We were young and in love – and dumb as bricks. Nancy and I got married on March 3 and I decided – out of the blue – that we would go to Miami Beach for our honeymoon. At the time I did not realize that driving to Miami Beach from Charlottesville was the rough equivalent of driving halfway to Sydney, Australia if there was a highway on the Pacific Ocean.
So, I took $500 out of my scant savings, and we were off. The first night we slept in the Honeymoon Suite at a Howard Johnson’s in Richmond. That was my only planned event for the week, then we pointed my Camaro south and drove. And drove and drove and drove. At dark we were still somewhere in the boonies in Georgia. We spotted a motel and stayed there. It was one of those motels that you put a quarter in the slot to make the bed vibrate.
Early the next morning, we shook the roaches out of our suitcase and were off again, headed to Miami Beach. We finally – finally – crossed the Florida state line and drove all day. Still, no Miami Beach. We arrived in West Palm Beach at dark and saw a nice motel right on the ocean, I asked the rates, and it was $38. But what the heck, we would only be there one night, so I paid in cash. By the way, I didn’t have a credit card at the time, only a gasoline card for Esso gas that Mama Ida, my grandmother, let me use.
The next morning, the motel served breakfast – a really good breakfast with eggs and sausage and pancakes and grits – everything. We were having such a good time, laying on the beach the next day, that we decided to hell with Miami Beach, we would honeymoon in West Palm Beach. For two days we explored the city and countryside and were starting to get well into my stash of $500. But one night we decided to splurge. We knew we would not starve if we ate those big breakfasts, and we had a gasoline card to get us home. We dressed to the nines and went to the Greyhound Races. We knew nothing about dog races, so I would bet on #4 because it was my lucky number and Nancy liked the dogs with pink noses. We made multiple wagers and won $45. Now we knew we could stay at the ocean front motel for the duration with enough for hamburgers and fries for dinner.
The next night, we decided to go back to the dog races and won $50. We were home free and went out to eat at a nice steak house the last night. The last day we were able to drive all the way to Charlotte where Mama Ida, Aunt Jody and Uncle Jim lived and pulled in their driveway with 12 cents in my pocket. If we hadn’t won money at the dog races, we might have still been in West Palm Beach washing dishes. It was a honeymoon saved by the dogs.
