Four Corners - Day 22

Start Location: Homestead, FL
Ending Location: Lake City, FL
Miles Today: 454
Trip Miles: 6736
States Visited: 23
Provinces Visited: 3
Low Temp: 78 degrees
High Temp: 94 degrees
Min Elevation: -9'
Max Elevation: 209'

Route Map:

Well we have decided we are not particularly enamored withFlorida (sorry Meggan) and are ready to get out. We plan an Interstate day for most of the day but start out with about an 80 mile road across southern Florida and the middle of the Everglades. The road is a 2 laner with very little traffic. We get views of both swamp and plains that look like we imagine an African Savannah might look. We have seen signs so far on the trip to watch for deer and moose. Today we have to watch for Panthers - but don't see any. We see several alligator roadkills but no live ones and don't stop for pictures.

After this stretch we pick up I-75 and head north. At one point the clouds get very dark and we know it is going to rain but decide to wait until it starts and then stop under an overpass and put on rain gear. This is a bad decision since, when the rain starts, it pours. Because the rain is so hard, everybody slows down and we get soaked. Of course the next overpass is several miles but we stop anyway to get out of the rain. As we are sitting under the overpass a car goes out of control, spins a full 360 degrees, and takes off again without hitting any other cars, the bridge, or anything. We think he must have gone to church today.

When the rain begins to let up, we put on rain gear and head out again. The temperature has cooled from 94 to 78 and, although it does inch up the rest of the afternoon, the remainder of the day is quite pleasant.

We had a short rest this afternoon in a small, out of the way town. While we were there, this guy pulled up, filled his rig, paid for the gas, and drove off.

Since taking I-10 and following the coast is out of the question, we have been trying to decide whether to take the I-20 corridor or the I-40 corridor. Because of all the people moving north to find some place to stay and the concern over short gas and room availability, we have decided on the I-40 corridor. We will not necessarily stay on I-40 but will follow that general direction. So tomorrow we will head for Chattanooga and then Nashville to pick up I-40.

Don't know about anyone else but, once we get to our room at night, we have watched almost nothing but hurrican coverage. Even with all of the pictures, it's still hard to imagine.

We tried an experiment today. Our camera had been set to 1600 X 1200 super high quality but the fact of the matter is that we reduce the pictures to 640 X 480 for the web site. So today we set the camera to 640 X 480. The advantage is that pictures download much faster and it takes less time to resize and save them in the evening. The disadvantage is that now we can't crop the pictures without losing resolution. So tomorrow it's back to the higher resolution.

Finally, I had time to put up some of the additional pictures tonight. We didn't really spend a lot of tiume editing, so keep that in mind. Here are the pictures of the Motorcycle Museum, the Blue Ridge Parkway, and Key West.

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