By Chris Waldroff
Well, the day was here for the somewhat annual Florida trip. Dan Nestberg, (Beefy) Jeff Rohr and I (Chris Waldroff), decided to have our own trip this year–since Norm is not able to do the trip anymore.
Dan and I picked everyone up: Jeff (Beefy) Rohr, Christine Ottum (Chris’ girlfriend), Amy Blessing (Dan’s girlfriend).
We left at 6:10 p.m. Thursday, March 22. Dan started out on his first shift (Dan and I did the driving.) He drove until about 12:45. Our first shifts were 6 hours long. It was no biggy, except that I didn’t sleep a wink. When I took over, Chrisie said she would stay up with me, but she conked out along with the rest of them. At about 7 or 8 (EST) the sun rose. I took a glance at everyone and said, “Isn’t that a beautiful sunset (kinda sarcastically!)” But actually I was talking to myself or the cars around me. During that first shift since everyone was sleeping, I ended up driving past Louisville (7-8 hours), and having conversations with myself.
So far we had travelled 2/3 of the way. Then in the mountains, the car overheated! We thought we busted a hose, but the radiator was dry, due to a not so tight radiator cap. We waited a half hour and filled it up, then drove it down a ways to a gas station to have it checked out. The guy filled it and we were off! Even though we lost an hour, 20 minutes later we were in Chattanooga having lunch.
Dan, Beefy and I were thinking we shouldn’t stop for awhile so we could make up the time. Dan and I were driving 80-95 mph (buried needle) until Macon, Georgia, which by then we made up about 45-60 minutes. We didn’t stop for a while. You could kinda tell it was a long drive because our rear-ends were all sore.
The weather was really nice during the day drive Friday. Temperatures must have been in the mid 70’s. At about 1 a.m. we arrived at the Florida Welcoming Center. It’s where Norm always has that group photo in front of the sign.
We arrived at “America Outdoors” campground about 9:00 a.m., Saturday. Our campground area was a bit better than the year before. It was five sites from the beach (4 sites closer than last year.)
Day 1: Most of Saturday we set up camp and we all sweated a lot too. The weather non-complainable: mid to upper 80’s, mostly sunny.
Day 2: Sunday. We all went to the beach and relaxed. Later, went to Shell World to shop. About 8 p.m., called Tower of Pizza.
Day 3: Monday, the 26th. We went to Key West for the day. Roamed the town until Sunset time. Watched it go down and also the side shows. They had one of the best side shows I had seen. It was some trained cats owned by some Frenchman. They leaped through hoops and fire rings. It was pretty cool.
After all that, we went shopping a bit through those raunchy T-shirt shops. I had a few made and Dan had the best but raunchiest one made.
It was getting late, so we headed on back to the campgrounds. But, we had a bit of trouble getting out because of Dan’s navigational skills. It really didn’t matter, we were having fun with it.
Day 4: Tuesday. We all laid out again. By the end of the day everyone was burnt somewhere except for Dan. He rubbed it in, too! Later on we called Tower of Pizza again! After a while, Beefy wandered aimlessly on the beach until 2 a.m. Oh, I forgot, we also played an intense game of volleyball with some other dudes.
Day 5: Wednesday. We all felt pretty comfortable once again. So, we hit the beach. The girls sat out on the raft, and us boys played some paddle ball in the water. A bit later we went to the store to find something to cook for dinner. When we got back, we watched the sunset, took some pictures, then made dinner. At about 10 p.m. we called Tower of Pizza (they messed up our order), and watched the rain come pouring down for two hours. During the rain, we had a little visitor come in our screen tent. It was a cat that ate wieners. Ya, it is kinda funny if you think about it. The cat was better than those pesky squirrels.
Day 6: Thursday. This was our last full day in Key Largo. We all got ready and hit the beach for the last time. After a while we all went and laid on a wooden raft they had. After a half hour of that I couldn’t stand it, my stomach felt like hot coals. Chrisie and I went back to camp to get ready to go out while the others were sleeping on the raft.
Since we thought we were going to leave about 6 a.m., we started to pack a few things early but we had to do one more thing for the last time: Call “Tower of Pizza.”
Day 7: Friday. We all woke up at 4-4:30 a.m. to finish the rest of the packing. We got it done and were out of there (I didn’t want to leave) about 6:30. We all decided earlier in the trip that we would go to Busch Gardens instead of Disney World (it gets old after 20 or so times.)
We arrived at Busch Gardens about 3:00 p.m., then found out it was only open until 7:30 and the Moroccan Village until 8 p.m. So, we paid $23.50 for 4 hours.
The last time I was there was when I was 14 or 15, but for some reason I found that it was a lot better than last time. One thing was the same: The tour of the Anheuser-Busch Brewery! Did you know they pump out 1,350 cans a minute? That’s just cans!!
If you don’t know what this place is, it is an amusement park and zoo. It consists of mainly African animals. Since this is the “Dark Continent” they do have a lot of cool looking animals. The rides are also cool, except it has some lame ones, too. They have a lot of gift shops–like if you want a big 7 foot beer bottle (blow up), or just a 3 foot beer bottle (piggy bank), they’re available.
We did see all the animals and managed to go on most of the rides in 4 hours. We planned to be on the road by 8 p.m., which we were.
The trip home shouldn’t feel long because we left from Tampa.
The highlights for the ride up north were: heavy rain in Florida and Georgia, heavy enough that you couldn’t see an inch in front of the car. Average speed home 75-80 mph. We saw sun for a half hour, but that was at sunset in Wisconsin. In Kentucky, a cop was coming up fast on my tail (85-90 mph). I was thinking I’m toast. He flashed his lights, so I moved over. The cop just kept on going, I guess that’s the normal speed for them!
Last, but not least. We were all excited. There were 36 hours before we were home and we overheated somewhere by Eau Claire. We did the exact same thing we did in the mountains. But, we finally got home about 11:30 p.m. on Saturday! !
Overall, the trip was pretty fun! I figure I’ll do it again within a year, because it’s an annual thing, you know!!