A few years ago my family and I took a road trip to the Florida Keys. This particular trip was meant to be a spontaneous weekend getaway from life’s daily stress. We have taken this trip countless times, and expected the same outcome as the rest of our vacations. The drive normally would have taken four hours, but it ended up being the longest car ride ever.

The decision was made at 6 in the morning by my dad, who is not normally an impulsive type of guy that we would drive south for the long weekend. By eight o’clock we were packed and ready to go. We made a quick pit stop to Publix for fried chicken, then hit the road.
Due to the fact that the trip was spontaneous, we had not thought of booking a hotel room. We just figured that we could just search available rooms on our phones. For the whole car ride we search, and searched, and searched. Apparently there was not a single hotel room available in the state of Florida this particular weekend.
When we came close to the Miami area we started driving through some pretty serious weather. It was almost as if it was a hurricane. As we continued toward our unknown destination, the weather worsened. The weather was so bad, anything through the windshield was barely visible. My family and I started to lose hope in what was supposed to be an awesome vacation. We turned around once we drove through the first few towns in the Keys.
So our last minute vacation was over. The whole car ride home was dead silent from the disappointment. The four hour long car ride turned into an eight hour long car ride. Needless to say there were lots of bathroom breaks. When we got home from our road trip, the news report was on TV. We discovered that the rough patch of weather that we drove in was a tropical depression. The news anchor was advising everyone in the Keys and the Miami area to prepare for an expected hurricane.
The morale of the story is to always book a hotel room in advance and always check the news before planning vacations. I have to admit, this is definitely a trip for the history books. I can almost guarantee that every family social gathering since, this story gets brought up. We didn't laugh about it then, but we sure laugh about it now!