The adventurous rides and our own adventures - Grand Finale

Day 3: Thursday - IRMA & EPCOT

The news of IRMA devastating Cuba and Puerto-Rico islands welcomed Aloha army  on Thursday morning.

We had to make a plan and move out of Orlando as early as possible. Another hour long plea from CCH Geetha with Spirit airlines did not yield any positive result. So we were left with the only option of driving up ~1350 miles!!!

The next challenge was getting an 8 seater vehicle that could take us back. I called up at the airport rental and they said they could confirm only on the day of pickup. Parthi meanwhile booked a 15 seater ( yes..15 seater) in case if we did not get any 8 seater vehicles.

With mentally prepared to tale the long haul, Aloha army reached EPCOT - the last part of the Disney tour. We had to go through the same "Truck - Bridge -Truck" game with Arnav before reaching Epcot. To our surprise, the wait times for each ride @ Epcot was less than 15 mins - and when we got to the gate - it became 40 mins. blame it on Karma...

We covered a good deal of rides including taking pictures with lot of Disney characters. one of our objective was to fully utilize the money we paid for the memory maker option :).  One of the best rides in EPCOT was the "Frozen forever". We were headed towards that ride is when we got a notification that it was "Temporarily closed". We had to be content with Anna and Elsa  - the 50 year old. As we were leaving the place, Sponsor Siva noticed a bunch of people running towards the Frozen ride -- yes it was open and we all rushed to the ride. It was a fun ride through the Ice castles and ended with a "Let it go". 

As we were coming out of the ride, we got notified from the airlines that our flights were all cancelled as the Orlando airport was shutting down its operations from Saturday 5 PM. This meant we are left with our only option of driving 1350 miles!!  We covered a few more rides and walked a lot more distance..

With great satisfaction and 23K steps in our Fitbit, we left Epcot and reached hotel. The plan was to head to airport in person and talk to each rental office for any 8 seater vehicle availability. To our surprise, Enterprise had more than one vehicle available and we took the same "Beast" that we were driving for the prior three days.  We dropped off the other rental car on our way back to hotel. Meanwhile the ladies had finished laundry and other preparations for the long drive and CCG Geetha spoke to spirit airlines and got our refund for the cancelled ticket.

Friday: The aloha army planned to leave early on Friday (around 5 AM) but ended up leaving the hotel only by 9:30 AM.  The plan was simple.. 22 hours of drive  - 11 hours on Friday - stay at Richmond Virginia - Drive another 11 hours  - Reach Boston - Take the bus back to Dover NH  (last bus @ 1 AM). And we had three drivers  - ~3 to 4 hours each.

With a clear plan in sight, we started. As we entered I-95 NB, we realized that we are joining the millions of people who were evacuating Florida through the same route. The traffic was free was 10 miles and bumper to bumper for the next 10 miles. We drove and drove and after about 8 hours, we realized that we would not be making it to Richmond on time. So we had to cancel the hotel booking and do some research on where we could stay for the night. After some math/science, we decided that the best option would be to stay in Fayetville, NC.

Booked a hotel there while on the road, drove for another 6 hours or so...ultimately reaching hotel at 12:30 AM (Saturday). 

Saturday:  After a short rest at Days inn, Aloha army continued their drive towards Boston. we had to cover 760 miles in a day to get to Boston and Sponsor Siva did his best in covering 200 miles in less than 3 hours. We crossed the state of NC and got into Virginia. It was around 12 and the team decided to go to Bawarchi Indian restaurant - mainly to get food for the kids. 

We finished lunch and continued our journey. Around 5 PM is when we realized that we would not be reaching Boston before 1 AM and our deal was to drop off the vehicle at Boston airport.. once again, our CCH Geetha spoke to Enterprise and got us a waiver that we could drop the vehicle at Dover with no excess charge!! yeah.. one more feather in her cap!!.

We took couple of breaks in NJ and our ETA to reach Dover was 2:50 AM.  By this time, all of us were exhausted so we swapped drivers in lesser intervals. As we headed to exit 53 in I495 towards I95.. the most unexpected happened... one more dramatic twist to our ever long trip... the fuel indicator which was showing a range of 60 miles suddenly dropped to 40 miles and the indicated started buzzing. So we took exit 53 and went to two gas stations only to figure our that both of them were closed. The range had dropped now to 21 miles..it was close to 2:30 AM and we were almost stranded.. we took the next exit with the help of google to get to a 24 hrs gas station - only to find that pump locked. Then we did the most unexpected. There were 3 cop cars on the street and we parked next to them. The vehicle was showing 4 miles range and we figured it would be better to stay near cops than any deserted place. We parked and as we approached the cops, they got startled and shouted at us to stay where we were.  They took precautions ( with one hand on the weapon) and asked us what our problem was. we explained that we ran out of fuel and they guided us to a nearby Gas station. 


We ran to our car and approached the Gas station and god... it was open and working... we filled the  tank and as we were heading out, one of the cop cars came by to check us.. we thanked them and headed to Dover. we picked up our cars, dropped the rental at enterprise and finally reached home.. sweet home..

Multiple flight cancellations...20 hours at airport... 3 days of fun... 40 hours of driving across 14 states.. hour long calls to customer care.. pending list of refunds.. fury of IRMA.. path of evacuation .. tired legs.. weakened body... But in all these, there was one thing that stood apart... The Unity of Aloha Army  - no one complained and every one was together in getting through this... Hats off to you Aloha Army.... and Once more Polama???  

The Aloha Army

P.S. Although this story was all about the adventures of Aloha Army, we would not have survived without the help of our Gangsters.. Aloha army is a subgroup of Gangsters.. rest of the Gangsters were always with us (not physically) .. wishing us from the beginning, encouraging us at each hurdle we faced, supporting us throughout the long drive.. some of them even called us multiple times to check on us.. some tried to find flights options for us.. some offered to talk to their friends in the near-by states to help us.. some prepared food for us when we reached... Thank you Gangsters and we are happy and proud to be part of this group.. this is more than a group...this is Family... always looking out for each other..near or far..doesn't matter...