about getting mugged! Yanks have guns you know!
He was also sitting in the van so he would be able to see
what we had and we didn’t know how to get him out.
Actually he was a quite nice fella and just wanted a few
quid to get by, but I wasn’t taking any chances. The mother in law bunged him a
few bucks and he was off.
This was not the only time we had to ask though as the
Florida accent is not the easiest to understand especially with the slang that
they use. The next time was at another petrol station, this time we spoke to
the people working inside the shop.
We approached the woman behind the counter and explained our
situation, unfortunately she was new to the area. She had just moved there from
Ilford! What are the chances of that an
Ilford girl in Florida. Her husband couldn’t help either as he was from India
they had just moved there after they had just got married. Typical.
As we were all hungry we decided to go to the Pizza shop
next door to the petrol station, when we went in we noticed that there was a
huge map on the wall, so we decided to see if we could work out where we were.
As a stroke of genius I thought I would ask the pizza people if they could
deliver to the address we were staying in as we discovered through the map that
we were in the Clermont area, thinking we could follow. No such luck but we
were told we were only 10 minutes away up a straight road opposite.
This was a huge relief as we had been traveling for around 3
hours!!! A 34 minute journey taking over 3 hours! So with Pizza in a box and a
road pointed out to us we hit the road with improved vigor. Sure enough within
10 minutes or so on the opposite side of the road we saw the entrance to the
estate where we were due to stay. How are we supposed to get there? This was my
next question. They have no roundabouts and there was no left turn. What they
have is a U turn. A U turn in the middle of what we would consider a motorway!
Unbelievable!
When I learnt to drive U turns were not the done thing on
English roads not in those sort of circumstances. But in Orlando that’s the
process. So here I was on the wrong side of the road on the wrong side of the
car in a van big enough to carry the Jackson 5 and the Osmonds preparing to do
a U turn on the motorway. My bum was trumping big time! I did however pluck up
the courage to go for it, especially as I was so stressed and tiered from this
epic journey I just wanted to get there.
We did give my father in law the chance of driving during
that holiday but only the once. We had decided we wanted to go to the
Everglades for the day to see the alligators. Charlie pulled off the drive in
the van and headed up the road but on the wrong side of the road, easy mistake
to make but when we reached the exit of the estate we had to cross the motorway
but Charlie was waiting to pull out looking the wrong way! I got an even worse
feeling when we got to our side of the road but went straight into the fast
lane. It was at this point that I started to shit myself, Chloe my daughter was
11 at the time and her words of “granddads going to kills us” made me decide
that taking over may be the better option!
As much as I hated driving in the states the idea of being
killed on the road in the states was more of a worry. So I did head off down
the motorway towards the Everglades. Nearly 4 hours journey time over 200
miles. I must have been mad, but to be honest I didn’t know it was that far at
the time.
The journey there was actually fairly good. I just stayed on
the one road and kept following the signs. Finally we had to pull off of the
motorway and I decided to fill up with petrol and ask for final directions. I
got out of the van and started to fill up at the pump. Out of the corner of my
eye something green caught my attention. Moving very slowly out of some
undergrowth a close to the floor was this huge alligator! Nobody batted an
eyelid. Me I jumped back in the van as quick as a flash, sod that.
Charlie came back from paying for the petrol and said the
bloke in the shop said turn right out of the garage and it is just down the
road. Cool I thought but as I pulled to the exit I saw a sign painted on the
wall about 30 foot wide pointing directions to the park. 50 Miles away! 50
miles I said to Charlie thought it was just down the road? That’s what the man
in the shop said he replied. He’s having a bubble I said that or he’s just
taking the piss.
Anyway we pressed on and eventually we arrived having
travelled through a Native American area seeing alligators casually wandering around
the streets with one kid actually having a small one on a lead. The park place
we went to was called Billie swamp safari Big Cypress Seminole reservation. It
was really cool. Charlie did give me a little fright as he asked one of the red
Indians if he wanted to do us a rain dance! WTF rain dance the blokes got a
knife the size of your arm, a swamp full of alligators and nobody knows we are
here. Do you have a death wish?
These guys were proper redneck cowboy types, but fun and
friendly. The kids had them going with the
“if you say orange slowly it
sounds like gullible” in the end they were doing it to the customers as well as
each other. We did our ride around and saw plenty of snakes and alligators with
the driver throwing gator food on the front of the boat and winding my mother
in law up that there was a snake above her in the trees.
It was a good day out and I would recommend it to anyone. My
drive home was OK as well which did help.
During our time in Orlando I think we must have found 100
different ways home to our holiday home from the Disney parks I was totally
lost for two weeks and I could not get used to the driving. I came home with a
totally different view of America and Americans. They are great people really
friendly and helpful. Orlando and Disney was amazing and I wouldn’t have missed
it for the world. As a family we have been back several times. But I have never
and will never ever drive on their roads again!
It was really my highway to hell!!
