It's been a very stormy week here in Florida. Hot afternoons, humid middays, and rains in the evenings. And not just showers these were, these were the siblings of the storms, escorted by lightnings and thunders, threatening to steal any plans of a (American) Independence day weekend trip towards the west coast of Florida. But they weren't strong enough to bend the wills of the two first time drivers, who had just won their driving licence from the DL office in the Winter Park Office of Florida (lets just say FL). As the Friday drew closer, Srinivas and Ravi watched the skies, laying foundations to their will to get on with it, preparing themselves mentally to rent the car, and drive it, somewhere, anywhere.
It had been about two weeks since the four of them (Raja and Sandeep in addiiton to the other two) had received their driver's license. An acknowledgement of their driving sense. May be they were afraid of going out of touch, may be theirs was a juvenile enthusiasm to prove to themselves and to the world that they could drive long distances, safely, that they had decided to go on a long trip. It was certainly a delicate time, when you think that your acquired skill is good enough for the big thing, and you fight to bury your doubts and questions on your abilities as deep as possible in the ground. After all, it's confidence you need, to work miracles. So there they were, bubbling and restless like the lion cub, ready for it's first hunt of the deer.
For a week now, Srinivas had been hunting for places to visit in around Florida, invading the tourism sites on the internet, and zeroed in on four places: Fort De Soto Beach, Clear Water Beach, Tampa night life, and Caladesi Islands. It was decided that they would travel by ourselves, five of them (Raja, Srinivas, Ravi, Sandeep, Arun) unless someone wanted to come with them. Jay and Om volunteered to come with them, for a day, so that someone experienced, could accompany.
As friday approached, the four licensed friends started their discussions about their turns to drive. They were under the impression that only two drivers at most can be added on a car rental contract. Which two was their question. Sandeep was the first to sacrifice himself from the race, and Srinivas was the first to declare uphold his authority on the drivers seat. And that left Raja and Ravi to compete for the remaining position. Lady luck smiled on Ravi who won the "toss" thrice out of three times, to book his slot behind the steering wheel.
Before they were framed into Friday, the would be drivers made sure they had their homework, groundwork, carwork and drivework done, thanks to their wonderful neighbors Fakir (for his car) and Anousha (for her time). They needed that for confidence, they need that to atleast hope that the trip they were undertaking was going to be safe to say the least.
Friday had Om coming to Orlando, and shortly after him the rains came. The rains came not with ferocity, but with persistance, and they fell constantly, consistently. Gradually, the visibility turned low, the traffic became slow, the wind started to blow, and doubts entered their minds about all that would be at stake. They realised it was a bold step, and before they could think it was too bold of them to start off, they started off to the Enterprise car rental on Semoran, Srinivas, Ravi and Raja in Om's car, with Om driving. The rains gave them some taste of what could lay ahead. Road side pools, fog on the driving glass, lower speeds, spashing waters - driving in rain was a challenge on it's own. They were advised to either stay away from rain if possible, or excercise utmost caution.
Finally, the Enterprise was graced with the arrival of the soon to be Driver-heroes. It was still raining but the wind seemed to have come to a standstill. With great antipication forthe beautiful trip days ahead, Srinivas told the lady at Enterprise, "We had reserved a car for Friday evening at 5'o clock". He also wanted to tell her "Give it to us right now so that we can grab it for a drive", but his brain subdued this statement from his vocal chords into a mere thought in his cerebullum, that excited a few million neurons. "Yeah Sure, May I see your Drivers License Please", came from the lady which actually catalysed the whole subduing-the-speech-to-thought process in Srinivas.
"I'm sorry, but this is a temporary license, and we are not allowed to rent cars on this". "What!!" the drio spoke almost instantly, but each with a different lag from the time time the lady's sentence ended. A moment later when he realised that she had actually, really, said that, Srinivas retorted, "But I am sure this is valid, because my friend did rent a car from enterprise, and he too just had the temporary Drivers license ( TDL)". Ravi moved out of the room in a slight disgust, while Raja and Srinivas proceeded to negotiate with the lady. Ravi came back, seemingly resolute, and the drio decided to fight back. "I'm sure of this, my friend had rented a car on the TDL", "Do you mean to tell us that this is not valid, when it says that it in place of the permanent photo-IDied DL","We would like to talk to somebody about this, just to clarify, Please". May be Maria sensed the barrage that had been broken by her denial, may be she herself wasn't confident of what she had said, or may be she was trying to do her job, but she called someone again. And this time, she got it right, she got the drio smiling.
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It was still raining outside, when Maria from Enterprise waded out of the backdoor of her office, keys in one hand, papers in the other, followed by our driver-trio (shall we call them drio- just to shorten things up). They walked towards a magestic car, radiating like a black body, with it's black body. As Ravi moved of the door and took his first look at the car, he felt a tinge of warmth in the slightly cold rainy weather. "It's the excitement", he heard his mind ring inside. His heart started to beat a little faster, as he involuntarily hastened his steps towards the car. He was the one who was the farthest from the car, and he was unlucky to have lost the race towards the car to Srinivas and Raja. Maria showed the drio the papers and the keys,
(Updated 07/10/04)
Om checked the car, and Srinivas assumed his authority at the driving wheel. Raja sat next to him, Ravi and Om behind. Om had got into the Gallant Mitsubishi so as to get to his car on car (it was raining so he would get wet on foot). As srinivas started to reverse, He could hear three voices screaming "right", screaming "left", scremaning "stop", screaming "go", and a host of other screams that he couldn't exactly make out. He also screamed something in between probably asking only one to speak, but since he was screaming too, all their screams moved randomly in the air, got mixed, mingled, scrambled and jumbled, and all he could hear was "rgoighttelfakelefstop", and the car ambled through the lane, and out of enterprise.

(Srinivas' Version) 
Lemme catch up with Ravi's Blog!Once Maria, the lady at the Enterprise office said " Ok, I'll go ahead and give you a car", at that moment, I was on cloud 9. I had lost all hope when she initially said we couldnt get the car. I, then, told her that I thought she was the meanest person on earth when she said she cannot give us a car! She said "Noo..please dont say that!" I had a sense of achievement, of getting the car! Once the paper work was done, Ravi, Shekar and I "ran" to the car, a Mitsubishi Gallant 2004 ! You could say that was my dream come true! Never did I imagine I would driving such an amazing car! Once the paper work was done, I was selfish enough to decalre that I would be driving the car that evening! And then started our first drive home! As soon as I adjusted myself in the seat, and got all ready to leave, a chill feeling went down my spine- a sense of excitement, a sense of fear too! 'What if something happens to the car?' Then suddenly I recollected Nishanth's words " There's always a first time for everything. And the earlier it is the better!" Also we had the entire insurance coverage. That's it. That thought made me confident enough to drive the entire trip! It was still raining heavily. I was initially a little worried about the clearance. It just took a couple of minutes for me to get the feel of the car and the spacing needed. In that rain, splashing waters on the road, I drove back to Khayyam, without a single fault. That was a real big accomplishment. As soon as we reached home, Jai and Pande were there welcoming us! Pande said " Now that you have driven in such a weather,I m damn sure you can drive anywhere in any condition". Well those words were also a big boost to my morale, which already was high up in the sky! I was scared I might get over confident now! So I decided to drive the car all by myself the entire evening. Well, yeah, I m sure Ravi and Shekar woould have definitely thought I was the meanest person on earth at that point!, but I was so overwhelmed by the thought of driving the car, nothing else bothered me!! Once we reached home, it was decided that Jai woudl treat us at Ahmed's , located on OBT. Ravi and I insisted on visiting the Shiv Temple as it was Guru Purnima, our birthday according to the Hindu Calendar that day, and also our first experience with the car! And I played the driver. With Jai as my guide, I felt I did a good job driving to OBT. We took Expressway 408 while going there. It was in a way my very first experiences on a Toll Road. I was kinda nervous initially, my hands started sweating, though I kept denying! But I had a sexy time. It was really cool driving at more than 60 mph all by myself! By the time we reached Ahmed's I was 100% confident of carrying the entire trip on my shoulder's even if Ravi and Shekar wouldnt have been there!After dinner at Ahmed's I decided, it wouldnt be fair on my part to keep driving and so gave the keys to Shekar. He pounced at them like a hungry cat! We reached home in about 40 minutes and decided that we must leave the next day by 7:30 in the morning. Om and Jai were more than happy to join us on the first day. They said they would be coming back by Saturday night. That night by the time we slept it was pretty late, dont exactly remember the time though. We tried burning some CD's. We could burn just 2 of them. One Tamil and the other Hindi. We were very sleepy and decided to call it quits for that day.Saturday- The day the voyage began! Three brave drivers were getting ready for their first ever road trip! Ravi was the first one to hit the road that day. Jai was there in our car as the navigator while Arun and myself were the passengers. We went to the gas station , got ice, cameras, gas and chips for the journey and we were all set to roll!And Ravi did an awesome job driving on I 4!!! I really didnt believe he could do it that well. He was really really good. Well, he had his own moments of "fear" which made us gasp for our life for a moment! He was pretty scared looking at a huge semi truck merging on to the freeway. He thought it was gonna hit us straight! And then without looking behind he moved into the left lane, and there came a HONK! Before we realised, there was an SUV going right next to us. Anyways once this incident got over, there was no looking back. He drove for a solid 2 1/2 hrs non stop! Even Jai was pretty amazed at Ravi's driving skills! The drive to Tampa Bay was great. Arun and I got a chance to see the backwaters of the Gulf of Mexico while travelling on the bridges connecting Tampa. In all our desperation we tried clicking snaps of the Downtown, the bridges, the backwaters, but nothing worked out as we were travelling so fast, nealr 75 MPH, couldnt see anything in the camera properly. Throughout the journey, the Tamil songs we copied , were played, and we ddint get bored even once. The collection was too good!After missing out the exit to Fort De Soto, and after some inquiries regarding the direction to Fort De Soto, we reached our destination at about 11:30 - 12:00 Noon. We first went to the North Beach. We could first see a huge parking lot with lots of greenery around. All of us decided to get into our swimming shorts, and jut then I realised I left my bag at Orlando! I hadn't brought it with me..Damn! I was wondering what I would wear for 2 days, that too we were going to beaches. We definitely will get wet. Then Om said I can share his clothes, he had a huge stock of them ready in his car! And so all of us went to the shore, passing through the woods. The first impresion on seeing the shore was "Beautiful" and "Bright". The sands were so soft and white, nobody would believe it was sand. It was more like Flour! Man....and then the waters...very very inviting! All that I remember was, we just plunged into the water and remained there for about 2 hrs. The waters were warm and really soothing.After a 2 1/2 hr journey, with the sun blazing hot right on top of our heads, the waters seemed like a heaven!