Author: Steve

Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana. A good start. We’re on our way
back to Colorado. Two thousand miles from Panama City Beach to Montrose.
Job starts on Thursday. Five days to get there. Just right. We finished today Lafayette, Louisiana. We’ll have to decide tomorrow
morning whether we want to go the most direct route, north on Interstate 49
to Shreveport, east on Interstate 20 through Dallas, north on Interstate 35
to Oklahoma City, and west on Interstate 40 to Albuquerque then Montrose, or
take a more southerly route, continuing on Interstate 10 for about another
four thousand miles, through Houston, San Antonio, and El Paso, then north
on Interstate 25 to Albuquerque then Montrose. At any rate, we should end
up in Montrose by Wednesday afternoon. It’s interesting how different things are important in different states.
Across Interstate 10, it’s important to post that the rest areas have
security provided. Some nighttime. Some 24 hours. You don’t get that just
anywhere. And Florida. Florida posts that reminder sign after every rest area. You
know the one. The sign that reminds you to turn on your windshield wipers
if it’s raining. That makes Florida special. Florida cares about us.
Florida cares enough to make sure we can see while we’re driving in the
rain. I don’t see any other states making that effort. The other states
just don’t care as much as Florida does. It has been months since the last hurricane, maybe five. There is still
plenty of visible damage though. Blue roofs. Trees all in a jumble. The
roof companies must go out and cover up every ruined roof with blue plastic,
nice and neat, to contain the damage until they can get back to it to fix it
right. Blue roofs. Whole neighborhoods of blue roofs. Maybe there is always hurricane damage remaining along the Gulf Coast.
Perhaps there is always another hurricane before they finish cleaning up
from the last one.

When we were kids, teenagers, Judy and I used to lie next to each other on
the beach, close enough to touch, talking about what we were going to do
when we grew up. Now, lying next to each other in bed in the morning, close
enough to touch, talking. We’re still working on it.

It is not cold here, but, still, we have more humidity than degrees.

Interesting diversion in Florida. We were almost to Panama City Beach, and
driving highways instead of freeways. Driving a fast highway with cross
streets. We didn’t actually see the crash, we were the third to roll up
after it happened. A pickup truck pulled out in front of a minivan. The
truck got flipped around and ended up in the median. The lady in the
minivan got beat up by the airbag. We stayed and comforted the wounded
until police and paramedics arrived. Thanks to seat belts and airbags, it
was messy, but it wasn’t very bloody. Property damage but not much personal
damage. Did I explain why we’re here? It’s a Colorado audit. I’m a Colorado CPA.
We’re in Florida. The nonprofit organization is a Colorado Corporation.
They also have some activity in Florida. They work in both Colorado and
Florida. They tend to spend more time in Florida than in Colorado in the
winter. Go figure. It’s February. Busy season. We wouldn’t take a
vacation and go to Florida in February, but a trip to Florida in the line of
duty? Fine with us. A week in Florida. A warm week.

We didn’t plan our route. We put the destination in the GPS navigator on
the computer. From there, we followed the force. It picked a route we’d
never driven before. All the way east into Illinois before we turned south
to get to Florida. We trusted it to get us through Saint Louis. Difficult
highway changes, but it worked flawlessly. It guided us through Illinois to
Western Kentucky and on to Tennessee. South through Nashville required a
few turns as well. It worked. Western Illinois looked a lot like Louisiana. Flat and wet. Looking
through the forest along the road, the trees are all in standing water.
Water where water isn’t supposed to be. There are crossings for the smaller
rivers, but we can’t see them. We can’t tell where the rivers begin and
end. It all looks the same. Until we get to the big rivers. The big rivers are really big. Wide and flat like a lake. I have to wonder
how they get any flow at all. We have an elevation of three hundred feet
here. We’re still seven hundred miles from the Gulf. A one foot drop every
two miles? That’s a lake. That’s the everglades! How do you have a river
that doesn’t drop? Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee. Flat Stanley crossed the Missouri
River, the Mississippi, the Ohio, the Tennessee, and the Cumberland, all in
one day. Big rivers. We particularly like the Cumberland River. When Judy
and I were first married and we lived in Tennessee, we were close to the
Cumberland River. It is such a winding river. It didn’t matter which
direction we drove, we always ended up crossing the Cumberland. We did the slow crawl through Illinois. Illinois has a speed limit of
sixty-five on the freeways, but they make an exception for trucks and
motorhomes. Fifty-five. Being comfortable with seventy-five on the open
roads, fifty-five feels like a crawl. But the trucks were all being careful
with the speed limit, so they must take it seriously in Illinois. We picked
a truck to follow and drove slow all the way through. Next day, Alabama and Florida.