Road Trip to Orlando

Last weekend I drove down to Orlando, FL for a brief (two-night) reunion with my folks and brother. He had just flown in from Germany, where he currently resides, to attend a conference. My parents flew in for the reunion as well as some relax time in the sun by the pool. We celebrated my brother's 50^th as well as a couple of other accomplishments. I decided to take the beamer down for a couple of nights, seeing how it's just a "short", 9-hour drive. I've driven down to Florida before, and 9-10 hours is about as far as I want to go in one stretch. The beamer's seats and cabin appointments (iDrive including satellite radio and iPod connection) make the drive tolerable if not outright enjoyable, but still, 9 hours sitting in one spot is getting to be about all I can take (compared with the odd 22-24 hour jaunts we embarked on out of Texas, e.g., to Chicago or Taos, some 15+ years ago now). On this trip I decided to try the route via Athens, GA. As you can tell from the map it entirely cuts out the Atlanta leg of the trip. I don't know what it is about Atlanta, I neither like to fly nor drive through there. It's just too packed. Hartsfield (the airport) is always a zoo and the roadways are just about as bad. On the way back I managed to get stuck in a major traffic jam, which seems to occur just about every time I drive through there.

The apparent shortcut through Athens actually adds a bit to the duration of the trip. According to Google maps, only about a few minutes, but I think I managed to shave off an hour on the way back by sticking to the interstates and driving through Atlanta. I guess part of the reason for the time savings is the speed permitted by the interstates. Although the limit is 70 mph on most stretches, one can often exceed this to about 90 mph without looking out of place. On the outbound trip, that's harder to do as it's mostly smaller roads, often only two-laners, like what you see in the pic here. The interstates usually provide at least four lanes although in places it feels like two due to the left lane hogs (a major personal pet peeve of mine). Occasionally, though, you can latch on to a skilled driver in another vehicle and then get out of the small clusters of vehicles that accumulate behind these bozos that occupy the left lane. I managed to fall behind a couple of such "rabbits", the first I followed all the way from Orlando out to I-10, just below the FL/GA state line, a nice stretch of road. We were both doing about 90, a speed the beamer has no problem attaining. In fact, accelerating to 100 (for passing purposes) is accomplished quite easily as well. And it doesn't even feel very fast. Gotta love those twin turbos and the sound insulation as well as the sound system. I made the trip back in about 8 hrs, with only one stop for refueling.