Driving Fast, Disney Feet and Dining Fantasies – BLT Oct 3 to 14 About This Page:

[RoonieRooToo]

Day 1: Starting our vacation.

Cast:
John and Mary Kay. Celebrating our 7th wedding anniversary and 23 years as best friends.



Dates: October 1st to 15th - At BLT 3rd to 14th

I sent John off in the morning to work to wrap things up before we left for Houston. I spent the rest of the morning packing up 2 weeks of meaty goodness for Gregor and packing up his doggy stuff for his own vacation at DogBoys. DogBoys isn’t just boarding but a large piece of land with room for a daily hike down to a pond and lots of hours playing with all the other visiting dogs.

Gregor knew pretty early that something was up but he was excited knowing he was most likely getting to go somewhere and most likely Dogboys. His dropoff was as I expected with him whining with excitement to get into the back with the other dogs.
He did his traditional wait at one of the gates by the run they send them down to go to the back piece of property to wag his tail good-bye at me. He had a huge doggy grin on his face.



I went back home and finished my last clean-up of the house and filling out the information sheets for our cat sitter. Mishka KNEW that something was up and he started sulking pretty early. Gracie figured it out by noon and started slinking around the house looking put out. The other three were totally oblivious.

I next went through a momentary panic when I realized my epi-pens were expired and after a couple of phone calls to Wal-Greens and then my doctor, I learned that I would be going epi-penless. Oh well, I haven’t had a reaction for 2 ½ years and I know what to avoid so I recovered from my panic and packed a bunch of benadryl.
We finally got out the door around 4:30 and started our drive to Houston. We got to the Omni about 8:00 and got the reaction I expected at the very nice, ritzy hotel from our rather dirty little Mazda Protégé 5. We’ve been under stage 3 water restrictions all summer for the drought so that meant no car washing and a pretty dirty Mazda.

We checked in the front and went straight to our room to settle in and order dinner. Tonight was all about celebrating the start of our vacation and getting a good night sleep.



For dinner, we had a fabulous room-service dinner. I had braised lamb shank with white polenta and a mushroom ragout. John had Chilean sea Bass with seasonal vegetables. I also had my “first of many to come” crème brulee. It was all absolutely wonderful.



It was also the perfect meal to send us off to sleep by 10. I think we both slept pretty decently. However, around 2 AM a fantastically loud thunderstorm with loads of rain and even more loads of thunder and lightning rolled in.

At 4 AM, John got in the shower while I listened to the storm and decided to get up and write the beginning of our trip report. This was a pretty big and loud storm and I was nervous about heading out to start our long drive to Gainesville in this storm.

Next up: A long but pretty good drive to Gainesville.

[chezp]

Great start!

[Colexis Mom]

Great start!

[Colexis Mom]

Great start!

[janicelovesmickey]

great start

[disneymom9092]

Great start! Your meal sounds wonderful!

[B.M.]

Great start!

[KMB733]

Great Start!!!!

[disney_duke]

I just love Gregor. He is the cutest! But I'm a sucker for big dogs. I'm glad he has such a fun place to play while you guys are gone. What a wonderful dinner. Great start to your vacation!

[Cam22]

Great start! I think it is awesome that you have such a terrific place to board your dog while you're at WDW, too.

[RoonieRooToo]

By the time we headed out the storm had passed south. We still had the lightning going on but we were missing the rain as it was a fast moving storm. We hit the road at 5:15 AM and had a pretty uneventful drive out of Texas. John’s only comment was that at that early hour there were only two types of drivers on the roads: The Idiots and the Maniacs. Anyone going faster than you is a maniac and anyone going slower is an idiot.

We crossed the Sabine river into Louisiana about 7:30 and hit Lake Charles around 8 and straight into a traffic jam from a wreck on the bridge. It wasn’t too bad though as it only held us up maybe 15 minutes. At our next fuel stop, John found me a USB cable since I forgot to pack one. Much easier than waiting to see a Best Buy!
We finally got to the bayous and the next part of the drive is a part we always like of driving over the swamps and bayous on an elevated road.

We crossed the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge around 10:25 and decided to stop for lunch shortly after we crossed the state line into Mississippi. Burger King was the choice for a couple of whoppers at Bay St. Louis. As we pulled into the parking lot we saw a Mercury pull in front of us and then with a loud clank his strut broke! Poor guy. He was able to drive his car a few feet into a parking space gauging the pavement the whole way with his tire caddywompus.


After a lunch, we drove across the bottom piece of Mississippi and over the Pascagoula River by 1:27.

We hit Mobile by 3 and saw the SS Alabama sitting in Mobile Bay with some cargo ships on the horizon.





We kept making good time and hit the Florida state line by 3:25 and continued our journey down the Endless Corridor of Trees. Or that is what we call that interminable drive through the Florida Panhandle on I10. There are so few towns or anything along the way that breaks up that non-stop corridor of trees. It’s like tree-line fever instead of white-line fever.



We just kept trucking after filling up the gas tank in Tallahassee. We finally got to Gainesville by 9:30 – now 10:30 EST. Time to reset the body clocks!

John called a restaurant, Neapolitano’s on the Fairview Inn’s list of nearby restaurants and they were still serving for another 30 minutes and would get us takeout. That really saved us. John got me a lasagna and him a spaghetti and meatballs and a slice of key lime pie for me.

While John was out I started having a mild allergic reaction so I took some Benadryl to make sure it didn’t turn worse. So that meant I went to bed pretty soon after we ate and slept very well.

Up next: We finally arrive!

[bsblady01]

more please

[Colexis Mom]

Great update! Sorry about the allergic reaction!

[B.M.]

Glad the drive is going well so far......

[mojjo]

I wish we had a place like Gregor has for our pups. We're lucky FIL lives with us and they adore him. But I would be really worried about leaving them with anyone or any place else.

What a nice start.