Wed 8th June: Airport Day: Got up before dawn to get a taxi to the airport. Didn't land in Miami until after nightfall. That pretty much sums up this day. Because of the travel embargo between the USA and Cuba we had to fly via Panama (which, you may be interested to know, is 200 miles South of Havana which is itself 100 miles south of Miami) where we spent a collosally dull 10 hours sitting in the airport. Highlights included meatball sandwiches from Subway (which, astonishingly, noone spilt down themselves), Guy and Simon playing frisbee in the departure lounge, the cunning abuse of a restaurant's free drink refill policy and Ed's constant Pokémon playing.
HOD: Ed, for conjuring up a taxi at Miami airport at 2 in the morning out of an empty parking lot.
DOD: Ed, for leaving his aerosols in his hand luggage and getting them confiscated (how he got them through the first lot of security we don't know)

Thurs 9th June: The first day in Miami was typified by stress as we searched for a car, things to go in it such as a satnav and music player, and insurance for it. But, on the upside, we did eventually find all of these things. The car is a red 1997 Chevrolet Blazer with a 4.3 litre V6 which is the smallest working engine we could find! Fuel disappears down it like water spilt in the desert and the interior is somewhere between falling apart and non-existant, but it runs and we like it. Tim got flu and Simon got drunk and the day was satisfactorily concluded.
HOD: Tim, for swallowing his stress and dealing with all the car stuff that noone else understood.
DOD: Ed, for not going to Miami beach with the Essex girls we met. I mean, do chances get any better than that?!

Fri 10th June: Began with a mildly terrifying bus journey from our hostel to the car place carrying all of our luggage and a total of $2500 between us (in America only nutters get on the bus apparently. Nutters and old people who aggressively demand your seat even when there's an empty one next to you) followed by a drawn out car purchase. Eventually though, we bought the thing and got the hell out of Dodge. By which I mean Miami.
Come nightfall, Tim had only driven on the wrong side of the road once and we ended up in a motel in Tampa, on the other side of Florida.
HOD: Tim again for not stressing too much again, despite driving a good 200 miles.
DOD: Guy for stealing Ed's shotgun of the front seat without consent.

Sat 11th June: Had a brief look around Tampa and decided the most interesting thing to do was go to Busch gardens, a nearby theme park. This seemed like a really good idea at the time. Unfortunately, the Busch Gardens managment decided to continuously troll us all morning. First we paid for parking, before getting a really annoying shuttle bus to the park gates (which was totally a walkable distance), then getting charged $80 EACH for entry (!!!). Naturally, you can only enter at this outlandish rate having relinquished all food and drink. Thus we had to endure the annoying shuttle again to take all our stuff back to the car (we walked back again). Now, we could have swallowed all this if not for 2 things; 1) Tim doesn't like rollercoasters so spent all day bumbling about waiting for us to get out of massive queues (it was a Saturday, might I remind you) and 2) the first 3 rides the rest of us went on ALL BROKE DOWN while we were in the queue. So that was a fun 4 hours. But it did admittedly get better after that once we started getting on some rides (which were awesome) and Tim went to the safari park which was in the same place for some reason and amused himself toddling around photographing anything that moved and many things that didn't. Plus it stayed open until 10 PM.
So at this point, having refused to pay any money for food we were all pretty famished so decided to finally USE THE BBQ! YAY! This piece of metal had dogged our every waking hour for the past 10 days for, until the point, absolutely no reason. So it was a relief to do something with it. Programming a nearby beach into the satnav, we were looking forward to the famous sloping sands of the moonlit Tampa Bay and a relaxing barby. However, the wise satnav instead led us to several roads each named "Something Beach" and we had no idea where on earth we were. Frustrated and hungry, we settled for a spot of public grass with a dissappointing concrete waterfront but a great view up and down a river. Half way into our barbecue, a friendly American approached to inform us that we were in fact trespassing and could we kindly sod off? Turned out the the public grassland was in fact simply uncared for. Unperturbed, Simon heroically talked the owner down by offering him a burger (he declined) and we carried on cookin'. The burgers ended up delicious, incidentally. Except for Tim's, which he dropped down the grill and became... shall we say, rather well done.
HOD: Simon for preventing some boat-owning suburbia resident calling the police on us. Just 'cos we started a fire on his lawn. Honestly, some people...
DOD: Tim, for pranging the car on a flowerpot while parking. Nice one.

Sun 12th June: The Comfort Inn we stayed in lived up to it's name; Best. Beds. Ever. Free breakfast and a swimming pool granted Simon and Ed a leisurely morning while Tim and Guy laboured over fixing the mysterious leak caused by the flowerpot incident of the previous night. Satisfied that the car wasn't going to explode (we are pretty sure it was windscreen washer fluid) we drove onwards to St. Augustine, the first colony established by the Spanish in Florida (1545) and one of the oldest in the whole Americas. It was a nice little place, if a trifle touristy (a stall claiming to be a 'Pirate Shop' blaring out the Pirates of the Carribean theme tune was something of a clue). We found a nice place that served 20" pizzas (larger than a mutant pufferfish surrounded by predators) which lasted us 2 meals. After this we finally left Florida behind us, landing in Brunswick, Georgia.
HOD: Guy, for finding the awesome pizza place which happened to be showing the Formula 1.
DOD: Tim, for leaving Ed's window open thus allowing him to be woken up by the sudden tropical rainstorm that lashed through the gap (for the record, the rear windows can only be opened from the driver's seat thanks to faulty electronics. LOL)