Almost Back to Kentucky

We got up so early this morning -- 4:oo am. We wanted to get on the road right away so we could be through Atlanta before rush hour. This was our third trip along the Florida Turnpike and it doesn't get any more scenic or interesting. It was dark, of course, and we had coffee, but I found myself getting very weary only a couple of hours into what was going to be about a 12 or 14 hour day. We stopped at a service plaza and I put my head back for a few minutes and then got up and walked around. Magically, I was "back" and felt fine for the rest of the day.

It seemed to take forever to get even as far north as we were on our trip to Destin earlier -- boring and boring. Then it took forever to get to the north border of Florida (what a HUGE state). What was in front of us next? -- Well, it was the HUGE state of Georgia! In truth, it was an easy drive and Mary Ann and I solved most of the world's problems along the way. We ate hamburgers for lunch as we drove and other than that, stopped only at a Pecan place for a few minutes. Once we got past Atlanta -- HOV lane is great -- easy drive -- we stopped for gas and ran into a BrandSmart Store where we wasted about 30 minutes looking at all kinds of things. BrandSmart is a huge store that sells electronics, appliances - large and small, dishes, pots and pans, decorative things, cameras and on and on. It's a great place to waste time.

We decided to carry on past our original destination so we ended up here in Calhoun, Georgia -- only about 5 hours from Mary Ann's. There is an Outlet Mall here, and, as if we weren't tired enough, we poked around there for a while. We're about shopped out, let me tell you, and the car is really in need of a good reorganization. It's amazing how messy it gets in spite of the fact that we seem to reorganize all the time. When we got home, we'll take everything out, sort out what belongs to MA and what belongs to me before getting ready for my solo jaunt home.

I forgot to mention something from last week. I had been complaining about having not seen one citrus tree in Florida, even though we passed through an area called Indian River -- that's supposed to be grapefruit country I thought. Well, we abandoned the freeway when we drove from Orlando to Fort Lauderdale, and did we ever see lots of orange, grapefruit, lemon or ?? groves. They covered acres and acres. It's unfortunate that we were there at this time. Apparently it's the only month in which there is NOTHING ripe, so we didn't get to eat oranges fresh off the tree. Along that central Florida strip we also saw acres and acres of sugar cane. It is the home of Domino Sugar apparently. It would have been fun to have found a piece of sugar cane to chew on, but that didn't seem in the offing, so we went to Wal-Mart instead and bought buns and ham for lunch that day. :)

We have no intention of getting up at 4:00 am tomorrow. I think we'll make a later start. We do plan to stop in Knoxville to try to see Jordan on the way, and then it will be home to Pine Knot.