The day we hit 6000 miles (er, B to A):
Tennessee. I take lots of bad photos from the car and I am unashamed.
Grandpa Frank's hen house at the Sewanee River resort in Mayo:
Sewanee River at sunrise:
We try to go to the beach like normal pasty tourists, and what happens?
We go to the bathhouse to change into our swimsuits and come out to this (Venice, FL):
Burns Lake camping in Big Cypress National Preserve (free!):
We drove 1100 miles yesterday; Mayo, FL to Lee's Summit, MO where my mom lives. Dude. 1100 miles. It got cold enough along the way for the window washing squeegees to freeze in their buckets at gas stations (where we filled up FIVE times), and since we hadn't done any real driving yet, we thought we'd just keep going and got in at 1:30am CST and ate apple crisp my mom left for us. Yay. Highlights of driving: laps around the car at rest stops; big peach sculptures in Georgia; Tennessee is pretty; our favorite recurring sign: "Speed checked by detection devices," and my favorite business name: "Tubs n stuff."
The night before last we stayed at Sewanee River Rendezvous in Mayo. It's totally creepy (and yet, fun) looking up and calling backwoods places in the AAA campbook and looking for them in the dark because you never know what to expect. This place was probably the best camping yet - like a little summer camp community, and we had a site overlooking the river and hot showers for the brilliant price of $10! It's kind of a paddler's resort with a warm lodge where we checked in with Grandma Susie, little cabins, someone's tent decorated with string lights, canoe/kayak rentals and hooting owls to wake you up before dawn. We could have stayed there a week, but then drove 18 hours instead. I think we got out of Florida just before a cold snap and are now reconciling our December tans-in-progress and mosquito bites with actual winter.
A day off now, doing laundry and checking out teenage-me territory. One more day of driving, hopefully stopping at City Museum in St. Louis on the way back to Chicago.
