03/09/2010 7h road trip on 95

7 hours Road trip on 95.- all the way down from Jacksonville to Miami. It seemed to take for ever. We have had the plan to go to Miami by a private minibus, but somehow, plans change and so, my friends take their car and I take together with 3 others a rental car to have the labourday weekend in Miami. At 7:30 in the morning, I met with one swedish guy from my car to get to the airport and pick up our rental car. At the airport, we found out, that there is only 1 driver allowed on the car and the 2nd driver ahs to pay 16$ per day extra. Sounds like a unfair system, but we were willing to pay it, unless, we (or better the agent) found out, that our 2nd driver is under 25 years old, and therefore not allowed to drive this car according to the rental car company policy. "Nice". This means, I drive all the way down by myself. And also there, I will always be the driver. This indicates, no drinks after midnight :-( And this in labour day :-(((
However, after we solved that, we got the next problem with the insurance. I am an Amex card holder and therefore, I am very risky and do not care about anything, because I have a credit card insurance for almost everything. In addition, I am german and I guess I have more insurances as some museeums. However, the Swedish guy gets scared by the fearfull and dramatic misinformation of the rental car lady. She is a really good sales person, so after an other half hour discussion, we took the car plus the extra insurance. So, after 2.5h discussion we got our car and started with a 3h delay in our weekend.

The streets in US are terrible boring: streight all the time, but with a speedlimit of 65mph or 70 mph. This is only 105 kmh. :-(((( and it takes sooooo long. However, we were lucky and had had a relaxed ride. The other private car was a bit speeding, but I was afraid to drive way to fast, because I was the only signed driver, and if I would loose my licence, it would be the end of our weekend.

A nice story to the private car. The car is a used car, which my roomate and 3 polish friends bought last week for round about 1200$. Plus insurance, Tax, legalization and so on, it was a price of 2000$. When me and the swedish guy drove to the airport we discussed, that this car is great for going to grocery and so, but not for a 1000 miles road trip. The car has some lacks, no aircondition and smells like hell. However it drives, as long, as there is fuel inside. The fuel display is broken, so within the last week, the guys rund twice out of fuel and asked me for my bike to get to the next gas station. Well, for the trip to miami, they put 20$ gas inside, I dare, this would be enough to cross the whole state.

Finaly, 150 miles before Miami, their car broke down. The engine was blown up and they have had to sell the car for 200$ to pay the bus tickets back to Jacksonville :-(

Very sad for them, but when they called us, we were already in Miami and we could not really help them. So, we reduced from initial 15 to 8 and now to 4 people. But great people :)