Leaving for Florida

After three weeks of terrible winter weather including snow, ice, wind and temperatures near zero we left home to spend a few weeks in Florida. While we were in the deep freeze, Floridians had temperatures at or below freezing for a few days and even a coating of snow in northern Florida.

We enjoy our Florida trips more than just the warmer weather. There are great places to hike, interesting plants and animals to see, beautiful landscapes, fishing and, best of all, hanging out with family. We are very fortunate that Mark and Cindy enjoy doing the same kinds that we like so we are very compatible travel companions.

We had loaded the car on Friday night packing not only clothes but a lot of gear including binoculars, electronics and some food. We only had to load frozen food into a cooler before leaving. We had set alarms for 4 am, hoping to leave by 4:30 but we were already awake before the alarm sounded allowing us to get on the road by our target of 4:30.

There was little traffic as we headed south on I 75. Traffic for the morning shift at Toyota usually starts around 5:30 am so we wanted to beat the traffic as we left Georgetown. We drove through darkness until we were nearly to the border with Tennessee. We stopped at the second Tennessee rest area on southbound I 75 where we got the sandwiches of deli turkey on homemade sourdough bread and snacked on Aldi pretzels. We ate as I drove continuing to make our way south.

Surprisingly, the drive through Atlanta wasn’t as bad as usual. Driving south on Saturday of a three-day weekend May be the reason. There was a lot of traffic, but we really didn’t slow down much at all. We gassed up just south of Atlanta and got the rest of the turkey on sourdough sandwiches then snacked on apples as we drove. By the time we were near the southern border on I -75, we were very thirsty and stopped at a Marathon station to get drinks. The station had the least expensive gas we had seen on the trip at $2.34 so we topped off the tank and got 36-ounce fountain drinks for $.99 each.

After crossing into Florida, we took the Williston exit and took Rt. 121 and made it to Mark and Cindy’s house in Homosassa around 5 pm. The drive took us just over 12 hours including all stops along the way. We were happy to see the Whittingtons as well as Sage and Jade. We unloaded the car into our second-floor bedroom and visited while we had fish tacos from some of the red drum that Mark had caught earlier in the week.

We watched a little of the Winter Olympics on Peacock TV then watched two episodes of Clarkson’s Farm on Prime TV. Since we had left home at 4:30 this morning we were tired and turned in at 9:30.