Today was our first moving day.
As ever, Karen was in a mild state of panic about being ready to leave on time, but, as ever, we were soon packed a good 45 minutes ahead of the target we had agreed.
We had bought more provisions than we needed for this part of the trip, but we will get through them at our other stops. I fetched the trolley to take the bulk of the luggage down in one go whilst Karen busied herself cleaning and tidying.
The drive today to Port Charlotte was 246 miles and looked like taking around four hours.
We headed north, and the drive through the Upper Keys was calm enough. I then had to navigate up and around Miami, where the traffic was far busier and far more aggressive. At one point, I counted nine lanes, with cars weaving left and right to exit on both sides. Although we had a long drive ahead, I maintained a passive, steady approach.
Eventually, we got through that and joined Alligator Alley. This long, straight drive was devoid of any gators and resembled, at times, a bigger, wider version of the Acle Straight. It was boring, with nothing to see. Presumably deliberately, for whatever reason, there were no mileage signs to Naples, which was the next big town, so I had to rely on Waze to count the miles down.
We had planned to make a proper stop in Naples, but Karen was nervous about doing so as we had all the luggage in the car. Ever since the San Francisco car break-in, she has been almost paranoid about it. It will be interesting to see if the same applies when we are next in New Zealand, as the luggage will barely ever be out of the car.
As she was asleep at the time, I decided to carry on rather than stop, figuring we might be able to get into the villa early. Instead, once we had got north of Naples, I turned off towards an advertised Starbucks, knowing this would please her and that we could sit outside while she kept an eye on the car.
Another hour later, we were in Port Charlotte and heading to the villa. As I had hoped, we were able to get in much earlier than we probably should have.
Apprehensively, I opened the door and confirmed that it had been cleaned.
However, the clean had obviously happened a few days earlier, as there had been a beetle invasion since then. There were dozens of dead beetles all over the floors in every room.
Yet again, this was seemingly completely my fault, as I had not triple-checked that the villa would be free of dead beetles before booking.
Karen spent some time sweeping them all up. We saw that the cleaners had left some sort of killer trap down, which had done its job. Karen found some more spray, which she used liberally around the places they might have used to get in.
For a while, she was convinced they would all be trying to hitch a ride in her suitcase, or that she would awake to find John, Paul and Ringo sucking the blood from her neck.
Whilst it wasn’t the nicest thing to find, they were all dead and there was no evidence of any new ones. Fingers crossed it remains that way.
The villa, whilst not the newest, was compact and functional (owned by Germans), and had a beautiful south-facing pool overlooking a lake. The pool is solar-heated, and it is very quiet all around.
The best thing we have found so far has been a kettle. For the past few days, we have had to make do with heating water in a saucepan. Americans don’t seem to understand the need for a kettle and just provide coffee machines, most of which don’t simply heat water.
It took some figuring out, but I managed to get the Chromecast working on the large TV, meaning Karen can catch up on her programmes on iPlayer.
As lunch had been minimal, we headed out early at 5.30pm for our first steak of the trip at the nearest Outback, which was only 11 minutes away.
I say we headed out, because we didn’t actually get in the car until 5.50pm, as we couldn’t work out how to lock the front door with its smart lock. I ended up having to do a factory reset on it and reprogramme it.
The clever German lock can hold 25 separate codes. It now has just the one we were told to use, so I hope I haven’t ruined some Germanic entry system for future guests.
We were seated immediately at Outback. The service was as good as the food. Why, oh why, can we not get salad, baked potato and steak like this at home?
The restaurant was part of a larger complex with many other restaurants and shops. We decided to investigate the Walmart. I may have bought a pair of black Levi’s whilst wandering around trying to find Karen.
By 8pm, we were back and having a glass of red whilst Karen watched the Strictly Results show. Then we watched poor Ted in his last episode of Gone Fishing before his demise. Bob Mortimer creases Karen up every time she sees him.
I then read for a while whilst Karen thought she might as well watch last week’s Question Time. I said she would probably double the viewing figures for it, as I’m not sure there is anyone else left watching it.
It was then time for bed, and this time we had a proper US king-size bed, which meant I had no idea what time Karen eventually came to bed.
