Today we left for Orlando [1] for a short weekend getaway. The plan is to arrive in Orlando (technically, Kissimmee [2]) just before dinner, check into the resort (Bunny has a timeshare in the Orlando area), then head over to Emeril's [3] at Universal City Walk [4] for dinner. Tomorrow is a trip to St. Petersburg [5] to visit the Salvador Dali Museum [6], then back to Orlando for Blue Man Group [7]. Then drive home on Sunday.
The trip to Orlando was uneventful. The trip in Orlando was horrible. Orlando is this huge sucking vortex of ill-marked, multiply-named, non-Euclidean roadways designed by disgruntled parking lot architects (for instance, W Irlo Bronson Memorial Highway is also SR-500, SR-530, US-192, US-17 and US-441; then there's S Apopka Vineland Road, aka (also known as) CR-435, Vineland Road, and SR-535, which is not to be confused with Apopka Vineland Road, which isn't connected to S Apopka Vineland Road, and is also known as CR-435 and Clarcona Road, which turns into S Park Ave, then N Park Ave before turning into Rock Springs Road where it ends). Worse yet, the map Bunny purchased prior to the trip turned out to be largely useless.
[Here's were we were staying] [8]
My finger is at the approximate location of our resort on the map Bunny bought. We have this huge 4′×4′ map … and our resort isn't on the map.
And here's the major road we were on for most of the trip, US-192:
[And here's US-192—the major road around the Disney area] [9]
Yup, not on the map either.
We almost didn't make it to Emeril's because I read the map wrong (I had to guess where we were) and thought we were on N Orange Blossom Trail (aka US-441, US-92, US-17, SR-500) when in reality we were on S Orange Avenue (an easy mistake when it's also known as Old Dixie Highway and CR-527—I'm telling you, the roads around Orlando are eeeeeeeeeeviiiiiiilllllllllll) and nothing was quite matching up.
Driving home from Emeril's, we got horribly lost and I was sure we were headed west (next stop—Tampa) on Poinciana Blvd, but it turned out we were headed south on Poinciana Blvd before doing a U-turn and stopping at a 7-11 on the corner of US-192 and Poinciana Blvd, where I purchansed our second useless map on the trip—this one at least had US-192 but our resort was still off the map.
[We're still in uncharted territory] [10]
(Later, I learned that had we stayed going south on Poinciana Blvd, we would have hit S Orange Blossom Trail (CR-532, US-17, US-92), which, unlike N Orange Blossom Trail that runs north/south, runs east/west. Going east, it turns into S John Young Parkway (aka N Bermuda Avenue) which runs north/south; N Orange Blossom Trail runs parallel to S John Young Parkway, oddly enough—I'm telling you, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeviiiiiiiilllllllll.)
The eeeeeeeeeviiiiilllllll roads around the Orlando area had it's effect on us—I don't recall a time when Bunny and I were arguing more than when we were driving around the area.
[1] http://www.cityoforlando.net/
[3] http://www.emerils.com/restaurant/6/Emerils-Orlando/
[4] http://www.universalorlando.com/OverviewPages/Nightlife/citywalk_nightlife_overview.aspx
[6] http://www.salvadordalimuseum.org/
[7] http://www.blueman.com/tickets/orlando
[8] /boston/2010/06/25/maps1.jpg
[9] /boston/2010/06/25/maps.2.jpg
![[8] /boston/2010/06/25/maps1.jpg](/gemini.conman.org/boston/2010/06/25/maps1.jpg){kind=link}
![[9] /boston/2010/06/25/maps.2.jpg](/gemini.conman.org/boston/2010/06/25/maps.2.jpg){kind=link}
![[10] /boston/2010/06/25/maps3.jpg](/gemini.conman.org/boston/2010/06/25/maps3.jpg){kind=link}