Sweet Home Alabama (for a night)

 

We awoke around 6 am, but did not really start coffee and get stirring until 6:45.  By 7:30 we were on the road.  It is a 70 mile drive north and then west to get to I-75 just north of Ocala Florida.  It took us 90 minutes.  Got gas at a Pilot Travel Plaza and that cost around $115 for 27 gallons of regular gas.  This is going to take some getting use to, that's for sure.

By the time we pulled out of the gas station and headed north on I-75, we can see lightening, hear thunder, and it looked real bleak...but that was to the south.  Yes, we hit some rain, but it was not much at all...our timing could not have been more perfect.

You can see along the highway the amount of standing water...this area has received a lot of water over the past few days.  Again, we had no issues to face, and skies soon cleared up.

Indy had no problems with the weather or the travel.  She stayed in one of the chairs for most of the trip...until we stopped of course, when she then wanted to go out and sniff, smell and "P".  

There were plenty of motorhomes and RVs (Snowbirds) headed to I-75 too.  Say license plates from Canada, Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, and this one directly above with the bikes from California.  There was two times that four different cars passed us in a row and all had non-Florida plates...and out of the eight cars, seven states were represented by them.

As we got closer to I-10, Marcia caught a few winks of sleep...not sure if she even knew we turned onto I-10.  I saw this low flying helicopter and quickly grabbed the camera and clicked this image of the the helicopter flying supplies to a lineman putting up a new utility line.  I think it was a large pulley wheel since I saw many of the poles with pulley wheels, but this one does not.  This type of work was going on for at least 100 miles along I-10, but it was the only helicopter I saw.  Some of the new poles had lines running through them, others did not.  I remember them working on this last year too...sometimes it takes time to get things done here in Florida.

Much of I-10 in Florida looks a lot like this shot above.  Lots of green trees and shrubs and grass.  But then...

...a large storm such as Hurricane Michael (the first Category 5 hurricane to make landfall in the contiguous United States since Andrew in 1992) hits in October 2018, and trees go missing, brush goes brown, and it is a real mess.  But four years later it is nearly all cleaned up, and mother nature is restoring the landscape (with some help from man, of course).

After another couple hundred miles we say goodbye to Florida...

...and hello to Alabama.  We only drove 14 miles into Alabama and stopped at the Wilderness RV Park near Robertsdale...we have stayed her before.  

It is a Passport America Park and we are in the same campsite as we were in December 2021 on our way back to the Condo.  For $20, you just can't beat it.

Indy and I sat outside for about 45 minutes, and she even met a little friend (no pic of friend, sorry).  It was a cool 75 degrees, slight breeze, and lots of blue skies.  

Now we will see just how far we get tomorrow...