ROAD TRIP! (SAN FRANCISCO TO FLORIDA, USA)

We need transportation in our new home in Belize. We discussed buying a used SUV in the states and shipping it down by freighter, but we didn’t need the expense of that kind of purchase right now. We decided that our trusty 1997 Buick Century was the best car for us there. It was 100% paid for, had low mileage on it, new tires, new radiator, recently repaired air conditioning, the window that didn’t go up and down properly now worked. Import duty to Belize on an older model car was inexpensive. And even the cost to ship from Fort Lauderdale was reasonable. It all made sense to take our Buick to Belize.

Only problem is – it is in Northern California.

But Whitey says ‘that’s not a problem. Let’s drive it across country’. I can honestly say that at the end of our trip, we had so many people say ‘you drove all the way across America? Are you crazy?’ But who says that Max and Whitey do things the normal way. After all, Whitey drove across Australia five times in a car or on a motorbike, from East to West and North to South. He even drove his future sister-in-law, Margaret, to her wedding to his brother, Gary, when he was stationed in the Army in Sydney. But that is another story. When I was growing up, my parents would put the five kids in the back of the station wagon to drive us anywhere. I didn’t fly in an airplane until I was 18. We went from Utah to Illinois to see my Dad’s side of the family. And then the next summer, we would all pack in to the station wagon and drive down to El Paso to see my mother’s family. So what’s the big deal? We just looked at our road trip as another adventure.

Our friends, Jennifer and Roger, in Oakland, had been car sitting for the past few years. They used it as their 2nd car when they needed it but mostly just kept it parked in front of their house, waiting for us to come back and drive it once a year. We would return to the Bay Area at least once a year to see friends and our sailboat that was stored in Napa. It was much cheaper than renting a car for the one to two months we were in the area. Now we have taken the boat south to Los Angeles (and next year even further) so time to move the car as well.

The first leg of the drive was down to Los Angeles where we had our sailboat ‘Gypsy Blue’. We dropped off some final treasures from our storage unit that we just couldn’t part with and then started driving east.

Friday Night Football was on the schedule in Arizona. Our nephews were playing football, Davis in Varsity and James in Junior Varsity, and we really wanted to see them play. Their schedule to play a home game in Phoenix didn’t fit our driving schedule. So we met up with my sister and her husband, Ellie and George, in Kingman, Arizona, which was about 2/3’s of the way from LA to Phoenix. We had not seen my sister and her family for at least 5 years. Some family get-togethers we couldn’t go to and some they couldn’t. It had been way too long! We got to catch up with them and watch an awesome game of high school football. Davis is a key player with their defense. And James even got to play with the Varsity Team for a bit. They skunked them with a 44-0 win. We then went on to Phoenix for the weekend for a long over due catch up.

 

The drive through Arizona, New Mexico, a small part of Texas and in to Oklahoma is gorgeous. Driving the winding roads through the mountains is something I miss when living in the islands. Every time I am in a mountainous area it brings back memories of my childhood. We did do a lot of driving. Getting under way by 7 or 8 a.m. each day so we could get to our next destination before dark.

We stopped in Albuquerque, Oklahoma City and then a couple nights in Memphis, Tennessee. We wanted to get some music in our system. Beale Street is just a few blocks long but is where a lot of great musicians got started. B.B. King, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Elvis and more! A very fun place to stop.

On our way into Memphis we had one big traffic problem. On Interstate 40 the traffic just stopped. It would barely move 100 feet in 15 minutes. We tried to get traffic reports on the radio and on the spotty Internet connection on our phones but couldn’t get any information about what happened. They were detouring people off the interstate onto a small highway, taking us through a very small town (lucky them). Even the detour route was slow. We had planned on getting to our hotel in Memphis by about 3 pm that day and did not get in until 7:30 pm. We found out that one semi-truck jack knifed, another two trucks hit it and rolled over blocking traffic going west. They then had to detour westbound traffic on the same little highway that the eastbound traffic was detoured on. We never saw the accident but it backed up traffic for hours in both directions. Traffic! – another reason we want to move to Belize, hardly any traffic!

After Memphis we headed south for Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Past charter guests of ours lived there so we wanted to stop and say ‘Hi!’ We’d never been to Alabama. It just so happens that they lived only a few blocks from the University of Alabama, Home of the Crimson Tide. And the weekend we were passing through there would be a big football game happening. U of A Football is a huge event! There is such passion in the entire community for the game. We traveled on the highways of Mississippi and Alabama to get there. Starting from two hours out of town we were seeing cars with banners and flags flying that said ‘Go Alabama’ or ‘Roll Tide’. When we stopped at a rural gas station, we noticed some ‘U of A’ paraphernalia for sale. Baseball caps, drinking cups, fake tattoos and even baby clothes – all with a big red ‘A’ on them. We knew our hosts would appreciate us showing up with a couple of fake tattoos on our cheeks.

The football game was what we expected and more. The stadium holds over 100,000 people including a marching band of at least 250. The entire place is a sea of red and noise and cheering everywhere. The name of the athletic teams at U of A is ‘Crimson Tide’. The familiar greeting everywhere you go is ‘Roll Tide’. Seriously, it is not just a cheer for their team when there is a good play or they score, it is a greeting when you pass some one on the street. This stranger says ‘Roll Tide’ (as the rest of the world would say ‘Hello’ or ‘G’day!’ And we are to respond ‘Roll Tide Ya’all!’. Whitey and I got right in to it as we walked to the game. Didn’t know anyone and we certainly don’t have southern accents but we were strolling around saying ‘Roll Tide Ya’all ‘ right back at anyone. It was hilarious. There is no doubt that going to a big university football game in the USA is a cultural experience of a lifetime. And if it can be where one of the top ranked football teams play, even better. And I forgot to mention, that they wiped out University of Texas A & M that day with a final score of 59-0. Guess that’s why they are #1 this year and are playing in the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day.

After the big football game we headed east as fast as we could. We were ready to get to Florida and prepare our car ready for shipping.

We made a stop in Jacksonville, where we laid eyes on the location of our mailing address for the first time. And then we headed down to Fort Lauderdale.

Whew! What a trip. Mostly fun, some slightly boring sections but Whitey and I talk and plan as we go. So after 10 states, 3630 miles, 10 nights in a hotel we were ready to put our trusty little Buick on a freighter to Belize.