After a day at the Kennedy Space Centre I went back to the hotel in Cocoa Beach to sleep. I nodded off at 9pm and woke up at 2.30am when people in the adjacent rooms started being very loud. A group of students had arrived to vex me. I don’t think they knew I existed, but the vexed me never the less. So I decided I had two choices. Lie here awake and try and sleep…or sit in my car and drive the long drive. I hade a 9 hour drive ahead of me so getting up made no sense. But, I got up anyway.
A non eventful first 3 hours as I drive in darkness. The roads were empty which meant I could probably race at 120 mph; I didn’t I more ‘trundled’ at 70mph watching 5 episodes of Frasier on the DVD player as I went. Don’t worry…you tend to more listen to them than watch them.
Discovered a sandwich which claimed to be of the chicken salad variety. It wasn’t. It tasted like a salty chemistry set and a potato. One nibble was enough to deem it be abandoned in a roadside bin.
Garage would not accept my VISA debit card. Frustrating especially when I had discussed the card working in the USA with my bank only a couple of week earlier. Turned out to be the garage was so disconnected from the global financial network it rarely accepted anything lesser than a sheep and/or some corn. Bartering not being my thing I gave the man some cash and was done with it.
In the US you first tell them how much you want to pay for fuel, pay it then load it. If you load too little they refund the difference. This is all fine were it not that it sometimes involves an extra tip to the checkout guy.
Arrived at Tom and Rachel Ashton’s in Winterville. We ate steak and I was ceremoniously pulled between both children as they vied for my attention to their worlds. Charlotte showed me her bouncy ball collection. She has 24 balls. Her favourite was actually my least favourite: the green ball. I showed her my favourite and she laughed at me because it was a pink one. I said I liked it coz it was the largest. Anyway her balls were stupid so I went to play with the 5 year old chap they call Lucas.
Lucas was more my scene. He had a playstation. He was stuck on a part of a game so I told him to collect 5 cylinders and it would open a door. He didn’t know what a cylinder was. I said its an item on the screen…there! There!! He said he didn’t know what an item was. I snatched the remote off him and did it myself. Lucas then wanted to play spies. After a grilling I found out he meant ‘hide and seek’. He said we both had to hide at the same time. I flaw in his thinking methinks. I hid my face behind an empty wine glass and he laughed.
We plan today (Saturday) tomorrow to visit a flea market. More on that later.