14.6.2012 – 14.6.2012  32 °C

After our poor travelling day yesterday (although not for trying) we got up early and headed out of Palm Beach as soon as we could.. I think we were all secretly relieved when we finally got out to Okeechobee Lake!! We had chosen to come out to the lake because our map book describes the drive around the lake as a scenic trail… I should have known better! If a road is scenic it normally has the road marked with special dots this one just had the words… that’s because the scenic part was actually for hikers and bikers!! We just ended up driving out to a part of the lake and having a look! Although the drive was anything but picturesque it was at least quiet and the lake was pretty nice. We had our smoko on the banks of the lake accompanied by some of the biggest bees I’ve seen in quite awhile!! Lake Okeechobee is actually the main fresh water supply for the Everglades and looking at the lake you would think you are seeing an in-land ocean.. It just seems to go on and on (and took us 40 odd minutes to drive around half)

We continued on a north west heading all day. Our lunch stop was in quite an old town called Lake Wales. It is home to Spook Hill, the sign indicates that a big gater killed the chief’s child or something and so the area is now haunted.. apparently you drive a bit of a way up this hill put your car in neutral and let it go.. not surprisingly the car rolled backwards…. Hmm… (I really struggled to see the spookiness but M claims the car was going up hill whilst rolling down….) We found this really cool park alongside one of the lakes in town. The lake is surrounded by beautiful old homes, you know the type with the big wrap around verandahs. Anyway, we decided to go into town grab some food and come back to the lake and cook up a lunchtime bbq. Our steak sandwiches were really quite delightful in our little lakeside park.. Really nice to just get outside and enjoy some fresh air in such a tranquil surrounding.

Our drive continued with us ending up in the town of Lakelands (westerly of Orlando but not as west as the ocean). As we were driving thru the town we saw an AT&T dealer and thought we would pull into to try and get ourselves a mobile internet devise to make it easier for us to find accommodation each night (normally what we do is pull into a town and just start canvassing the hotels to find the best deal.. it’s nice if we have an idea before hand which hotels are likely to have the cheapest prices, it just saves time). At least two hours later we left the AT&T dealership utterly dejected and defeated! The poor salesman had tried every conceivable way for us to get reasonably priced mobile internet! Firstly, we had enquired about mobile internet for the laptop.. We can buy it but we need to go on a contract! There is no such thing as pre-paid mobile broadband. Secondly, we tried getting any sort of data pack for our iPhones. Now, D and I knew that it was probably not possible because of all of the research we had done prior to coming to the states.. The problem here is that there is no such thing as an “unlocked” iPhone. Everything here for iPhones is on a contract and once your contract has expired your iPhone is still locked to that network. However, our salesman came up with what we thought was a funky way to get around the issue, he signed me up for pre-paid data and calls and activated the account using an old Motorola handset. In theory, it all sounded good.. we got two streets down the road before I realised that I could make phone calls but not use the cellular data network.. Hmm.. Back to the shop, they tried turning my phone off, resetting the phone and even updating the software.. No luck! Rang up AT&T head office and discovered that it is not possible to add data to an iPhone and to top it off the money we had paid was non-refundable. By now, we had been in the shop for hours and were ready to leave. I felt so bad for the guy behind the counter (who had really gone above and beyond to get us data) that I offered to give up the $50 cash in lieu for a new screen for my iPhone and a new car charger (none of which I really needed, but I didn’t want to spend more hours finding a refund solution). Cut a long story short, it was now well after 6pm and we just found ourselves a hotel in town and gave up on our day!

Song of the Day– Abba, Ring Ring!