Last week was possibly the worst in my career that didn’t involve firings or lay-offs, and the end of the pain is not yet in sight, so I took a long weekend and went to Orlando with my brother. We may have been the only adults not accompanying small children to go on the teacups ride… Also got to ride Space Mountain for the first time, covered much more of Animal Kingdom, and have pictures of my brother posing with almost all of the Power Rangers — as a kid he was a huge fan.
It was great fun but I think that trip will be my last time trying to do theme parks for three days in a row. In the end I was completely knackered and sore in places that I can’t recall ever being sore before. We also got nailed by the wild changes in weather that Central Florida has — it was sweater weather when we arrived, just about perfect the following day, and so hot and sunny on the final day that we bailed early.
Lessons from this trip:
- Taking the “back way” to Orlando (US-27 to I-4) beats the snot out of driving the Turnpike. At least until Sebring, where the traffic patterns become annoying for a while. Up until there we were probably making equal time and encountered few drivers outside of the towns along the way.
- The Pontiac G8 GT is an awesome road trip car. Granted, a couple hundred miles ain’t that much, but in most cars I’ve driven it is enough to start finding new annoyances.
- Pure-highway gas mileage in that car isn’t much better than my usual commuting. This shouldn’t be a surprise, but my old ’86 Trans-Am WS6 with the 305 got 30+ MPG on road trips vs. about 18 MPG on average so I’m disappointed that the G8 only saw a couple of MPG improvement. It takes a big hit going from 70 MPH to 75.
- I’m really starting to love the Zune HD. It has some warts, and I really hate that it doesn’t have Bluetooth, but I’m liking it more than every other portable MP3 player I have ever owned or used (to me the Empeg Car is the best MP3 player ever made, no portable player has ever come close to being as intuitive to use and I deeply regreat that I had to sell mine years ago to pay bills).
- Staybridge Suites > Embassy Suites. For several years my preference has been to stay at Embassy for the extra space, microwave, and mini-fridge. Staybridge ups the ante with a full-sized fridge, stove with oven, dishwasher, cabinets full of kitchenwares, and a DVD player / VCR in the living room. The cleaning staff even put our dirty dishes in the dishwasher and ran it while we were out. On the down side, in our two-bedroom suite only one had a desk w/ chair (an Aeron, no less!) and the only accessible power outlet in that room was by the sink. The Internet was also not so great, but unlike at Embassy it was without additional charge.
- Think twice before taking a picky eater on a trip. My brother puts picky two year olds to shame. Even at a buffet place, where nothing is great but there’s enough variety that anyone ought to be able to make an acceptable meal, the only dish he ate most of was a plate of spaghetti without sauce. The mini-burgers were inedible because they were prepared with pickles. He wouldn’t even try their pizza — yet he ate pizza from a freaking gas station the day before. A fried chicken breast, one of the few foods I couldn’t imagine being prepared in a way not to his liking, he ate just two bites of. And of course, salads and vegetables are completely out of the question. I don’t understand how he has lived this long without developing serious health problems due to malnutrition.
- Giordano’s Pizza > Uno Chicago Grill.
