Ormond to Alaska 2010

The reports have become fewer as we approach home. We arrived in Florida Tuesday, stopping in Ormond for a couple of days before getting back to Sarasota. The past few days have taken us from Illinois where a rain shower slowed our progress on Thursday, forcing us to take shelter under an awning of a service station along with some kids hauling their belongings in a pickup truck and open trailer. After 1/2 hour we were on some back roads heading toward Evansville Indiana, following the directions I had printed at the hotel that morning. A stop at the local dealership, then off to find a room for the night. Another fairly uneventful day.

Back in more familiar territory, we made a short day of Friday as we stopped in Nashville as planned to spend a little time on 'music row'. Being early in the day, rooms were not yet ready at the downtown hotel, so we took time to walk the few blocks to Broadway for lunch and shopping. There is a 2 or 3 block stretch full of honky tonks where local and imported talent play continuously throughout the day and night. Debbie met up with more bikers doing laundry, (you know you are in Nashville when you find a guitar pick in the dryer).  We were a day early for the professional bull riding competitions so later we went out to check out the music. We have been here enough to know our favorite places, and ended up at Tootsie's, a fun but tiny place where bar stools are at a premium and most of the patrons stand shoulder to shoulder. We stayed long enough to claim a spot at the bar and drank from tall brown bottles til after midnight, quite a feat for folks our age. Aside from the singers we were entertained by the hardest working bar girl in the place who never slowed the entire night tossing bottles high in the air, and sending bottle caps flying in all directions.

Saturday took us through Chattanooga and along the Ocoee River where we passed hundreds of whitewater rafters and kayakers making their way over these rapids where the 1996 Olympic kayaking was held.We took time for lunch as we waited out the rain before setting out on the winding road that runs along the river where we had light rain all the way to North Carolina. A stop in Murphy to celebrate a birthday with Debbie's brother Tom and then on to Savannah to check on the grandsons. Since we have avoided most big Cities, Debbie wanted to bypass Atlanta as well, so we called on the GPS for directions. The bossy lady offering turn by turn directions helped us do that, but took us on a roads so rarely used they don't even show up on the atlas we carry. So once she got us to a point we could pinpoint on the map we stored the GPS and fended for ourselves. The last hour of the ride into Savannah was wet but safe and we surprised the grandsons by arriving a day early.