As I already mentioned, the idea of a road trip warmed me, Kristina, and Veronika throughout our entire stay in America. Two weeks before renting the car, we had a clear trip plan: Ocean City – Orlando – Miami – Chicago – New York.

(full travel plan)

We decided to save money on a proper GPS. Renting one for $100 a week seemed unjustifiably expensive! So, we downloaded the first offline maps we found on my phone, deciding that they would definitely handle their main task – navigation. But our expectations were not met, and the "first maps we found" showed a location that we had long since passed in reality. But since the motto of our trip was the phrase "nothing can ruin this trip," we started to take any deviations from the set route more easily.

(Somewhere in the middle of our route. I'm already falling asleep)

Everything started in Ocean City. After three months of work and regular shopping in this city, three girls managed to accumulate 6 suitcases of stuff. So our trip started with a game of Tetris: how to shove six 20-kilogram suitcases into the trunk of a small sedan. After weighing all possible options, we solved the puzzle, buckled up, and hit the road.

(our modest luggage)

The plan was as follows. The trip from Ocean City to Orlando was 14 hours (according to the lousy navigator). It was implied that on the first day we would drive half the way, spend the night in some cute roadside motel (you know, the ones from the movies), and the next day we would drive the remaining half and be in Orlando by 6 PM.

Well, we were wrong in our calculations. Leaving Ocean City, we got caught in a heavy downpour: the road was hard to see, and driving became simply impossible. Kristina buckled up in the back seat, grabbed every handle she could find, and chose to stay silent the whole way out of fear. Due to the bad weather, it got dark too quickly, so we had to drive most of the way in the dark, barely distinguishing the road markings in the headlights. At one point on the highway, we turned onto the wrong road, and the only possible way to turn around was to drive across four lanes of cars speeding at 120 km/h. After waiting for a suitable moment when the flow of cars broke, I stepped on the gas as hard as I could! Thank God, we turned around safely, and then Kristina said her first and last words that evening: "F*ck girls, are we actually alive!?? I love you!!".

(trying to figure out the route)

By midnight, our eyes started to slowly close – and that meant it was time to look for a place to sleep. The choice fell on the nearest motel, which captivated thrifty students with its name – "Budget Inn". At the front desk, the night manager reluctantly accepted us and gave us the keys to a room for $60. The room fully justified the motel's name. Probably, only truckers, heroin addicts, and prostitutes stayed there. The yellow bathroom looked like a crime scene, with drops of blood; the sheets were so dirty that you could tell fortunes by the gray-brown spots, and it seemed the towels were used instead of toilet paper. Judging by the name of the motel, the other rooms were not in better condition, so we, tired from the road, preferred to just fall asleep instead of arguing with the manager, and in the morning forget about the night in the nightmare motel.

In the morning, Veronika discovered that her face was red and swollen, and one eye was almost not opening. As it turned out, bedbugs shared that night with us. Out of resentment and itching, Veronika cried: "How will I go to the amusement park all bitten up? Why did we stop at such a cheap motel? Why bedbugs?" The most interesting thing is that neither I nor Kristina apparently appealed to the insects. We tried in one voice to convince our friend that the bites were not visible and would surely pass by tomorrow. Neither these words nor further encouragement throughout the day could lift Veronika's spoiled mood, but surprisingly, the next morning the bites really became almost invisible.

Having said goodbye to our night nightmare "Budget Inn", we hit the road again. And what was our disappointment when the navigator reported that in yesterday's 10 hours of driving, we had covered only one-fifth of the intended path. And that meant that we would have to drive without stops all day today.

After a long day on the road, by midnight we finally arrived in Orlando. After driving around the city a bit, we reached the hotel where we had booked a room, and were already hoping that we would check in without surprises and go to sleep, but that was not the case. The front desk reported that the booking was canceled due to insufficient funds on the card. Although before that, I personally called the hotel and asked if it was possible to pay in cash upon arrival, to which they told me "yes".

Just so you know, Orlando is like Las Vegas but with amusement parks. There are a lot of hotels there, but at 12 AM on a Saturday, finding an empty room becomes almost impossible. Upset and tired, we started driving around the city, hoping to find something. And hallelujah! An excellent motel for $55 (cheaper than the cursed Budget) with clean rooms and delicious buns for breakfast, which we, in the best traditions of Russian tourists (three per person), stuffed into our pockets and happily went to the park.

(Universal Studios park in Orlando)

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