I drove all night...

I was dreaming while I drove the long straight road ahead, uh-huh...

Well, I am back in Fort Lauderdale, and I didn't even drive all night to do it as the title might suggest. Actually, my step-father, Carl, and I had planned on driving straight through, but my mother (his wife) felt we shouldn't... and basically guilt-tripped me into stopping.


Monday, January 16
So what happened? Well, the U-Haul got packed up on Saturday and Sunday, and a little after 9 a.m. on Monday (Jan.16--Martin Luther King Day) we left the house. As we were driving out of San Antonio on I-10, we actually drove over S.A.'s MLK Day parade, which had a lot of people marching down the street named after him there.

Our route was straight east on 10, until we got to I-95 in Jacksonville, Florida , where we'd turn south. Which is what we did, and, thankfully, traffic was light on Monday--most likely because of the holiday--so we actually made it through Houston! Lunch was on the east side of Houston, and after 300 miles we left Texas and went into Louisiana (200 miles less than October's drive).

In Louisiana, we briefly left 10, opting for the I-12 by-pass in Baton Rouge so we would avoid New Orleans--as much as I would've liked to seen its current condition, it was dark by the time we got in the area and we would've just been in the way....

We stopped for dinner in Baton Rouge--which wasn't at anywhere near as cool as it should've been because I didn't ask my friend Court were to go (sorry); and took 12 to Slidell, where it re-joined 10. Oh, and about halfway across 12, I paid the most I've ever paid for a tank of gas... in Covington

Thankfully, that was the costliest fill-up of the trip... I think there were about eight total for the trip, all in the $40-$70 range.

Anyways, once we hit Slidell, Carl and I started looking for a place to spend the night, as it was nearing 10:00 p.m. Unfortunately, arriving at Slidell, also marked the start of our drive directly through Katrina damaged-areas, which consequently meant that any hotel room that did survive was occupied, either by a displaced resident or a relief worker. So, after stopping in Biloxi, Mississippi to check if a room was available, and the reception was not only nice enough to not laugh at my request, so also was kind enough to let me know our best bet would be to try to make Mobile, Alabama.

So, we got back on the freeway, and drove the 70 miles to Daphne, Alabama (just across the bay from "Mo-beal") before getting a room, which wouldn't have been so bad, had it not started at 11:00 p.m. And because we drove through the area at night, we didn't really see much damage. Earlier, in eastern Texas, we'd seen a lot of blue-tarped roofs and other signs of Hurricane Rita during the day. While the moon near-full and bright, and there weren't too many clouds, we couldn't see a whole lot, other than some blown over billboards, still attached to the top of their mounting posts--the metal frame was just bent over.


Tuesday, January 17
Anyways, we spent the night in Daphne, and then finished up the drive on Tuesday... getting to go through probably 20 weight stations in Florida. Carl drove the remaining I-10 portion, which ended up being most of the day and including going over the Suwannee River (far, far away... btw, I'd have a pix of the cool sign the Suwannee has--music bar et al--except I mistakenly took it with an unfamiliar camera and it didn't turn out :( ).

But, I took over driving when we got to 95 (after having reached Jacksonville just in time for rush hour at 5:30 p.m.--and I'm beginning to believe that cities are purposely spaced on interstates so you hit them all right at the worse possible traffic times, if you making a long drive at least).

The drive south on 95 was pretty uneventful, save almost getting lost in Cocoa and ended up at Cape Canaveral--though we would've seen the launch that had been delayed to the next day. We made a mad dash into a SuperTarget about 5 minutes before it closed to pick up an air mattress, grabbed a completely junk-food dinner at a gas station, and drove into Fort Lauderdale right around midnight...

On Wednesday, Carl and I unloaded the truck, and packed all the boxes into where I'm now living. And from then through Carl's departure Saturday afternoon, we got stuff moved into placed and began unpacking. After his departure, I tried to go into the office to catch up on stuff from my week-long absence, however, an alarm had been turned on during the week so I didn't temp fate and stayed out until yesterday...

And now, I'm left with a minor back-logged at work to clear up, and a bunch of boxes to unpack; both of which I'm working on...


Way down upon the Suwannee River
Far, far away
That's where my heart is yearning ever
Home where the old folks stay...