Wet N Wild

Now that's a title that must have you intrigued. Unfortunately for you, you will need to wait until the next paragraph to learn what it means... We got up early today, checked out and hit the interstate northbound. Nick has been doing the driving thus far as the rental place in Miami would only allow one driver and one alternate, but the alternate has to be over 25 so that's Matt. Once I hit 25 mid-trip I can get added on too, but only if one of the others get dropped off the rental. So maybe I'll get added and Nick will get dropped, given that he will drive most of the first half of the trip. Semantics. Anyways, we drove all the way up to Orlando and headed straight to....

Wet N Wild water park! (In the journalism business, that's what they call burying the lead)

Much like the water park in West Edmonton Mall, we decided this was the best use of our time. We originally wanted to go to Simpson's Land, but it's the only good part of the one Universal Park it's housed in and the other Universal Park wasn't amazing either. So we voted water slides. Always vote water slides when given the chance. Spent a solid few hours there, which included torrential downpour rainfall. This thinned out the already small crowds even further so wait times were quite reasonable. Bunch of wuss tourists "ahh it's raining, let's leave the water park!" But all the better for us.

Once sufficiently waterlogged, we drove to our hotel, checked in, changed into dry clothes and went out for dinner. Another American fast food classic; Sonic. It was a drive-in style like the old A&W restaurants and they bring the food out to the car. The food, however, was nothing great. "Sonic: Come Hungry, Leave No Longer Hungry" could be their slogan. Went to Wal-Mart and stocked up on cheap beer, lunch food and a cooler for the coming days on the road.

Back to the hotel to sort out our next few nights. Looked up weather for 4th of July in Charleston, SC, where we plan to be lighting fireworks on the beach during that festive day. "90% chance of heavy rain. Risk of flash floods." Uh oh. Beaches are no fun in the rain. And floods aren't desirable, especially as we just went through that in Calgary. Scrambled to find another place that would be fun for the 4th. Savannah, GA is on the way. Same forecast/warning. Crap. So we spent the next hours re-jigging our route. Seem to have it sorted out now, with going straight to Atlanta, then through Tennessee. We'll be early arriving at all the remaining places, but can choose some other random places to visit further down the line now. This is the challenge and fun of planning a trip as you go.