Day 1 - The Amazing Race to Tallahassee

It all started with three families of friends and Disney freaks. It so happens that these families decided almost a year ago to go to Disney together. It also so happens that these families could not decide upon a specific way to take to Disney; you see they all take slightly different routes when they make their mouse trips. Enter in the grand idea to have an Amazing Race to Tallahassee, FL, a city we all would travel through. One of the other families came up with most of the rules including these basic ones:

1. Must not leave any earlier than 6:00 am. Check.
2. Points will be assigned for various things including digital photos of VW bugs, a stranger wearing Mouse Ears, bathroom doors on potty stops, and photos of license plates from Hawaii or Alaska. Check. Check. Check. Check.
3. The first family to arrive at Cracker Barrel will receive 25 points, which pretty much means a win. Check.

The Amazing Race was fun and effective right from the start. I mean, no other time has my family moved so quickly at 6:00 am, myself included. We actually had the kids loaded up and we pulled out of our drive at 6:01! That's amazing in and of itself!

We had to stop twice along the way for potty breaks and we thought that would slow us down. One of our stops was at the Florida Welcome Center. We had to wait several minutes for the lady to open up the doors at 8:00 am. We asked her if we could take her picture with Mouse Ears on and she was okay with that. However, she was confused when we gave her the ears to put on; she thought that we wanted to take a photo of our kids with ears on. She was really nice and posed with Katie. Then she pulled out a King Tut headdress for me to take pictures of my kids wearing it. I don't think she quite got the whole concept of it being "all about her in the mouse ears." I think she thought we were into taking pictures of people in various hats. Oh well, she was totally cool with everything and we got our cups of fresh Florida juice and quickly left. We spent a lot of time at that rest area, so we were sure that would hurt us later. Little did we know that just a few miles down the road we'd be stopped by the world's longest train.

We finally make it to I-10 and merge in just ahead of a red van. Dh asks if that van belongs to one of the other families. I half-looked and said, "No, of course not." Well, lo and behold it was one of the other families! How totally hilarious and freaky! Needless to say, it was cat and mouse all the way from that section of I-10 to Tallahassee! Almost two hours and several close calls later, we turn off I-10 and onto the service road to Cracker Barrel one car length behind the other family. The other family mistakenly turns into a hotel right before Cracker Barrel! We turn in, too, but recognize quickly that there's not an entrance to Cracker Barrel and manage to turn around more quickly than the other family. Yes, we were at least in second place! We wouldn't know if the third family had made it before us until we were actually there.

We pulled up to the front porch of CB and I jumped out. We did it! We won by a hair! The funniest thing was that the third family pulled up not five minutes after we did, right after the other family (the ones who turned into the hotel parking lot) arrived on foot.

Amazing, but true.