Monday June 2, 2014
 Look at that face.  She’s totally worth all the trouble.
Today we had the world at our fingertips. That is because today is the first time ever in our lives we have rented a car. I know, strange right? What have we been doing for the past two years that we have not had a car of our own? Oh right, borrowing other people’s cars or relying on them to drive us around.
Normally we’d be stubborn and try to take the bus, Matt has made it an actual point to see how long he can go without driving, but it just wasn’t a possibility today. Oh, not for him to not drive, he readily handed the keys over to me, but taking Georgie on the bus, even if she happened to be allowed, would have been a full afternoon of sounds being emitted from her that I’m guessing would be close to what you’d hear from a baby seal being clubbed. Of which I never want to hear. From either side.
This on the other hand would give us the chance to hit multiple places in one day and the opportunity to fill up a trunk with goodies from Walmart. I love you Publix (you’re the closest thing I can find to a Meijer), but some of your deals are just beaten to a pulp by Walmart. Though, if you thought our day might go simply smooth because we happened to have a car at our fingertips, think again. Here’s a little bit of what our day went like:
- Woke up to alarm after six hours of sleep. Had a really good time at Vance’s party yesterday, feeling the effects this morning.
- Walked a few blocks to the Lamborghini rental in Dubai, a car rental facility and had keys in our hands in less than 10 minutes. Wow, sometimes things actually go right on the first try.
- Back at the boat, loaded up Georgie and and a spare fridge that we’ve been carrying around for the past 3 months. We finally sold that thing!
- While Matt went to bring the car around and rain started to pour, I lost Georgie on a ledge under a balcony hanging over the water. Her harness tugged right off and it was a battle of strength which I finally, and thankfully, won. I hope the vet doesn’t notice that her nails just scratched across four feet of cement.
- With a pounding headache (remember my six hours of sleep or less rule?) I got behind the wheel and drove us through a blinding rainstorm to South Maimi where we’d found a cheap (enough) Accredited vet to inspect Georgie.
- Found out that even though we let her run rampant in Guatemala, she must not have picked anything up there because she was pronounced in perfect health, albeit a little gingevitis. Guess we need to start brushing those teeth.
- Left the assistants to figure out the required paperwork while we went up the road to Home Depot and spent way too much time there to only end up with about six things in our cart. Among them, a new tool organizable bag for Matt. Hallelujah, I was literally about to throw the strewn one overboard.
- Get back to the vet and find out they’re still interpreting the paperwork. All in all, it took four hours to complete.
- Leaving our destination of South Miami/Kendall behind where we’d had every place we needed to visit mapped out, we tore back up the expressway to get the newly obtained forms to the USDA before they shut their doors at 3:30. This is the second time I’ve walked in just as they were about to close. I think they hate me.
- Googled new location for West Marine and did three drive-by’s before finding it tucked in the very back of a strip mall.
- Found out they only have yarn tell tales, and even though we knew they pretty much wouldn’t work out, bought them anyway.
- Noticed that Walmart happened to be just across the street. Â Score!, we never even had to hunt a new one down!
- Stocked up on a bunch of things that I can’t wait to tear into once we get on passage, including a 2.5 lb bag of Skittles and Swiss Miss hot coco with dehydrated marshmallows.
- Getting back to the dinghy, Georgie seemed to still be alive and untraumatized, having spent the whole afternoon huddled on the floor of the backseat. Â She even had her first cry-free dingy ride on the way back to Serendipity, much more interested in the sights around her instead.
- I actually found a non-permit requiring spot on the street to park instead of leaving it in a lot all night.
For having a car at our fingertips for 12 hours, it wasn’t as freeing as I thought it would be. Â Things went right, things went wrong, and we still ended up ragged and exhausted at the end of the night. Â I thought the car would alleviate things like that. Â But looking back on if we had to try and do all of that on the bus, I guess it could have been much, much worse.