Miami wasn’t nearly as eventful as Atlanta, but it was still fun. This time only Cassandra, Katherine, and I went. My father was good enough to let us stay at his house in Ft. Pierce (about two hours north of Miami), even though he was in Indiana at the time. Once again, we left at about 2pm on Friday and drove down to Ft. Pierce. This time we didn’t get lost, because by now I know the way to my dad’s house. This in and of itself was fun - we watched The X-Files and made spaghetti (what a bunch of party animals, right?). We were really enjoying ourselves until the cat set off the burglar alarm (I didn’t realize she was still out in the garage, and the motion sensors caught her). I managed to find the phone number of the alarm company, and a very nice guy helped me turn the thing off. At this point, we didn’t realize that the cat had set off the alarm, so we were positive that either the house was haunted or somebody was breaking in. So we all decided to sleep in the same room; we dragged a futon mattress and a feather bed into my dad’s room, and I insisted on sleeping in his king-sized bed.
The next day we left for Miami at 9am so that we could be there by the time Nick Lea went on stage. The trip took about 3 hours, so we played the “license plate game” to amuse ourselves. We saw plates from 30 states and 3 Canadian provinces, and we even saw one from Prince Edward Island (like I said, we’re a bunch of party animals!). Once we got into Miami, we kept seeing this one sign that we never did figure out the meaning of. It was just a picture of the sun; at first I thought it was directing people to Miami Beach, but we kept seeing it after we passed Miami Beach. Weird. The only other interesting event which occurred on the way down was that we got a little lost while searching for a place to use to restroom.
We arrived at the Coconut Grove Convention Center shortly after Nick Lea went onstage. This convention center was much bigger than the one in Atlanta, and it was actually air-conditioned! The crowd was very subdued, though. In fact, I would go so far as to say they were downright boring. The crowd in Atlanta was so enthusiastic, and the Miami crowd just acted like they were there because they had nothing better to do. We sat in the autograph line yelling, “This crowd is so lame!” I’m surprised we didn’t get lynched. But we still managed to have fun. William B. Davis (Cigarette-Smoking Man) was there, and he gave a wonderful speech on how CSM is actually the hero of the show, rather than Mulder and Scully. (WBD also gave an presentation at the local university – click here to see pictures and the newspaper article.) In a nutshell, here's how his argument went: If Mulder got what he wanted, which is for the truth to be known, the result would be widespread panic (as WBD put it, "Those scenes from Independence Day would be nothing"). Whereas if CSM got his way, which is for the truth to be kept a secret, nothing would change; we'd all go about our lives just as we do now. WBD also pointed out some qualities that CSM has which Mulder lacks. CSM's eyesight is better (CSM lives in the dark; he's always surrounded by a cloud of smoke. Mulder has to get out a flashlight every time it's dark); CSM is more "potent" than Mulder (CSM might be Mulder's father, he's probably Samantha's father, and he is Jeffrey Spender's father; WBD expressed his suspicion that Mulder is a virgin); and CSM has "given up his health" for what he believes in (Mulder has only given up his social life). WBD said that he is learning to blow smoke rings so that, in the new season, he will always be seen with a smoke-ring halo above his head.
Dean Haglund did his hysterical routine again. This time, the
villain of the impromptu X-Files episode was an aardvark-cat-bird (he got
the bird part from Katherine, who yelled it out at the top of her lungs).
We didn't have to stand in the autograph line very long, because they
were giving out slips of paper which listed the time at which the bearer
could join the line. We were able to get in line with the first group.
We didn't get to converse with the stars much this time, though, because
some rude security woman kept grabbing us by the waist and pushing us along.
Katherine did get to shake Dean Haglund's hand, though.
Before we left, we played the VR trivia game and watched the movie
trailer again. We wanted to get out of Miami before it got dark,
and since the drive there was pretty much a straight shot, we didn't foresee
any problems with the return trip. Of course, we were wrong.
First we missed our turn onto I-95. Then, once we found I-95 and
had been driving for a while, we got to talking and I wasn't paying attention
to my driving. We came to a sort of fork in the road, and I went
the wrong way. So we drove around for a while, then we spotted the
ramp for the turnpike. We asked the person in the tollbooth how to
get back onto I-95, so she gave us directions to I-595. Once we realized
we were going the wrong way, we went into a seedy-looking pet shop for
directions. The woman behind the counter said she went to Ft. Pierce
all the time, but she didn't know how to get there (huh?). Another
woman, who appeared to know what she was talking about, gave us directions,
and we set out again. As it turned out, she didn't know what she
was talking about. She told us to turn left every time we were supposed
to turn right, and vice-versa. So we left the pet store, but we couldn’t
find the road we were supposed to turn on. So we drove for quite
a while, and eventually we got into residential area which was made up
of a bunch of one-way streets. We decided we weren’t going the right
way, so we stopped at McDonald’s and asked for directions. The people
at McDonald’s were able to direct us back onto 1-95, and finally we were
on our way home.
Somehow, we managed to make it back to Ft. Pierce. We decided
to sleep in on Sunday morning and leave whenever we felt like it.
We stayed long enough to make sure the police weren't going to show up
after I set off the burglar alarm again, then we went to Cracker Barrell
for breakfast. Of course, it took us almost an hour to find Cracker Barrel,
but we eventually did. Then we got back on the turnpike and drove
to Orlando, where we wandered around the Disney Downtown Marketplace for
a while. I saw an autographed picture of David Duchovny for $395,
but I didn't buy it.
We managed to make it back to Gainesville without getting lost, and
we vowed never to leave our homes again. Our journeys were fun and
memorable, and will live forever in the scar tissue of our brains.