Month: April 2011

I got to bed early – about midnight – last night after Day One of our Road Trip Back to Cape Girardeau, so I set my alarm for an uncharacteristically early 7:30 a.m. I heard some stirring around at 5 in the morning and figured Mother must have gotten up to go to the bathroom or get a drink. I rolled back over to sleep the sleep of the just and innocent.

About 15 minutes later, I looked over at the next bed and saw her stretched out fully dressed, including her shoes. That’s a pretty subtle hint that I should get up and get on the road. The free breakfast didn’t crank up until 6 a.m., for goodness sake. Even roosters don’t get up at that hour.

Found some good biking roads

Once we got rolling, I made note of some beautiful roads out of  Ocala that I’m going to explore on my bike. Some of them had low traffic, shade and good shoulders.

When Kid Matt made one of his first solo road trips, he left a plaintive message in my voice mail that wailed, “I’ve been driving for days and I can’t get out of Florida.” I know how he felt. The only thing more welcome than the Florida Is In Your Rearview Mirror Sign is the sign up the road that shows gas prices almost 35 cents cheaper than what we saw in Florida.

Elvis looked lonely

Just south of Dothan on 231, Elvis was standing in a parking lot looking lonely. I did a U-turn and paused long enough for her to give him some Mother love. Traffic was too heavy for me to whip around to shoot her next to a Get Your Spring Break Bikini sign.

Recruiter rejected her

She was ready to sign up when she saw two tanks parked alongside the road near Ozark, AL. The recruiter said the Geneva Convention prohibited the use of the prosthetic devices described in this story, so they wouldn’t be able to take her.

Gator tail and frog legs

Mother doesn’t accept rejection gracefully. She told SSG Beasley that she didn’t care WHERE the Commander in Chief said they were going to be deployed. If SHE wasn’t going, then THEY weren’t going.

It took the promise of a lunch of gator tails and frog legs to get her to give them their tank back. She was disappointed, though, to find out that she wasn’t going to get to wrestle the gator to determine who was going to be lunch for whom.

We managed to make it into Cullman, AL, about 10 minutes before a strong squall line hit us. We should roll into Cape sometime tomorrow.

I don’t know that there will be any other days reported on, but Mother and I left West Palm Beach somewhere between half a day behind schedule, two hours behind schedule or – since I never leave on schedule – ON schedule.

We stopped at Nubbin Slough on Lake Okeechobee long enough to spot some gators, then paused at my old lab tech Hilary’s neat place on Taylor Creek.

Okeechobee Golden Corral

We were hungry by that time, so we pulled in to the Golden Corral. Before you sneer, this one is a cut above any I’ve eaten at anywhere else. Mother was so pleased by the all-you-can eat buffet – particularly the dessert bar – that the manager asked her to pose for a photo. I think they put it on the wall so if they see her coming across the parking lot they can quickly hang up a CLOSED sign.

1990 U.S. 27 Trip

In 1990, a reporter and I retraced the U.S. 27 leg of the 1960 Steinhoff Florida Vacation to see how many of the old tourist traps were still around. We started in Little Havana in Miami and went all the way to Havana, Fla., on the Georgia border.

One of the places we stopped on both trips was the Florida Citrus Tower in Clermont. In 1990, there was a sign at the top that said we were overlooking a gazillion billion citrus trees. Maybe that was true in 1960, but by 1990 there had been a series of disastrous freezes that left us looking over a gazillion billion dead stumps. Today, had the tower been open, we’ve have been looking at a gazillion billion houses.

House of the Presidents

In the shadow if the Citrus Tower is the House of the Presidents. At least, that’s what the sign says below a disgracefully tattered U.S. Flag. It has been rebranded to Presidents Hall of Fame these days.

Abe Lincoln wanted to pose with Mother

Here’s a review on RoadsideAmerica that speaks fondly about the House of the Presidents.

Side trip to Mt. Rushmore

I must have never wandered around to the back of the building to see Mt. Rushmore. How could you pass up a tourist shot like this, even if the sun was about to set?

We’re meandering the back roads to get home. We’ll be passing through Tallie, Circle City, Monkey Town, Smoke City, Choo Choo and Guitar along the way. More adventures to come. Maybe.

By the way, an amazingly large number of my readers didn’t look at the calendar when I posted my “Well Has Run Dry” April Fool post. I’m still around.