On the Road

During the whole trip we had a lot of time sitting in the car. There were more days when we drive for seven or more hours than when we didn't. To make matters worse I felt pretty bad for the beginning of the trip. I'm not sure what it was exactly but something I ate really didn't agree with me and I had a stomach ache for a number of days. It could have been just the amount of time we spent moving or all the deep fried foods. The very first place we stopped was a pancake place that served more food for about five dollars than I think I've ever seen. Besides the big places we stopped we also stopped at a number of smaller places to break up the drive. A couple of the towns we stopped in really had nothing more than about three stores, though we did go into a shockingly large number of antique stores. Mike who likes to drive much more than me or Harry, of course more than zero isn't saying much, did literally all the driving making us paying extra for Harry to be on the insurance seem like a waste. We listened to some different music during the trip. Luckily all our tastes are fairly similar so no one objected to the best hits of the 70's and 80's. Mike who works for Hilton got us good rates on a number of hotels.

Coming back form China though all the prices in the US were shockingly expensive to me. This was the cause of some friction as I kept balking at prices thinking just how far that ten dollars would go in China. There was also some disagreement about how much to go out drinking as for Harry and Mike this was a vacation, a time to cut loose, but for me it was basically just another trip on what had sort of become one summer of endless trips. During that Summer I went from China to Korea, back to the US, up to New York, down to New Orleans, back to China where I went to Beijing and Chengdu. And than not long after I got back there were just more and more trips. But we got along pretty well in the end. The itinerary for the trip had been reached by consensus and I think we were all pretty interested in the things we were going to see. In the car after the first day or so I think we basically had gone through all the music everyone really wanted to listen to so Mike had smartly brought some books on tape. I had my new Kindle with me so I sat in the back and Mike and Harry sat in the front with the volume set up to them. I actually got through more than two entire books during the ride and would really highly recommend Born to Run to anyone especially anyone who jogs or runs.

My favorite short stop we made was probably the one I had the least interest in. I'm generally not a huge fan of beaches. I like them fine but I tend to get bored in about 15 minutes and I can't stand lying out in the sun. We stopped near Pensacola Florida at a little beach and went swimming for a few minutes. After a bit Mike noticed that there was a jet ski and other water equipment rental place down the beach and we went over to check it out. At first I was pretty put off by the price for even a half an hour rental but in the ended I decided just to go with it and try it out as I'd never been jet skiing and it looked like a lot of fun. They basically told me how the jet ski worked, pull the handles down to go there are no breaks, and told me not to go near other boats and I was off. Mike and Harry got sea kayaks and paddled around while I was doing this. The jet ski was way more powerful than I initially thought. The first time I revved it up at all I felt I was going to go flying off it. At first I thought that I was never going to go past half the top speed. It was terrifying. The feeling was like being on a motorcycle instead of a car. The amount of speed I experienced made it seem like I was going even faster than I was. Turing also took some getting used to as it again felt like I was going to get kicked off every time I turned it around and at first I was turning at near idling speeds.

After a while though I started to get more confident on it letting the speed build up while I was hanging on for deer life. I even felt more comfortable to turn without totally stopping. It was hot out so when I'd go really fast for a moment than stop the water would splash up over me and cool me off. Eventually I found that the real fun was finding more waves made by a boat that had passed and getting some speed up to go over those. Even if they were pretty small at the high speeds I was bouncing all over the place and while I don't really know if I got any air a couple of time I head the propeller make a sound like it was out of the water. If the waves were going in the same direction as me I could slow down and actually get pushed along surfing on the waves. Sometimes I'd make circles so that I could try to jump over my own waved but they usually had died down by the time I got back around. I don't know how long they actually let me stay out there or whether the time just passed more slowly since I was having fun but it seemed like far more than half an hour had passed by the time I was called in.