Here's the first half of the trip, in the Florida countryside.
(These are all my photos from the trip)
To start off, here are a couple things about Florida in general.
It's humid.
And it's flat.
I don't think I've ever been anywhere in my life where I couldn't see mountains somewhere on the horizon. Not only is Florida flat, but there are trees all over the place so you can't see any landmarks. There is no way to get your bearings.
There are lots of beautiful lakes and wetlands.
And the trees are hung with streamers of Spanish moss (not actually moss - it's a bromeliad).
The first part of the trip got rather stressful largely because there were some major storm warnings for the place we were headed to.
We also had a three-hour drive out into the country. And Florida has highway tolls. Not only when you enter a freeway, but they'll also stop you in the middle of a freeway to pay more tolls.
During the drive, we passed 5 wrecks. It turns out it was the first rain of the season, so the roads were slick and treacherous.
And further out in the country, we encountered several dogs, in different places, that were walking right down the middle of the road. Whyyyyy @__@
We ended up in Cross City. And we stayed at an old-fashioned place called Putnam Lodge.
But the moment we arrived, I had to turn around and head out for a dinner the night before the wedding.
Now I've never been a fan of cars. Thank god someone came with me because making the drive across Florida by myself would have seen me panicking the whole way. And if I'd gotten lost, I would have freaked out. Driving unfamiliar roads is very stressful for me. I'm always afraid of getting hopelessly lost in unknown territory.
Actually, I never really get lost (even in Japan and Europe). I have a good sense of direction. And I heavily study maps before going anywhere new.
But people in cars scare me. And I just don't like cars. And hey, there are tons of illogical fears out there. I may not be scared of snakes or spiders or heights, but I am sometimes afraid of cars. Cars seem like a perfectly legitimate fear. There are tons of accidents on roads.
So, all of this is to say that I had to drive to the pre-wedding dinner by myself. At night. On roads I'd never seen before. In the rain. With a potential storm warning.
It doesn't help that 95% of the roads I drove past had names that weren't names - they were numbers. So You're driving past at 40 mph or more in the dark, and all you can see are 3-digit numbers flashing past. And unless you have your brights on, you can't even see a sign. There are big straightaways, so if there are any cars coming, you have to turn off your brights and you can't see any of the signs. And because of the length of the straightaways, you'd get cars flashing their brights at you from over a mile away telling me to turn off my brights way early.
And people were definitely going above the speed limit.
My knuckles were white, gripped so hard on the steering wheel. For almost half an hour.
And I did remarkably well. Until the directions from Google ended up being wrong. They gave me the wrong street name for my exit. So I blew past it. And a few miles past, I realized that I had gone too far. Thank god I'd come to the first store I'd passed since I'd left over twenty minutes before. I pull up, panicking because I'm afraid of ever getting to the dinner, or even getting back to the hotel.
I think I sounded pretty calm when I told my predicament to the shopkeeper, and a random guy who happened to be there with his daughter.
At first the shopkeeper said, "of that street is in another county."
PANIC That can't be right! I was close to my destination.
Then the dad spoke up. "Oh, I know that street. Follow me. I'll take you there."
I love people from Florida!
Thank you so much dude! Helping this poor lost Californian sap who's lost in the dark and on the verge of melting down XD
One last moment of panic. The guy and his daughter got in their truck. I'm in the unfamiliar rental car and it decided that it didn't want to start. Finally it did. And I got to the wedding dinner.
And the dinner was lovely. I got to see my friend, and meet her fiance for the first time.
Dude, the guy's family has this huge gorgeous ranch out in the Florida countryside. With horses! And a beautiful pond.
Plus he works in Africa, helping veterans work with wildlife. How freaking awesome is that? I have to go visit them.
I made it back to the hotel with only one minor hitch.
The next day, we had all morning and afternoon to explore.
We went shopping, and noticed a sign for a beach. The person driving said, "oh, the beach is just a couple minutes away! Let's go see the Atlantic Ocean!
Now I'd studied the maps to get us to Cross City. I knew the beach was definitely not two minutes away. But I didn't say anything because I'd never seen the Atlantic Ocean (except through a plane window) and I really wanted to go.
So the beach was more like 20 minutes away.
Remember that storm warning? It turns out part of the storm passed to the north of us and the other part passed to the south. But there was still wind and rain. And I think the town at the coast had been evacuated. There wasn't a soul in sight.
There we are, two crazy tourists at the beach with a tropical storm warning (which had originally been a cyclone warning).
But I got to dip my toes in the Atlantic for the first time!
Then we explored the Lodge. It was awesome.
They had a beautiful garden in the back, which also had a little Japanese garden. They had several cats who would come and hang out with you and sit on your lap.
Why don't all hotels have cats? Seriously, they're perfect.
Not only did they have cats, but they also had free-roaming chickens, an aviary with peacocks, and an aviary with other smaller birds.
(The rooster did wake us up early in the morning, which was even earlier to us on CA time, but I still love that they had chickens there).
Finally we headed to the wedding.
You may recall the potential tropical storm warning. The ceremony was out in a field, under a beautiful old oak draped with Spanish moss. It was a beautiful wedding. The only falling water was tears.
The moment the bride and groom left, the sky opened up and it started to pour.
It was so perfect.
(This is part of the gorgeous ranch with the gorgeous sky)
Then followed a lovely dinner, dancing, and cake.
When it came time for the champagne toast, someone handed me a glass of champagne before I could refuse. When a lady came by who didn't have a glass yet, I asked if she wanted mine because I wasn't going to drink it.
Now, to be fair, it was dark and she may have been drunk. But as she took the glass she said, "Are you older than twelve?"
That's the most extreme one yet.
It was a wonderful day.
And the following day, we had another drive south. But at least at the end of that drive, we had Disney World to look forward to!
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