To Hell and Back: Escape from Snowmageddon (Or, The World’s Longest Valor Review, part 3)featured

Well, new!job is kicking my ass. Figuratively, of course. I love the company, I love what I do and I’m having an absurd amount of fun at work. But I’m also spending a ridiculous amount of time commuting, which is leaving me less time for this blog than even I had anticipated. My goal is to have this review finished by the time I go to San Francisco at the end of May. We’ll see. I’m horrible with the goals I set for myself.

But speaking of San Francisco, I’m still having trouble responding to comments in the posts (wanna fix this, Blogger?), but thank you all so much for the suggestions you’ve given me for my trip! Keep ’em coming! My friend and I are flying out on American and flying back on Virgin (which starts service out of O’Hare the day we fly home!) so if you have any tips on how I can calm my mega super flying anxiety, I’m all ears. I usually pop a few Dramamines and sleep, but a couple of years ago, the fam and I flew home from a cruise (the last one I believe we went on before I started this blog) through Tropical Storm Barry and the turbulence was enough to keep my adrenaline pumping. The tug of war between the Dramamine, the adrenaline, my pounding heart and conviction we were going to crash resulted in me having really odd hallucinations in the limo on the ride home…so no more Dramamines for me. If you’ve ever flown Virgin? Tell me about it! I’ve only flown Delta, United and American (the latter exclusively for the past nine years). And I’m considering leaving my big camera at home and letting it sit this trip out in favor of a point and shoot (suggestions on a new one?) and my iPhone (because I am traveling with my friends and I don’t want to drive them crazy with my incessant picture taking across multiple cameras). We’ll see.

So that’s that. Back to the escape from Snowmageddon.

We woke up around 6:30 and had a breakfast of bagels. Stephanie was insistent we get an early start…even if we had to skip the peach farm we always stop at (which didn’t open until 10:00 am). I kind of dragged my feet a bit because I knew exactly how long it would take us to get there and I really, really wanted to make a stop there. I’m a fan of habit and creating traditions. Lane Southern Orchard? That’s our tradition.

There was a thick fog consuming downtown Atlanta when we left that morning. Visibility was pretty low in many parts, which was frustrating given the traffic. I love fog. I think there’s something quietly mystical about it.

The peach farm is about two hours outside of Atlanta. We made it there in an hour and a half. Stephanie wanted to keep driving but I really insisted we stop and wait for it to open because chances were it would be closed when we were driving back. And if the fog was bad in Atlanta, it was all-consuming out here in the country.

So we pulled up to the peach farm. There were a couple of other cars in the parking lot. We went and took the obligatory look-at-how-silly-Nicole-is pictures. And then we realized they’d opened early and were already open.

We’ve been here so many times that it’s almost formulaic. We know what we want, where it is and we’re good to go. Today? A big bag of pecans, a bottle of blueberry-peach wine from a local vineyard (Mom was upset that they didn’t have the just-peach wine, but we have a bottle of that at home) and a package of candied pecans for me. Bam. Done.

And then we hit the road again. And we drove. And drove. And didn’t really stop for anything other than gas. We *really* just wanted to hit Florida. I’m pretty sure I slept for a good portion of this ride, too, but in my defense, I was still on antibiotics for that sinus infection I started coming down with before we left and between those and the motion of the car, I was a glutton for sleep. But I remember waking up and being just really warm. We weren’t even in Florida yet, but we were certainly far from the snowy depths of our home.

We made really good time (even with our peachy detour) and crossed the state line into Florida in the early afternoon. It was awhile before we hit the Turnpike, but we stopped at the first oasis on the Turnpike to take a bathroom break, stretch our legs and grab some food. I think we grabbed KFC. I don’t really remember. I was captivated by the fact that there were palm trees and the air hitting my skin was a balmy 70something degrees.

I make it a habit of grabbing every pamphlet and brochure I could ever use or find useful in the future at rest stops and I noticed a lot of passes and signage about the Florida Sunpasses (which is the equivalent of the Illinois I-Pass, or whatever your state is’ automatic toll-paying transponder system) and how they’re going cashless. At some point in the near future (part of it has started now, I believe and another part is going into effect in the next few years as they integrate the technology), you won’t have the option to pay cash. Your options will be use a Sunpass or they’ll take a picture of your license plates and send you a bill in the mail for the cost of your toll passage (which, on the Turnpike, can go up to like $15). This gets sticky for people like us who use rental cars. No me gusta, Florida. No me gusta.

It was another few hours until we finally hit our hotel in Plantation, The Renaissance- Plantation. If you’ve read my prior reviews, you’ll know that we’ve stayed here many times before and really can’t recommend it enough. It used to be the only 4-star hotel in Plantation, so it used to be really easy to get off of Priceline, but there’s another 4-star hotel in Plantation now, so we just cross our fingers. It was slightly more expensive than it was last year (I believe our winning bid was $65/night plus taxes and fees), but really, a steal. Is this a traditional 4-star hotel? No. It would probably be a 3.5-star in larger areas. The lobby is lovely (with a vaulted ceiling, wicker furniture and palm trees), but it’s by no means large. The rooms are big enough, but not the biggest. The bathroom is standard for a hotel room but probably half the size of those like the Intercontinental. But what we like about this hotel? It’s clean (always the first thing we care about), the staff is so friendly, the parking is free, everything we usually need before a trip can be found in the area (I’m looking at you, Target and Publix), but most importantly, it’s far enough away from Fort Lauderdale to be quiet and peaceful but close enough to get into the city and everything it has to offer rather quickly. Even though we were sailing out of Miami, the hotel was only a half-hour from the port, which was good enough for us. So we arrived around 6:00 pm (which was *fantastic* time for us, since this drive usually takes us around 13 hours), checked in and got a few things settled in the room before heading out to get some real food.

First night in Plantation? There’s only one place we’ll be found for dinner: Smokey Bones. We love us some Smokey Bones. I’m not really sure why. The food is good (not great). The ribs aren’t even really comparable with the ribs we have from Carson’s back home. But like the peach farm…it’s tradition. And the food is good. No pictures here. We were all hungry and dug right in. I had ribs, Mom had a sirloin steak, I think Stephanie and grandma had pulled pork. Mom kept insisting she wanted to come back at some point in the next two days (we were spending three nights in Plantation instead of our usual two)…but we never actually did.

After dinner, we headed over to Publix to grab some necessities for the next few days (drinks, snacks, breakfast stuffs). I really wanted a cupcake because every time we’re in Atlanta or Florida and we go to Publix, they have these delicious looking cupcakes but I’m never hungry enough for them. None of that this time. I wanted my cupcake. I guess I was off doing something random but they gave Stephanie a free cupcake at the bakery…which she gave to me. And it was good…but not as good as the cupcake I bought. Moist chocolate cake, rich chocolate and vanilla frosting and a hidden pouch of chocolate in the middle. It took me two days to eat.

We hit up Target to get a few essentials before heading back to the hotel. Mom and grandma went up to the room and Stephanie and I borrowed a luggage cart from the concierge to bring our ridiculous amounts of luggage upstairs. We normally wouldn’t bother and would just take the essentials in…but we’d be here for the next two-plus days.

A few trips in between the car and our room later, we took turns taking showers and watched SNL: The Best of Amy Poehler, which was on VH1. Why were we watching VH1? Because we had no MTV in the hotel room…which meant no Jersey Shore for me. Everyone fell asleep. I went down to the lobby and called one of my best friends and we chatted for a bit before I headed back up to the room to flat iron my hair and go to sleep early (for me).

It’s almost ridiculous how happy I was to be in Florida. I love Chicago. I really do. And I can’t really see myself actually living anywhere else. But I feel such a sense of home in southern Florida. Maybe it’s because of the memories I have of when we used to live in Boca Raton for months at a time to escape the Chicago winters when I was little. Maybe it’s because we visit at least yearly. But coming to Florida really is like coming home for me. And I was starting to realize that while our cruises are always so much fun, I have a crazy amount of fun in the days before our trips, too. Our times in New York prior to our NYC cruises are memories I hold really dear. And sometimes just bumming around Florida and revisiting old favorites (and discovering new ones) can be just as fun as some of the things we do on the ship. That said, though, I was growing increasingly drained of energy and our vacation had barely begun. Our pre-trip vacation was really like a separate trip in itself, and I was starting to realize I was going to need a vacation from my pre-vacation vacation.