Book Ends to My April Road Trip

I have a million pictures that I'm looking forward to putting on a slide show, but in the meantime, I'm posting a few on my blog. I (literally) just arrived home from a 5 day road trip. I'm arranging this by events as opposed to days, so you are now viewing the 'on the road' portion of this trip (which made up for 2/3 of the trip :O). I must say, if you have to travel halfway across the country by car, spring is THE time to go! The wild flowers are spectacular state to state, and very different....at least down here in the south! Kelly and I headed out on Thursday, I left work a little early and we drove until past midnight. We spent the night at a place in Mobile, and then headed on to Florida the next day, where we spent two nights in the Disney Theme Park area. We headed back this way yesterday after I attended Maurine and Derek's Wedding, with another night spent in Mobile. We sang our way through most of the states, and played (and invented) some pretty creative car games, though there were some questionable rules we argued over regarding 20 questions and the 'yes' vs 'no' vs 'gray areas'.....and then there were some musical lyrics, city names etc that went under hot debate (perhaps a few of you even received calls to settle these disagreements). There were a few times I almost laughed us off the road while I attempted to drive, but other than that, it was a fun car trip! Here are a few of the highlights:
The wildflowers in Tampa (lots of pinks, reds, and whites, 70 mph from a bug covered car window don't do them justice!). In Louisiana we saw a lot of purple and yellow.










When I was driving from Disney to the wedding in Auburndale I kept searching my mind for what I had left to ferment in my car b/c I was suddenly taken over by a really overpowering citrus smell, it took me 30 minutes, and a tree full of orange balls to realize I was driving by Orange Groves (this was interesting to me, I'd never seen an orange tree that I can remember, and they had plenty.

Last, I have a reminder about the routes (this is more a note for myself). I had a long debate (mostly with myself) regarding the path you can take along the top of the states, vs following the coast lines, and wondering if there were any disadvantages to one versus the other. They both were very easy journeys, the path along the top (which we took down there) may have been 30 minutes shorter? The path along the bottom, seemed a tad bit more scenic, with an interesting 20+ mile highway built entirely over a swamp, and one major bridge scare (anything over the Mississippi terrifies me, the more alarming metal and height, the worse I am!) Note to bridge fearers, don't be the one to drive in Baton Rouge, LA! It scared me so badly the last time I made this drive, I knew to switch drivers in advance this time (and take a picture before I shut my eyes)!