Well, well, well. Finally another entry. Goddamn it's been a while. I had thought about catching everyone up on what's been going on through a series of "serial entries" ("when we last left our dynamic duo..." kind of thing), but that sounded like too much work, so fuck it. I'll just catch y'all up now.

First off, I got the job with Polk County answering 9-1-1 calls. Yay me. On top of that, we found and bought a house. Mobile home actually, but who cares. It's only a single-wide, but it's bigger than it looks. Plus, it comes with nearly 2 acres of land. Yay us. But, things weren't all sunshine and roses. Oh noooo.

The day we had planned to move up here, a little thing called Hurricane Charley came through and kind of derailed things. The U-haul I'd reserved never showed because they were all coming from the west coast of FL and they were in the middle of a fucking 'cane. So we moved the next day. U-haul didn't have the 17' I'd rented, only a 14', but we took it anyway. We barely got everything into it, and I mean BARELY, and I still had to take it back to U-haul to have them hook the trailer on it. They closed at 7:00 and I come rolling back in at 6:58. Needless to say, they weren't happy about having to hang around, but they got the trailer hooked up, I took it back to the in-laws and got the car hooked up on it and we were ready to go. Or so we thought. We ended up filling every last little nook and cranny in the U-haul and stuffed almost every open space of the little car with the stuff we had still at the in-laws. But, we did get it all in (except for a couple of trash cans, but no biggie). We're ready to begin.

We stopped to get something to eat, and some money for tolls and ended up not getting on the road until about 10:30 ... at night ... and we've got at least a 3½ hour drive ahead of us. Fun, fun, fun. Oh, it was just beginning. As we're getting on the turnpike, the wife goes first and heads out. I get held up because it costs me $.75 to get on and all I have is a $20 so I have to wait while the lady counts me out $19 in change in singles. By this time, the wife is no where to be seen. Oh well, I figure I'll catch her up pretty soon. We'd decided to stop at the first service plaza we came to anyway so we could walk Charlie (who's in the truck with me) and stuff. Soon as I'm on the turnpike, I start looking for the wife's car. Traffic is pretty heavy, but I figure she might drive the speed limit or so so that I can catch her up. I figure I should spot her soon. By the time I get to the first service plaza, she's no where to be seen. I drive through really slow, looking for her car, and then head on out when I don't see it. I push the beat up old U-haul to it's limits and past trying to catch up to her, because I'm sure she's still ahead of me...somewhere. After two more service plaza's and still no word, I'm really getting worried. She had gotten us these cool walkie-talkies, but they only had a 2 mile range. I kept calling her and calling her, but got no response. I was sure she was still ahead of me so I kept soldiering on.

By the time I get to the exit at hwy 60, I'm really starting to panic. Not only is there STILL no sign of the fam, but now, according to the hiway information sign, I have a new problem. Hwy 60, west of hwy 27 is closed due to the hurricane. That's the road we were going to take to get to Lakeland and our hotel. Just great. As I take the exit, I hope the wife and the kids are waiting for me past the turn and I begin to try to replan our route. We can take hwy 60 as far as Lake Wales, then take hwy 27 north and keep going and hope it hits I-4 somewhere. Then we can take I-4 to Lakeland. Easy. Or so I thought. As I pull off onto hwy 60, I notice two things that really bother me. No wife and kids, and no lights. Yeehaw junction, at hwy 60 and the turnpike, has lights, but passed that, power must be out. I slowly pass the gas station there and when I see no sign of the fam, head on down 60 into the darkness. Where could they be? Way, way, way down the road I notice a pair of tail lights. Is that them? I'm gonna find out. Flooring the U-haul, I get the fucker up to about 75 mph. The whole damn thing is shaking like a screen door in a hurricane. Slowly but surely, I'm catching up to the lights ahead. But, I've also noticed a pair of headlights behing me now. Could THAT be them? I'm leaving them behind. I have to make a choice, slow down so the vehicle behind me can catch up and I can see if it's them, or keep pushing it and catch the car ahead. I keep pushing and slowly catch up to the car ahead.

It's not them! Shit. So, I slow down to the speed limit and wait for the car behind to catch up. After about another 10 miles, it finally does. That's not them either! Jesus fuckin' christ! What's going on?! About 10 miles from Lake Wales, I decide to just pull over. I've seen other headlights behind me and if, somehow, I managed to get ahead of her, then I'm just pulling away more by pushing it. I pull over and my heart jumps into my throat at each pair of headlights that comes into view, and then sinks into my stomach as each one passes by and I see that it's not them. I've waited about 15-20 minutes and I'm debating on just heading on out again when I see a set of headlights in the mirror. Not wanting to get too excited, I wait. The my heart skips a beat. It's got a dim right headlight, just like the wife's car! The turn signal is coming on! They're slowing down! It's them!! It's them!!! As I run to the car, we're both talking a mile a minute, "...I got turned around and we kept trying to find you..." "...I figured you'd gotten way ahead and I kept chasing down cars..." Finally, we calm down and she explains that she ended up getting off of the turnpike almost after she got on. She took a wrong turn and had to get back on the turnpike and by that time, I'd already gone past. After a short reunion, we head on out. Things are looking up. But not for long.

Well, that's all for now. This entry has already gotten much longer than I'd thought, so I'm going to stop here. I'll do another entry tomorrow and try to finish the rest of the story. Until then, you'll have to stay in suspense. Stay! Sit! Read...heh heh. Take care, cubbies. 'Cause Da Bear is back!

Da Bear

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