Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Jacksonville to Pensacola, FL




Well I'm on my way! How does the car look? HAHAHA! It's going to take me a few days of hotel stops before I can easily schlep in & out of each hotel. Trust me, I only take in a few things! Poor Asilomar will have the full load.









First gas stop:
Ok ya can't see it but its $3.49 a gallon.
Second stop a few hours later????
$3.57 - and I'm still in Florida! (For the record, I'd be happy if gas was $7 a gallon because maybe THEN the carmakers would make fuel efficient cars :-) I also find it extremely humorous that the prices are skyrocketing just as I'm taking my extended driving tour. There's humor everywhere if you just look for it!)

Nothing at all happened today. I saw lots and lots of cows. OK steer(s), really. Oddly enough there was the occasional donkey in the same pasture, just hangin' with the steers. Bizarre. Florida is the #2 producer of beef cattle, by the way. About halfway across the state it started raining. Well ... maybe deluging. We(*) slowed to about 45 mph for awhile. It tapered off the further west I got, but it's still raining here in Pensacola.

I did run into possibly the nicest passel of good ol' southern boys that I've seen in a long time (when I stopped for late lunch at the Waffle House - a particular favorite of mine). Somehow I picked THE Waffle House where all the good-ol's hang out for lunch. They were very nice, as was my waitress. A good time was had by all!

I was hoping to take some pics of Escambia Bay to post but not in this weather! When I was a wee one, I would dive for scallops in the bay. Funny the little things you remember. We have cousins here and at the time they lived just across the street from the bay. Mom & Dad would drive us over and the adults would send the kids into the Bay to get scallops for dinner. What a fun memory. (Scallops are mean little critters! I guess they must sense they're about to be eaten.)

So since it's raining, I'll just catch up on email and some reading. Tomorrow I head to Alexandria, LA. I'm looking forward to seeing sites I've not visited before. One parting comment: when I first hit the road this morning, about 2 miles into my trip, it suddenly hit me - I mean like a sledge hammer!! - that HOLY CRAP I AM DRIVING TO CALIFORNIA! I think I might be crazy.

Leave some comments if you have time so I'll feel connected ... but you don't really have to say anything about the "I might be crazy" part. ;0)

* "WE" refers to FTC (Faithful travel companion - the decoy bear), Lawrence (the always-so-exasperated navi system) and me

2 comments:

  1. Sorry you had the rain today. Drive carefully and have fun.

    ReplyDelete
  2. well, day 1 of your adventure sounds pretty good to me! And it's almost 8pm here in Jax and the rain is pouring and the wind is HOWLING. I hope you are driving into clear skies in the morning.

    ReplyDelete

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