Saturday January 31, 2009

Have a little catching up to do: We went for an early dinner last night at Ruby Tuesdays which was right next door to our motel. They had a great salad bar and broccoli and cheddar cheese soup - yum! We decided to hit the sack early and read for a while (at least one of us did) before falling asleep. We had a phone call and since the phone was on Dave's side of the bed, he answered it. What I didn't realize is that he answered it in his sleep! When he hung up, I asked him who was on the phone. He mumbled something about a phone message at the desk and the password was "hearts". I let it go and eventually shut off the light and went to sleep. We woke up quite early this morning (that's what happens when you go to bed early), showered and went to the office for breakfast. I asked the desk clerk about messages for us and she said she didn't put through any calls and that there were no messages for us. The only thing we can figure out is that someone was calling room-to-room and got a wrong number (they don't know how wrong it was!). So anyway, the magic word is "hearts" if you should get a call from the twilight zone!

We met a nice couple from PA at breakfast. They were on their way home (brrrr!) and had been in FL a month just visiting with various relatives and friends. We left the motel at 6:30 and drove across the street to gas up ($1.63). It was 27 out - thank god for seat heaters! We continued on I-95 for quite a while and then cut across through the boonies of GA before dropping down into FL about 50 miles from Tallahassee. We found our new home (a Best Western suite) with no problem thanks to our new GPS (Thanks, Louise!). We arrived here at 2 PM and the weather was 65 and sunny - a glorious day. We unloaded the car and went for a walk to orient ourselves to the area. We are on a main strip full of fast food places and stores of all sorts. We called all of the kids to let them know we had arrived and then walked over to a huge mall and ate dinner at the food court at a place called McAlister's Deli. Dad had a turkey sandwich and I had a caesar salad with chicken. We then walked through a parking lot and went to the cinema. We saw "The Uninvited" - certainly not a relaxing movie - basically a psycho thriller with a number of twists and turns. We found our way back here and will now relax for a while before going to bed. Our room is quite nice - king sized bed, mini-fridge, microwave, couch and chair, coffee table, desk and dresser. I'm sure we will be quite comfortable here.

Friday January 30, 2009

We're back!!! We have decided to revive the blog as we are on our way to Florida for our month of volunteering with the National Park Service. We woke up this AM at 2, showered, put the last items in the car and were on the road at 2:30 AM. We did quite well - hit a small amount of traffic just before the George Washington bridge and some heavier traffic in Baltimore and the D.C. area - but altogether not bad. We stopped in Virginia for brunch and then just snacked in the car until we stopped for the night in Florence, South Carolina at 3:30 PM. We stopped a couple of times for gas, but otherwise just to change drivers. We drove 785 miles today - 13 hours in total. As soon as we checked into the motel, we went for a very long walk - we both were suffering from DB (dead butt)! The temp was 20 when we left the house and it is now 58 and sunny. There are palm trees on the grounds of our motel!! We think we have about 7 hours or so of driving tomorrow to get to Tallahassee. We will be anxious to settle in to our home-away-from-home.