The night before our trip to Florida, Lil' S1 caught a stomach bug and spent much of the night vomiting. It was an ominous sign of things to come. Our plan was to wake up in the morning around 5:30 and hit the road. S is a morning person, so she has no problem getting up and driving predawn. I sit in the passenger's seat with my eyes closed, trying to sleep, knowing I won't be able to. The kids snooze for a while, and around 9:00 or so, we will get breakfast and gas (and coffee), and I will take over behind the wheel. I loath waking up so early, but it really is the best way to beat the DC-area traffic. There's like a 75 mile radius around city, in which traffic ranges from kinda slow to absolutely brutal. And it's worth it to leave at a time you are more likely to land on the former end of the spectrum.
But, with a sick kid, things didn't go as planned. We thought about delaying the trip a day, but we had a nonrefundable hotel reservation in Savannah, GA that we would lose if we did that. The plan was to to get there in the afternoon and make it an activity on the trip. S doesn't like to just go-go-go -- it stresses her out (I'm the opposite; I just want to get there) -- so she booked a hotel in a trendy-looking part of town near the water, and we were gonna spend the evening there and get dinner and all that. That all went out the window when Lil' S1 got sick, but at around 10:00 the next morning he was in good spirits, so we decide to go anyway. We wouldn't be able to hang out in Savannah, but at least we wouldn't lose the hotel room, and we would still get to Tampa as planned.
Smash cut to us sitting in a seemingly never-ending traffic jam after barely leaving the city.
There is one particular stretch on I-95 south, by the Occoquan River, that's ridiculously bad, almost all the time. You gotta hit it as early as possible, and even then you might wait. Leaving after 10:00, we had no chance. It was four hours later than planned, but it pushed backed our arrival time by around six hours -- we added about two hours just from traffic.
But we powered through, barely stopping -- for dinner S fed me quesadillas she made the night before while I drove -- and made it to Savannah around 10:30 at night. As mentioned, the hotel was in a trendy part of town, so they had all these cool restaurants around and everybody was out and about. It was a cool little scene, but I would have far preferred a quiet Doubletree by the side of the highway next to a Waffle House in some town nobody knows but the people who live there.
I was a bit nervous when I noticed how close the dance clubs were to the hotel, and as it turns out I had good reason to be. Our room was practically adjacent to the loudest club in the neighborhood, only separated by a narrow street and a parking lot that people treated like an extension of the club, bumping their car stereos. It was so loud. *Boom, boom, boom.* That bass beat that you cannot drown out with anything. You can wear earplugs and turn on a noise machine* and you still can't stop it. And you don't just hear it; you feel it in your brain.
*They had these things on-hand in the room, which tells you something about the loudness.
I complained and tried to get a new room on the other side of the building, but they were totally sold out. The hotel staff was mostly cool about it. Mostly. At first the woman behind the desk gave me a bit of push back, saying things along the lines of, "That's what you get when you book a hotel in downtown Savannah." And I was like, "Bitch, I'm obviously not from here! That's why I'm at a hotel! If it said on your website, 'Our rooms are right next to dance clubs and incredibly loud,' we wouldn't have booked it!" Except I didn't say the first word. That would have been sexist and over the line. I thought it though.
Ultimately, though we talked through it civilly, and she agreed to give us a full refund and let us check out, which at that point was pretty much all she could do, but I declined. S and the boys were already half asleep (oh, what I wouldn't give to be able to do that!), and driving around the Savannah area finding a new hotel at 11:00 at night with grumpy kids and an annoyed wife sounded worse than not sleeping for most the night. The woman at the desk told me things shut down at 3:00 am, so, I figured, worst-case scenario, I'd be up until then.
And that's exactly what happened. I laid in bed for a few hours, absorbing the *boom, boom, boom,* stewing, dreaming of writing awful Yelp reviews, flooding the hotel's Facebook page with negative comments, writing a sternly-worded letter to corporate, demanding compensation. I knew full well that I would never do any of this (too much work), but thinking about it gave me a small amount of solace. Then, when the neighborhood abruptly went quiet at 3:00 am, I finally got to sleep.
The next morning S drove to Jacksonville, where we stopped by her cousin's. It was a short visit. He and his family (wife, two kids) were leaving to go camping later that day, which actually worked out perfectly. I didn't want to stay long, and they're the type of people who can suck you in -- in the nicest way possible. They're a lovely family, but overly accommodating, to the point of doing the exact opposite of what they're intending to do (make things easier on you). For example, S's cousin kept offering me his bed to take a nap -- or even stay the night -- because I told him I didn't sleep much. That's nice and all, but I don't even really like napping in my own bed, and we're definitely not staying the night. I mean, let's map this through: We're in Jacksonville at 11:00 am a few hours from our intended destination of Tampa where S's parents are expecting us, and we're going to stay in Jacksonville the entire rest of the day and over night at a house in which the hosts aren't even present? How does that make any sense to anybody? Like I said, nice, but not actually helpful.
After we left, I took over the driving duties to Tampa, mainly because it was Sunday, and I wanted to try to find a football game on the radio, and S complains that it gives her a headache and is too distracting while she's driving. To be fair, it is pretty annoying, until I find a game.
Static, static, static
Feliz navidad, feliz navidad...
Static, static, static
And the lord sayeth to Hosea...
Static, static, static
Static, static, static
Those elitist liberal Democrats...
Static, static, static
Winston checks the receivers to his right...
We were between Jacksonville and Tampa, so the quality of football available was not the greatest, but I wanted to keep up on things. I made the finals in one of my fantasy football leagues, and there was a pretty substantial payday (not to mention bragging rights) on the line.
We made it S's parents' place in Tampa without further incident. Her sister Sw was already there, which made Lil' S1 really happy. He's been really into her lately. He asked in the car if she would be there, and I said yes, and asked why he was asking, and he said, "I haven't seen her a while. So, I just wanted to spend some time with her." It was super cute.
S's parents' house is nice, but it's pretty small, so everybody is up in everybody else's business most the time. I was a little bit worried about the sleeping arrangements. I hate sharing a bed with anybody but S (and even with her it's tough in a queen -- I've been spoiled by our new king), and sometimes I end up with one of the kids, which is either like sleeping next to a little sun -- a white-hot orb of radiation -- or like sleeping with a log, which no matter how you turn it always ends up perpendicular to you, jabbing you in the back. But Sw agreed to let Lil' S1 sleep with her, and Lil' S2 slept with S's mom (at least for part of the night, until he started crying and S had to tend to him).
Everybody except me went to bed pretty early, so I had the TV to myself for Sunday Night Football. I got to watch as Travis Kelce scored a touchdown clinching the championship for me. I did a little solitary fist pump in celebration.
Until next time...
This captivating holiday saga is to be continued.
But, with a sick kid, things didn't go as planned. We thought about delaying the trip a day, but we had a nonrefundable hotel reservation in Savannah, GA that we would lose if we did that. The plan was to to get there in the afternoon and make it an activity on the trip. S doesn't like to just go-go-go -- it stresses her out (I'm the opposite; I just want to get there) -- so she booked a hotel in a trendy-looking part of town near the water, and we were gonna spend the evening there and get dinner and all that. That all went out the window when Lil' S1 got sick, but at around 10:00 the next morning he was in good spirits, so we decide to go anyway. We wouldn't be able to hang out in Savannah, but at least we wouldn't lose the hotel room, and we would still get to Tampa as planned.
Smash cut to us sitting in a seemingly never-ending traffic jam after barely leaving the city.
There is one particular stretch on I-95 south, by the Occoquan River, that's ridiculously bad, almost all the time. You gotta hit it as early as possible, and even then you might wait. Leaving after 10:00, we had no chance. It was four hours later than planned, but it pushed backed our arrival time by around six hours -- we added about two hours just from traffic.
[I just typed this into Google Maps at a random time and you can see the thick red where it gets bad. If you do the math, the average speed for the trip is under 40 mph, and this is on a highway with a 70 mph speed limit that is mostly blue.]
But we powered through, barely stopping -- for dinner S fed me quesadillas she made the night before while I drove -- and made it to Savannah around 10:30 at night. As mentioned, the hotel was in a trendy part of town, so they had all these cool restaurants around and everybody was out and about. It was a cool little scene, but I would have far preferred a quiet Doubletree by the side of the highway next to a Waffle House in some town nobody knows but the people who live there.
I was a bit nervous when I noticed how close the dance clubs were to the hotel, and as it turns out I had good reason to be. Our room was practically adjacent to the loudest club in the neighborhood, only separated by a narrow street and a parking lot that people treated like an extension of the club, bumping their car stereos. It was so loud. *Boom, boom, boom.* That bass beat that you cannot drown out with anything. You can wear earplugs and turn on a noise machine* and you still can't stop it. And you don't just hear it; you feel it in your brain.
*They had these things on-hand in the room, which tells you something about the loudness.
I complained and tried to get a new room on the other side of the building, but they were totally sold out. The hotel staff was mostly cool about it. Mostly. At first the woman behind the desk gave me a bit of push back, saying things along the lines of, "That's what you get when you book a hotel in downtown Savannah." And I was like, "Bitch, I'm obviously not from here! That's why I'm at a hotel! If it said on your website, 'Our rooms are right next to dance clubs and incredibly loud,' we wouldn't have booked it!" Except I didn't say the first word. That would have been sexist and over the line. I thought it though.
Ultimately, though we talked through it civilly, and she agreed to give us a full refund and let us check out, which at that point was pretty much all she could do, but I declined. S and the boys were already half asleep (oh, what I wouldn't give to be able to do that!), and driving around the Savannah area finding a new hotel at 11:00 at night with grumpy kids and an annoyed wife sounded worse than not sleeping for most the night. The woman at the desk told me things shut down at 3:00 am, so, I figured, worst-case scenario, I'd be up until then.
And that's exactly what happened. I laid in bed for a few hours, absorbing the *boom, boom, boom,* stewing, dreaming of writing awful Yelp reviews, flooding the hotel's Facebook page with negative comments, writing a sternly-worded letter to corporate, demanding compensation. I knew full well that I would never do any of this (too much work), but thinking about it gave me a small amount of solace. Then, when the neighborhood abruptly went quiet at 3:00 am, I finally got to sleep.
The next morning S drove to Jacksonville, where we stopped by her cousin's. It was a short visit. He and his family (wife, two kids) were leaving to go camping later that day, which actually worked out perfectly. I didn't want to stay long, and they're the type of people who can suck you in -- in the nicest way possible. They're a lovely family, but overly accommodating, to the point of doing the exact opposite of what they're intending to do (make things easier on you). For example, S's cousin kept offering me his bed to take a nap -- or even stay the night -- because I told him I didn't sleep much. That's nice and all, but I don't even really like napping in my own bed, and we're definitely not staying the night. I mean, let's map this through: We're in Jacksonville at 11:00 am a few hours from our intended destination of Tampa where S's parents are expecting us, and we're going to stay in Jacksonville the entire rest of the day and over night at a house in which the hosts aren't even present? How does that make any sense to anybody? Like I said, nice, but not actually helpful.
After we left, I took over the driving duties to Tampa, mainly because it was Sunday, and I wanted to try to find a football game on the radio, and S complains that it gives her a headache and is too distracting while she's driving. To be fair, it is pretty annoying, until I find a game.
Static, static, static
Feliz navidad, feliz navidad...
Static, static, static
And the lord sayeth to Hosea...
Static, static, static
Static, static, static
Those elitist liberal Democrats...
Static, static, static
Winston checks the receivers to his right...
We were between Jacksonville and Tampa, so the quality of football available was not the greatest, but I wanted to keep up on things. I made the finals in one of my fantasy football leagues, and there was a pretty substantial payday (not to mention bragging rights) on the line.
We made it S's parents' place in Tampa without further incident. Her sister Sw was already there, which made Lil' S1 really happy. He's been really into her lately. He asked in the car if she would be there, and I said yes, and asked why he was asking, and he said, "I haven't seen her a while. So, I just wanted to spend some time with her." It was super cute.
S's parents' house is nice, but it's pretty small, so everybody is up in everybody else's business most the time. I was a little bit worried about the sleeping arrangements. I hate sharing a bed with anybody but S (and even with her it's tough in a queen -- I've been spoiled by our new king), and sometimes I end up with one of the kids, which is either like sleeping next to a little sun -- a white-hot orb of radiation -- or like sleeping with a log, which no matter how you turn it always ends up perpendicular to you, jabbing you in the back. But Sw agreed to let Lil' S1 sleep with her, and Lil' S2 slept with S's mom (at least for part of the night, until he started crying and S had to tend to him).
Everybody except me went to bed pretty early, so I had the TV to myself for Sunday Night Football. I got to watch as Travis Kelce scored a touchdown clinching the championship for me. I did a little solitary fist pump in celebration.
Until next time...
This captivating holiday saga is to be continued.
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