Florida Chronicles Part I

Last Tuesday/Wednesday we had the brilliant idea that we should look into buying a rental home in the Orlando area. This isn't a totally crazy idea since that is where we really enjoy spending our vacation time and where we plan on spending some of our retirement. The big hold up was that we have never spent any time outside of the Disney parks.

We spent a couple of days looking on the Internet for possible areas to purchase. We looked at several homes that looked to fit our criteria. The housing market there is at a rock bottom. The prices look to be very good. Now we had to go and actually look at these properties. Trouble is, one of us has to stay and work and take care of children.

Steve has been wanting to take a road trip with his Dad and/or brother for awhile now. This seemed like the perfect time to make that happen. So he called up his dad and asked if he was ready for an adventure. His dad wasn't sure he wanted to leave his mom at home. She had been fighting the flu for a couple of days. He wanted a day or so to think about it and see if she got to feeling better.

Thursday night it was decided that he would go and the plan was to leave out on Friday afternoon. Needless to say, we were running around our house on Thursday trying to get everything ready. I made lists of things for Steve to check while he was running around Florida. Things like, get a local paper, go to a grocery store, check out what kind of people are shopping at Wal-Mart, go talk to a local pharmacist, etc.... I was overloading Steve with multiple chores. It took a few hours before I understood what the trip was really supposed to be about. Sure, it would be great to find the perfect house in Orlando but the trip was really a chance for Steve and his dad to spend some time together. I told Steve not to worry about the house so much as to have fun running around with his dad. I think I even talked him into taking his dad to EPCOT for a day.

His dad showed up at the store about noon on Friday. Boy was Steve ready to roll! His poor dad didn't have but a minute to rest his tushie before Steve was herding him into the car again. We had planned out a couple of different routes that he could drive down to Florida. One of them along the coast and the other coming in from the north. He said that he was going to take the one along the coast. I got a call a few hours later saying that they changed their mind and were in Ft. Smith Arkansas. The thought this way they would see new sites right from the beginning of the trip and really feel like they were started. This seemed like a good idea at that time. It was a few more hours later that I got a call from them declaring otherwise. I guess they spent a few hours driving in a terrible thunderstorm, at night, in a town they didn't know! Not a good stress reducer for Steve. The stopped for the night in Memphis TN.

Steve called me from the hotel in a desperate bid to find out what the weather forecast was for Memphis. To me it seemed OK. Well, it was the start of a major winter storm!! Steve's neurotic nature saved them though. He tossed and turned all night worrying about being frozen into Memphis TN for days. So, he woke his father up at like 5am and said "Let's hit the road." Good thing they did, Memphis got several inches of snow over the next day!

Now that Steve had the weather chasing him there was no stopping him. He drove right on through to Orlando with very few stops. So much for stopping along the way and doing fun things. He was scared that they wouldn't make it to the destination. Talk about tunnel vision. He is very goal oriented. In hind site I should have had specific stops for him to make along the way. Thus, he wouldn't have had to think about it.

I'll continue the story on the next blog....It's time for me to get ready for work.