USA ’18 – Day 4 – Shop till you flop

After two full on days we decided that we would have a quieter day today by having a late start, breakfast out and a spot of shopping.

Breakfast in the US to the Thompsons means Perkins and for me that can only mean the Tremendous Twelve! I don’t know why I hadn’t done this before and in retrospect I’m quite glad I hadn’t but I checked the calorie count.

OMG! That’s more calories than I would normally consume in a day at home! And I bet that count doesn’t include me drenching the pancakes with maple syrup. Still it is lovely and I am on holiday…

Next stop was Dollar Tree (for me, Pet Smart for everyone else). That shop has the most misleading advertising. The windows are plastered with big signs saying “Everything $1”. I’ve whinged about this before but, because they aren’t compelled to show the tax, it is actually “Everything $1.07”. I can’t understand why they aren’t legally compelled to show with the tax. I know that tax rates differ between states but each state is so large they probably have different rules anyway so would need to print different menus etc. For most it would just be a change on the pricing gun.

Our next and final stop was the Lake Buena Vista Factory Stores which we drove to along the I4. The I4 is just like the M4 only hotter.

As you drive along the I4 I like to think that I’m surrounded by WDW “cast members” on their way to work. There’s Mickey Mouse in the Chevy in front and that’s Elsa in the massive 4×4 next to us.

A boring drive along the I4 also gave me an opportunity to try out the cruise control in our hire car – a Toyota RAV4. It’s pretty impressive as I’m used to setting the speed the car will carry on at that level until you brake or turn it off. The Toyota is more sophisticated in that it also has car sensing radar and will keep a good distance between you and the car in front. You can feel the car braking and accelerating in order to maintain the gap. In some instances the braking is pretty heavy when some bozo pulls in front of you.

Somewhat surprisingly the Americans aren’t heavy on the horn. There have been several situations where in the UK drivers would have been leaning on their horns but here they seem strangely restrained. Perhaps it’s because they are all armed to the gunnels and feel the humble car horn isn’t deadly enough.