Allison: Tech 2, Day -1

We headed out to Florida on Wednesday, on a ridiculously early flight. I guess technically the fun started on Tuesday night, since Kevin came over and stayed at our place. I tried to go to sleep early to make the 3:45 AM wakeup call, but of course that was met with limited success. Oreo must have sensed from all of the bags that we were about to leave -- she came to bed with Rob and promptly plopped on my arm and purred at the top of her lungs during an intense petting session. I eventually realized she was never going to leave, and had to squirm out from under her so I could get some sleep. Meanwhile Pepper was sending out an Evite to all the neighborhood kitties for the kegger she had planned while we were gone. The good thing about getting up crazy early to go to the airport is that there is no traffic, so we made excellent time getting to the airport. We dropped off all the bags, and Kevin parked the car while we checked in. Kevin didn't have to stand in line with the hoi polloi, so by the time he got back, Rob was finally at the front of the line. Kevin was upgraded to first class, which nearly caused a rift in the team, but then he offered to check one of our bags for us (since he got 3 free checked bags), and all was well.

We had a few hour layover in Houston, so we got some lunch after schlepping all over the airport looking for a suitable place to eat. We shared a couple of piles of fried food at a sports bar. Then we were herded back onto the plane (Kevin got upgraded again, loser) for the flight to Jacksonville. When we got to Jacksonville, we were delighted to find that all of our luggage had made it. We were even more delighted when we got to the rental car counter and both Kevin and Rob got mini-vans. They had both rented an undefined car that was at least a mid-sized sedan. The idea is that when you show up, they give you whatever they have too many of. We made the observation that they always seem to have too many mini-vans at car rental places, so we were hoping. The vans were luxurious in size, which would make it easy to schlep tons of tanks.

From there, we headed to the High Springs Country Inn, which was about an hour and a half away. We had to make a brief stop because I was thirsting to death. The boys have this strange ability to go long periods of time without food or drink. I think it's because they can eat and drink like 3 times as much as I can in one sitting. So by the time we got to the Inn, Kevin was already there. Eventually we headed out to get some dinner.

We drove down to Alachua, and after seeing a few options decided to circle back and decide. We were originally looking for BBQ, but then Rob had a hankering for wings, so we went to a place that Kevin had been to before that had wings. We shared a plate of 40 wings. Hehe. After polishing those off, we headed back to High Springs, and decided to go take a look at Ginnie Springs. There was signage pointing the way, which was quite convenient. Once we got there, we traipsed around in the woods in the dark for a little while, and eventually found the cavern (where we were met with a not-so-friendly guy cleaning up from a dive) and the eye/ear entrances. There was a manatee hanging out over there. I was pretty excited. We watched him for a while, and eventually headed back to the Inn, and parted ways for the night. Rob was tortured by the fact that High Springs didn't have 3G coverage. Plus the motel's internet was apparently down. So we were totally slumming it with only a TV and our Tech 2 lecture notes to keep us entertained :) I went to sleep early.