Friday, July 13, 2007

Road to Fort Lauderdale: Andrea's Adventure!!


I left my house on a Thursday in a rented car, my husband and son in tow, headed for the Florida Super Con, one of the biggest comic book, anime and character driven cons in Florida the weekend of June 22-24. I marveled at how simple it seemed to get to the roads that would take us to Fort Lauderdale--we cut through Brandon and Plant City. I am a native Floridian yet have never been to Fort Lauderdale until I attended the Super Con. We traveled and traveled and found the sidewalks rolling up along S.R. 60, as we ventured into towns that obviously closed at sundown. I even saw gas stations that were closed by 8 PM! Don't laugh, I honestly haven't seen gas stations that aren't open for 24 hours (except mom and pop stations, but one of these was a CITGO!) since I was a little girl and I'm approaching 40!

Once back on the Interstate we were almost to Pompano Beach when we hit a snag. The DOT had decided (at midnight) to work on the Interstate. Here it was, wall to wall cars and one lane was open, down from three.

There were cones as far as the eye could see, trucks with shovels and all manner of official looking street fixing stuff and lots of cops. Well, as luck would have it, the turn off we needed? Closed off by cones...lot of them. Hubby saw a cop and we drove past the cones and over to him to ask for his help.

MISTAKE! The cop was rude, making snide remarks about how long we had been driving a motor vehicle (my husband is nearly 54) that we didn't know the significance of cones--we knew the significance of them, we were mistaken in thinking that the cop would help us when we saw no other way to get to where we needed to go and were unfamiliar with the area! Let's just say that he was no help...far too much enjoying himself with being snotty and sarcastic.

Finally we made it back to civilization around 1 AM. We found a McDonald's open in Pompano Beach (where we were staying with a friend--the convention was right down the street from her home) and got a late snack and then headed to her house to get some rest.

I won't say that was the worst trip I have ever been on, but with a rude cop, Interstate shut down and long stretches of nothing to see but the lines of the highway (which is why I hate to drive...it makes me sleepy!) it was one of the more interesting ones!

Written by:
Andrea Dean Van Scoyoc
Best Selling Horror Author and
Two Time Award Winner
SE Regional Rep - The IOHP

Visit andrea's homepage

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