When we left St Augustine on Friday, we fully intended to spend the night in Tallahassee. Just before reaching Tallahassee, I decided to check with motels in the area. The first one I called gave me an emphatic NO when I asked if they had any rooms available. My next call was to a Super 8 and was advised that they had one room left - and it was only $189! For Super 8?! When I asked if he really had said $189, he assured me that yes, that was the rate. Apparently, our timing was impeccable as always - the Seminoles were playing in town that weekend. Yikes! So we decided to continue on - we stopped in a small town named Marianna and were able to get a reasonable room for the night. Judging from the parking lot later on, we got there just in time. We were about 65 miles from Tallahassee, but not too far for die-hard Seminole fans!
Dinnertime rolled around, and we were right next door to PoFolks! We couldn't wait to try this place - with a name like that, how could it be bad? Well, I won't say it was delightful, but it was interesting. The food was a little different, but filled us up. It definitely satisfied our curiosity - I haven't seen another (and there are more of them), but we see no need to visit again.
We traveled through Niceville, which appeared to be a very touristy town - stopped at the fanciest McDonalds I've ever been in. Food and service was good, but the decor was like a nice restaurant. From Niceville, we traveled south to the Emerald Coast and drove to Navarre, a small town about 25 miles from Pensacola and checked into the local Days Inn for 2 nights. On Sunday, we drove to Navarre Beach - beautiful white sand along the Gulf of Mexico, and it truly is emerald in color. I know the sand is not as pure white as it was before the oil spill. It is really hard to walk in, because you sink so far in it! I had taken my sandals off, and my feet were killing me from the effort of trying to walk in it.
We got back to the car, and I told Mike that I didn't think my camera would hold out for the rest of the trip - it wasn't working right and making funny noises. Sure enough, within the next 10 minutes it just flat out died. So off we went to buy another camera. I bought the same camera as my poor dead one - just a newer, working version. It wasn't an expense that I had planned, but a necessary one. I can't imagine not having a camera for the next 2 weeks on the road. We headed back to the beach, but this time we just drove all the way down this little strip of land on the water, with dunes and water on both sides, to Pensacola Beach. I took some pictures of some pretty far-out homes - must be nice to have these little beach cottages!
Last night, as I was pondering the next leg of our trip, I realized that we had a minimum of 8 days of driving at about 6 hours a day. That does kind of limit what we have time to see if we want to be home by the end of the month. So, we rethunk it, and decided to bypass New Orleans and most of Louisiana. We will still be going to Houston and the Space Center, most likely the Alamo and on to Carlsbad Caverns. Other than that, I'm not sure just what lies ahead between Carlsbad and Los Angeles where we will visit son Tony for a couple of days before heading home. Tonight we are in Lafayette, Louisiana (we're not sure just what all goes on here in this motel) - we may go visit the Tabasco plant before heading to Houston. It's amazing that we've traveled less than 350 miles today, and have been in a total of 4 states (Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana).
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