geography

geography is not my strong suit.  anyone who knows me well knows that.  it was only recently that i learned that the kazakhstan in the movie "borat" is an actual country.  but still, i don't blame my poor geography skills on the almost-debacle that occurred surrounding our trip to the bahamas.  and since i'm overdue for a  long blogpost, i'll warn you right now that you're in for a doozy.

so let me back up.  last monday at this time, chris and i were aboard "the monarch of the seas", sipping long island iced teas while watching the sun set.  but the monday prior to that, i was beginning one of the worst weeks in recent memory.  we were still staring at five inches of snow on the ground, which, in north carolina, is perfect reason to shut down school for four days.  and let me just explain to you the havoc that ensued because of this.  not only were the kids absolutely climbing the walls after being stuck in the house for days on end, but i wasn't able to accomplish anything.  i had given up on completing any errands or appointments as soon as the first snowflakes began to fall.  but the afternoon i walked into susanna's room to see both of my children's suitcases emptied with the contents strewn all over the floor while they gleefully sat in them instead -- after i had carefully packed six days' worth of clothing for them for their stay with their grandparents -- well, let's just say it was not my most shining moment as a parent.

and work?  don't get me started about work.  i had spent HOURS drawing up sub plans for the week i was going to miss, complete with powerpoint presentations, warm-ups, online activities, homework solutions, games, a test ... and then watched almost all of it become unusable as we missed day after day of school.  i mean, my sub couldn't very well give a test on operations with integers when my students had missed the lessons on how to subtract, multiply, and divide.  i found myself back at square one (although not really, since we also hadn't had an opportunity to discuss exponents ... get it?  SQUARE one?) and worked into the wee hours one night just to get everything in order for the second time.  with the lack of sleep, i had two petit mal seizures leaving me nauseous and with an excruciating headache.  needless to say, i was even more ready for this upcoming vacation than i'd ever been in my life.

and so friday rolls around -- three days before we are to leave -- and i'm printing out boarding passes, confirming plane seat assignments, and taking care of all the last-minute details.  we'd planned on grabbing a taxi from the airport to the ship, but i wasn't sure how much time to allow.  i went to mapquest for directions, and the following result came up:

3 hours and 28 minutes.

i stared at it, dumbfounded.  and then i panicked.  i yelled to chris in the other room.  "chris!  it says it's going to take us over 3 hours to get from airport to the ship!"

always the voice of reason, he replied, "are you sure you don't have it set on walking directions?"

with the last glimmer of hope, i turned back to the screen.  but there it was, mocking me in its big bold font: 212 miles.  3 hours 28 minutes.  and then, just to rub it in my face, there was a big colorful florida map, with hundreds of miles on I-95 highlighted.

i'm embarrassed to say that i kind of lost it at that point.  i just wanted to crawl under a rock -- preferably one with no snow on top -- and wake up with the aforementioned long island iced tea in hand watching the aforementioned sunset on the aforementioned boat.

alas, i opened my eyes and still found myself in front of the same frustrating computer screen.  i got to work on plan B, and, four hours later, had finally come up with a solution.  of course, with three days' notice, i couldn't find a flight into orlando, or a ship out of miami.  so our only option was to rent a car and drive the three and a half hours down the coast (or up?  at this point i still don't know).  luckily, we'd booked such an early flight that we knew we'd have no trouble making it to the ship by boarding time.  the trip back home was another story -- we missed our flight and wound up sitting in the miami airport for nine hours -- but we made it home at midnight.  safe and sound.  on a runway coated with a fresh four inches of snow, of course.

BUT ... for the record, just in case anyone cares ... i've determined how this all happened, and, much like a five year old child, i'd like to assert that it was NOT MY FAULT.   when i retraced my steps, this is what i found:  if you book a cruise through royal caribbean, and in the process choose miami as the port you wish to use, you will find that port canaveral comes up as a "nearby" port.  some whackjob who designed that site is probably having a good laugh right now, amused at the thought of the number of people he could screw over by classifying a 3+ hour drive as NEARBY.

the irony is, despite my geographical shortcomings, i actually did know that cape canaveral isn't near miami.  i've been down to disneyworld enough times in my life to know that cape canaveral is outside of orlando.  but it didn't say cape canaveral.  it said port canaveral.  and before you roll your eyes at my foolishness, let me just remind you that i live in north carolina, where the town of wake forest is exactly two hours away from wake forest university.  (good piece of trivia to know if you're not from around here.  comes up in jeopardy from time to time.) 

so, lessons learned: one, wait until the very last minute before working on sub plans.  two, don't give small children easy access to packed suitcases.  three, quadruple check yourself before booking flights and cruises.  four, hunt down the guy who thinks 212 miles classifies as "nearby" and have a little chat with him as to what that word actually means.

and five, have another long island iced tea and forget it ever happened.