Chris & Mike’s Big Holiday Adventure, V

Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”
~ Jack Kerouac

Before I went to bed last night, I made this mistake of checking the distance between Jason and Sandra’s house and ours (2355.8 miles). It was with a little dread mixed with sadness, therefore, that I got in the car just before 6:00 this morning. Both Mike and I were a bit shocked that the Little Dude actually stayed in the back and slept for a bit as we drove from Largo, through Tampa, and north on I-75.

The sites we saw were, as you would expect, so very different from the desert, farmland, rolling hills, and cities we’d passed over the past couple of weeks. Let me show you some of Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi tonight, starting with a Florida sunrise that was spectacular.

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We’ve driven the Florida Panhandle before, but I must have slept through it as I didn’t remember how long it took to drive it. One thing we noticed there was that there were trees down all along the interstate.

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Traffic was rather light, and most of the drive was overcast. Mike prefers that, of course, so that he doesn’t have the sun in his eyes. We rolled into Alabama around 1:00 pm Central Time, and high winds met us.

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The south coast of Alabama isn’t too wide, and we were in Mobile within an hour.

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We floated into Mississippi around 2:10 pm, and we skidded into the hotel parking lot in Biloxi before 2:45.

I should mention that the Little Dude did not stay in the back seat the entire trip today. He was so anxious when he saw us packing and lugging bags out to the car that he darted out of the front door and jumped into the backseat before we could catch him.

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Tomorrow we shave another 500-or-so miles off of the trip as we head to Texas. Best part of being there? We’ll get to see good friends for dinner.