In the Beginning . . . Flordia Part 1

There was a boat at the end of the rainbow after all . . . or should I say, at the end of the cobblestone street, with potholes, open sewer lines, and a few broken wagon wheels.

Overall, the vacation was a wonderful and positive experience . . . with a few dark crevices here and there . . . We landed in Ft. Lauterdale on Saturday, picked up our rental van, and located a place to eat within a block of the hotel. Sadly, when we came out of the restaurant, we were greeted by the following sight:

Apparently, someone busted through the passenger side window in order to swipe our GPS unit. Luckily it was a grab and run . . . and we were very grateful to find all our suitcases and other valuables intact. We spent our first afternoon in Florida filling out the police report and receiving assistance from the restaurant staff (THANK YOU JESSE!) in removing all of the broken glass. After forty minutes of trying on two cell phones and being transferred to the wrong department and/or hung up on at least fifteen times, I finally got to the correct Alamo representative, and T. and I drove the van back to the airport for an exchange. We waited patiently in the Alamo car line for twenty minutes, only to be told that our problem was a customer service problem, and the front desk Alamo representative could not help us. He sent us to their customer service department. We arrived to find the following:

Surprise. Surprise. (Admittedly, the representative showed up about 30 seconds later, but it was still damn funny). After we got the van squared away, we checked into the Ramada in Ft. Lauterdale - which had its own interesting issues. Do you notice a size discrepency?

Their room (note the kitchenette):

Our room: (No seriously . . . this is as far away from the beds as I could get.)

My mother-in-law bragged about getting the larger room . . . until she discovered 1) she had no hot water in the shower; and 2) she was sharing her room with a giant cockroach we nicknamed Fred and debated buying a leash for. Of course, our room had its own distinct charm.

Blue toilet water. Yellow bath water. I was tempted to mix them together and see if we got green, but wasn't quite brave enough to go through with the experiment. Our hotel experience was complete when maintenance dropped by early the next day to inform us our toilet was leaking on the folks down below.

"When are we going to have fun again?" both my mother-in-law and T. asked.
"I told you," I explained patiently. "When we get past the cursed Ramada portion of the trip and actually board the ship."