Alligator Roadkill Was Just The Beginning!!! Updated 2nd May!!

[E-P-C-O-T]

Ok, most entertaining trip report... EVER! and you haven't even arrived at WDW...

[teedee]

Another great update! And I am quite sure I hope I NEVER see alligator roadkill!

You're definitely not the only female to ever walk into a men's restroom. I did it on my first day of high school! I am still traumatized!

Terri

[Kristi391]

I just found your report and spent the last hour catching up! It is the funniest trip report I have ever read!!! I have been laughing/completely horrified through the entire thing! The wet dog smell on the new pillows kills me!

This is making me want to go on a road trip...but not through Texas!

I can't wait to read more!

[eandesmom]

Signing up, this looks like a hoot and a half!

Ok, I'm all caught up and wow. Just wow. I'm traumatized just reading about wet dog on your pillows, murdering roadside crazies and the concept of living on cliff bars, denny's and caffeine. Loving every minute of it!

Driving through Texas sounds a bit like Montana. It goes on, and on and on and on and just when you think you might be done...nope, you are still in Montana. I've done Seattle to Chicago in 3 days, and Chicago to Boston in 2 but confess to sleeping in the car at a rest stop on both trips at least for a few hours. And we thought that was a little crazy.

My question is, though apparently there wasn't the signing involved you might have wished for...does the roadtrip have a soundtrack yet?

[Aussiesalad]

Originally Posted by honeylove

Your TR is awesome! It's something I had wanted to do, but never got around to while living in SoCal.

Aw thanks! It really was so much fun!!
Does that mean you live in Hawaii now?
I went there in January and loved it!! ...Although not really big enough for crazy roadtrips I guess?

Originally Posted by cheekypoppins

OMG I'm not alone LOL,I too have accidentally walked in the mens room......I was at walmart with my bestie and she also went into the right one!!!I walked into the mens room Right past the urinals not even thinking,then after when I was washing my hands I happened to look in the mirror and noticed urinals behind me!!! I burst out laughing so much i had tears in my eyes.my friend had walked back into the ladies room to see what I was so hysterical about only I wasn't in there ofcourse.I finished washing and drying my hands and then casually walked out

That is too funny!!!
Sometimes you've just got to keep going and follow through, not leave hastily
Glad I'm not alone!

Originally Posted by shan23877

Wow. I feel terrible for you guys! Border Patrol sounds downright scary, but your description of your friend's outfit had me cracking up.

It was terrifying at the time, but in hindsight it is so funny!
We made fun of Tim's outfit so much! Still to this day, we blame it all on what he wore

Ladies of the night huh? Awesome. I'm so glad that Laura sent me over here!

I'm glad she did too Yeah those ladies sure were something!

So after Houston you'd slept for 2 hours, and they made you drive again?!? You poor thing.

Oh yes, not exactly a wise choice but you will see the consequences of that very shortly...

Love the trucker story

:rotfl: I'm not sure he appreciated someone screaming right at his face first thing in the morning...

Frogger was one of my favorite video games growing up, not sure I'd like to play a real life version though. That's some road kill!!!

I know! Such a great game! I can tell you now that the real life version is a lot less fun...and a lot more crunchy

Originally Posted by mickeystoontown

Oh you poor thing, you were so tired that you walked right into the men's restroom! I am sure that you were quite embarassed but at least it made for a funny story.

You know I don't think I was awake enough to be embarrassed, I was more confused and scared when I came face to face with a big beefy truck driver.

As a gal from Louisiana, I never really thought about just how many dead animals I see on the side of the road, or in the middle of the road for that matter, on a daily basis. At least you only saw frogs, turtles and a half an alligator. I usually see frogs, beaver, raccoons, squirrels, deer and turtles. When you stop and think about it, I'm surprised there are any animals left in the State of Louisiana.

Exactly!! Your state has SO MANY DEAD ANIMALS!!!
It was sad being from Australia too and never seeing most of the animals before. My first experience is when they are roadkill.
It really did feel like they all had a death wish, just crawling onto the road like that! I actually surprised there are any still living too!

[Aussiesalad]

Originally Posted by jedijill

The 80's video game was Frogger.

That's right! It's been a while It's not as fun in real life though....

You are such a great writer...I totally feel like I'm right there in the hot and sweaty, dog smelling car.

Awh thanks! That is so sweet. I am glad you are right there with us experiencing the beautiful aroma that is car sweat and wet dog combined...

I would freak out about driving in Australia too! You guys drive on the wrong side!
Jill in CO

Haha I believe it is you guys that drive on the wrong side my friend

Originally Posted by glennbo123

When you start writing a trip report, you soon realize that a few warts are going to have to be bared.

Another great chapter

Haha I am discovering this! I saw Bek yesterday for coffee and she pleaded we put a real life update soon with a normal picture of us. To prove that we don't look like hobos ALL the time...

Thanks!!

Originally Posted by SoNotAPrincess

Oh my great freakin' goodness!

OK, I admit that I, too, have wandered mistakenly (as opposed to on purpose) into the men's room. It happens!

thanks for clarifying! I would be worried if you were doing it on purpose!
But I'm glad I'm not alone!!

Ah, Louisiana wildlife...so sorry you had to see half an alligator. Here in Florida, we are home to Alligator Alley, and it's not uncommon to see gators sunning themselves on the side of the road, and I've had to stop for gator crossing. But I've never seen a partial gator. Grisly!

Yikes that is INSANE!!! That was my one and only gator encounter and it wasn't pretty. That is actually pretty awesome that you've had to stop for a gator crossing! I guess they need more of those crossings in Louisiana...

Even though I know you arrived alive (you are writing a trip report after all), I'm worried about you driving with so little sleep!!

Yeahhhh you'll see what trouble that gets me in very shortly

Originally Posted by GrimGrinningStitch

Oh thank god for Starbucks! If I had to drive as much as you did, I would have requested an IV drip of coffee to keep me going. I'm on the borderline of needing that daily as it is. Or maybe just a bearded trucker I continually run into in the most awkward way possible.

Ahhhh Starbucks literally made the drive soooo much better
If getting an IV drip was an option I would have jumped at the chance!

You know, the trucker worked so much better than the beverage.
Maybe Starbucks can start offering that on their menu? A Truckerchinno?
They can have a trucker that just hides behind the counter and frightens the guests awake for 4.95 a pop?

Also, the idea of an alligator in the middle of the road is terrifying! I mean, even though it didn't work out well for the gator, I can't imagine driving along and suddenly seeing a prehistoric reptile just hanging out, sunning itself in the middle of the road.

Ahhh it was absolutely insane, it was NOT what I was expecting to see at all!

Originally Posted by danimaroo

Okay, I HAVE to comment because I just read all of your updates now and was quite literally laughing out loud at my computer at some of the things that have happened (and got really sad at the turtle death, as they're my favorite animal, but let's just not chat about that!)...

Yay I'm so glad you did! It was quite a hilarious trip!!
Oh the turtle was SO sad, that's why I didn't go into it. Me and Bek cried for a while

Anyway! This is ridiculously entertaining. I can't believe you guys just decided to drive cross country though... amazing!

Thanks! It really wasn't planned very well at all...but I guess that's what makes it entertaining!! It was such an experience!!

GrimGrinningStitch is my husband (aka Matt in my TR/PTRs), and when he heard me laughing over here he kept asking what part I'd just read after I told him I was reading your TR. I died at the pillow/wallet part, and the trucker, hahaha.

Awh that is so cute! The pillow and wallet was a miracle!!!!!
I still have no idea how that happened!!!??
And the poor trucker. I just feel bad for screaming so loudly in his face!

Can't wait to read more of your TR!

Thanks!! next chapter should be up shortly!

[Aussiesalad]

Originally Posted by E-P-C-O-T

Ok, most entertaining trip report... EVER! and you haven't even arrived at WDW...

Ever?? Wowzers!
I know, you just wait until we get there!!

Originally Posted by teedee

Another great update! And I am quite sure I hope I NEVER see alligator roadkill!

Thanks!!! Yeah I wouldn't wish it on anyone! It was massive and so gross

You're definitely not the only female to ever walk into a men's restroom. I did it on my first day of high school! I am still traumatized!

Oh No!!!! That is probably the worst time ever to do it!!! You poor thing!

Terri

Originally Posted by Kristi391

I just found your report and spent the last hour catching up! It is the funniest trip report I have ever read!!! I have been laughing/completely horrified through the entire thing! The wet dog smell on the new pillows kills me!

This is making me want to go on a road trip...but not through Texas!

I can't wait to read more!

Yay!! Welcome!!! I'm so glad you're enjoying it!! It was quite a horrifying/hilarious ordeal. I still can't believe how much the pillows smelt! It literally smelt like the dogs had slept on them for days, not just walked on them for a few minutes. Not cool

Haha Texas is fine, just maybe not highway 10!! That is unless you like hours and hours of nothing split up with near death experiences...

Yay- next chapter should be up soon!

Originally Posted by eandesmom

Signing up, this looks like a hoot and a half!

Welcome!! I hope you enjoy it!!

Ok, I'm all caught up and wow. Just wow. I'm traumatized just reading about wet dog on your pillows, murdering roadside crazies and the concept of living on cliff bars, denny's and caffeine. Loving every minute of it!

Oh dear, I hope I didn't traumatize you too much!! It was quite a crazy experience. I've never feared for my life so much, and yet laughed so much at the same time! In Australia we don't have cliff bars, Denny's or starbucks... so actually miss those things like crazy now, even after overdosing

Driving through Texas sounds a bit like Montana. It goes on, and on and on and on and just when you think you might be done...nope, you are still in Montana. I've done Seattle to Chicago in 3 days, and Chicago to Boston in 2 but confess to sleeping in the car at a rest stop on both trips at least for a few hours. And we thought that was a little crazy.

Wow that sounds crazy too! Texas was really like that... you keep thinking you're done...but no. NEVER!
I think all the rest stops we passed when we were super tired were really not safe looking at all. Or maybe we were just paranoid from the previous experiences of the trip...?

My question is, though apparently there wasn't the signing involved you might have wished for...does the roadtrip have a soundtrack yet?

Oh good question! I think I go into that in the next chapter.
There is much midnight singing aka screaming at the top of our lungs coming up Everyone knows how important the roadtrip soundtrack is!

[LuvindisCruiser]

Oh, I wish I had found this report later, when it was all done.

It is SO hard to wait for the next installment.

This is hilarious, I have been at the Las Cruces border control.
We havn't had to pull over, but it is intimidating !

And, I can smell that wet dog pillow smell every time you mention it. Yuck !

Can't wait for more ! thanks for sharing !

[Aussiesalad]

Originally Posted by LuvindisCruiser

Oh, I wish I had found this report later, when it was all done.

It is SO hard to wait for the next installment.

This is hilarious, I have been at the Las Cruces border control.
We havn't had to pull over, but it is intimidating !

And, I can smell that wet dog pillow smell every time you mention it. Yuck !

Can't wait for more ! thanks for sharing !

Awh thanks!! Sorry to leave you in suspense!

The border control was so scary!! They really gave us a grilling!! We never really found out why either?
Just don't dress like Tim and you should be fine

Ughh the pillows smelt so bad! Its so hard to try and sleep on a wet dog smelling pillow! Seriously not cool

Thanks for reading!! Should have the next bit up later tonight

[Aussiesalad]

Chapter Five

THE Most Awkward Bathroom Experience and Trust Falls!

Now would be a good time to mention that, yes I am aware that this is the third bathroom story I have told. No, I do not have any sort of obsession with bathrooms and I get no real thrill from mentioning them so regularly. In my everyday life I rarely tell a bathroom related story! HOWEVER, if you drive this far in one go, bathrooms become a big part of the journey. And a lot of strange things happen which are worth mentioning....

You may notice a lack of proper photos in this update and the next. I can assure you this is for your own safety. If you have ever seen someone that has been in a car non-stop for 3 days, you will understand!

The talk of the alligator roadkill kept us entertained for the next while, making up terrible dad jokes such as a few hundred variations of "why did the alligator cross the road". I kept chugging red bulls and coffee and lollies in good faith that sugar and caffeine was all I needed in life. So on we drove towards our destination ...

We all sang along to broadway and Glee and Disney soundtracks... We sang the classics like Sinatra, and the Beach Boys, The Beatles and we sang along to ‘love song dedications’. We then played a game where we had to try and sing along to the country songs that we had never heard before. We all love singing obnoxiously loudly so this singalong went for hours and hours, all of us belting our hearts out. Except Josh.

I actually really appreciate the fact my husband doesn't sing along to the whole Wicked soundtrack or know all the words to "Part Of Your World" I mean he listens and applauds when I do, what more could a girl want? So on we drove... now we had been stopping approximately every four hours for gas, snacks and bathroom breaks. We stopped at a large gas station somewhere near the New Orleans turn off and when we got out of the car it was the most humid and muggy I have ever felt. It was insane!!!



We decided drinking a large slushhee/slurpee type drink would be the best way to cool down. This quickly escalated into a good old ‘girls vs boys’ battle to chug as fast as we could. Now this is all very well and good, except when you have 4 hours until the next toilet break. It was not our finest hour. By hour one our bladders were almost to the point of busting and there was nothing in site. No turn offs, no gas stations NOTHING! We crossed our legs, we sang ever louder, we talked about non-liquidy topics and tried to keep our minds off the fact we were almost bursting with slushee. It was hopeless, we were going to have to stop!
But where?? We decided to take a risk and veer off highway 10 in hopes of coming across...well anything!! We travelled down a deserted middle of nowhere road. Nothing....Nothing..and then off in the distance we saw the most glorious site! A small old gas station! Hallelujah! I have never been happier to reach one in my life. We screeched into the parking area and rushed to the toilets aaannnnd they were LOCKED! What?
We ran to the door of the shop part…LOCKED!!!
I was fighting back tears! Noooooo! The sign on the door said back in 5 minutes. What? This isn’t Donut King! PEOPLE NEED BATHROOMS!!!!



This was not funny, we were at such a point of desperation!
So Bek and I did what any private school raised young women would do… we decided to …well use the deserted field next to the station for a good cause.
We wandered into the field and looked around for some shrubbery.
When all of a sudden…

“HEYYYYYWHATAREYOUDOING???”

Startled we looked around and there was the gas station attendant walking towards us holding the keys looking at us very suspiciously.
Now not to be crude but our pants were up, no one had squatted. But we were hobbling around in his field, legs crossed with pained looks on our faces, looking at the ground very closely and scoping out suitable areas if worse came to worst. We screamed with joy and ran over to him and squealed some sort of untranslatable version of ‘arggghhhhhwereallyneedtogotothetoiletbutyouwerent hereandweweresoscaredwewouldhavetouseyourfieldbutw ewouldneverusuallydothatbecausewearentlikethatandw earesosorrybutCANWEPLEASEHAVEYOURKEYS!???!!!!!!
He let us in and it was a magical moment. I have never been happier to see a disgusting rarely cleaned gas station bathroom EVER!
We really learnt that super large slushees are not a roatrippers friend. No sir.
So back on the road we went until….
Finally we had reached the golden state... Wait is Florida the golden state or the sunshine state? Either way... We had reached the magical, golden, sun shine filled, happiest state on earth...where dreams come true!! There were tears of joy...they may have been effected by the lack of sleep and large quantity of caffiene, but there was weeping. And not silent subtle weeping. Foolishly I thought ...we are almost there!!! Did I mention we didn't have a reliable map at any stage of this trip? We had a few weird free postcardish looking ones which were far from accurate. We did have an older very tempremental second hand GPS. It had lead us astray a few times already on the trip and we did not trust her! The gps still said quite a few hours were left but it's Florida... Surely Disney is around the corner. The GPS must be lying...what does Brigette know? (we named the GPS Brigette so we had a name to yell at it when it was wrong) we started on our Disney repertoire again and got ready to curse Brigette when we arrived way ahead of her estimated time. HA! Such naive minds. Once again this kind of thinking could be due to the amount of caffeine, but anyway the sun went down and the night started to drag on and on. And there was Brigette, smugly looking down on us from the dashboard. Gloating. Dammit Brigette! So by this stage if you're counting we had been driving for over 40 hours and been on the road in the same awkward cramped positions, eating gas station food and annoying each other for days.
We needed something to cheer us up, to make us all happy again.
My caffeinated brain had a wonderful idea. Now here is Australia we have very few tv stations…it’s quite sad compared to what you guys have!
We literally have 5… so whatever is on, we generally watch. Some people have cable but it’s really not the norm at all. So we honestly watch whatever is on and there REALLY isn’t much. What I am getting to is my unhealthy obsession with Conan O'Brien. For years he was the only show on (aside from the news) when I was drifting off to sleep and thus began my love of Conan.
So on his show one night he hailed a taxi in New York and got the unsuspecting taxi driver to drive him to Canada. The camera came with them and captured the whole trip. I don’t remember much but he made the poor foreign taxi driver get out in the middle of nowhere and do trust falls with him. You know where one person falls back and the other has to catch them. It’s not that funny right? Well caffiented lack-of-sleep Sally found it a hilarious idea and proceeded to pull over and encouraged (read forcebly made ) everyone to have a nice session of trust falls… So there we were, a dirty truck stop on highway 10… falling blindly into each others arms.



If you don’t find this amusing that is perfectly normal.
Go and have 70 cups of coffee and sit in your car for the next 3 days…
Then come back and read that part again.
We found it hilarious, we were in hysterics almost crying, falling all over each other.
All this while putting on a nice little show for the passing motorists.
With that out of our systems it was back in the car and on with the show.
I believe we were onto the Aladdin hour in our singalong at this stage.
We were so close I could feel it!!! Only a few hours left... but then... the unthinkable happened!!!!


Coming Up

A Shower raffle and I AM GOING TO DIE!!!!!

[mmeb144]

I love your illustrations of your bathroom pitstop and trust falls. Very nice! I can't wait to read your adventures when you actually arrive at your destination. They will probably sound pretty mundane compared to the journey.

[shan23877]

This is one of the most entertaining TRs I've ever read.

Bathroom stories aren't bothering me, they're funny! As a person who's done her business on the side of many a highway, I commend you for trying to find a gas station!

I understand where you're coming from being glad that you DH doesn't sing show tunes. A good audience is all a girl needs.

I did enjoy the Conan/trust fall story. Anyone who's ever been delirious in a car should too. It's funny!

I wish that my younger self had the opportunity to road trip with you and your friends. Sounds like fun!

[SoNotAPrincess]

I love Conan O'Brien, too! Have you seen "Crazy Stupid Love"? Emma Stone does a very cute spiel about her love for Conan, and I totally get it it.

Anyone who's ever done a road trip knows the terror of not being able to find a bathroom! As for The Slushee Incident...live and learn!

But you're in FLORIDA, edging closer to Orlando, where GPS' are known to be woefully inaccurate!

BTW, Broadway, Disney and Glee tunes! I heartily concur with the soundtrack to your road trip!

And "I kept chugging red bulls and coffee and lollies in good faith that sugar and caffeine was all I needed in life" is a classic!

[eandesmom]

Originally Posted by Aussiesalad

‘arggghhhhhwereallyneedtogotothetoiletbutyouwerent hereandweweresoscaredwewouldhavetouseyourfieldbutw ewouldneverusuallydothatbecausewearentlikethatandw earesosorrybutCANWEPLEASEHAVEYOURKEYS!???!!!!!!

I have SO been there!

At least you were in control of your own destiny. I used to fear for my cousins who would go on a roadtrip with their Navy Officer dad. Who REFUSED to stop. No matter what.

Love love love the soundtrack. Makes me want to play some Glee at the gym today. Might just have to, would lessen the pain of going.

I'm impressed anyone could catch anyone in that sleep deprived state. But yes, I find it hilarious. Makes me wistful for chinese fire drills.

Great update and especially fab illustrations!

[heatherlekay]

Hilarious so far! I'm all caught up and joining in.
We drive across TX regularly so I totally get what you mean about feeling like you age 10 years before you see another state