Had a sleep in this morning (although I don’t think I have a majority on that ) but Adrienne and I were wide awake at 2am for a while before our minds decided they needed more sleep. The hotel we stayed at was obviously the air crew base as the shuttle this morning was full – mostly with pilots, hosties etc. Maybe it’s the business in Libya at present but there was a big police checkpoint for vehicles heading to LAX – although our bus went straight through.
During my wide awake at 2am, I was thinking about some of the quirky American things we had already started to remember. You may not be aware (ha ha) but food is a big part of America’s culture and quirk. (or maybe it’s just doing a blog that makes you think about food – aka my brother John’s blog). Anyway, as we sat down to dinner, our waiter approached and introduced himself. If you have watched any US television you will have heard something like this – “hello, my name is Willie and I’ll be your server this evening. How may I help you ?”. And they are so polite – whenever you say thankyou they come right back with “Your Welcome !” (tonight we got a variation – maybe a southern version – “My Pleasure!”)
Then there is the waiter who brings your meal. They obviously don’t like keeping anyone at the table waiting so the waiter brings a little trestle table over then brings out a huge tray with all the meals at once and sits it on the trestle to hand them out.
Then there is one of our favorites – root beer ! It’ hard to imagine that something that smells like Dencorub can actually taste good ! Another favorite is the orange cheese. No, it doesn’t taste like orange – the cheese is the color orange ! Oh this place is so much fun !
Well I’ll add to this post this afternoon – we are boarding our plane soon and have been using the free wifi at LAX while we wait – another American plus is the extent of free wifi ! So off to Fort Lauderdale now.
Fort Lauderdale hotel -backing onto the “inter-coastal” lagoon
Here we are at Fort Lauderdale FL. Our flight was very smooth and we arrived here on time about 6.15pm having gained 3 hours crossing the country. On the in-flight entertainment they had a facility to track the flight using Google maps and it was interesting to watch various places appear on the map that we will be driving back through later in our trip. It was cloudy but very muggy when we arrived and by the time we got out of the airport it was nearly dark.
We upgraded our hire car and have a Mazda CX7 SUV – a white one. Both the guy who booked out the car and the girl at the security gate at the exit commented “you are driving all the way to LA?”
It took a bit for the GPS to get a signal but it wasn’t long before we were here at our hotel Crowne Plaza Ft Lauderdale – in the suburb of Hollywood. (not a lot of imagination those early pioneers – I think they must have made up a list of towns and then used the same list whenever they founded a new state). The Atlantic coast has a lot of these sections where there are great tracts of land with the ocean on one side and lagoons/rivers/canals on the other. They call the inside stretch of water the “inter-coastal” and the hotel backs onto this here.
Not much else to report today – as tomorrow is basically the start of our driving, I have designated this “Mile Marker 0” and will keep a track of our distances with each post. Weather forecast for the next few days is the same as it’s been for weeks – “Hot, damn hot” and overcast with a chance of thunderstorms and rain showers – so we will just take it as it comes.
So off to Key West FL…